‘Ballerina,’ ‘Bring Her Back,’ and ‘Dogma’ Reborn, with Kevin Smith!!!

30:26Yeah, it turns out that this snuff film that we thought we were watching is in fact for Sally Hawkins' character like an instructional video. Cool. Of how to resurrect people by having a very specific kind of what she believes to be an angel. Do a lot of sucking the soul out of one body and then regurgitating it back into a vessel body and the Piper character is going to be the vessel because like Sally Hawkins' late daughter, date she is also blind so there's like this perfect symmetry i don't know that we actually don't get too into the bylaws of resurrection in this film uh this movie yeah i think i was pretty surprised because bring her back no sorry talk to me actually had like to sean's point about this being grungy early 2000s bring her back or talk to me had like 90s scream fun to it you know there was like teens in peril, but also making jokes at one another's expense.

31:22Then, you know, punctuated with like these extremely like upsetting moments. Bring Her Back is almost exclusively upsetting moments with none of the fun, which is a choice. And it's like a way of doing things and it's much more traumatic. This just happened to feature one or two things that I am not cool with, especially tooth violence. so that's that's your line it is a line that I have you know it's like I it is so extreme in this movie that I actually hand to God looked away and I rarely rarely rarely look away are you speaking about the butcher block table I'm talking about the cantaloupe scene yeah the butcher block table okay so let's let's talk about this this is important you're gonna explain this to her that's fine I don't really like melon very much so that's not the problem the melon is the least of your worries so there is an actor in this film named jonah ren phillips he's he he's look maybe a 10 or 11 year old boy who plays this kid oliver who's another boy who's being fostered by sally hawkins's character and he is that sort of like soul transporting vessel you learn in the movie he is being groomed to become this sort of you know he's described as an angel but he's clearly like a demon who has the power as he becomes less and less human he has this insatiable appetite and we can't he wants to eat live flesh he wants to eat anything that's in front of him and this little kid plays this role and he is very upsetting and very effective it's an amazing performance by this young kid and there's a scene in the film when he's sort of left alone at the house where we're getting closer and closer to the potential resurrection where we're going to have he's getting hungry quote unquote yes the sora wong character is out and about the it turns out that the corpse of the dead daughter is in a freezer in the back house and he's getting so hungry and he's there with the older boy andy who's really extra to requirements for sally hawkins she doesn't really need him around so she's gaslighting him she's peeing on him at night so that he thinks that he's losing his mind.

33:37She's doping his protein shakes. He's like real fucked up. This is a deranged movie. Yeah, this is just like, it's just fucked up, Sville. And then Sean, go ahead. So Oliver is seated at a table, almost like waiting for his next meal and nothing arrives for him because he's by himself in this house. And he just takes a giant bite out of the table. No, Andy's trying to break through to him. He's like, because Oliver's nonverbal. and so andy's like i can i can break through to this kid like i can just reason with him and he's like oh do you want to write do you want to write something and he gives him a pencil and a pad and he's like if you write something i'll i'll give you some melon some lunch but it's like quid pro quo and he's like okay and he cuts this melon with a knife and the kid like reaches out for it and he's like here you go and andy turns his back and like when he comes back oliver's like sawing his teeth out with this butcher knife oh that was the part you were you were you were you wanted to talk about okay yeah that is um yeah amanda has frozen at an amazingly opportune time i don't know if she knows that should we just continue talking through this terror these terrible sequences we've lost amanda did she sign off amanda literally did she tap out from the song uh i think i miss these kinds of technical disruptions that happen it really is an opportunity Especially deep into the description of truly upsetting horror sequences.

35:01Of dental violence.

35:06I did find this movie effective and unpleasant, and I don't want to revisit it at all. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it. I do think some people really enjoyed it. Amanda, you have returned. I literally, he was sitting at the table and waiting for his meal, and then what happens? He stabs himself in the mouth with a knife with a cantaloupe at the end of it, and then proceeds to flip out all over the house and starts biting into a wooden butcher's block. And it's just like a lot of mouth blood and mouth torture. Yeah, that's gross. And teeth going places. Fuck, yeah. It's just like those are all my stress dreams or like my teeth.

35:44Oh, really? Because I grind my teeth. I have to use like a mouth guard, and when I take it out, I often have like, if I wake up at like six and I want to sleep for like another hour, I'll often take my mouth guard out, and then I have like fucked up dreams for that last hour. I find that Teeth Teeth violence is not terribly upsetting To me but After enduring one hour of a teenage Boy being completely gaslit By a deranged woman attempting resurrection It was a little bit of a cherry on top I was like okay in addition to just being like Sad and upsetting this movie is extremely Gross and Doesn't resolve itself in the most Emotionally satisfying Way I would say everyone is pretty traumatized by the time we get to the end of this movie.

36:29Interesting choice by the Philippos to do this. Obviously, it comes from a very personal place. I believe the story is that they were either going to make a new Street Fighter movie or this movie. And they opted not to make Street Fighter and make this. Someone is making Street Fighter, though, right? Someone is making Street Fighter. I'm not sure who that is right now. It's actually me. I was going to announce this in Chicago, but my directorial debut will be Street Fighter. That's really exciting. I saw Chris on Saturday afternoon after he had seen Ballerina and then bring her back in succession.

36:59And I just have to say it was like not the best CR mood that I've ever witnessed. When you were talking about the movies. No, you were great. You were like you were a wonderful party guest. And you, you know, hung out with my three year old terrorist son. And we appreciate you. But like when you were talking about the movies, you're like, yeah, that sucked. Yeah. Yeah. It was tough. I think those are also like tough movies to see alone because then you walk out and you're like, what have I done yeah um let's pivot to something we did 25 years ago or at least I did which is see the movie dogma and it's right there with you brother yeah Chris and I obviously we we pray in the temple of Kevin Smith especially 20th century Kevin Smith is insanely formative for me as a person and we've talked we've kind of hinted at it at times I think there's honestly a chance to do like a four or five hour episode of a podcast about his movies i've taken two parental leaves in the time that you've been threatened yeah yeah it was your you could have done it it was there for the taking amanda i have news for you i can do it whenever i want just because you're not a parental leave doesn't mean i can't do it tomorrow nevertheless this was it was a really kind of interesting experience i just had with kevin because i've never talked to kevin before i've never met him um he looms large in terms of like my taste and point of view.

38:24He's gone through several cycles of evaluation, but he did the thing that I have been honestly so fond of that he does, which is he just took over and he just podcasted for an hour because this is something he's been doing for the last 15 years. And by the time he got to the end of his conversation, he almost in a way kind of made me realize one of the things that I really like about him and that is inside of Dogma, which is that I just really like watching Kevin work out his ideas through character in a movie setting. He's often criticized and criticizes himself for his inability to basically direct well, that he doesn't stage sequences very well, he doesn't block well, he doesn't really have that sense of kinetic visual excitement that so many of his peers, like he kept referencing Tarantino, Linklater, Robert Rodriguez, all the guys he came up with.

39:13These guys are such gifted, dynamic visual filmmakers. but what I like to watch is a Kevin Smith character giving a monologue like that actually gratifies me and obviously it partially invented podcasting it invented a whole way of living in the world and dogma was a kind of like logical endpoint I think to what he had been writing through through that decade which is sort of like taking the stuff of his childhood and the were fascinations of his adolescence star wars video store culture dating personal relationships kind of blending them up and making fun of them and about them in movies with his friends.

39:53But Dogma is about something much more serious, right? It's about faith. It's about religion. It's about the extension of like how far you can go without actually seeing what is real in the world beyond the world. It's also like a silly action comedy. So revisiting the movie and then talking with Kevin, it's like very personally gratifying experience for me. I loved Dogma when I saw it, even though I was like, this is so strange that every time there's an action sequence, he cuts away to a reaction of a person's face and doesn't show you any action. He doesn't want to shoot the action sequence.

40:21But I think there's like a lot of good stuff in it that I want to talk to you guys about. But it was just nice that it's sort of like it held up as a time capsule. I felt a little bit like my dad listening to a classic rock radio station where I was just like, hell yeah, man, the Eagles still fucking rock. Like this is the Hotel California will never be bad to me. And I was comfortable in that. Chris, I know that you saw it at the time. Did you revisit the movie for this chat? I sure did. Yeah. And it was awesome. I can't believe how good this is. I was kind of almost made me wonder whether or not, you know, the other element to this film is it was in some ways like theatrically controversial at the time, both as a selling point of the film, but also as a performative act of culture war stuff that was going on in the late 90s.

41:09but um you know it was it was knowingly a hot button movie you know like linda fiorentino's character in the film works at an abortion clinic there's a lot of stuff about god and whether he exists or not there's all you know like a lot of stuff about corporatization of of everyday life going on with the movie core corp stuff and maybe even at the time i think i remember being like it feels like he's pressing the button down a little hard with what he's trying to say about the world. And now, all these years later, I'm like, this completely... I feel like I'm way more in agreement. Not even in agreement, but it's like, this rules.

41:50And two, maybe we'll look back on some films that we found overly prescient over the course of the last five, six, ten years, and we'll look back on them in ten years and be like, oh, this was really good. I just didn't, I just had an allergic reaction to it being ripped from the headlines. Yeah. Amanda, did you see it in 1999? Do you remember? Of course I did because this was post Goodwill hunting Matt and Ben. And so, I mean, it was like a sense memory. We were rewatching this because I was so young, but they are also so young and so charismatic. And obviously like they were trained in like the, you know, the Kevin Smith school of just talking a lot and like being a wise ass.

42:31But like the two of them on the like the airport walk, you know, walk out, just like yelling at each other. Like I I felt 13 again in the in the best way. And they have it. You know, that's also like a it was a nice reminder of, oh, so that is why they are now like Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. There is something so powerful. But I do also remember being, you know, I went to the movie theater because it was Matt and Ben. And let's see, I was what, 14, 15 when this came out. So like I had no idea what was going on. I mean, I understood like I remember that, you know, the news events like I knew what the Catholic Church was.

43:09I was aware of the headlines that it was like something scandalous. And I knew a lot of smart set was in it. But I don't I took Chris's point. It's not even that I was like allergic to it. I was just kind of like, what? OK, well, this is weird that they made a movie about the Catholic Church. And so we're watching and I was like, wow, this is like very smart and, you know, very funny. And it is, you know, talky in the end, like with big ideas and like the tiniest bit of like philosophy 101, like as an undergrad, but actually not in it. It's not annoying. I think it's like it's like well done and amusing.

43:47So yeah, totally holds up. I was kind of I was impressed by the boldness of combining the stupid humor of a giant shit monster with I thought like fairly sophisticated understanding of the complexity of being raised in the Catholic faith like obviously I related to this movie instantaneously I was 17 raised in the church confirmed spent every Sunday at church and from the age of probably like 9 all the way through when I stopped going to church at 18 sitting in a pew and just baffled by the utter contradiction of the experience, by the inability to understand mass groups of people not more deeply questioning the illogical nature of the story.

44:33And the movie takes this really smart choice of using these kind of fallen angels, these descended earthbound angels, and having them be, even though they're the villains of the movie, the vessels for the questioning. Linda Fiorentino's character is somebody who is also sort of like coping with a loss of she has faith but like a loss of hope because she's unable to conceive and that using that as a sort of like Virgin Mary North star throughout the story but Matt and Ben are the ones who get like most of the big speeches and they're the ones who are kind of like dissecting the nature of faith and the nature of their role as you know God's disciples and Matt and Ben I didn't have the same relationship to them Amanda obviously I wasn't super horny for those guys but i was like these guys are so cool and the thing that kevin smith knows is that they're so smart you can tell that they're really we know they're really smart guys because we've been watching them do press for 35 years now but nobody gets ben affleck to me like kevin smith yeah like matt damon is the smart guy in goodwill hunting but ben affleck's the real smart guy to me he's the one who's actually really bright it's just that he is like so self-defeating in everything that he does and he always casts him in roles of the guy who's incredibly smart and great it's great it's great it fucks it up yeah but blows it every time you know he's like he overreaches he doesn't quite know how to get out of his own way which is like such an elegant little you know mini portrait of the ben affleck experience over the last few decades and the scene between the two of them in the parking garage in this movie oh yeah where affleck is sort of like has his dawning realization and starts making his pitch to damon's character and damon's like whoa man settle down like you know we're just two angels here we don't need to get crazy.

46:10Affleck, I'm like, this is like a award-winning performance. You know, like it isn't a silly movie with Salma Hayek as, you know, a muse who's a stripper and the shit monster and Chris Rock as the 13th disciple that was written out of history. But I think I was just surprised. I think Kevin Smith was like in his early 30s or late 20s when he wrote this movie. It's just it's oddly mature for being as immature and silly as it is. And I agree with you, Chris. Like, it's pretty. It's really smart. about corporate influence and the bad actors inside and the way that they capitalize on people's inability to go beyond what's convenient for them.

46:48And the George Carlin character in this movie is very funny, this sort of golfing cardinal who's trying to modernize faith to keep as many people in the church and keep the money flowing into the church as much as possible. George Carlin, obviously, has such a huge influence on Kevin Smith. And you can tell when you listen to his monologues are basically just like stand-up specials that carlin was doing in the 90s i just was i i was i think i was impressed by this movie i was like how did he convince alan rickman to do this movie um alan rickman just cooking when he's right in that like galaxy quest zone where he's like yeah sure i'm in sense and sensibility but what i really want to be doing is stupid r-rated hollywood comedies just just just the whole cast in general is delightful i don't know any takeaways from the movie chris just like the same sort of maybe not singular, but maybe generationally defining voice and eye that he applies to Star Wars movies and comic books and his characters in previous films are talking about those kind of more pedestrian things.

47:48He applies to like, like Catholic doctrine. So listening to these two characters be like, here's the loophole that we'll use to get back into heaven. Or here's, you know, like all these, like basically like ideas that these guys have, are essentially the same as, you know, the Death Star or, you know, talking about X-Men or whatever, but they're actually talking about the Catholic Church. It's like such an ingenious application of a very specific voice and a very specific sensibility. And I got to say, like, I found it, like I found the end very affecting, like the sawing off the angel wing stuff.

48:29And I just was very, very happy to have this movie back in circulation and back in the mix. I wonder whether or not it will kind of get revived. I know he's taking it around and it's doing... I did like a million dollars over the weekend, right? On like... It's like a small opening, but the Askewverse is right there to be rediscovered. Amanda, what about you? Any other observations from the movie? And it's... It was gone. The only way to watch it for years was just on DVD, basically, until they remastered the film in 4K. And as Chris said, basically put it on a thousand screens over the weekend and it made a million bucks.

49:04I do wonder what people seeing it for the first time, people younger than us will make of it and whether it will be totally baffling or if it is sort of just like yet another Rosetta Stone of like, oh, this is why you guys are like this. Like, this is why you talk like this. This is how you see. I do think that it does a great job of explaining why those of us who were raised in the 90s think and speak the way that we do, which is a testament to Kevin Smith and his powers. I'm not going to do a five-hour podcast with you guys about it, but I have a lot of respect. I wonder if it's got to be similar to the way that I felt in the 2000s going back and trying to watch every Elliot Gould movie and being like, oh, this is why Bob and Carol and Ted Nellis.

49:55This is why my parents were the way that they were. MASH. God, Little Murders. You go deeper and deeper and you keep finding these kind of defining cultural aesthetics and points of view that then characterize your favorite annoying podcast hosts who have a very specific attitude towards things like ballerina because they were raised in the fire of a movie like Dogma. And it's cool. It's nice. I have no angst whatsoever about getting older and this movie getting older. And I think part of it is because as you'll hear from Kevin, he's just such an enthusiastic and grateful avatar for this period in cultural history and the work that he was able to do.

50:35And it's just like, I mentioned it to him at the time and I wrote a column about him some years ago on The Ringer, how I saw him in 2000 speak at Cornell when I was going to Ithaca College. And it was the, I think it was the second date of what was going to be a four city college tour where he sold out whatever, like 2 ,000 seats in a theater at a college and just talked about his life. He talked about the things he had been working on, the movies that he had made, the experiences he had had as an independent filmmaker. And then he would open it up for Q &A and he did like two hours of Q &A. And we were there for four hours and it was honestly one of the most fun nights of my life because he opened the doors to the world that he was living in in a way that no filmmaker ever had to me or really, I think, in any way since.

51:18And he's just a remarkable storyteller. and I view that night as very meaningful for me as very much like wanting to get closer to the world that he was living and understand things the way that he was starting to understand them and was willing to share with people why they were the way that they were so I'll use that as a way to tee up my conversation with uh with Kevin Smith CR Amanda thank you guys let's go to Kevin right now.

51:48For the first time ever, Kevin Smith is on the podcast. I'm honored and delighted. And, you know, to prepare for this conversation, I had to break out my special edition 2000 Dogma DVD because it's been damn hard to find this movie until now. So why is that? Why was it been so hard, even though we all loved it so much in 2000? For those who weren't around at the turn of the century. In 1999, let me paint you a picture. Disney doesn't own Marvel yet. Marvel's not even a thing. Marvel's a struggling comic book company that is almost about to fold. The movies are a ways off. So Disney, like a lot of majors, were for some reason interested in winning awards.

52:40They can make box office numbers, but none of them could win awards like, say, a company like Miramax. Miramax, for those who don't follow film history all that closely, although on the big picture, I'd be shocked if you didn't know this. But to put it in the parlance of our times, kids, they were the A24 of their day. All of the interesting shit was coming out of Miramax back then. And so in 1993, I believe it was, Disney, the Walt Disney Company, bought Miramax, which came with the brothers that ran it, Titan Your Sphincters, I have to say the name out loud, Harvey Weinstein and Bob Weinstein.

53:19And so I feel, this is my theory, and I can't prove this, but I feel my entire career has been a result of a reaction to a criticism that came from the sale of Miramax to Disney. Now, there was no internet then, kids, if you can believe that shit. So if you wanted to let people know you were mad about a thing, you'd write a letter into the newspaper or you wrote, you know, an article in the paper, you know, and this is pre-internet, versioning internet was just starting to enter homes at this point. There was no, like, way for everybody to get on Twitter and be like, I'm pissed. There was no Twitter or even X or whatever the fuck.

54:07that being said when the sale of miramax uh to disney went through criticism arose and again i don't know where we would have heard it i guess just in articles probably in the trades probably in in a lot of indie filmmaking magazines like filmmaker magazine or aivf uh that it was the death knell for independent film. Now that Disney, now that the mouse owns Miramax, nothing interesting will happen. They're going to start homogenizing. Like, you know, Miramax was coming off of the piano and the crying game. Those were going to be out the window. Everybody's clutching their pearls. I honestly feel, and again, I never had this conversation with anybody to prove it, but I believe that Clerks was purchased at the 1994 Sundance Film Festival, not because of its quality, which if you've ever seen the movie, it looks like it was shot through a glass of milk.

55:11It's an enjoyable movie. It's a wonderful movie, Kevin. Everyone loves it and you know it. But it's, you know, it's an outsider art. It's like, you know, it's some kid from Arkansas who's never been anywhere who made a Mona Lisa. and people are like, oh my God, he made it out of cow shit. It's that kind of thing. So I feel, because going into Sundance, anyone who could have bought the movie had seen it and passed. We had fans in every company. Your Fine Lines, your Arrow, your IRS, your Miramax, of course. October didn't even exist back then. so we had fans in every company but nobody could pull a trigger nobody was in charge generally a youngster who worked in the company was trying to hip somebody to our flick but nobody could pull the trigger so when we went to Sundance we went going like you know that's it this is the best it could ever be is we're going to Sundance which mind you was pretty much what Sundance was about in those days.

56:20Prior to the year that we went to Sundance in 1994, no film had ever sold at the Sundance Film Festival. Now, well, the festival has changed in many ways over the course of the last few years, but it was defined for a long period of time as a Cinderella story location where these young filmmakers carry their film up to the top of the hill and come down with movie deals. That never happened until 1994. Most deals were made prior to Sundance and after the festival was over. Nobody had ever sold a movie at the festival until John Pearson sold Go Fish. First movie that ever sold at Sundance while the festival was going on.

56:59He sold it right before the first screening, I think he was negotiating because it was an unseen, very hot movie. he also represented clerks clerks was the second movie that ever sold at sundance so i honestly feel because then i was introduced to harvey weinstein and then i was introduced to jeffrey katzenberg who had you know they were like this is kevin smith he made clerks it cost like 30 grand and he goes oh we'll give you 10 we'll give you 3 million you can make 10 of those So introduced to him and knowing the climate at the time, I honestly feel that we were purchased to indicate to anyone who was writing about film that nothing had changed at Miramax.

57:47It was almost a defiant like, oh, you think we've sold out to Disney? We are going to pick the filthiest, most foul-mouthed, basic, independent film that we could find at Sundance, and we're going to slap a fucking Disney logo on that shit. So I do feel like my career was a reaction to the sale of Miramax to Disney. That benefited me. in 1999, it came back to bite us in the ass. So we make Clerks, Miramax picks it up. Next movie we make is Mallrats with Universal Gramercy Pictures, which was co-owned between Universal and Polygram. And then the next thing we do before Mallrats comes out, I'm wise enough to make an overall deal at Miramax with our friend, John Gordon, who went on to produce red state with me and then produced david o russell's academy award winning movies he was like come here man like you you did clerks with this i don't know why he went to universal but set up your shingle here so we set up our shingle there and chasing amy was the first movie we had made under their ages and then dogma was the second they were told from the jump by michael Weisner.

59:02Don't make this movie. Like it's going to cause trouble. Now here's another theory of mine. Again, no proof whatsoever, but this is my theory. Harvey and Bob went through a similar process with what they would go through on Dogma with Larry Clark's first movie, Kids. It was a Miramax film until Disney was like, this is tantamount to child pornography. Get rid of this. It was a polemic, according to Disney. So Harvey and Bob, rather than sell it to a competitor, they bought the movie away from Miramax themselves, paid Disney for the movie, and then released it themselves to a company they created called Shining Excalibur.

59:48Now, since the Miramax deal with Disney, whatever money came in for those movies went to Disney. And I think the Weinstein brothers rewarded themselves appropriately. I don't think they were hurting, but all the box office went to the parent company with kids. All that money went to them and they made a lot of money. So my take on the situation was since they knew, since Michael Eisner made it very clear, even to an underling like myself, that like dogma was not to be made at Miramax. They wanted no trouble, you know, with Catholics or anything. Harvey still made the movie and I believe it's because you know I would like to believe it was because of a commitment to art.

1:00:35I think he knew if I make this movie and they hate it, like they hated kids, I got a model. But this time around, and this is just my contention again, no proof whatsoever, but this is my conjecture and I'll tell you why. But this time around, why would we pay Disney? like they're gonna want it gone so we were initially being kept to a budget of four million dollars on dog which would have been nearly impossible the movie was very ambitious we barely got it made for the for the 10 that we had because the boys were in goodwill hunting and goodwill hunting blew up and they won an oscar that gave us more breathing room we moved to a $10 million budget.

1:01:23I think they wanted to keep it close to four because it's much easier to like make$4 million movie disappear than a 10 million. But I think at the end of the day, the heat was so strong. You know, the Catholic league, it was never the Catholic church. Some people like, man, the Catholic church, Pope never says shit about this movie. Catholic church, guilty of many things, smart enough to understand if you don't want people paying attention to something, you don't point at it and say its name. We were attacked by the Catholic league, a self-appointed media watchdog group here in the States, run by a guy named Bill Donnie, who had white hair then, so I can't imagine he's still around in this day and age, but he was older then.

1:02:01So they were making all this noise, and it got so bad that, you know, we had 400 ,000 pieces of hate mail, three legitimate death threats. They had to install metal detectors at the Palais in Cannes for the first time because there were death threats. When we showed up at the New York Film Festival to debut the film, thousand protesters in front of Alice Tully Hall. So it was pretty contentious. So Disney was like, get rid of this. And I think they were like, gladly. And that was it. I don't think for years, we were told they bought the movie. And I'm like, oh, I guess that makes sense. Why would Disney just let them walk away with that?

1:02:41But years later, we asked Disney to provide a receipt. Like, you know, I was like, this sounds stupid, but I would have to imagine if ownership of a movie changed hands, there'd be some paperwork somewhere or a receipt indicating that, yeah, they paid us back the$10 million. And we waited to find that for a while. And one of the answers I got back was all of this took place before records were digital. so all of this lies in a warehouse somewhere in the valley yeah if if we can find it we cannot locate the indiana jones ark of the covenant museum is where it's hidden yeah so i don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but having worked at that company i i do feel like disney was happy to be rid of that movie and i don't think they were ever doing paperwork to to see if they got paid back.

1:03:39An unimportant part of the story, except later on when I'm trying to get this movie back, I'm like, wait a second, do I even have to get it back? I may own it based on the fact that if no money exchange hands, it comes back to the guy who made the movie. So back in the day, Miramax owned by Disney. They told him to get rid of this movie. Harvey and Bob took it. They released it not through a company they created, but they broke it up. Theatrical rights went to a fledgling Canadian company called Lionsgate that hadn't done a lot, but had done enough. Mark Ehrman was the guy that was running the company, Tom Ortenberg at that point.

1:04:24And they were kind of an indie upstart, did very small films, but Harvey didn't want to let the movie go to focus or let the movie go to fine line. They were competitors. he didn't see Lionsgate as a threat and he knew Mark Erman and stuff. And so they made a sweetheart deal. Theatrical went through Lionsgate. When we hit 30 million at the box office, Lionsgate took out a double page ad in variety going$30 million. Lionsgate has arrived. You know, years later, Lionsgate would go on to make Twilight and the Hunger Games. And they'd be a lot more than 30, but it was charming. I still have it framed.

1:05:05It's at Smodcastle Cinemason. So Lionsgate had theatrical, and that ended once the movie was done with its theatrical life. Sony, Columbia TriStar, and Mike Stratford, he was the guy who was in charge of DVD division and the father of bonus value material on DVD. He's the one that pushed that forward in the medium. They had the home video rights. Columbia, not Columbia, Criterion we had done a Chasing Amy DVD with Criterion and so they're like we'll do Dogman a heartbeat but Criterion in those days and it's probably the same still now didn't pay as much as like the studio Columbia Dry Star was like we'll give you way more and so it wound up going there and they did a phenomenal It's a great disc, yeah DVD, no complaints whatsoever so let me see what year 2008 i go from miramax to the weinstein company when when the weinsteins leave miramax behind and start the weinstein company and we do clerks two with them in 2006 and then we do zach amiri in 2008 and then that was it then i walked away so 2009 represents the 10th anniversary of dogma and so i start writing hey 10th anniversary like what what are we gonna do nothing um i go for the 15th same thing hey dogma 15th what's going on during this time they were doing stuff like remember they had the artist they were they were back on top winning awards and shit.

1:06:48So I, and my dopey ass movie from a decade or more ago was an afterthought, if any thought whatsoever. And I would write and I'd reach out. Nobody ever got back and stuff. I would hear from people all the time who were like, Hey man, I can't get dogma anymore unless I pay a hundred bucks on eBay and stuff. I was like, I'm not in charge of that. The video deal must've lapsed. I'll put in a word again and I would write and nobody would write back and stuff. So I didn't talk to anybody at Weinstein or Harvey in particularly. When I left from 2008, the only other time I spoke to him, because I would reach out, never hear back.

1:07:27When we took Red State to Sundance, I was, we were, you know. Doing the auction thing. Yes. I thought I would save independent film. It was a cool idea. I liked it. It was fun. And it also birthed the model that I worked off of for the next 10 years, touring the movie myself. It wasn't a revolutionary idea. Really, I could have truncated the speech down to, I'm going to take my movies to smaller places and charge more money. Goodbye. And that was it. So it was a model that has worked for us ever since. And including just recently with the Dogma tour. So while I'm there for that red state screen, we're telling people, we're going to auction the movie and shit.

1:08:08And so it was packed and everybody who wanted to buy it was there. I'm sitting in the bag of the theater and it was at the Eccles which is the school essentially it's like the grandest room at Sundance huge like a thousand seat or something but technically it's at the high school it's just a big high school theater so if you're in the back they don't have traditional doors they got a curtain and I'm sitting in the back leaning on the back wall watching my flick and then I hear from out in the hallway like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that unmistakable voice of Harvey. And so I open the curtain and look, and there he is barking at some underling or something like that.

1:08:49And I close the curtain, because he stopped talking, roll my eyes, go back to watch my movie. Then, blah, blah, blah, blah, even louder and shit like that. And if I'm hearing it, that means everyone in the back of the theater is hearing it. And it's at the beginning, first 15 minutes of Red State. So I did something completely uncharacteristic. because I'm not a brave person, nor am I a tough guy by any stretch of the imagination. I opened the curtain. I said, hey, and he looks over at me. He's talking to his assistant. He looks over and I go, shut the fuck up. And he looked so fucking surprised.

1:09:23And I was like, I'm showing my movie in here. I would never do this to you if you were showing one of your movies. Shut the fuck up. And I closed the curtain. I waited for him to come storming through and punch me, but he never showed up. So I wouldn't consider that a conversation, but I did address him after I left after Zach and Mary and between this moment when I get this phone call. I get a phone call one day, and it's like I haven't been at Zach and Mary. I left Weinstein Company at least almost a decade ago at this point. And I get a phone call, and they go, hold for Harvey Weinstein. So click, Kevin Harvey.

1:10:00I say, hey, how are you? And he goes, good. You know what? I just realized I got dogma. I said, yeah, you do. and everyone's always asking me about home video, man, because the Columbia TriStar deal laughs. He goes, I know. He's going like, look, this movie's got an amazing cast. He's going, all these people are still working and we could make a sequel. And I was like, what? Yes, I would love to do that. He goes, or at least a streaming series. I got to figure we could carry the story on. Are you interested in that? I said, yeah, man, I'm very interested. And he goes, all right, so I'll give you a call next week.

1:10:30We'll get into this. And I was like, all right. And I hung up and I was so fucking excited because I felt like I'd been forgotten. like a part an important part of indie film history for miramax in the beginning and then when we left they were like fuck them and you know this is also right around the time same time the the internet is also to some degree like fuck them so it's kind of starting to feel like oh my god like we never should have left but we did and i was trying to make it on my own and stuff like that and so the fact that suddenly he was talking about dogma again after me trying to fucking like remind these cats hey you own this movie was music to my ears man i couldn't wait three days later the new york times piece comes out and i was like you know like i i've seen many people online be like they everyone had to know nobody knows when somebody's fucking committing crimes they don't broadcast that kind of shit so all of us who i know we're like fucking reading the new york times like holy shit so you start calling everybody that you ever worked with to be like what the fuck man what the fuck did you know what the fuck so i'm talking to john gordon who's our exec there for years and then you know john went on to he ran universal for red one red hot minute with donna langley and then then he went on to like produce well he produced red state with me but then he made like david o russell's like award-winning movies and shit so i'm talking because I met John at Miramax.

1:11:59He was our guy that got us to do the overall deal. So we come up together. So I was like, you know, oh my God, this is fucking, what a horror show, what the fuck? So after we talked for like 10, 15 minutes, I said, John, I said, I gotta tell you something. And it honestly makes me fucking queasy and I feel dirty. He's like, what? I said, this guy called me last week. He goes, what? I said, I haven't heard from this dude in like a decade. And he called me last week to talk about doing a dogmacy. and i got real fucking excited man because like i've always wanted to like revisit dogma and like you know after i've been trying to get in touch with them talking about the home video deal lapsing and the anniversaries like that was music to my ears and john goes he's real sober as a judge he goes kevin he had no interest in dogma he was just calling to see if you were one of the people who was a source for the new york times article if you didn't answer the phone he would have assumed you were one of the sources, but the fact that you answered the phone and you were happy to hear from him told him that you were oblivious.

1:13:01So he had no intention of doing anything with dog. He was just casing himself before he knew the inevitable was about to happen. So in terms of the egregious things that Harvey Weinstein's done, let's all agree that doesn't even make the fucking list, but it was, you know, yet another fucking blow and, and just, it sucked, man, you know, and then But what sucked even worse was finding out Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jersey Girl, Clerks 2, Zack and Miri. These were all made under the aegis of this guy. Like, my dreams came true under this monster. For others, he was this fucking nightmare. So you carry that cross with you.

1:13:47Like, you know, up until then, there'd been no price for my art, so to speak. And now it's like, oh, like for me, there'll always be this kind of taint to it. So what happened happened. And he went through some legal troubles, wound up in jail for the 20th anniversary. As the 20th was coming, I started reaching out again because I was like, you know what, man, like maybe he'll just sell it now. So I wrote a heartfelt letter to a convicted rapist, sent it in through the lawyer saying, look, you made many movies. I've only made a few. this one is tied in with my childhood faith with my dead father you're not doing anything with it please sell it back to me and I offered 250 grand it was a place to start heard back from lawyer absolutely not wrote another letter offered 500 grand heard back from lawyer absolutely not that's about where I could go and that would have been me closing Jane Silent Bob's secret staff so beyond that I had to reach out to some people who might be have a vested interest in seeing dogma live further and whatnot.

1:14:52Then I got back to the dude, wrote another letter, offered a million bucks, still heard back from the lawyer. No. So what we'd heard from inside was he was holding out for 5 million. And if I had$5 million, like I'd make a brand new movie, mother fuck Brian, some old ass movie. I love dogma, but so that, that point, that was that I was like, I, I'm not, I'm never going to get 5 million for it. And even if I could raise 5 million, like I, I wouldn't feel good about paying that. And it would take a long time to make that kind of money back in this environment. Like shit, 10, maybe 15 years ago, we could earn that back with, you know, home video licensing deals and stuff and just selling dvds and and and blu-rays now in the streaming age it's just it's a different world altogether so it would take me if i spent five million to buy that movie of my own money which i don't fucking have so i'd be on the hook for money to somebody else it would probably take me 10 years if i could earn it out you know just by licensing the movie showing the movie not talking about making a sequel or turning it into something else.

1:16:03So I was like, you know what? Maybe it's for the best. I didn't have the money anyway. So fuck it. Then eight months ago, I get this phone call from Alessandra Williams. Who's like, I have dogma. Would you like to come talk about it? And I was like, well, you, you have my interest. I'm intrigued. So I met with her at the San Jose bungalows and she, what we've, what we learned at that point, what we were told then, was she was in charge of a company, a hedge fund that bought a tranche of movies from Harvey Weinstein. He was going back into court. I guess he's in court right now. So he knew he needed money and I guess he liquidated whatever assets he had left.

1:16:50So in this tranche of movies was some karate films I guess he had bought in the wake of Kill Bill. um larry clark's movie kids michael moore's movie fahrenheit 9-11 which went through the same experience that me and kids went that dogma and kids went through with harvey and bob buying that movie personally and releasing it and making a hundred million dollars um and uh dogma so you know they sold off everything and they were like ben affleck's in this so you know she was like so we have it and and i was like can i buy it and she was like no so i was like fair enough and she was like what would you do with it what would you want to do with it and i said well i've been touring movies lately you know now like clerks three jane son bob shrink back all the way back to red state like is great it's a party and stuff and this movie would be like an instant easy fucking sell are you kidding me like you know i didn't tour the 4 30 movie because i was like oh man i'd have to educate everybody on this what this is clerks three jane son bob reboot easy to tour because people are like well i know what the originals are and stuff and dogma i was like oh my god taking out that movie like in this day and age where people are like take me back to the fucking 90s like it was going to be an easy sell in my book so uh she was like would you put it in theaters re-release it i was like well i mean the way we do it is we just go to like big theaters for wallet shit like that and she goes you wouldn't just put it in on a big screen again and i was like i don't think anybody's interested in that sort of thing june 5th the movie comes out on like 1500 screens everywhere because i at one point i was like look why don't you sniff around amc man like instead of sniffing around a studio find a partner amc did that deal with taylor swift and she seems very smart so why not try that out and so she did it and and bam we're coming out on all these screens so i was like i thought i knew the story then about shit six weeks ago eight weeks ago well at this point because i went on tour for the whole last month so maybe at this point 10 weeks ago um alessandra's like hey i produced a movie that's at the beverly hills film festival will you go watch it and i said oh my god absolutely so i go watch the flick is it better interestingly enough the beverly hills film festival is at gromish chinese theater which is not in beverly hills for those who don't live in the area but it was an easy walk for me because i live right up the hill from the chinese so i went to watch the flick had a good ass time I talked text to her afterwards I say hey man like I have a festival at my own movie theater I said I got you know I got Smog Castle Cinemas over in Atlantic Highlands New Jersey and the fourth edition of the film festival is coming up so if you give me a link I'll submit the movie to Ernie you know Ernie O'Donnell who runs the place and he'll put it in the festival and she goes oh my god that'd be great then my mom could see it and I was like oh does your mom live in manhattan because we're like across the the river from from the city and she goes no my mom lives across the street from the movie theater and i was like we've been working together this long is the first time you thought to mention that she goes well i didn't want to creep you out and i was like too late and she goes well it gets even creepier i said what and she goes you know jane silent bob secret stash i said quite well it's my comic book story and she goes i used to work at Cocoa Paris right down the street.

1:20:08And I was like, who the fuck are you, man? And then finally she dropped dime. So at age 10, her very permissive mother lets Alessandra watch Dog. And she loves it. Some of it she understands, some of it she don't, but she watches it over and over again. Alessandra grows up, becomes an actress, producer, mover and shaker. She's one of the most insanely well-connected people I've ever met in my entire life. And I haven't met her until recent. So she's sitting around, I guess, watching fucking YouTube or she sees me give an interview someplace where I'm sitting there going like, I tried to get the movie back from Harvey, but we can't get Dogma back.

1:20:48And she goes, oh my God, I used to love that movie. More people should see it. I'm going to help them. And that's exactly how we wound up here. she went and fucking raised money and then hit up his lawyer and right place right time i guess that dude needed money more than he needed it when we were trying to fucking get the movie five years ago or whatever the fuck because he sold off that tranche of film store and she was able to sell off the other movies and be like great now we can concentrate on fucking dogma so she's like you know would you ever think about doing a sequel i was like uh yes like fuck yeah that'd be fantastic When I started my career, I was like, I'll never do a sequel.

1:21:27I got enough original ideas to last me a lifetime. But, you know, you can watch Clerks 3 on home video right now. So in a world where I'm open to playing with my toys again, as I like to express it, you know, fucking Dogma would be amazing to play in that sandbox again. Because the kid who made Dogma, who wrote it and directed it, believed in everything you see on the screen. Like, that's not him making fun of religion. That's his fucking faith. I don't have that belief, those beliefs anymore. Now I have good ideas as we say in the movie. So heading into a dogma follow-up is a complete, is coming in from a completely different angle.

1:22:08The one I, that we've seen that people like, not the one I'm going to make that everyone will hate, but the one that I made that people like came from like 21, 22 years of a life, including eight years of Catholic school, 12 years of being an altar boy, every Sunday in church and whatnot. So it was fed by my faith. And I wouldn't say I fetishized my faith, but I was a big fan of being Catholic. I think it was a big part of my identity and stuff. And then now I don't have that way in anymore. Now there's less life in front of me than there was behind me, which is the reverse of where I was when I wrote Dogma.

1:22:48I'm not in the same, the same cosmology does not wash for me in this day and age. So it's presented like this crazy bridge back into the material from the complete other side. Young man wrote that first movie, an old man who's scared of dying and almost died a few years ago. And then went crazy two years ago is the one that's writing the sequel. So buckle up, kids. If you love Dogma, just keep on loving it. No guarantees on the sequel, but I'm having a fucking blast writing it, and I couldn't have done it unless Alessandra just came out of the woodwork. Now, the point of that whole story is, I know people, and I made that movie, and I have direct connections to all the players and could get money, and I could not make any of this happen.

1:23:38we're literally living in Alessandra's dream she was able to accomplish what I couldn't with my own movie as you know the kids say nowadays she can manifest the best manifester I've ever met in my life if you're an up-and-coming filmmaker or a seasoned old uh pro or an honest down and out fucking old broken boxer of a filmmaker like myself get to know this woman it's fucking crazy Like we went to can, I just got back from fucking can. I'm like, I'm doing this as if I need proof. Here's my fucking can badge from 2025. We I've been to can three times in my life prior to this trip. Once in 1994 with clerks, total accident.

1:24:22I never thought, you know, I was making a movie that would go to can. Um, we went into international critics week and wound up winning the pre delage you nest with the prize of you and the international critics week prize. Fucking nuts. just blind luck first timer, whatever the fucking shit. So I never had an expectation of going to Sundance. Like I didn't make clerks thinking about Sundance because I was like, oh, they only take color movies. Let alone, did I ever think about camp? So I go with clerks and oh my God, like what a first time. We go back in 99 with Dogma. This time we're official selection.

1:24:58So we get to walk up the Palais steps and we screen in the big theater in the Palais, but it's out of competition. so that's my second time to can and magical third time 2006 we go back with clerks too once again we get to walk the palais step it's midnight screening we then go into the debussy theater for that we get eight minutes standing ovation last time i was in can 19 years ago it's been 19 years what i assumed was being communicated was we're good you know with kevin Smith movies because it's been a red hot fucking minute since I ever got anywhere near the festival and shit so I had accepted that like I you know I'm one of these cats it's like I'm a George Carlin acolyte so I believe in entropy he taught me about it at a young age in his comedy routines everything breaks down and shit so in my head everything's always breaking down so in my head I was like well you'll never go back to Cannes that was the time in your life that's magical in the beginning of your career but you didn't wind up being a Cannes type filmmaker you don't make can worthy movies anymore so like enjoy the fact that you ever went i had my three certificates framed on the wall my laurels and shit and then all of a sudden all the sound is like i submitted the movie to can dogma for this year i was like i i don't that don't matter we already went like they ain't gonna take it they took it like we wound up in a section i didn't even know existed called can classics which normally the movie has to be 50 years old but these cats were like fuck it and they said let us go over so i'm like holy shit like i never thought i was gonna go back to can but i get to go back on the wings of of dogma how you know pun intended how awesome so when i went back i went back just ready for the victory lap like you know and last time i was there jennifer was pregnant with harley so she's walking up the steps and harley's in her gut this time i was like oh we could bring harley she could walk up the steps herself man it'll be fun and shit.

1:26:52So we went with no expectation. I won't, I should say I went with zero expectation of just anything, but Oh, how nice they remember me here. And as I was walking around the closet for like the week that I was there, man, like it was crazy. It was like, I was seeing all the places of my youth. I mean, you know, it's not like shit changes in, in the South of France. Like it's beautiful and it stays beautiful so there's the pizza place that me and scott mosier ate at when we first landed in nice and we were fucking terrified didn't know what was going on and should everyone speak in french and we're there with our dirty little black and white american film which david lindy who was in charge of international sales at miramax in the day and then he would go on to run universal years later he swore to us at the sundance film festival but he goes, I'm going to sell the shit out of this movie overseas.

1:27:46And I was like, what? Why? How? Everyone speaks English. And he goes, that's why. He goes, this movie is so American. They're going to eat this up. So when we went to Cannes, we got into the International Critics Week. Miramax went to work selling the movie and sold it everywhere. So I had this kind of international profile at the beginning of my career. So as I'm sitting there walking up and down to Quasette. I'm like, there's that place. There's this place. I walked past the venue where they were doing international critics week, man. And I was like, Oh, like I saw the award ceremony with people heading in.

1:28:20And I got like real misty where I was like, Oh my gosh, I should tell them like, Hey man, I won the prize here. I'm looking at the international critics week award ceremony, watching everybody, youngsters and oldsters going in. And I'm like, do I tell them? Do I go like, hi man i'll give an award out like i got one a few years ago and then i remembered it wasn't a few years ago it was 31 fucking years ago that we were at can you know so as i'm going up and down i was like you know why do you assume that you'll never make a can worthy movie i'm very open to influence and always have been and i've been a creature of the internet since its inception so the internet has always told me like you're bad kevin and i'm like yeah you're right so the internet tells me i suck at my job i'm like yeah you're right i suck at my job it's just easier to believe and i'm a codependent people pleaser when i went nuts and i went to the booby hatch they diagnosed me codependent people pleaser who cannot validate himself so naturally i'm prone to suggestion so i i just felt like well i guess i guess everyone's right like you know i was i did things when i was young and now i'm just waiting for the clock to run out and i always kind of chalked it up to like, yeah, I had your time and your time was wonderful.

1:29:36And I have no complaints and stuff, but I had zero expectation that that journey would ever continue. That part of my life I felt like was over. And now, I'm telling you, it lit a fire into me where I was like, you know what, man? Come back one more time. Sincerely try to come back. I never tried to come the first three times, right? Like I didn't try with Clerks. I didn't try with Dogma. We thought Dogma would be a Sundance movie. And I didn't try with Clerks too. The timing just worked out. So I was like, just for once in your entire fucking career, before you leave this best of all possible world, try to go to King.

1:30:17Let's see what happens. And so we were in the 78th edition this year. So I'm going to try to go back for the 80th, the latest, the 81st, man, But if I can rush real fast and pull everything together, it could be that I can make it in time for 80. So I was on stage at the opening of the Dogma screening, which was just last week, eight days, nine days ago. And so Terry Firmont brings me up on stage. And it was so lovely. They gave me a standing ovation just for showing up, which I was like, oh, I'm old enough now where people are like, hey he's been around for a long time so when i was up there i told them the exact story i told you i was like i you know honestly i've been bitten by the bug i said i'm gonna come back in 80 the cans 80 with a dogma sequel and the whole audience like wow and then terry from all on stage goes if it is good yes good point excellent point way to bring my dreams crashing right back to reality terry so but the dream i'm in right now is not even my dream this is Alessandra's dream.

1:31:24It's crazy that somebody so completely out of the side of the situation defined the current situation for Dogma, defined what it is now. So I've been out on the tour with the movie 20 Cities for the last month. And then I did Cannes. And my God, it's been blissful re-engaging with the movie because I have no choice but to watch it over and over again. And I get to see all my favorite people when they were at their absolute youngest. Oh my God, they look so young. Matt Damon looks like Matt Damon's daughter in the movie. So fucking baby faced and shit. So it's been absolutely lovely. And I have Alessandra to thank for you.

1:32:04So hearing you tell that entire story, I was teleported back to Cornell in 2000 where I saw you speak. Were you there? Were you at the Cornell show? I was. And candidly, kind of magical night for me. And I was a huge fan before that, but what you were doing in front of all of us, which is what you just did, which is speaking at length, in depth, charmingly, with incredible self-disregard, but we all knew you were the man. It's a very interesting magic trick that you're able to pull where you constantly point out that people think that you suck, but we all love you, which is a great move. I do, though.

1:32:46I do. It's like, it's not you and it's not the people who do like my stuff. But, you know, again, I'm a big boy. I was raised on the internet, thank God. So I met the first troll in the beginning. I remember his name was B Buster. Lovely dude. I still know him to this day. His name is Mike. And he lived to be like, you suck. And all these people who like you are stupid. And so that negative reinforcement, since I was raised Catholic, much easier to accept about oneself. So you got to remember, like Martin Scorsese wanted to be a priest until he heard a different calling altogether. And that was his true vocation.

1:33:28But Martin Scorsese was put on this earth to tell stories with images. He is a true bona fide filmmaker. Same as Quentin, same as Richard, Robert. These are cats that were put on this earth, Spielberg, to make movies. I was just a movie fan who was like, that looks fun. and aggregated to trying it. And that first attempt was not meant to be the start of a career. It was meant to be like, well, if I make this right, then if I ever try to do this again, maybe somebody will give me money. I don't have to put it on my own credit cards. So the journey winds up ironically beginning off of the first effort.

1:34:08And I've been ill-prepared ever since, man. When I was on tour with Dogma, there was a guy, I think it was in Chicago. He was lovely. He was sitting in like second row. And during the Q and a after the movie, he goes, has his hand up. I said, yeah. He goes, I've been watching you for years, 30 years. He's got, I started with clerks and stuff and I've seen you. He goes, this is my 19th time seeing you live. And I was like, Oh my God. He goes, now I bring my adult children. And he had a bunch of 20 somethings sitting around them and stuff. And he goes, I just got to know, I've always wondered what's your end game.

1:34:40And I was like, I don't have one. I was like, it's so weird. Like I wasn't ready for any of this. Like I wish I'd been prepared for a life in cinema or a life on the public stage or whatever the fuck. And I'm not saying like, you know, I don't want it. Of course I went after it, but I didn't think any of this was going to happen. So I've just been making it up as I go along. So I told him, I said, look, my end game at this point, die on a movie set. Just go out toes up doing what I love and doing what most people associate me with. Robert Altman, who was one of the greatest American filmmakers who ever lived, went out for my money the absolute right way.

1:35:24He died making a movie. Allegedly a massive stoner in his old age, which is admirable. Why not? And then he left this world with the comfort of knowing Paul Thomas Anderson and we'll finish the movie. Like, take me out that way. Like, oh my God, that's the dream right there. So that's the kind of ethos that now informs dogma. You got to remember the first time it was written, none of this shit. Like, no career, no what do people think about me, none of that. Like, now going back into it and writing a dogma sequel, it's such a weird, different journey because I'm, for lack of a better description, I'm at the tail end of my fucking life at this point.

1:36:13I wrote Dogma at the beginning of my life. So I think it's worth the journey so far. I feel like if you're good at this job, the fucking movie begins for the audience before they even get to the theater. That's why I'm always talking about shit long before it happens. And if you're a magician, the movie keeps going. For a lot of people in my world, Dogma has never ended. It coming back to theaters, they're like, oh, that's nice. but I saw it at Kev's theater like last year and stuff. So I tend to keep things going, extending them. Sometimes like the movies branch off, not into strict sequels, but they're all interconnected.

1:36:50Sometimes I can write about them in comics and stuff like that. But my favorite way to keep the story going is this. Like, honestly, I'm pretty convinced that the last 20 years of my career have been me making movies just so I can go on stage and be like, let me tell you a story about making a movie. um i i ran into and not even ran into i went to the they asked me to present an editing award uh to uh waters so they were like you know give a speech and then get out of the way because fucking waters he's like me he loves the sound of his own voice and he did not disappoint his speech was fucking wonderful but when we were backstage after the ceremony and so taking selfies and shit.

1:37:33He said something to me that I, that I really loved. Um, him and I, you know, he's, he's an absolute maestro and whatnot, but him and I are similar in the way. And as much as we're, we're both very chatty and you know, I've, I've seen many people say the same thing of him, of me, which is like, you know, I'm not real big fan of his movies, but I can listen to that guy fucking talk forever and stuff. And so I was, I got to, you know, I saw John and I was just like, Hey man, I got a movie theater. Like, can you come and do what you do? I know you and I, we do a similar thing and stuff like that.

1:38:11And, uh, he, and then he told me about this like gig that he was just about to go to. And it was a pretty cool gig. And I was like, Oh, that's awesome. And he goes, it's all storytelling. He goes, whether I'm on a movie set or whether I'm standing there telling the story of making these movies is going, I'm a storyteller. So it doesn't really matter what venue I'm in. And he's going in lately. This is the easiest venue to go into, like where he could just talk. And he's such a raconteur and he's got experience and wisdom on his side. So he's very easy to listen to. You know what I'm saying? He can talk the talk and walk the walk.

1:38:44And plus he's just engaging as fuck. So I'm not saying, I ain't saying like the waters is like me, untalented waters is a genius, but I'm the filmmaker who, you know, like I always think Fincher, Fincher's a filmmaker makes a movie and never fucking says shit. You know what I'm saying? He puts it out there and he won't come on this show. Kevin, I've been trying to get him for 10 years. I met him finally at, um, I don't know if I'm, I mean, yeah, it happened. Ben Affleck and got married a couple of years ago. And I think that's over, but I was at that wedding and I was standing outside and, and was like yeah i just i was i can't remember i was smoker in those days i don't think i was so i'm standing no i was so i'm standing outside going grab smoke and this dude comes out and we're standing there bullshitting for a second and then he goes uh kevin i never introduced myself david fincher and i was like that's what you look like i was like holy shit I had no idea, man.

1:39:48Like, he's the filmmaker that like, you know, he ain't like, you know, fucking Charles Foster Kane. He's not a recluse. Yeah, he just doesn't do a lot of stuff. He don't feel the need to go out and explain his fucking art. That's what I love about him as an artist. Like, he puts it out there. He's like, fucking the movie says everything I need to say. Because that's the way it used to be done. I'm of a generation of filmmakers that, because of Miramax, were pushed out in front of their movies because we were the cheapest way to market. Like that's the only way I wind up being this guy because back in the day, that was the genius of Miramax is like no budget release of a movie.

1:40:24You got yourself. A movie comes from France. You got yourself. A movie comes from America made by unknown starring unknowns. You're not going to get on the tonight show or Letterman or good morning America, unless you got some famous people, except they found that these kids with their charming stories about how they got their movies made by hooker by crook made for good tv and made for good like you know interviews so we were pushed out that's how you know me quentin and richard and robert we were of a generation of filmmakers where they were like go speak for your work and the directors i'm not saying nobody ever knew a director's name obviously george lucas steven spielberg george i mean there are names of course but generally speaking directors weren't the sexy you didn't necessarily know the director's name unless you were cine east and stuff but now mainstream people who don't really even consider themselves film fans so to speak can tell you a wes anderson flick you know to say the very fucking least so but at that point man like it was a like a different world altogether and so I feel like those cats were put on this earth to do it I'm part of a generation that was just such a big fan that I was like I want to try it and it worked out for me and stuff and I still I think about my man's question all the time I'm like what is my you know like it should be like win an Oscar but that shit like is like it was never part of my makeup you might as well tell me to like win a fucking Grammy you know what I'm saying like at least an Oscar makes more sense because I work in film, but I just never saw myself as a guy who made awards movies.

1:42:07And so I, you know, I, it's, it's, it's very easy for me to slag on, on Kevin Smith. Now, that being said, like, obviously it doesn't affect me to the point where I like, I can't get anything done. Perhaps it's fuel. Like, you know, perhaps I tell people that don't like me and come after me on the internet. I'm like, Hey man, you could do that, but it's a complete waste of your fucking time. Nothing good is going to come of it. What you do is you use me as your avatars, as a lily pad of some sort, and recognize the fact that if I'm such an idiot and I'm making it work, then it is inevitable that you who are full of talent are going to accomplish the thing as well.

1:42:49And when you do accomplish that thing, guess who you don't care about anymore? Kevin fucking Smith, because your dreams are coming true. So you're not sitting there going like, I hate this fucking guy. suddenly I'm just another cat doing the fucking job and I know where I speak because I have been that person there was people that I cared about before I did my thing and then I did my thing and I don't care about them anymore you kidding me like I count my blessings keep my head down and do my own fucking thing so I you know it's it's it's been an interesting ride career-wise but it's so meta returning to dogma country in a way that I like, not just like, Hey, we're doing a sequel one day, but like to be out there and, and like, you know, meeting people who are like, I saw this movie with my grandmother.

1:43:38She's dead now, but that's why I came out to see it tonight in memory of her. Or, Hey man, I watched this with a girl when I was a kid. And now we got three kids together. It's your fucking fault. And then just some people who like weren't around like, you know, so many fucking young people came with their parents it was like you were come when this movie happened the first time but the most delightful public screening and i loved them all don't get me wrong the tour was great um in can every night i would always ask the audience is like how many people have seen dogma before and 98 of the audience i'd be like how many people have never seen dogma in a theater before and then it would definitely be a high number but not a high percentage not as high as like how many people have seen dogma and then i'd be like and then how many people have never seen dogma before tonight and it was always like under 10 we make fun of people for overpaying 50 to see a movie they've never seen i was like this movie could suck fuck when i went to can and did that same thing i was like how many people have seen dogma before put your hands together and it was the reverse like that very few people had seen it in that room i thought i was going to a room full of people who were like hey it's can classic but there were a bunch of fucking young kids in there that had never seen the movie so i wasn't gonna sit there and watch the flick but then i was like how do i pass this up man like some of the kids there are american working at the american pavilion but some of the kids are just sitting east from france spain all over europe and shit so i was like i can't pass this up man like what's it gonna play like for the fresh audience i've been on a nostalgia tour where everyone coming to see it has seen it before and has a built-in affection for it so to have this like clean screening so so to speak, or the cleanest one I've had in a while with a bunch of people that admitted, like, I've never seen this movie.

1:45:23It was intriguing to me. And it was so fucking rewarding, man. Cause it was like, Oh, like now after all these years, I'm like, I think people just laugh in all these places to be polite. Like, it's the same way. I think my wife just pretends to come to be polite. So being at that fucking screening, I was like, these motherfuckers ain't pretending shit. Like some of them are struggling to understand the language and they're still keeping up with it. So that felt good. I spend a lot of time hearing shit about me as a filmmaker, people telling me that I'm no good at my job, but there are moments where I'm like, I don't know, like, like not every movie gets to go to can.

1:45:58And I have one that went fucking twice. I've got two sets of laurels on one movie. Like, and I know that was an old movie. So people can amend it and be like, well, you haven't made a good movie in a long time. That's fine. Whatever. But like, I don't know. This is the one thing I feel satisfied about. When I'm done, nobody's going to try to replicate this stupid-ass career. You know what I'm saying? It will be singularly mine, like a work of art. People will be like, I ain't going to try that. It was fucking dumb. He made a lot of mistakes, but it is his. So I kind of appreciate that aspect. I know you got to go.

1:46:35I'm going to proffer a quick theory, and then I'm going to ask you the last question. The theory is this. I think everything that you said is true about the way that you guys were utilized to market the movies and that this was a pathway to being able to talk publicly. But I would argue, and you can agree with it or disagree with it, but that maps perfectly onto your art. There is a sequence in Dogma where Ben gives a speech in a parking garage to Matt's character. And I was like, that's how Kevin's brain works. There are moments when Jeff Anderson is talking in the Clerks films, and I'm like, that's how Kevin's brain works.

1:47:06There are sequences when Jason Lee's characters are talking in your movies. And I feel like that's how Kevin's brain works in the same way that when I was in the audience in Cornell and when I've been listening to your podcast and seeing what your life and career has become over the last quarter century. I'm like, I just like Kevin's brain. You know, maybe I don't love every movie, but I like the brain. And that's but that is the art that you're making. So it's not. So don't denigrate yourself. You've done better than ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine house. They couldn't even beat it out of me, man.

1:47:34And after a month, they were like, are you cured? I was like, fuck no. I still don't like myself. And I still think I'm shit. But it has fueled all this. I mean, that's the thing. And the point that I made to them when I was in the booby hatch. Like, there are moments where, you know, I could trace everything back to, like, fucking where everything begins, where, you know, I start needing fucking validation and shit. if it doesn't happen and if i then am not this needy creature constantly seeking validation from strangers i mean that's the trick mind you i don't my mother gave me validation my father gave me validation my wife gives me validation my kid my fucking dogs love me falls on deaf ears because i was like they have to love me has to be has to come from fucking strangers and shit like that so with all this time of like trying to grab you know 30 years spent seeking validation from strangers i i feel like fuck now i lost the question what were we it wasn't even a question it was just i think what you're talking about that you like transformed your career into a certain thing was always the art it was always the thing you were making in the films they may not look like Quentin's films or whatever, but that is still the art that you were making.

1:48:49The only question I had was just that we end every episode of this show by asking filmmakers what's the last great thing that they have seen. You run a movie theater. I do run a movie theater. And let me see. What did I... I just... Here, this is as high a compliment as I can pay any movie. As I'm writing the Dogma sequel, you look for nourishment. from movies that are like, oh, and you know, sometimes they're, there's very rarely one for one where it's like, you know, I'm not watching dogma to get inspiration. It has to be something else, things you aspire to or things that have captured your imagination or things that are incredibly fucking smart, which made me pay attention the first time.

1:49:36So I've been rewatching the first hour of heritage, which I fucking love. Like not since I made dogma. I remember watching the movie and, you know, I'd seen the trailer. I was like, that seems interesting. So I was watching the movie and as it's playing the first like 20 minutes, this is me the whole time where I was like, oh, oh, kindred spirit. I was just going to say the pop culture philosophizing of the film is right in your wheelhouse. Oh my God. It was porn for me. So if you haven't seen Heretic, absolutely Heretic, I adore. companion which stars the same actress um sophie thatcher yes fantastic she's such a great actress but she was wonderful in companion and i thought companion was so fucking smart and original i'd seen the trailer and i knew kind of where it was going i still didn't like on the day of i was like wow i was very pleased by that um the last year i i'm you know not like awards matter but I was like, fuck, they should have cleaned up the substance.

1:50:43Jesus Christ, man. You talk about a movie that is like hold my beer to itself for the last half hour. You know what I'm saying? Like, I remember somebody saw it and they're like, you're going to love it. And I was like, why do you think that? Like, well, you made Tusk. And so I thought they meant for the rubber horror of it. And so I talked to him afterwards. Like, you didn't know when to end your movie either. And I was like, you're out of your fucking mind. I'll take the heat on Tusk. But that the fact that she kept fucking going when it was like, all right, well, that's even if you ended it there, it would be further than most filmmakers would go.

1:51:18But every step of the way, I was like, this is one of the bravest acts of cinema I've ever seen in my fucking life. Those are great recommendations. Kevin, thank you for everything. And thank you for sharing some time. Such a pleasure, man. Thanks for having me on. It was a great conversation.

1:51:37Thank you to Kevin Smith. Thanks to Sierra and Amanda. Thanks to our producer, Jack Sanders. We'll be back on Friday. We were going to do two different episodes. We were going to do the Life of Chuck and Materialist. And I've seen Materialist now. I've seen the Life of Chuck. Do you see Life of Chuck yet, Amanda? Going tomorrow. I got to talk to you about the schedule, actually, but off mic. Okay. Off mic. I see some interesting connectivity between these two projects. So I think it would be good to put them together in a conversation about what we really want from movies and how do we get it.

1:52:12Isn't that a conversation? Well, this one is uniquely well suited to the two of us. Yeah. Yes. So we will see you then.

1:52:34Thank you.