I remember when Clerks was announced. It was a Sundance favorite and trailered along with Pulp Fiction. Having had some counter experience, and being a Star Wars nerd, Clerks looked like sweet elixir. And I went to see it opening weekend (in a double feature with Stargate), and was in the Kevin Smith. Revisiting his films Clerks, Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back on Blu-ray in the Kevin Smith collection is a chance to wrestle with what makes Kevin Smith great and somewhat terrible. My review after the jump.

In a recent interview, writer/director Kevin Smith reveals some details about his next movie, the hockey flick, “Hit Somebody”.  It’s a film that grows out of Smith’s new direction following his post-Zack & Miri-epiphany and how we’ll start to see that new direction in his upcoming film, the buddy-cop comedy, “A Couple of Dicks” starring Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan.  Hit the jump to read what Smith had to say about “Hit Somebody” as well as a hint that Grand Geek of the Interwebs Wil Wheaton may have a role in the film.

Kevin Smith has been talking up a couple of different projects over the past few years.  The one project which sounded the most interesting to me was his “horror film”, “Red State”.  Smith has described the film as being very bleak, very dramatic. and has said that it would be a big departure for him.  Not much is known in terms of the films plot other than it would be inspired by a Fred Phelps like character and would be set in, what I’m guessing, would be a red state.

For awhile the project was thought to be dead after Smith was unable to find funding for the project.  The film’s future looked even worse after Smith announced that he would like to tackle his hockey film, “Hit Somebody”, next.  However, thanks to a recent interview it looks like “Red State” might not be dead after all.  You can find out how it might be the next film for the director when you click on the jump.

I feel really bad for “The Green Hornet”.  I know that it’s just a movie and that it has no emotions what so ever, but I can’t help but feel bad for the poor ol’ film. I’m sure you guys have been following the problematic production for the past year or so and now that things finally looked like it was going to get better, we now get news that Nicolas Cage, who was set to play the film’s villain, has dropped out.  This doesn’t look too good for the film since the film just started principal photography last week.  You can read more details when you hit the jump.

Hot of the Twitter feeds comes word that director Kevin Smith (yes, THAT Kevin Smith) has offered Kevin Pollak a role in his upcoming buddy cop movie “A Couple of Dicks”.  So says Kevin Pollak, at any rate, and he should know:

Offer from @ThatKevinSmith to join ol’ pal B. Willis & crazy Tracy Morgan in his Couple of Dicks has me smiling huge. See ya in nyc fellas.

The movie, about two veteran police detectives who get tangled up in the seedy underworld of memorabilia dealing when they begin tracking down a stolen, mint-condition 1952 baseball card, is filming this month in New York.  Pollack’s “‘ol pal” Bruce Willis (the two starred in “Hostage” together) stars in “Dicks” along with that “crazy” Tracy Jordan.  Adam Brody, Sean William Scott and Ana de la Reguerda (”Nacho Libre”) are also attached to the project.  No word yet on which dick Pollak might play.  That info would have definitely run over 140 characters…

In his book Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, Chuck Klosterman lays out what is essentially the unifying theory of Johnny Carson - the idea that the advent of cable and the home video market, not to mention the Internet, has splintered public tastes to the point that there’s no longer any such thing as a shared cultural experience anymore; according to Klosterman, the last patch of common ground was Johnny Carson, and once he disappeared from the airwaves, he took the last link in our pop culture chain with him.

Klosterman had a point, one which grows ever more relevant with each passing year - but every so often, a cultural event comes along with enough significance to achieve true water cooler status. Case in point: the long-awaited debut of Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace in 1999, a breathlessly anticipated extension of a film franchise that was virtually inescapable in its day. When George Lucas announced he was working on a prequel trilogy that would fill in the story behind the original films, pretty much everyone was at least curious to see what they’d look like - and the hardcore fans were on pins and needles.

Casting decisions are often the lynch pin of whether a movie will ultimately succeed or fail.  Warner Brothers and director Kevin Smith were off to an incredible start on that score when they landed Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan to play the titular buddy-cops of their film “A Couple of Dicks”.  See?  The movie’s about cops not penises! Although, knowing Smith, shit could still go either way…

Today two more names have been added to Kevin’s “Dicks” - which sounds way dirtier than I meant it to.  First up, Sean William Scott will play a thief called ‘The Shit Bandit’ - that name based on the calling cards he leaves at his crime scenes.  And that, my friends, sounds exactly as dirty as I meant it to.  Also on board for the Dick-side of the law is “The OC’s” Adam Brody.  He’ll play an “abrasive detective” who is not happy about working with Willis and Morgan.  Now, seriously.  Have you seen Adam Brody?  The man couldn’t be abrasive if he was covered in sand paper.  Maybe Smith is going for those ironic kind of abrasions?  Just like his ironic use of the cop slang “Dicks” in his title?  We shall see.

“A Couple of Dicks” begins shooting next Monday in NYC.