Kevin Smith - FishbowlLA

Rove McManus Captures Footage of a Very Strange LA Backyard Specimen

Richard Horgan — Wed, 08 May 2013 11:30:20 +0000

Last night at Meltdown Comics‘ NerdMelt Showroom on Sunset Blvd., magician Justin Willman hosted the fifth edition of his monthly Web talk show Sleight of Mouth. It’s got a name-brand producer (The Late Show‘s Robert Morton), musical sidekick Billy “Bushwalla” Galewood, a very loose vibe and guests who are always game.

The highlight of Episode #5 was Down Under jokester Rove McManus, who does reports for The Tonight Show and currently films a version of his smash Australian talk show here in LA. At one point, McManus cued up some video footage taken in the back of his SoCal canyon home by means of a motion-activated camera. There were a couple of deer, a bobcat at night and, on the vacant lot next door, “something I don’t think I can prepare you for in any shape or form.”

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Kevin Smith, HuffPost Live Host?

Richard Horgan — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:15:45 +0000

Because Kevin Smith still and primarily uses an AOL email address (!), he is utterly familiar with HuffPost Live and a major fan of the nascent network. From the get-go of his half-hour chat alongside Jason Mewes with Alicia Menendez this afternoon, he kept dropping hints about wanting to be a host himself.

Smith continued energetically banging that drum, leading a producer to tell Menendez in her ear that he was hired. Then, HuffPost Live president Roy Sekoff bounded on set to seal the deal.

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Fan Tweet Morphs Into $69,000 Kevin Smith Cartoon Feature

Richard Horgan — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 19:15:29 +0000

How cool is this? A few years ago, Toronto-based animator Steve Stark tweeted out to Kevin Smith and Jason Mewes a cartoon he put together based on a Jay & Silent Bob SModcast. It led to a relationship that now has the Canuck first-time directing the pair’s cartoon feature.

Jay & Silent Bob’s Super Groovy Cartoon Movie will start rolling out this spring by means of a Red State USA-style cross-country road show, with the two leads in tow for lively post-show podcast Q&A. From today’s announcement:

“This is what can happen when you put the plug in the jug, kids,” said Mewes. “As an actor, it was awesome to play Jay again. But as a producer, I sweated every nickel because I wanted to keep the budget low… And dirty.”

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Tubefilter Co-Founders Ready to Rock Social Media Week LA

Richard Horgan — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 14:45:26 +0000

There’s palpable new energy underpinning the latest edition of Social Media Week LA, a massive and almost entirely free September 24-28 event featuring 100+ panels, meet-ups, parties and such. Most of the credit for this goes to tubefilter.com and Streamy Awards creator Drew Baldwin, on board this year as the event’s executive director.

“Tubefilter has been covering the online video industry before it was really an industry,” Baldwin (pictured) tells FishbowlLA via telephone, ahead of the arrival from New York of Tubefilter co-founder and fellow SMWLA mastermind Joshua Cohen. “We identified what we thought was sort of the professional cross-section of online video. Not the cat videos, but people who are really trying to put something out there intentionally. We pulled together a community of online video producers in LA and New York and from that, built out a major monthly events component.”

Baldwin is currently working with Dick Clark Productions on the next edition of the Streamy Awards, set for February 2013. The launch of Tubefilter in 2008 and the Streamys in 2009 has positioned him as the perfect person to take Social Media Week LA to the next level. He was on the Board of Advisors last year and cleverly, for 2012, has deliberately located the bulk of SMWLA events within the boundaries of Hollywood proper. (io/LA and The Egyptian Theater are two event hubs, for example.)

“We’ve really focused on both the programmatic and geographic elements of entertainment in Hollywood,” Baldwin explains. “As a result, we’ve gotten a lot more traction.” He says they got yes’s from the first 25 people they approached to be a part of SMWLA’s first annual list of “Social 25” digital influencers. The inaugural group will be feted on opening night and includes everyone from Jeff Berman (NFL) and Kevin Smith (SmodCo) to Ryan Seacrest and Zooey Deschanel (for her website Hello Giggles).

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Who Brings a Three-Month-Old to a Midnight Screening? Kevin Smith, for One.

Richard Horgan — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 16:05:29 +0000

During the latest episode of Kevin Smith’s Hulu show Spoilers, he and the gathered group of moviegoers somberly discussed the Aurora, CO tragedy.

At one point however, the host lightened things up a tiny bit when he chose to comment on the media backlash aimed at one couple that brought a three-month old:

“I took my daughter to see Fight Club when she was three months old. It was me and the wife and the kid in the stroller. There were only two other people in the movie theater. My kid never talked once or cried or anything.”

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Kevin Smith Blows Up Movie Critic TV Show Format

Richard Horgan — Mon, 21 May 2012 09:00:34 +0000

With Roger Ebert’s valiant attempt to revive At the Movies having faded into the sunset, writer-director Kevin Smith is aiming to kick-start the critics-talking-heads format on Hulu beginning June 4 with a fundamentally different approach. In each episode of Spoilers, he will have 50 citizen co-hosts.

The hoi polloi popcorn chompers will be chosen via a website launching today and get to chime in about big summer blockbusters like The Dark Knight Rises and Rock of Ages. Ahead of the first taping at his new SmodCo Studios facility on Universal City Walk, Smith teased some of the other content in an interview with Wired:

“We’re going to do a beat called Movie Goon where like I’ll have on my friend Malcolm Ingram, who hates everything. He’s one of these nihilists. If it’s popular, he can’t stand it. He represents the Internet. So we’ll bring him on and let him have his say and then we’ll beat him up verbally and tell him why he’s wrong — have a good old-fashioned debate.”

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German Magazine Zooms In on Splash News

Richard Horgan — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 11:00:36 +0000

In the wake of Corbis’ recent acquisition of LA celebrity photo agency Splash News, Der Spiegel reporter Philip Bethge has paid a visit to the former’s Seattle office and the latter’s Venice HQ. The result is a highly entertaining look at the business dynamics of “the thugs of the telephoto lens.”

In LA, the man who makes Splash tick is British native Kevin Smith. While today’s shifting media landscape has become a revenue challenge for many outlets, it has proven to be a gold mine for savvy picture peddlers like this former London journalist. Splash revenues in the past year have grown by more than 20%. Per Bethge’s report:

The company has supplied the photography for 500 magazine covers over the last five years, Smith says, adding that Splash News sells photos in close to 70 countries. “I was amazed when we hit the million dollar [mark] in revenues,” says Smith, who drives a Bentley. “Now I am laughing about it.”

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Jon Lovitz Glad He Ignored Agent’s Advice

Richard Horgan — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 17:00:05 +0000

Stand-up comedy has turned out to be just the ticket for former SNL regular Jon Lovitz. At age 54, he’s about to head back to Chicago for a third stint, performing in Schaumberg and throwing out another first pitch at Wrigley Field.

However, back when Lovtiz decided in 2003 to change things up in the face of disappearing movie role opportunities, he didn’t exactly get a vote of confidence from his talent rep. During a recent telephone interview from LA with Chicago Sun-Times reporter Annie Alleman , Lovitz recalled the off-putting feedback he received:

“It was like starting over. I was 46, and I needed to make money,” he said. “Stand-up was something I always wanted to do. I told my agent, ‘You’ve got to get me work.’ They go, ‘Why don’t you sell your house?’ That really made me angry.”

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Kevin Smith Powers Up the Jon Lovitz Podcast Theatre

Richard Horgan — Wed, 18 May 2011 09:15:31 +0000

To help cement the June relaunch of the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club on Universal City Walk as a “Podcast Theatre,” filmmaker-turned-new-media-mogul Kevin Smith has a 24-hour live podcast event planned for Memorial Day weekend.

From noon on Sunday May 29th through noon on Monday, May 30th, Smith will preside over “Poddammit,” a live pod-a-thon featuring ten live podcasts and numerous guest appearances. Tickets for the event are $100 and limited to 250 attendees, while fans can also listen live via Smodcast Internet Radio (S.I.R.). Programming premieres include:

The ABC’s of SNL: Smith and Lovitz will kick off a new weekly series about the backstage goings-on at the Lorne Michaels comedy institution.

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Kevin Smith Defends His Film Red State and his Sundance Antics On Twitter

Matthew Fleischer — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 13:02:56 +0000

Filmmaker Kevin Smith is in the midst of an hour-plus Twitter defense of himself and his new film Red State, after multiple reports say he screwed over Indie distributors at a Sundance screening last night.

Here’s how Deadline’s Mike Fleming summed up Smith’s screening.

Kevin Smith lost some cred with indie distributors last night when he hosed the teams that came to the premiere of Red State looking for an acquisitions title. Instead, they were subjected to a bogus auction that opened and closed with his $20 bid and announcement he would self distribute. Before he got to this sham climax, Smith spent 15 minutes shitting all over those buyers in the crowd, the ones watching films all day and pulling all-nighters to broker deals. … continued…

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Weird Movie Title, Even Weirder PR Pitch

Richard Horgan — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 08:00:59 +0000

To do full justice to the name of the following indie film spoof, imagine reading the title aloud in the style of Pee-wee Herman‘s wind-up delivery. It’s called Night of the Day of the Dawn of the Son of the Bride of the Return of the Revenge of the Terror of the Attack of the Evil, Mutant, Hellbound, Flesh-Eating, Crawling, Alien & Zombified, Subhumanoid Living Dead… Part 5

Even stranger is the offer being made by the parody film’s hostess, former Long Island foster child Angelica, to a list of celebrities that includes Hollywood comedy royalty Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Seth MacFarlane, Trey Parker and Matt Stone. If one of these targets agrees to review the movie, she and her partners (director James Riffel, co-writer Mark Zobian) are promising to pass on a check for $10,000 that can be donated to a charity of the celebrity’s choice.

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All Eliza Dushku Wants for Her Birthday is Donations

Richard Horgan — Tue, 28 Dec 2010 15:30:04 +0000

Actress Eliza Dushku (Dollhouse, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) is tweeting up a storm this week, trying to get the media and any individual with leftover Christmas money to support her 30th birthday charity cause. By December 30th, the Boston native is hoping to raise $30,000 for the construction of a rehabilitation center for former child soldiers in Uganda.

Host website Tonic.com is the good news, good endeavors hub launched by Island Records and tropical resort magnate Chris Blackwell. Dushku’s social media campaigning is paying off. Media coverage in the past few days has included WENN.com, CeleBuzz.com and others, while the tote board total is now quickly rising.

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Kevin Smith In the Midst of an Impressive Twitter Rant

Matthew Fleischer — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 11:08:01 +0000

We were waiting for it to end, but since he’s been going on for the better part of an hour, we’ll give you the heads up so you can check it out in real time. In short, director Kevin Smith is going off on Twitter. He started off by defending his cock length and, as of a few moments ago, was talking about Batman’s moral compass. But there was a lot of industry analysis and a defense of “Cop Out” in between.

Twitter is not the ideal format for prolonged ranting. It’s annoying actually. Like those people who try to conduct complex arrangements with you by texting instead of just calling. But still kind of interesting to see him go off.

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Bruce Willis Squeaks Onto IMDB’s Top 25

Richard Horgan — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 09:30:43 +0000

Posted today, the names and titles populating IMDB’s user-generated lists of 2010′s Top 25 Movies and Movie Stars are all fairly predictable. But Bruce Willis?!

Somehow, the 55-year-old chrome-domed David Letterman sidekick managed to score the #19 spot on the website’s 2010 StarMeter rankings. This despite the fact that Kevin Smith, the director of the actor’s opening salvo for the year, Cop Out, got into a pissing match with critics via Twitter.

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Hollywood Elite Come to McCain’s Rescue

Tina Dupuy — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:39:44 +0000

Yes, John Woo, Kevin Smith and Wes Anderson are doing all they can to get John McCain in the White House.

We love this video, even though we had to watch it twice to figure out that the young guy with white schmootz in his hair is supposed to be McCain.

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