Comprehensive information and links about Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith (born August 2, 1970Kevin Smith is an American screenwriter, film director, and the creator of View Askew Productions. He is also known as a comic book writer and actor.

Smith's films are often set in his home state of New Jersey and are filled with pop culture references, particularly to comic books and the , take place in the "View Askewniverse" and feature appearances from small-time play-marijuana-dealers Jay and Silent Bob, the latter portrayed by Smith himself.

His films are known for their distinctive vision and dialogue, but are sometimes criticized for crude humor and technical amateurishness.

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Biography and film career

Kevin Smith grew up in Highlands, New Jersey. After graduating from Henry Hudson Regional School, Smith enrolled at the New School for Social Research to study creative writing, but dropped out before completing the program. He then shifted west, enrolling at the Vancouver Film School, but soon found himself disillusioned, again dropping out and heading home.

After returning to New Jersey, Smith returned to his job as a clerk at convenience store called The Quick Stop, eventually inspiring the Cobbling together $27,000 from parents, loans, and the sale of his comic book collection, Smith and Scott Mosier, a friend from Smith's days at the Vancouver Film School, began production on the black-and-white film. To cut costs, Smith employed friends and local actors to play the roles, and filmed at night in the same convenience store where he worked during the day.

debuted at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival where it saw almost no audience during the first few days. More people started seeing the movie as days went on and it eventually got the attention of executives at Miramax. Initially, the film was given an NC-17 rating, based exclusively on its profanity, the first film to garner that rating for that reason. Because the NC-17 rating is thought to be hurtful to a movie's box office performance, Miramax and Smith entered into a court battle with the Motion Picture Association of America, and eventually succeeded in getting the film's rating lowered to an R. The film became a success on the growing independent film circuit, was shown during non-concert hours at Woodstock 1994, and eventually earned a limited national release near the end of 1994. In ensuing years, it became a far-reaching inspiration for budding directors, proving that it was possible to make a movie for $27,000 and have it see wide successful release.

In 1995, Smith wrote and directed chronicles the romantic difficulties of two slackers (played by Jason Lee and Jeremy London) who spend their days hanging around a shopping mall. The film also featured a post- was a failure with critics as well as at the box office, and Smith later found himself haunted by a tongue-in-cheek apology he made at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards. Smith later remarked in his question and answer session, "An Evening with Kevin Smith", that Universal executives pressured him to cut scenes, including especially a section where Silent Bob (Smith) masturbates over Gwen (played by Joey Lauren Adams) while she changes clothes, and he ejaculates over the partition into her hair. According to the scene, her hair would be altered as a result (as famously seen two years later in ), but the executives claimed that the gross-out factor was too disgusting to be comedic.

In 1997, Smith released . The film follows the story of a man (played by Ben Affleck) who falls in love with a lesbian (Joey Lauren Adams). Following was seen as having surprising emotional depth, and was greeted with generally positive critical acclaim and modest box office success. Smith indicated that , which made it easy for Smith to be very honest and vulnerable in making this third film.

The year 1999 saw the release of Smith's controversial film . The film followed the plight of a barren and disillusioned Catholic woman (Linda Fiorentino), divinely chosen to prevent two renegade angels (Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) from returning to heaven by means of a loophole in Catholic dogma. As God had mandated that they could never return to heaven, the angels' actions would prove God wrong, causing a contradiction and resulting in the termination of existence. Despite the fact that Smith was a practicing Catholic, several religious groups claimed that the film was blasphemous and organized protests, including one that took place at the November 12 premire of the film at Lincoln Center in New York City. Smith noted that several of the protests occurred before the film was even , suggesting that the protests were more about media attention for the groups than for whatever was controversial about the film. (Smith, accompanied by friend Bryan Johnson, anonymously joined one of the protests carrying a sign that read "Dogma Is Dogshit", and was even interviewed in his protestor guise by a local TV station.)

In 2000, Smith and Mosier teamed up with television writer David Mandel ( and after pitching it to nearly every major television network, ABC TV picked it up for airing in March 2000. After being delayed to May, aired only two episodes before being canceled as a result of poor ratings. It was released on DVD in 2001, marking one of the first occasions in which a short-lived TV series found success in this format.

In 2001 Smith released what he claimed would be his final film featuring Jay and Silent Bob, . In the film, the duo attempt to travel to Hollywood to stop production on a film based on their characters, and take revenge on those who post negative comments about them on online message boards. Littered with inside jokes and cameos from characters in previous Smith films, the director called it a "Valentine" to his fans. While the film featured appearances from numerous 'View Askew'-veterans, also included a lengthy and star-studded cast and cameo list that included Shannon Elizabeth, Eliza Dushku, Will Ferrell, Judd Nelson, George Carlin, Carrie Fisher, Seann William Scott, Jon Stewart, Jules Asner, Steve Kmetko, Tracy Morgan, Gus Van Sant, Chris Rock, Jamie Kennedy, Wes Craven, Shannen Doherty, Mark Hamill, Diedrich Bader, Alanis Morissette, Morris Day The Time, Jason Biggs, and James Van Der Beek.

In previous years, Smith had quietly performed question and answer sessions at colleges and comicbook conventions around the country. Given that he couldn't reach every college, and that he wanted a permanent record of what went on at these events, Smith filmed several of the sessions and compiled a DVD, titled . His candid and humorous answers give many insights to the story of his journey as a filmmaker. The DVD was such a success that Smith decided to film a second DVD at sessions in Toronto and London, which should see release late in 2005.

In 2004, Smith released about a man (Ben Affleck) struggling to raise his daughter after the death of his wife (played by Jennifer Lopez). George Carlin and Liv Tyler starred alongside Affleck in the comedic drama. The film opened to mixed reviews and lackluster box office, largely a result of the backlash surrounding the extensive media attention given to Affleck and Lopez's off-screen relationship, as well as the negative critical and box office results of the couple's 2003 film . Smith referred to the film as his "fatherhood"-movie, and found bittersweet comfort that he was able to share the film with his own father just prior to his death.

2005 has proven a busy year for Kevin Smith, as he began shooting the sequel to , a collection of essays dissecting pop culture, the movie-making business and Smith's personal life. The book was a success, selling out its first printing for Miramax Books.

In 2006 he is supposed to act in Richard Kelly's sci-fi movie. It's in the vein of 'Flash Gordon,' something I've noodled with a couple of years. Now I feel we are mature enough filmmakers to tackle it."-Source.

reporter who met him when she interviewed him about his films. They have a daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, named after The Joker's sidekick Harley Quinn. Both Jennifer and Harley have appeared in his films; in Smith's films often feature the same actors including Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Mewes, and Matt Damon. Other well-known performers featured in more than one Smith film include Chris Rock, Jason Biggs, Shannen Doherty, George Carlin, Ethan Suplee, Joe Quesada and Alanis Morissette. Some lesser known regulars in Smith's films include Walt Flanagan, Bryan Johnson, Scott Mosier, Ernest O'Donnell, John Willyung, Carmen Lee, Jeff Anderson, Brian O'Halloran, Dwight Ewell, Kimberly Loughran and Vincent Pereira., assisting friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck with making and marketing their film. After Damon and Affleck received Academy Awards for their screenplay, critics surmised that Smith himself was responsible for the (1998), which at the time was expected to be a blockbuster teen-movie. Kevin's then-girlfriend Joey Lauren Adams almost took the role of Ivy in the movie instead of the female lead role in movie starring Ben Affleck. He has also written original comic books based on his movies, including 3 . Smith has stated for years that he will write other comics that are based on his movies, including , although they have yet to be produced. In 1999 he won a Harvey Award, given for achievement in comic books, for Best New Talent. He has received a large amount of criticism for his lateness with certain books (Smith owns and operates Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash in Red Bank, New Jersey, a comic book store largely dedicated to merchandise related to his films; a second Secret Stash in the Westwood section of Los Angeles was opened in September 2004. was eventually discarded when Tim Burton was attached to the product. Beforehand, Smith was enthusiastic about Burton's hiring, citing Burton's work on out of the process. In the end, neither Smith's nor Burton's vision for Superman were filmed. Years later, Smith noted the similarity between a scene in one of his comics and a scene in Burton's remake of . Smith jokingly accused Burton of stealing his idea, a comment that ended up being reported in the media as a serious accusation. Burton issued a stern denial, noting he would never read anything by Smith., Smith pitched an idea called "Bussing" about bus boys, described as "Clerks in a restaurant". This idea seems to have been reborn into the 2005 movie Smith has always attributed the mentions of homosexuals or homosexual behavior in his films to his older brother Donald Smith, who is a gay man and always felt he could never see anything remotely homosexual on the big screen.In 2002, Smith pressed his bosses at Miramax to pick up the rights to Gregory McDonald's Fletch series. Smith hoped to helm a movie adaptation of the first book in the series, , with the intention of making it more faithful to the original novel than the popular Chevy Chase films. Smith hoped to cast View Askew regular Jason Lee in the title role, but was nixed by Bob and Harvey Weinstein. Smith has recently spoken to Garden State's Zach Braff about the possibility of taking the role. In October 2005, Smith left the project.Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back's fictional website MoviePoopShoot.com became real in 2002, converting into an entertainment website covering movies, music, comics, toys, and video games.. The Miramax head Harvey Weinstein at the time attempted to draft Smith to direct the film, but Smith eventually backed out, noting that his directing A in Vancouver, BC, Smith was awarded an honorary degree from the Vancouver Film School, where he briefly studied prior to making A session took place April 2nd, 2005 at the Count Basie Theatre in Red Bank, New Jersey. The sold out event was seven hours long, took place from 8PM through 3AM (which due to daylight savings, was actually 4AM). After he finished the QA he decided to open up Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash just down the road to do a meet and greet with the numerous remaining audience members link. The meet and greet ended around 6:30AM. Smith then hopped a plane and did television show. In the episodes, Smith, portraying himself, visited the school to work on the (fictional) film . Smith wrote all his dialogue for the the shows he appeared in. Later, he recounted that the idea was so good, he could almost see himself making such a movie, which might be interpreted as an indication of a plan to really do so. Smith has done a substantial amount of work in television as well. He appeared in the second episode of season two of , playing, appropriately, a store clerk. He also cameoed in the second season premiere of the sitcom (2004, as himself). Smith has also created and appeared in several short "Roadside Attractions" segments for 1995 Independent Spirit Awards. Nominated (with Scott Mosier) for Best First Feature and for Best First Screenplay for