You guys, I have a confession to make. Last time I wrote about Kevin Smith, I think I might have been too hard on him. His retirement announcement was ridiculed. Fat jokes were bandied about with an abandon that can only be described as reckless. I even sunk so low as to compare him to a bowl of cheese that someone farted in. Many of you took to the comments section to decry that post as “hateful” and “douchey.” Well you know what? You’re right. I reread the post and I simply cannot defend it. I came across as a petty, mean-spirited jerk. And as 2012 draws to a close, I’ve re-examined my Kevin Smith hatred and, in the words of the English poet Robert Graves, I am here to say “goodbye to all that.” Goodbye to the blind hatred of a man who is a charming underdog at best, and a harmless bullsh*tter at worst.

It is with this newfound outlook that I slid into the couch cushions the other day with a warm cup of joe, grabbed the remote, and turned on Good Day LA (hands down my favorite source for all things newsworthy). And wouldn’t you just know it? They were interviewing Kevin Smith about Clerks 3, which he announced that he hopes to have in theaters in time for the film’s 20^th anniversary in 2014. What better way to put my new outlook to the test. The entire interview is embedded below, but follow me after the jump for a breakdown of various snippets.

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Yup, that's a dude.

You don’t get to be an actress as famous and as young as Kristen Stewart without having parents in the business, and Kristen Stewart is no different. While as far as I know, her mom (Jules) isn’t her manager like Katherine Heigl’s, she does still work. For instance, Jules Stewart recently directed K-11, the trailer for which you can watch after the jump.  It’s just your basic picture about a record producer who wakes up in the special unit of jail reserved for transgenders and homosexuals, K-11. Also, Jason Mewes and Deebo from Friday are there, and there’s some shitty, Marilyn Manson-type song playing over the whole thing. It’s kind of funny that they paint it as this hellish nightmare place, because I’m pretty sure gay jail is probably better than regular jail. Okay, okay, I’ll watch Bravo, just stop being so catty.

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This interview is also published in the March 2012 issue of Axis Magazine.

Later this year, the beloved cult classic Clerks will turn 18-years old, and while it will be old enough to vote and fight for our country, it still won’t be able to buy beer. Luckily, the film introduced us to two characters who redefined loitering and convenience store hijinks – Jay and Silent Bob. Played by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, the pot-smoking duo has earned a glorious status as a generation’s greatest slackers, but their best days are behind them, as they took a bow, fittingly, in 2006’s Clerks 2.

That doesn’t mean that the legend is dead, though. Mewes and Smith have been traveling the world for their new live show, “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old,” and they’ve given their devoted fanboys an opportunity to relive their glory days with never-before-told stories from their past films like Mallrats, Dogma, Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. And they’re still coming back for more… kind of. Jay and Silent Bob will once again swing their socks full of quarters in the upcoming animated feature, Jay and Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie, for which Mewes will earn his first producer’s credit.

Mewes also has plenty of other projects in the pipeline, from indie film starring roles to his first directing gig, too. Busy or not, he was kind enough to spend a minute or 30 with me on the phone after he returned home from a brief European tour, filling me in on Jay growing old and, of course, the Tao of “Snoochie boochies.” (Warning: There be some curse words beyond these parts…)

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Check out the trailer for Vengeance, starring Danny Trejo.  Because this time, they f*cked with the wrong Mexican… AGAIN!

It follows our previously established, take-something-popular-and-give-it-a-generic name rule to a T, but it has a secret weapon.  Actually, it has a few secret weapons.  Besides Danny Trejo in the lead role, it’s got Jason Mewes, 50 Cent, wrestler Diamond Dallas Page, MMA stars Rashad Evans and Houston Alexander, and “platinum-selling rap artist Tech N9ne.”  I didn’t know who he was, but only because I lock my doors when I drive through a “rap” neighborhood.  Oh, and that one guy from Street Kings and Training Day is in it too, but this time with a giant tattoo of ram horns on his skull.

Hard to say at this stage, but this could either be this year’s 12 Rounds, or a modern-day Gone with the Pope.

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Aw yeah, nothing like an obscure internet feud to start off the new year.  So apparently Neil Patrick Harris was asking his Twitter followers to support him in the AfterElton.com Man of the Decade awards (editor’s note: I have no idea what that is).  NPH’s followers and Kevin Smith’s overlap, and some fans appealed to Kevin Smith for his vote.  At which point Smith said he wasn’t a fan of NPH, citing this exchange from an interview NPH did while promoting the Harold & Kumar sequel:

Neil Patrick Harris: They were smart for actually hiring two actors that were actual actors playing parts, instead of hiring two sort of dudes that were those guys. They didn’t hire like Jason Mewes and the other dude… Silent Bob… What is that movie Jay and Silent Bob, like what’s Jay’s name?
Quint: Jason Mewes, you were right.
Neil Patrick Harris: He was this drugged out mess of a guy that was his friend and so he just cast him in the movie and filmed him doing crazy sh*t.

Kevin Smith took offense to that, which is natural, considering putting Jason Mewes in his movies is the best thing he’s ever done.  From Movieline:

“I mean, why say something like that?” Smith tweeted. “S’not true OR respectful of a fellow performer. Dude essentially said Mewes isn’t an actor. Wow…It’s a snobby, reductive diss.” The director has continued to defend Mewes and lay into Harris over the last twelve hours of nonstop Twittering, writing that Harris’s accusation “is not only untrue, it minimizes Mewes’ contributions as AN ACTOR. It’s a narrow-minded, ignorantly reductive sentiment, patched together from quasi-facts that aren’t even related. It’s akin to me knowing NPH is gay & knowing he’s on [How I Met Your Mother], and then somehow coming to the conclusion that his process must include a d*ck in his mouth right before each take… & THEN EXPRESSING THAT SAME BAFFLING IGNORANCE IN AN INTERVIEW.”

To which Neil Patrick Harris fired back:

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