Comic Book Miscellany

Given his much-publicized love of comic books and his occasional stints as a comic book writer, he was asked quite a bit about comic books. The first question asked was, “Will you ever do a comic book movie?”

Smith flatly said no. “At the end of the day, I can’t shoot action, and I have no desire to make an action film. You see here how it takes a whole week to film a 20-second fight scene. I look at that and say, ‘In one week, I could shoot 20 pages of dialogue.’”

And this led into his brief involvement with the Green Hornet. “they wouldn’t let me make it my way,” he joked. “In my version, you’d have the Green Hornet and Kato leaning against the Black Beauty – the most powerful automobile ever made – and they’d just be talking. Then, one would say, ‘Hey, looks like trouble over there,’ and they walk off camera, you hear a whole bunch of fighting sound effects, and then they walk back on camera doing this (brushes his hands together as though brushing of dust), and they’d go back to talking. ‘Your girlfriend actually sucked 36 dicks?’ ‘Yeah, and I’m 37!’”

Continue reading MY Evening with Kevin Smith – Part 3 →

The Return of Jay and Silent Bob

The next question was one that was sure to come up. “You said that Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back would be the last one. Why another Jay and Silent Bob film?”

Smith first countered by saying that, technically, Clerks II is not a Jay and Silent Bob film. He again re-iterated something he’s said on his website many times before: Jay and Silent Bob are in Clerks II for about the same amount of screen time they were in Clerks, maybe less.

“One of the popular rumours going around is that I promised [Jason Mewes] I’d do another Jay and Silent Bob film if he sobered up. That’s not true, but I’ll take credit for it. I’m actually quite proud to say that Jay has been clean and sober for three years this month.” That got a big round of applause from the audience, which drew jeers from Smith. “Oh, don’t bother, he’s not here to hear it.”

Continue reading MY Evening With Kevin Smith – Part 2 →

AUTHOR’S NOTE: My best friend is adamant that I should post this disclaimer, so here I go. It should be noted that, when I quote Kevin Smith, they are not his exact quotes. I wrote this a week after the fact, so they are his quotes as best I remember them. They’re not his exact words, but they capture the essence.

Way back in May of last year, it was announced that Kevin Smith was coming to Edmonton. As with every other concert in my life, I shrugged off all hope of ever going, as I was unemployed and could not afford tickets. But then fate, in the form of my parents, intervened. They gave me two tickets as a birthday present in July. I was going to see Kevin Smith!

Continue reading MY Evening with Kevin Smith – Part 1 →

It’s always kind of amazing to go back and re-visit an incredibly popular film. No matter how much loved they are in the time they are released…no matter how many awards they win…they soon fade from public consciousness, save for a few members of a fanatical cult following. And then, when you dig out your dusty old DVD that you bought in the last spurt of mania over the movie, it becomes a time capsule, reminding you of the time when the movie came out. I’ve been going through this quite a bit lately, as I’ve been buying a lot of brand- new special editions of these films. And the one I’m talking about specifically seems to sum up the 1990s and its times: Titanic.

Continue reading A Chick Flick Disguised as an Action Film →

I’ve said it many times before. One of my favourite aspects of the DVD phenomena is how those dead TV shows that barely lasted for 6 episodes soon get a super-special edition DVD boxed set preserving the series for the fans that became so dedicated to it. This is starting to become an accepted practice, as many studios see it as a way of recovering losses from a failed TV show. I, too, have fully embraced this practice, and have bought many DVD boxed sets that have the subtitle “the complete series.” So, I’m going to take a minute to rattle them all off and recommend them to you.

Continue reading Dead TV Show-Palooza →

It’s fairly obvious to all who know me that I’m a guy who loves his movies. Ever since I was a child, going to the movies was an event. Because of how far I lived from the city, going to a movie was always the end of a grand adventure in the thriving metropolis. Even to this day, when going to the movies seems rather routine, I still get excited at the whole process of showing up well in advance, buying my ticket and snacks, and sitting in the dark waiting for the lights to dim and the curtain to rise. Well, the curtain doesn’t rise anymore. Now we wait for those annoying PowerPoint-style ads to stop.

Continue reading Going to the Movies →

My all-time favourite book is George Orwell’s 1984. There are a lot of interpretations to that book, and you can learn a lot from it. Most of what I learned came from where I originally read it: Mr. Johnson’s English 30 class. I remember there was a hint of desperation in the air when the class read it. It was one of Mr. Johnson’s favourite books to teach, and my grade 12 year was the last year he could teach it. No big “book banning” scandal here…every couple of years the list of novels that fit the needs of the English curriculum is revised, and back in 1995, 1984 didn’t make the cut. Granted, he could keep on teaching it, but it now involved filling out forms and excess paperwork and it all wasn’t worth the hassle. So, it was the last year for 1984.

Continue reading Lotto →

Here we are, once again in the throes of a federal election. As I write this, there’s still about three weeks until the big day, and the election campaign is just going to get nastier and nastier. It reminds me what I did during the last federal election, just a short two years ago. Now, I’m fairly certain that I talked about this to death over in my blog, but when I recently re-told it to my best friend, it was all new to him. So then, let me remind you of how I got a lawn sign for every candidate.

Continue reading Lawn Signs →

I don’t know if I have to turn in my geek membership for revealing this, but I’m not really into video games. Don’t get me wrong, there was a time when I was, but that seems like such a long time ago. I’ve come a long way from when I was a scant 13 years old and I saved my paper route money for 6 months in order to buy a Nintendo Game Boy. This was back when the Game Boy first came out, too, so I wound up paying $130 for the basic black-and-white screen that burned through 4 AA’s faster than you could finish Super Mario Land. But, time passed, and when I was around 16 or 17, the Game Boy was relegated to the back of my closet to gather dust.

Continue reading Gamer →

Ah, the holidays. I really do like this time of year. Christmas trees, the lights, and the presents! Lots and lots of presents! But there’s one part of the Christmas experience that I had yet to take part in, and I swore that this year I would start. It was time for me to put together my very first Christmas card list. It made such perfect sense! I mean, I’ve always been a guy who loved sending letters and postcards and the like, so why I hadn’t done it in the past was alarming. Well, that’s not true. I did put together a bit of a list and I sent everyone cards from my Christmas in Japan, but that doesn’t really count. It didn’t have the same sense of “official” about it.

Continue reading The Making of a Christmas Card List →