Cinematical

One of the things I really like about director Kevin Smith is his relative accessibility. True, he's never (yet) agreed to an interview here on Cinematical, but he has made an appearance in the comments, here and other other sites, and his View Askew website is one of the most fan-centric filmmaker sites out there.

Over on Hollywood Elsewhere, Jeffrey Wells posted a couple days ago about a Smith interview in the L.A.Times. Wells said in the post that he'd like to see Smith write a play about "a Gen-X marriage gone bad," and Smith in turn (or, perhaps, to be fair, someone doing a truly spectacular Smith impersonation) has been conversing in the comments with readers who are both critical and favorable toward Smith and his films. Among other things, Smith talks about why he gave up on Green Lantern, why he chose to make Clerks 2, how Jersey Girl didn't suck, and why Harvey Weinstein is an idiot for refusing to let Smith cast Jason Lee in Fletch Won (okay, he maybe didn't exactly use the words "Harvey" and "idiot" in the same sentence -- the guy knows which side his bread is buttered on, after all -- but the implication is there, yes indeedy).

I know there are those who will say that an artist shouldn't debate his critics that way, but hey, this is the age of the internet, and Smith is doing a good job of playing up his "I'm just an average guy who happens to make films" persona by interacting with fans online, chatting it up at events like Comicon, and maintaining a fan-centered website. Check out the entire comments thread on that HE post, it's pretty interesting reading. I particularly like how Smith wraps it up: "This has been fun. I thank all for not smelling blood in the water and turning this into an AICN Talkbacks feeding frenzy. I feel like, even though some of us disagree, we were able to do so with little bitchiness. You HE comments sections folks are alright in my book."