The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.
In this edition, a new video essay from Patrick (H) Willems looks back at the films of Clerks and Chasing Amy director Kevin Smith to see how they hold up after all these years. Plus, Harry Potter franchise star Daniel Radcliffe runs the gauntlet of spice on a new episode of Hot Ones, and an epidemiologist reviews how realistic zombie virus movies and TV shows like World War Z and The Walking Dead are. Read More »
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot isn’t getting a traditional theatrical release like its predecessor, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Instead, the comedy sequel from writer/director Kevin Smith will be released as a Fathom Event on both October 15 and October 17, 2019. If you can’t make it to the theater on either of those days, you might try your hand at attending one of the many Reboot Roadshow dates that will be hosted all over the United States. And since the movie is getting an unconventional release, it makes sense that the marketing leading up to the event is just as unique.
If you’re looking to get your hands on a nickel bag of weed before you take in Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, you might be interested in picking it up from the duo that inspired Bluntman and Chronic themselves. Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes will be selling three new strains of weed inspired by Jay and Silent Bob at the Herbarium in Hollywood, California. And after you get your smoke on, you might want to take a deep dive into the making of Kevin Smith’s totally weird horror movie Tusk. Read More »
Remember Moose Jaws? Kevin Smith‘s never-made third entry in his True North trilogy? The project seemed to be dead, but Smith has offered a new update that indicates Moose Jaws might become a reality.
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We’ve already heard from Kevin Smith about his impressive list of upcoming projects. He’s also told us about what making Tusk meant to him. Now, in part two of our long interview with the filmmaker, we dig a little deeper. Smith goes into great detail about some of the more talked-about decisions he made in Tusk, which is now on Blu-ray.
First Smith talks about the decision to reveal the walrus suit so early in the film. That leads into a discussion of effects in general, his preferred tone, other problems people have with the film and then his biggest regret in the marketing of the film. (A mistake he says he’ll never make again). He then talks about the inventive, aggressive schedule on Yoga Hosers, which is almost done filming. Read the rest of our Kevin Smith Tusk interview below. Read More »
Sit back, grab a drink, and settle in. Kevin Smith is about to speak.
Last week, we chatted with Smith on the occasion of the blu-ray release of Tusk. (The disc is available now.) The controversial film had its share of fans and detractors; I fell somewhere in the middle. I admired Tusk’s ambition and the new direction for Smith, but at the same time acknowledged and was unforgiving of the film’s flaws. In our interview, we asked Smith about some of those issues, spoke about what he feels he learned as a filmmaker from the experience, and a few of the more polarizing choices in the movie. Two or three questions took a planned 15 minute interview to 25 minutes, but if you’re a fan of Kevin Smith, the director has rarely been so insightful about his craft.
However, because Smith talked for so long, we’ve decided to break this interview into a few parts. We already posted about his upcoming movies and projects. Now, Smith talks about how the making of Tusk not only reinvigorated him, but could be seen as an act of inspiration for fellow filmmakers. And from there, he went off on some fascinating tangents about camera movement, aspect ratios and a ton more. Below, read Part 1 of our Kevin Smith interview on Tusk. Read More »
Say what you will about Kevin Smith‘s Tusk, but ultimately it was the spark that gave new life to the filmmaker. Just like he did in the ’90s, Smith made Tusk kind of on a whim. He and his producer Scott Mosier came up with the idea, Smith wrote it and a few months later it was being shot. Unlike his ’90s debut, Smith did have funding this time so it wasn’t as down and dirty as Clerks. But the independent spirit was there. And Kevin Smith is now overflowing with movie ideas.
He’s got a few more days to shoot on Yoga Hosers, a Tusk spinoff about two 15-year-old girls fighting monsters. After that, he’ll finally make the long awaited Clerks III. He’s also got preliminary funding to make Moose Jaws, a horror comedy that is basically Jaws with a moose. That’ll likely happen after Clerks III.
For Smith fans, though, there’s one glaring omission that list: Hit Somebody. Over the past few years, Smith’s hockey epic morphed from one film, to two films, to a miniseries and then into oblivion as he got busy with so many other things. But /Film recently talked to the director and he revealed that the producers of Tusk have given him money not only to make Yoga Hosers, Clerks III and Moose Jaws but Hit Somebody as well. And they’ll shoot it in Canada during the Fall of 2015.
Read the Kevin Smith Hit Somebody quotes below. Read More »
Like almost all Kevin Smith films, Tusk has been incredibly polarizing. I found myself in the middle of the road, seeing great promise in a film with some major problems. Some loved the audaciousness of Smith’s horrific tale, while others just hated everything about it. Smith himself is very proud of Tusk, calling it the closest thing he’s ever done to what he imagined he’d be making as a filmmaker.
The box office tended to agree with the haters. Over its opening weekend, Tusk only grossed on $1.4 million in over 600 theaters, pretty much guaranteeing a certain cult status.
The legacy of Tusk is already paying dividends, however. The project lead to a friendship between Smith and Johnny Depp, and spinning Tusk off into Yoga Hosers. Plus, in a new podcast, the director also revealed Tusk gave financiers confidence to give him money for Clerks III. Read More »
Kevin Smith‘s Tusk is a prime example of a filmmaker in the midst of reinvention. Ever since the disaster that was Cop Out, Smith has been on a quest to become a new director. First he shunned Hollywood and self-distributed Red State, a welcome departure from his off-the-wall comedies of the past. Now he’s delving deep into horror with Tusk, the story of a man named Howard (Michael Parks) who kidnaps a podcaster named Wallace (Justin Long) and attempts to turn him into a Walrus.
Much like Smith’s up-and-down career path, Tusk has a fascinating trajectory. Everything starts off well with the director slowly but surely building a very specific, intriguing and foreboding tone. Even as the story begins to border on the ridiculous and the gore gets exponentially more intense, we buy it because the film has won us over with its sharp writing, well-timed humor, inventive plot and layered storytelling.
Unfortunately, about two-thirds into the movie, Smith apparently saw some brake lights in front of him because the film comes to a screeching halt. It stops being fun so suddenly and so painfully it’s almost unfathomable. Things never quite recover from that narrative roadblock and, by the end, it all feels arbitrary and amateurish. Read More »
David and Matt Patches from In Contention and Fighting in the War Room discuss Kevin Smith’s newest film, Tusk. Be sure to check out Scott Tobias’s five rules for making biopics about geniuses.
You can always e-mail us at slashfilmcast(AT)gmail(DOT)com, or call and leave a voicemail at 781-583-1993. Also, like us on Facebook!
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In Tusk, Justin Long plays a douchebag podcaster who travels to Canada in search of a story, and gets a hell of a lot more than he bargained for. The film is nuts, because it veers from horror to comedy in broad strokes. The end credits of the film (no spoiler) actually play some of the audio from the podcast that spawned the film, and that’s kind of the rosetta stone for deciphering the film’s disparate tones. This Tusk featurette is also a good thing to watch before seeing the movie, because it will help you understand just how seriously (or not) Kevin Smith approached the story. Read More »
