andPOP » kevin smith

Animated Jay & Silent Bob Movie in the Works

Natalia Buia — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 20:39:53 +0000

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Director Kevin Smith has revealed he’s been working on a cartoon version of “Jay and Silent Bob”.

Kevin spilled the beans when he spoke with Crave Online last week.

“We just never told anybody, but it’s a cartoon movie that ends with live action. The idea is we’re going to take this Jay and Bob cartoon movie on tour like we did with Red State,” he said.

The animated movie will feature a lot of superheroes and “funny shit”, he says.

Be sure to read the full interview with Crave Online here.

Other Celebrities Kicked Off Planes

Natalia Buia — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 17:06:44 +0000

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Following the recent pandemonium (19 points!) – sorry, the last article still has me using big girl words – that had Alec Baldwin kicked off a plane for honestly the dumbest reason ever, I’d compiled a list of other celebrities who have been yanked from the jets.

Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong was once escorted off a Southwest flight after refusing to pull up his pants. It’s not like he was just finishing his induction into the Mile High Club either, it’s just that his underwear was showing. A flight attendent brought it to his attention and the “Walking Contradiction” singer lashed out and then got the boot. More like a walking opposition.

Country singer and Celebrity Apprentice winner John Rich was kicked off a plane earlier this week for being too drunk. Oh, I should point out this flight was at 10 in the morning! Reports say the bumpkin got in a verbal argument before he even boarded the Nashville-bound plane. I assume the talk when a little bit like this: “Listen, steward, I swear to drunk I’m not God! Hey, Pan Am got cancelled, so why are you still here?!”

It was a close call for Whitney Houston earlier this year. She almost got thrown out of a plane (while it was still on land, of course) for not buckling up. On a Delta flight, leaving Atlanta for Detroit, the singer got “all diva” on the crew when they repeatedly insisted she buckle her seatbelt. Delta needs to cool it. It’s one thing to get mad about not buckling up but a whole other thing to get mad if she was caught smoking in the bathroom, right girl?

The man famous for his character Silent Bob definitely made a loud reaction when he was kicked off a plane for being overweight. Southwest Airlines were adamant that Kevin Smith should purchase two seats instead of one, simply for his size. He tweeted immediately, “I know I’m fat, but was Captain Leysath really justified in throwing me off a flight for which I was already seated?” If Southwest Airlines have taught me anything, it’s that they’re huge dicks. No, actually they’re just dicks that hate huge people. Following his immediate removal, Kevin Smith proceeded to laugh all the way to the bank.

Five years ago, all these snakes on this mother truckin’ plane flying from Honolulu to Los Angeles were gently removed (and by that I mean violently killed) no thanks to Samuel L. Jackson.

Kevin Smith Loses 65lbs

Lauren Treihaft — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:28:03 +0000

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Film director, Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats) has reportedly lost a whopping 65lbs. According to People.com, the actor decided to shed the pounds after he was kicked off an airplane for not being able to fit in one seat just one year ago.

The director is still irate about the incident. Smith ranted about Southwest Airlines to his 1.7 million Twitter followers and continues to be shocked that they removed him.He tells People, “I sympathize far more with heavier people than I ever will with thin,” Smith says. “I’ll never be thin.”

At least the loss of weight hasn’t affected his sense of humor.

R.I.P. – Miramax

Blake Dillon — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 19:35:28 +0000

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Miramax has come crumbling down.

According to slashfilm.com, Disney plans to close the doors of the studio which is known for distributing films that launched the careers of Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Steven Soderbergh and more.

Kevin Smith made the following comment on the closure:

“I’m crushed to see it pass into history, because I owe everything I have to Miramax. Without them, I’d still be a New Jersey convenience store register jockey. In practice, not just in my head.”

Miramax was started by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in 1979.

Gamer’s Mind Blog: Infinite Ammo

Brett Caron — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 17:03:52 +0000

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Don't be scared, you won't need all of those. At once.

Nerd Games (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love RPGs)

You start work at a new office. You meet someone on the subway or a streetcar, and conversation starts. For someone like me (men in their early twenties), mentioning to someone you play video games still has a bit of a nerdy connotation to it. Although video games have definitely become a mainstream form of entertainment for boys and girls alike and even more significantly men and women, if you ask someone you just met if they’ve played Fallout 3 or Oblivion, you run the risk of sounding like a nerd (not that there’s anything wrong with that). You may even come across as childish, although it’s become popular opinion that video games can and are played by men and women of all ages. All said though, it’s not really too big of a deal.

Now try the exact same situation, but instead of asking your new-found friend if they have played the new Call of Duty or Batman: Arkham Asylum you ask them if they know what Dungeons and Dragons is. Completely different story. Telling someone in 2009 that you play Dungeons and Dragons is like telling someone in 1989 that you play video games – or Dungeons and Dragons, for that matter.

Playing in a basement is not a requirement.

Now comes the part where I explain what Dungeons and Dragons is to the people who are ready to skip the rest of this article and Youtube “Cats Doing Things That Are Mildly Amusing.”

Dungeons and Dragons is a roleplaying game that has been the biggest influence for every other RPG ever made since. Ever. Oblivion, Mass Effect, Diablo, you name it. Even games like Mafia Wars on Facebook are a result of the core idea of roleplaying games. It is played by 2 or more players and one Games Master (GM). The long and short of it is that each player creates a character according to the structure of the game, following a procedure to define their character’s various abilities and modus operandi. The actual playing of the game is essentially that the GM is telling a story, in which all of the players are playing the roles of their respective characters. Hence, role playing game. There is a combat system so when the party needs to throw down it’s easy and fun to play and the rest of the time it is relatively free-roaming, with the GM providing narrative and some direction to the party who can act as they wish to accomplish the goal (save the girl, get the rock/sword/etc.). And along the way you earn experience, which makes your characters gradually more badass, and gold, which allows you to buy more badass equipment for your characters, further increasing the badass quotient.

Sound familiar? It should – it’s every RPG of all time. So what’s with the stigma associated with paper-and dice RPGs? The only difference between what I explained above and say, World of Warcraft is that the stories are invariably more interesting, the dynamic of the party is more story-driven, and instead of developing carpal tunnel syndrome clicking incessantly you roll dice to determine the outcome of combat and some skill-based checks here and there. Also, you play across a table – not across a city, province, country or continent.

I haven’t been playing paper-and-dice RPGs for as long as I have been video gaming. I was introduced to a great game called RIFTS by a good friend of mine when he moved to Toronto from Montreal. Since then, I have kept playing with a group of friends throughout high school and during our respective post-secondary educations. Sometimes a game is called off for a date or prior engagement, but we play once a week pretty regularly. We’ve gone through elves, dwarfs, humans and half-orcs. We’ve played rogues, wizards, sorcerers (yes, there’s a difference), fighters and clerics. Dragons? Slain ‘em. Dungeons? Crawled ‘em.

Chapter 4 is how to play a half-elf without sounding like a douche

But I digress. The stigma of being a RPGamer – I just made that up, by the way, (edit: No I didn‘t – thanks, Google) has kept a lot of people from enjoying this great genre of gaming. The fact that most people will play more FarmVille in their lives than RIFTS or D&D is depressing to say the least. I will say that as much as I despise it, World of Warcraft has done more to bring paper-and-dice RPGs into the mainstream (by way of their similarities in a community-multiplayer idea) than anything else in the last 10 years. A game that you really can’t play by yourself sounds like a hard idea to pitch to traditional gamers, but it worked. Oh boy, did it ever work.

Although WoW brought the Diablo-esque MMORPG into mainstream culture, it’s still seen as a nerdy activity by most, and paper-and-dice RPGs even more so. But I say great – I enjoy having a group of like-minded friends not worried about what everyone else is thinking, ready to play the nerdiest game we can think of. It doesn’t hurt that some awesome celebrities play D&D – Vin Diesel is a class-A nerd, along with Robin Williams (although I’d imagine getting him to sit at a table for more than 10 minutes is more difficult than learning the game), Marilyn Manson, Stephen Colbert (getting him to shut up for a minute is probably even more difficult than getting Robin Williams to sit still) and of course, the ever-awesome Kevin Smith (who I would imagine runs very dialogue-heavy campaigns).

So the next time you meet a stranger and are looking for something to say, try asking if they have ever played a video game. If they say yes, you could try asking if (gasp!) they have ever tried D&D. You can always say “me neither” if they say no.

Just watch out for those Live Action Role-Playing (LARP) people. You know, the ones that dress up as their characters and swing Styrofoam swords at each other? Stay away from them; those guys are nerds.

Degrassi: The Next Generation, Makes The Trek From Toronto To Tinseltown

Jeremy Singer — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:55:09 +0000

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Eight seasons running. A cult in Canadian pop culture. Winners of the Gemini, Teen Choice and Directors Guild of Canada Awards.

And now Degrassi: The Next Generation finally boasts its first red-carpet TV movie.

But known as a “show of the people”, the season 8 finale Paradise City: Degrassi Goes Hollywood premiere last Wednesday night at Toronto’s Bloor Cinema, allowed tons of lucky special-bracelet-wearing fans bask in Degrassi glory. A free-for-all for snagging autographs and pictures from their favorite cast members, and what’s more- the opportunity to enjoy the movie side-by-side with them too.

And the word got out not only to lucky fans. Among a packed-to-the-brim theatre audience was Camp Rock 2 stars Jordan Francis and Matthew “Mdot” Finley, So You Think You Can Dance Canada winner Nico Archambault, MuchMusic VJ Devon Soltendieck and MTV Live‘s Nicole Holness.

Fresh off of an SUV limo, former Degrassi mean-girl star Lauren Collins (Paige), 23, seemed ecstatic by the outcome.

“I’m so used to just walking around in the area, and just grabbing a pita or something,” a smiling Toronto native Collins tells andPOP. “But all of a sudden you’re just showing up in a limo with cameras and fans, it’s bizarre- not really used to it.”

“But I’m so happy everyone came out.”

Collins represents the previous generation of Degrassi members who have left the show to move on in their respected acting careers: Jake Epstein (Craig) is currently the lead in the touring Tony-Award winning musical Spring Awakening, Nina Dobrev (Mia) is set to star in the hyped fall CTV series The Vampire Diaries, Aubrey Graham (Jimmy) is gearing up for his Hip/Hop debut as Drake- signing with Lil’ Wayne’s record label, and Shenae Grimes (Darcy) is shooting her second season of 90210 in Los Angeles.

This time around in Paradise City, old meets the new, as the Degrassi alumnus share the screen with the show’s newest characters. The bunch make the cross-continent trek from Toronto to Tinseltown where they try their fare share at making it big in the industry.

Jason Mewes plays himself as a director, who’s holding auditions for his new movie “Mewesical High”- which causes a stir among the students at school. Paige, who’s been living in Hollywood to become a fashion designer, hasn’t had the best of luck- finding herself rather working as an assistant to a reality star. But when her sudden audition catches the eye of Robbie (Dan Levy), a studio producer, she lands the lead role and invites old friends Marco (Adamo Ruggiero) and Ellie (Stacey Farber) down to come along for the ride.

This also causes Manny (Cassie Steele) to carve out her own journey to L.A. -along with Jay Hogart (Mike Lobel) and Degrassi rock band Stüdz- to claim that lead role which she believes is rightfully hers.

“It was amazing,” says Steele, 19, “you know, hanging with Mike Lobel and all the crew, good times laughing.”

But now what would Degrassi be without a little bit of Drama, eh? Well from Paige letting the celebrity life get to her head, to Ellie running into Craig, a former flame who’s been living out west in Los Angeles, clean from his season six coke addiction- the four-part season 8 finale has a healthy balance of everything on the checklist.

Directed by the series’ very own alumni Stefan Brogren (Snake), the movie was shot both in Toronto and Los Angeles. And it’s obvious that “going Hollywood” requires a few celebrity cameos -which the film delivered, sprinkled throughout the story- including Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy, Mewes and Kevin Smith (Jay and Silent Bob), Vivica A. Fox, and celebrity blogger Perez Hilton.

“Obviously having Kevin and Jason was so exciting,” recalls Collins. “And also Dan levy and then the L.A. people, I can’t pick one, it was just such a fun experience.”

Known to be avid fans of the show, Smith and Mewes made appearances on seasons 4 and 5, and an on-the-carpet Mewes was in high-spirits about the latest experience.

“It was great,” says Mewes, 35, known for playing the drug dealer Jay, in Jay and Silent Bob. “Those guys were great to have called me, and shooting with all of the cast was awesome.”

Degrassi’s latest Queen-Bee Charlotte Arnold (Holly J.), who was featured only in a brief scene, had nothing but praise toward her fellow cast-mates.

“For me this was exciting,” says the 20-year-old former Naturally, Sadie star, “because I had never seen the movie before, and truthfully, I hadn’t even read the script. So this was brand new, and what they did was incredible, so proud of everyone.”

And for Arnold and the rest of the cast, the fall season is just around the corner, which means back to school at Degrassi Community School for the next two months for season 9 filming. A 22-year-old franchise known to just keep on teaching the lessons of life, but the latest advice now: to catch Paradise City: Degrassi Goes Hollywood, on CTV on Sunday, August 30 at 8 pm ET.

Seann William Scott, Adam Brody Join Kevin Smith Movie

Eva Lam — Sat, 30 May 2009 03:40:34 +0000

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“A Couple of Dicks,” director Kevin Smith’s upcoming buddy action-comedy starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan, has added two more to its cast.

The movie revolves around a maverick cop (Willis) and his partner (Morgan) as they go on the hunt for a valuable baseball card that has been stolen.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Seann William Scott (“Role Models”) has signed on to play a thief known as the Shit Bandit for the “souvenirs” he leaves behind at crime scenes.

Also joining the cast is Adam Brody (“In The Land of Women,” TV’s “The O.C.”), who will play a prickly detective less-than-pleased about having to work with the titular dicks/detectives.

The script was penned by Robb and Mark Cullen, whose credits include the TV shows “Las Vegas” and “Heist.” It marks the first time that Smith, the filmmaker behind such movies as “Chasing Amy,” “Dogma” and, most recently, “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” is helming a feature that he didn’t also write.

The movie begins shooting in New York on Monday.

“A Couple of Dicks” isn’t slated for release until 2010, but fans can catch Scott (or at least his voice) in the upcoming sequel “Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.” Meanwhile, Brody will next appear in the indie drama “Death in Love” and the dark comedy “Jennifer’s Body.”

More Recruits for ‘Heroes: Origins’

andPOP Staff — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 13:52:00 +0000

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Hostel director Eli Roth will write and direct an episode of the NBC spinoff Heroes: Origins.

The series will act as a prequel to the primetime hit, which premiered for its second season last night. Origins will delve into the world of extraordinary characters not previously seen. Viewers will eventually choose their favourite Origins character, who will then be added the main cast of the original show next season.

NBC has already ordered 6 episodes of the spinoff, which will premiere midseason while Heroes is on hiatus.

Michael Dougherty (Superman Returns) and Kevin Smith (Clerks) will also write and direct for the new series.

Kevin Smith Has DVDs on His Mind

Eric Emin Wood — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 02:34:31 +0000

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The first thing you notice about Kevin Smith (or at least his voice) is that, like his characters, he’s a very articulate speaker. Before a recent virtual round-table interview, he’s warned by his publicist to limit answers to three minutes, to which he counter-warns that he’s not typically able to keep his answers short. However, every response is well phrased, and any wanderings are relevant and useful in some way.

The discussion is ostensibly to promote the DVD release of “Clerks II,” but the subject of the actual disc is touched upon only once, when Smith is asked if fans and critics have any impact on special features.

“Generally when I’m in the midst of making a flick,” he says, “I’m always thinking about the DVD anyway. I mean fuck films, I like making DVDs. But in order for people to treat your DVD seriously, you gotta go the theatrical route first. When you present the flick in theatres,” he continues, “you’ve shown the movie and that’s that. On the DVD, you get to draw back the curtain and show ‘em how it all happened. So when I’m in the midst of even writing the script I’m thinking about what you would do for the DVD and I always try to pack ‘em with as much material as possible because I figure anyone buyin’ wants to know as much as they can about the flick.”

He admits there’s a less altruistic reason too. “It also stands as the final ultimate record of any given movie you make. It’s everything but the kitchen sink or including the kitchen sink, put out there for posterity. As the final record it’s just great to put together what to me is a scrapbook, an album of how I spent that year of my life.”

And then he returns to the question. “There’s never something where I’m like, ‘well, based on public reaction I’ll do more,’” he says, “unless somebody requests a feature that I’ve never thought of before.”

One of the interviewers asks him whether he thinks the underlying message of a movie like “Clerks II” is overshadowed by the vulgarity.

“I’m always thinking
about the DVD anyway.
I mean f*** films,
I like making DVDs.”

“I don’t know, that’s up to the audience,” he says. “I mean, for me, not at all. For me I watch the flick and I’m like, it’s all there, the jokes are there, and the message if there is one… granted there are some films you have more to say than others, like obviously ‘Clerks II,’ ‘Chasing Amy,’ ‘Dogma’ I got a little more on my mind than with ‘Mallrats’ and ‘Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back’ … If somebody watches the flick and they’re like, ‘oh, they’re dog shit, it’s just a bunch of dirty jokes,’ I can’t necessarily say that they’re wrong, that’s how they’ve perceived it. But of course I prefer people to see it the way I see it, which is like, ‘yeah, they’re jokes, but there’s always something else going on beneath it as well.’”

Another asks him whether this is the end of Jay and Silent Bob.

“I reserve the right to do Jay and Bob in the comics, or cartoon form,” he says, “but in terms of me and Jason Mewes playing Jay and Silent Bob… we’re gettin’ a little old, man. I’m 36. Can you imagine me playing Silent Bob at 40? It would not be funny as much as it’d be sad. And Mewes is aging wonderfully, like the dude still has that boyish face, but I mean we got away with doing it six times in flicks, without people being like, ‘it’s tired dude, take off the backwards baseball cap.’ So I think rather than overstay the welcome… restoring them to their place in front of the Quik Stop at the end of ‘Clerks II’ feels like a nice way to go out with them.

“I could definitely see revisiting Dante and Randall in my 40s… ‘Clerks’ is about what I felt it was like to be in my 20s, and ‘Clerks II’ is what I felt it was like to be in my 30s, I can envision somewhere down the road a ‘Clerks III’ where we check in on Dante and Randall in their 40s if I feel I have anything to say about being in my 40s. But, with Jay and Silent Bob, if at age 44 they’re still standing in front of a convenience store, yipes. It might be a tragedy more than anything else. So for now this feels like the way to go out.”

I’d suggest having them buy the video store next door as cover for their drug operations, but this isn’t that kind of interview. I ask him where he got the inspiration for the sequence where everyone begins dancing to the Jackson Five, which leads to a tangent about the use of dialogue in his movies.

“After years of reading reviews where people were just like, ‘he’s a real tell, don’t show kind of director, and cinema’s about showing and not telling and why can’t this dude ever write a scene where visually the story is told as opposed to exposition through dialogue,’” he says, “rather than do a kind of dialogue-driven sequence in which Dante’s expressing his love for Becky I was like, ‘well maybe I’ll try it visually.’ So I started thinking about it in terms of like how does one visually represent falling in love, and there are different kinds of love; you fall in deep, fucking, abiding, and romantic love, and that’s expressed through soft core sex in movies where the music gets all low and there’s really beautiful shots of people fucking in a way that I’ve never seen people fuck in my life; or you can go the route of the pop song, because that’s primarily what the pop song is, generally, it’s about falling in love. And there’s no better pop song than ABC. Suddenly the dance number kinda kicked into my head, and I was like ‘yeah man!’ The idea of this dude kinda fallin’ for this shtick, weakening, and the whole world breaking into song and dance… it was a little goofy and it sure was a step outside what we’d ever done in the first Clerks, but for me it kinda fit.”

Personally, he says, he’d much rather hear what the characters have to say and move the story along that way, but it’s a visual medium and you’re expected to show things. “Maybe I’m in the wrong line of work,” he says, “and I should be doing radio plays instead, but film pays better.”

Then he’s back to addressing the question: “I always figured it’d be something of a lightning rod in the flick where people would either love it or hate it, like ‘what the fuck? A dance number in Clerks?’ But generally it seemed to be well received, and there were a few people who kind of groused about it but generally people seemed to dig it.”

“Clerks II” on DVD is in stores today (Nov. 28).