Thanks to the the folks listed above, we've now got a few more places you can go to get the Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back Internet Trailer #2. Most mirrors have just the BEST quality copy of the trailer, in Quicktime format. These copies are the exact same as what we've got here, so PLEASE try to get them elsewhere first. See our trailer download page for a full list of mirrors. And finally, be sure you have the LATEST version of Quicktime before you attempt to play the trailer, or chances are you'll run into missing sound or other troubles. Enjoy.

Age: 30

Why Him?:

"Clerks" and "Dogma" director Smith was among the first filmmakers to embrace the Internet, launching viewaskew.com in 1997 to cultivate his fan base. Recently, he's become the acid-tongued Army Arched for freaks and geeks, regularly slamming such Hollywood sacred cows as Disney, Miramax, and Director Paul Thomas Anderson (his anti-Magnolia rant is legendary). "I think people appreciate getting a peek behind the curtain," says Smith, who takes plenty of shots at himself. "I figured they'd enjoy it more if I pulled the entire curtain down , shredded it, and burned the remnants."

Required Web Reading:

The message boards at aint-it-cool-news.com "It reminds me that not everyone is going to like what I do."

Career He'd Most Like To Have:

"God's." Closest Brush With Career Immolation:

"Do the death threats we received for 'Dogma' count?"

Next:

"Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" (August). "The flick's largely a satire on how ridiculous internet culture can be."

Bloodhound Gang Strike Back

Yet another eclectic summer soundtrack looms, this time for director Kevin Smith's forthcoming flick, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. The compilation, due August 14th, mixes previously unreleased tracks from Stroke 9, the Bloodhound Gang, Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner, Bon Jovi, Morris Day and the Time and Steppenwolf.

The Bloodhound Gang's contribution to Jay and Silent Bob, a track called "Jackass," was previously tabbed for two other soundtracks this year. The number was originally written for the aborted soundtrack to MTV's Jackass. It was then slated for inclusion on, then dropped from, the imminent American Pie II album before finding a home on Jay and Silent Bob.

The collection's first single will be Stroke 9's "Kick Some Ass," with a video to be shot by Gregory Dark (Linkin Park, Crazy Town). Said track will also appear on Stroke 9's forthcoming fourth album, due this fall. The album was recorded in Northern California earlier this year with producer Jerry Harrison, who also handled the band's 1999 breakthrough Nasty Little Thoughts.

Pirner's contribution, "Tube of Wonderful," is an instrumental that initially appeared in the opening credits to Smith's 1997 film, Chasing Amy, but because no soundtrack for the film was ever released, it remained unavailable.

The film, which will arrive in theaters on August 24th, is the final feature set in actor/director Smith's so-called "View Askewniverse," the others being Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and Dogma.

Track listing for the Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back soundtrack:

"Jay's Rap 2001"
Stroke 9, "Kick Some Ass"
Afroman, "Because I Got High"
Morris Day And The Time, "Jungle Love"
Steppenwolf, "Magic Carpet Ride"
Marcy Playground,"The Devil Song"
PJ Harvey, "This Is Love"
Bob Schneider, "Big Blue Sea"
Bloodhound Gang, "Jackass"
Thomas Rusiak, "Hiphopper"
Dave Pirner, "Tube of Wonderful"
Bon Jovi, "Bad Medicine"

June 21, 2001

News Askew is proud to be serving a mirror copy on our new server as we speak. We expect some slowdowns (but hopefully not nearly as bad as the last time due to our recent upgrade). IF the demand brings the server to its knees STILL (it could happen), we may take down this mirror and direct your elsewhere, just to keep the News Askew and View Askew sites available to the public for general news. For now, though, CHECK IT OUT!!!

Note: If you're having trouble here, MoviePoopShoot.com also has copies available for download. If the stress gets mega high, we may put out a call for mirror sites, but we'll see how it goes here first. Enjoy.

June 18, 2001

"Kevin seems to allow you the opportunity to improv, which he’s been know not to do."

Oh really? I didn’t know that.

Do you discuss certain lines and bits you’d like to try beforehand, or do you just surprise him when the cameras roll?"

Um… yes and no. Yeah, we’ve had both kinds of situations. Usually if I have an idea I’ll be like, "hey, what if we changed it up this way?" And he’s be like, "Oh, ok. Let’s try that." And then sometimes I’ll just do it on my own and to be frank, he’s not very happy with it. He’ll banish me for an hour and a half. He’ll put me in a time out. I’ll have to sit in this special solitary confinement box on the set…

"Oh yeah! I’ve seen that box!"

Yeah, yeah... It’s a BIG box. You don’t want to be there at all. It’s very hot in there. They pump in the heat. So I try to pick and choose my spots.

"Would it be fair to say that you and Kevin share the same sense of humor?"

Absolutely. We pretty much see eye to eye in this character. Also, he told me he wrote it with me in mind in terms of my delivery and that sort of thing. It’s material that’s right up my alley, so yeah, we totally share the same sense of humor.

June 18, 2001

While everything was plenty funny, it also felt as though Kevin took all the most crowd-pleasing aspects of his film (vulgar humor, references, catchphrases and Jay/Silent Bob) and subtracted the realistic dialogue and storylines from the other films. Well, maybe not Mallrats, which had that Hughesian charm that Kevin wanted it too. Maybe that's why I felt J&SBSB is more akin to Mallrats than any other film in the series. Like my brother-in-law said when the flick was over, "it was like a typical Kevin Smith film, just not as cerebral." Not that there's anything wrong with that. I really liked it and felt that the flick was Kevin Smith's version of a mindless comedy/parody, a la Scary Movie/Airplane, just like the Clerks cartoon series was his version of The Simpsons and Mallrats was his version of Sixteen Candles or Pretty in Pink.

For those of you more apt to read shorter stuff with only minor spoilers, Dark Horizons have also run a much safer to read review from the AZ test screening, which you can find HERE.

Alanis Morissette Back With Jay And Silent Bob

It seems that letting Alanis Morissette play God is a pretty surefire way of getting into her good books, at least where auteur Kevin Smith is concerned. Apparently she had such a good time playing everyone's favorite Western deity in the cult filmmaker's controversial and quirky Dogma a few years ago that she'll be appearing in his strange world again this summer. This time, she'll be helping to see the beloved Jay and Silent Bob off into the sunset as they make their final live action appearance.

Smith's new film, Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, will be seeing the lads off in star-studded style. Along with Morissette, stars like Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Chris Rock and Joey Lauren Adams will also be returning to the fold. While some have been confirmed to be reprising their previous Smith roles, the director has refused to confirm whether or not Alanis will once again be tackling omnipotence during her moments on screen.

Chances are that audiences will have to wait until the film's August 24 release date to find out the nature of Alanis' appearance.

June 14, 2001

I just got in from the test screening of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in Phoenix. Kevin did a awesome job with this one. When the marketing people announced what movie we would be viewing, everyone just erupted. The cameos of former View-Askewers and references to other movies were classic. I just can't begin to tell you how everyone in the theater laughed their ass off from the beginning of the movie straight to the end. I think Kevin scored a number one with this one when it rolls out in August. And when it does come out in August, I'll be standing in line again.

June 14, 2001

June 13, 2001

June 11, 2001

June 10, 2001

His favorite Kevin Smith flick: "Clerks." Makes sense. While struggling to become an actor, Scott sold food at the zoo and worked as a cart boy at Home Depot (where he was promoted to the plumbing department, we might add).

Acting for Kevin Smith: Scott has a cameo role in "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." "I was so honored. My cameo's only two scenes long, and I kind of played it inward and weird. With a wig and braces. I don't know much about the story." And, contrary to the listing posted on the Internet Movie Database, Scott is not appearing in the film as Steve Stifler.

June 6, 2001

THE NEW STROKE 9 SINGLE:

"KICK SOME ASS" is the first single off our new album, the self-titled STROKE 9. There is a long story about where we got the title, but I won't get into it now. Anyway, the song will be released to radio on JULY 3, just in time to celebrate the ass-kicking we gave the British. So if you are working the summer day-job action, feel free to call and harass your local radio station to play a little Stroke 9. If you don't know the phone number, click over to stroke9.com and use our nifty radio request line finder. We've heard that some stations are playing it early, so get in.

The song is also the first single from the new Kevin Smith movie JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK. Kevin Smith is the dude who made Dogma, Chasing Amy, Clerks, and Mallrats, which is one of the damn funniest movies of all time and Jason Lee's best performance. The song is featured in the new movie and will be on the soundtrack. J.A.S.B.S.B. comes out at the end of August. Lines are forming now.

June 5, 2001

June 4, 2001

Thanks again to Jamie Anderson, Kevin & Scott Mosier for the pics. Just think, folks, less than 3 months until the film's hitting screens nationwide.

June 1, 2001

Studio City Sneak
There are four things you have to do in creating a good, entertaining dumb comedy. One, make sure the audience knows that however moronic and clueless the characters may seem, the people behind the camera are very bright and hip. Two, make it seem as if the actors, too, are in on the joke. Three, make sure the movie is self-aware, with an understanding of its own comic attitude. And last but not least, make it funny.

You can find all of this in Kevin Smith's new comedy, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (Dimension, August 24), which I saw Wednesday afternoon. Smith let me view it on a large monitor inside the Jay and Silent Bob bungalow on the CBS/Studio City lot.

It's Kevin Smith by way of Jerry Seinfeld — a freewheeling, fringe-y little sitcom about nothing. Nothing substantive, I mean, which is exactly what I liked about it. It's the brainy, acerbic Smith freed from the dark undertones that have influenced his films in the past. There's no convenience-store ennui (Clerks), no relationship anguish (Chasing Amy), no corrosive anti-Catholic lampooning (Dogma) — just a glide-along attitude that cuts up and makes you laugh and feel relaxed.

It's not entirely content-less. Jay and Silent Bob takes pot shots at Gen-X slackers, Hollywood, Miramax Films, Ben Affleck, Internet geeks, and the notion of gay oral sex. In fact, if you removed the blow-job jokes, the movie would probably be about 20 to 25 minutes shorter. In fact, if Jay and Silent Bob is about anything, it's about the deep-down, white-knuckle terror Smith feels about oral-genital contact between males.

Then again, if you break humor down to the psychological rudiments, it stops being funny. I laughed or smirked at almost every blow-job joke. Does that make me a homophobe?

The story's basically about money and power, and the abuse of same. It's about Smith's long-standing comic duo (played by Jason Mewes and himself) making a cross-country trek from New Jersey to Hollywood to try to stop Miramax Films from making a film based on Bluntman and Chronic, comic-book characters who are based on themselves. Jason Lee's Banky Edwards character (last seen in Chasing Amy) has sold the rights to Miramax, but without cutting Jay and Silent Bob in.

Jason Mewes plays Jay — the talking (one could say mouthy) half of the duo — with total gravitas. I know how ridiculous this sounds, but it's like he's playing Hamlet. Mewes says every inane or asinine line with fierce emotional conviction. If this had been made in 1950 and they hired Marlon Brando to play Jay, the result wouldn't have been very different. Smith handles his silent role with the usual aplomb, although he allows himself two verbal outbursts that are sort of riveting.

Smith's script is so wise-ass and ahead-of-the-game, he has his characters voice every criticism any naysayer might want to use against it. Not long after he introduces an orangutan for some easy laughs, he has director Wes Craven — appearing in a brief cameo performance — explain that "market research says that people love monkeys."

It's all like that. The whole thing plays like one big fraternal in-joke. The dialogue is all asides, cushion shots, and carpings.

Jay and Silent Bob also has something that no Kevin Smith movie has had before — visual energy. For a guy whose idea of mise en scene used to be based on putting a camera on a tripod, rolling film, and then having his actors walk into the frame, it's a genuine step forward. There are crane shots, chase scenes, CGI shots, guys falling through windows, a Charlie's Angels parody scene … it never lets up. The widescreen photography by Jamie Anderson (The Gift, Grosse Pointe Blank) doesn't call attention to itself, exactly, but it isn't lazy either.

Renee Humphrey co-stars as Jay's love interest, Tricia. Will Ferrell has a small part as a federal wildlife marshall. There are cameos from Chris Rock, Jason Biggs, James Van Der Beek, George Carlin (delivering the best blow-job routine in the whole film), Joey Lauren Adams, Carrie Fisher, Mark Hamill, Jon Stewart, Shannen Dougherty, and Alanis Morissette.

Ben Affleck has two scenes — one as the cartoonist he played in Chasing Amy (sans goatee) and one as himself — and he's better here than he was in the whole of Pearl Harbor. I kept asking myself, why couldn't Jerry Bruckheimer's writers manage to give Affleck's Rafe McCawley character at least some of the wit and charm he shows here?

My favorite bit: a back-and-forth between Affleck and Matt Damon in Act Three that makes fun of their recent career moves. My second-favorite: a closing montage in which Jay and Silent Bob deliver some violent payback to guys who've posted harsh critical slams about them on the Internet.

I know what you're thinking. Wells is sucking up to Smith because he got an advance peek. All I can say is, some people who caught last week's research screening in San Diego seem to agree. 86% of them gave it an excellent or very good score, which isn't stratospheric but is pretty damn high for a movie that isn't a big event, mass-market entertainment.

As Smith himself wrote on his View Askew site last week, "We have never received scores like that. The highest Dogma ever scored was a 60% or 65% in the top two boxes, with a 35% to 40% definite recommend. Chasing Amy was somewhere in that range as well. The Dimension folks informed me that these were some of the highest numbers not only in their history, but also Miramax's.

"And in terms of who made up the audience, only 14% of the group had seen all four of the prior flicks. So it wasn't like we screened to a group of total fans — we were screening to fresh faces."

Are there any weak parts? Stuff that doesn't quite work? Yeah, but I'm too much of a toady and a suck-up to mention them.

Why did Kevin give me a private screening? A couple of reasons, I suspect, but the main one, he said, was because he felt I took it in the neck unfairly over that Ben Affleck/Dogma story I wrote for Mr. Showbiz in the summer of '98.

I used Affleck's remarks about the political situation at Disney to support reports I'd heard that Disney didn't want Miramax to distribute Dogma for fear of protests from Christian activists. The story turned out to be true, of course, but when it first came out I came under fire. From Affleck, especially, who trashed me and called me a chucklehead. So this was a little payback, Smith told me. "Fair enough," I replied.

Dimension will be staging another test-screening in Arizona on June 13 or 14, with the idea this time to show it solely to non-fans. Jay and Silent Bob had been slated for an early August break, but they didn't want to go mano a mano with Rush Hour 2 so they retreated to August 24. I don't think they have much to be scared of.

June 1, 2001