by Damon Martin Judgment Day is happening friends, and it won't be Arnold Schwarzenegger staring you down with a leather jacket and a 9mm. No, Rapture 2011 is coming courtesy of Family Radio founder Harold Camping, who predicted through what has to be painstaking and meticulous research that... more

by Damon Martin

Judgment Day is happening friends, and it won't be Arnold Schwarzenegger staring you down with a leather jacket and a 9mm.

No, Rapture 2011 is coming courtesy of Family Radio founder Harold Camping, who predicted through what has to be painstaking and meticulous research that Jesus is coming back to claim his flock on May 21 at around 6 PM.



Camping first predicted the world would come to an end in September 1994, though he admits that he got his calculations wrong that time around. Since then, he's apparently got a more dependable abacus, and, despite his previous shortcomings, is 100% positive that he's correct this time. On the appointed date, millions across the world will apparently disappear like they were in the movie The Langoliers, while the remaining sinners will be left to fend for themselves until God comes down on October 21 to put us all out of our misery.

"It's going to happen. It's going to happen. I don't even think about those kind of issues," Camping told New York Magazine when asked if he'll be worried if six o’clock rolls around and there are no major earthquakes. "The Bible is not - God is not playing games. I don't even want to think about that question at all. It is going to happen."

While Camping has gone as far as buying billboards to advertise Jesus' return, most religious scholars scoff at his claims. Of course it's not because they believe the whole rapture thing is about as likely as Noah packing a boat full of every species on the planet to survive a flood while living for 950 years, but it's a close second.

People are taking Camping's rapture declaration so seriously that an event has been created on Facebook so the heathens left behind can do a little social-media organized post-rapture looting. With millions of electronics store-owning Christians out of the way, the real party can begin. Meanwhile an atheist-run business is offering to look after the pets that are left behind (for a small fee of $135 - payable in advance of course).

The humor in Camping's statements is pretty clear, but serious scientists still have to answer stupid questions about his clearly bat shit crazy claims. World renowned evolutionary biologist and famed atheist author Richard Dawkins was interviewed about Camping's claims, and seemed to show equal parts of anger and humor when responding to a reporter from The Washington Post.

Camping however would surely laugh at Dawkins' ridiculous "scientific" claims that the world will not end on May 21, because the Bible, as he tells it, was written by God. Yes, you heard that right...Camping believes the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelations is strictly the word of God and that's where the rapture prediction truly came from.

"I know reporters don't like to hear from the Bible, but the Bible has every word in the original language - it was written by God," Camping stated. "Incidentally, no churches believe that at all, they don't hold the Bible in the high respect that it ought to be. But every word was written right from the lips of God."

So at 6pm on Saturday if the world starts to shake, and the oceans roar and the mountains crumble, don't say Camping didn't warn you - The rapture is coming, look busy.

“Donny doesn’t give a fuck,” is how Eli Roth sums up the bloody-minded motivations of his character in Quentin Tarantino’s delirious new WWII film, Inglourious Basterds. A Boston-bred Jewish kid turned soldier who is fully aware of the existence and breadth of the Holocaust as it’s occurring, and... more

“Donny doesn’t give a fuck,” is how Eli Roth sums up the bloody-minded motivations of his character in Quentin Tarantino’s delirious new WWII film, Inglourious Basterds. A Boston-bred Jewish kid turned soldier who is fully aware of the existence and breadth of the Holocaust as it’s occurring, and is motivated by inconsolable rage towards Nazis as a result, Donny is one of many carefully-sculpted, subtly modernized characters in a film that is itself a counterfactual kaleidoscope, cut loose from the moorings of history and propelled solely by the emotional impulses of its makers. Donny’s blind, seething anger – and the justice he dispenses with a baseball bat – are the secret weapons of the Basterds, an unlikely platoon of Jewish-American soldiers dropped into Nazi-occupied France by the Allies to act as a roving insurgency, capturing and mutilating Nazi stragglers in order to unnerve the German high command. At least, that’s their mission until they become tasked with something even grander a top-secret assignment to target the Nazi leadership, which is personally shepherded by a cigar-chomping Winston Churchill.

Among other things, Inglourious Basterds is ultraviolent, which makes it not utterly new terrain for Roth, who is a long-time friend of Tarantino, as well as the writer/director of the horror smash Hostel and its criminally-underrated sequel, Hostel: Part II. Time and again, Roth’s work has examined the notion of pleasure as a counterpoint to pain, putting a microscope to characters who secretly relish the opportunity to cause suffering in others, and with Basterds he deepens that examination considerably. Few would doubt the righteousness of Donny’s cause, yet this is a soldier for whom revenge has seemingly become indistinguishable from bloodlust; for whom torture and execution are a personal reward, to the point that it’s impossible to imagine him existing within the confines of a real army, or even a more traditional war film. Roth recently called up SuicideGirls to discuss the real-life implications of playing a man consumed with a desire to take Nazi hides, as well as Nation’s Pride, Inglourious Basterds faux Nazi propaganda film-within-a-film that bears his directorial stamp.


Eli Roth: So you do the interviews for SuicideGirls now?

Ryan Stewart: Some of them, yeah.

ER: I remember talking to Daniel Robert Epstein a couple of times, before he passed away.

RS: He was the man. Nobody did it better.

ER: I know. He was a good dude, you’ve got some big shoes to fill. But I’m looking forward to talking to you. I really love the site. I always thought the film interviews, in particular, on the site were really, really fantastic.

RS: Well, you’re talking to a guy who saw Hostel: Part IIfour times in the theater, so I think we’ll get along fine.

ER: I love it, thank you. You’re the one!

RS: Yep. I made my contribution to whatever the box-office was.

ER: It did well. It did better than people think it did. It did well enough for them to make a number three, let’s put it that way. It’s running on cable now, so a lot of people who missed it in the theaters are finally catching it. Also, there was a thing in Entertainment Weekly this week where they listed the twenty greatest horror films of the past twenty years and Hostel: Part IIwas on there. I thought that was nice.

RS: I remember thinking that Lauren German, in particular, deserved a lot more positive attention than she got. She really knocked that role out of the park.

ER: Lauren German is a kind of unsung hero of film. She’s done a lot of indie movies and I wanted Hostel II to blow her up. I think people who see her really do respond to her. She’s a superb, superb actor and I was lucky to work with her. She was really great.

RS: You’re probably starting to become an expert on shooting in Europe.

ER: My third movie in Europe! And my second fake trailer, fake movie. I’ve made three movies in Europe and two fake movies in Europe – Thanksgiving and Nation’s Pride. I love shooting in Europe. I really had incredible experiences on both Hostel movies, and it was a very similar type of crew, a similar method of working, with the German crews in Berlin. It was great, I loved it, and it was very strange for me to be there as an actor. I remember my first crew production meeting as the splinter unit director on Nation’s Pride, and my first instinct was to answer every question, so it was a little strange to sit there next to Quentin while he went around the room with people. But yeah, I loved shooting over there. I like getting out of my element. I like getting outside my comfort zone and going to a new country and exploring a new city and learning a new language and making new friends. I’d love to shoot in every country in the world, make a movie in every different country.

RS: Did you outline Nation’s Pride as a feature? Was it all Quentin’s conception?

ER: Well, what happened was that Quentin had the story in the script. You know, Zoller in the tower firing at the American soldiers. And he had the location picked. And he had some very specific moments, like the Bo Svenson line and the “Who wants to send a message to Germany!” I think there were three specific moments that Quentin wanted to shoot. It was all Quentin’s idea, he just said “I need battle footage,” so he thought maybe just some guys firing and Zoller firing back. And I just gave him two hundred shots in five and a half minutes. In the script Zoller picks a guy apart, so I specifically shot two squibs in the shoulder and him shooting at a guy’s knees. I also flew my brother Gabriel to Berlin and he was my second-unit director, cause I had all these sequences that I wanted to do. We shot piles of bodies getting higher and higher, guys running and falling over walls and being thrown out of buildings. I really wanted it to feel like a war epic. And I came up with this bit of Zoller carving the swastika and Quentin loved it. It was all about the swastika: the swastika and the bullets, Zoller turning and you see the swastika on his helmet, then we showed bullets covering the swastika and there’s been a passage of time and he uncovers it and the power of the swastika gives him the power to continue fighting. [laughs] It was a very interesting experiment for me, pushing myself that hard both as an actor and as a director, and also filming that kind of subject mater. Tonally, it was very different for me. I loved shooting in black and white, I loved shooting that kind of 1940s hammy acting, but I didn’t want it to be a joke. I wanted it to look like an authentic propaganda film. Quentin was ecstatic – he said “Eli, if I had done this it would have been like eight shots, and you did two hundred shots!” That was like a thank you to him, for everything he’s done for me.

RS: Was it emotionally difficult for you, getting those shots? Or all business?

ER: Yeah, it was all business. I mean, I didn’t want it to be a watered-down propaganda movie. The purpose of the film, Nation’s Pride, was for it to be shown in the context of Hitler enjoying it, so I knew the more authentic it was, the more self-aggrandizing it was, the more ridiculous it would make Hitler and Goebbels look. So, I wasn’t making it in order to make the greatest Nazi movie every made, I was making a movie that would show just how ridiculous and self-aggrandizing those buffoons were. They just look like apes when they are sitting and laughing at that stuff and enjoying it. So, sadly, it was all too accurate – a lot of people thought it was an actual propaganda film. They didn’t even realize that I had shot that footage, and I took that as a very high compliment. But no, it was actually much more difficult to film the acting scenes. The directing I love, I get more and more excited as I’m getting my shots, and when I tackle a subject matter I dive into it fully, so that by the time I’m shooting I’ve already gotten over anything that I might be uncomfortable with long before. But when I was shooting that scene where I beat Rachtman to death – beat his head in with a baseball bat – I put on forty pounds of muscle for the part. I went into that character. I said, if I’m gonna do this, if I’m gonna be on screen next to Brad Pitt, I’ve got to dive in like Peter Sellers or Robert De Niro. I had to become the role, and I had always wanted to do that, but I never had a reason to.

Writing and directing is my passion, but when Quentin put this opportunity in front of me, I knew right away that I would have to prove to everyone that there was a very specific reason why Quentin cast me and no one else in that part, and that it had nothing to do with us being friends, and that it wasn’t because we’ve made movies together. It was because he wanted a Jewish guy from Boston, he wanted a guy who could bring intensity, and he felt that I had a talent for acting that I had never mined or pushed myself to fully realize. And now this was a reason to do it. I also knew that I had to win over everyone instantly when I came out of that cave, and it wasn’t just about me putting on muscle, you had to see the look in this guy’s eyes. You had to look in his eyes and see in his face the pain and the anguish and the murderous rage. You had to know that he is going to beat every Nazi to death that he comes across. To do that, I had to dredge up the most painful experiences of my life. And I found that after shooting, even though the scene was fake, the things that I was thinking of were so real that I was just devastated. I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. But I made myself do it repeatedly, day after day, so it was really intense. The acting was a much more intense experience than the directing. With directing, I get physically tired, but I push that aside because I know I’m getting my pieces and the film is gonna work great. But with acting, you are in your head, in your zone, in all of these moments, and then at the end of the day it doesn’t just go away. You can’t just turn it off.

RS: I would think that creating a backstory for Donny would be unnecessary for you. He seems like such a force of nature – a vessel fueled by your own emotions.

ER: You’re wrong, because you can’t do that without the backstory. You can’t just come out and say “This is who I am, and I’m mad!” You have to know that there is a backstory, and that he feels like a real guy. The fact that he feels like a real guy to you means that there is a backstory. Everybody in the film has a backstory. That was the first thing Quentin said to me, he said “This isn’t Death Proof,” which is just a character of a guy who is just showing up and joking around and trying to pick up a girl in a bar and it’s not that much of a character. There was no backstory for that guy, he was just friends with the other guy. This, Quentin said, was to be a 360 degree character, and it’s not just going to be lifting weights to prepare for the part, I’d have to know this guy like I know my best friend. I’d have to know who his parents are, his brothers, his sisters, everything about him, his entire life story. When we got to Berlin, everyone sat around and the first thing we did was to talk about who we are, where we were, and we just talked about everything – in character. There were some people who couldn’t keep up and they were fucking gone the next day. It was a military operation. If you couldn’t keep up, you were out. And there were scenes that we filmed of Donny in Boston cutting hair, and I trained to cut hair for the role. There was a scene that was cut – if Quentin shoots his prequel he’s gonna use it – and producer Pilar Savone, her father owns Umberto salons in Beverly Hills, and Umberto trained me to cut hair! So, I was willing to cut hair for the part – I was that serious about it. Everything has to feel real and full to you, even if it’s never discussed and never explained. You know who Donny is, you know how he relates to the script, you know how the other guys relate to him. And yes, he’s in it for that moment, but he has to make an impact. There’s a reason why Floyd pops in True Romance and why Christopher Walken pops in Pulp Fiction, and it’s not just because they got the funny lines. There’s a full character there with a life and a backstory. Once you see them, you remember them they’re real people. Quentin demanded that everyone create a 360 degree character. Quentin knows and you as an actor know where they’ve been before the war, during the war, after the war, and if they’re killed what they would have gone on to do. That’s what separates Quentin from everyone else, he thinks of the movie to that level of detail. And even if there are scenes in your pocket that are never seen, it’s all stuff that contributes to making it feel real.

RS: The scene where you confront Rachtman, the captured Nazi, is unnerving because he’s so righteous. He’s convinced that of the two of you, he’s the good and noble character.

ER: We discussed it in the rehearsal period, and that’s what made the scene interesting. I think Donny doesn’t give a fuck either way. He’s seen that before. This is a guy that’s already beaten so many Nazis to death, and he’s seen them terrified, and he’s seen them try to act brave, but what made Rachtman an interesting character was that Quentin shows us that the guy has dignity. He’s gonna die a brave war hero. I think Quentin does a wonderful job there of creating someone who is very real and human and does not see himself as the bad guy. But I think that, for Donny, this doesn’t phase him at all. He just doesn’t give a fuck. He’s seen everything in the book and he’s not intimidated by anybody. He’s gonna fucking pummel them. They can act as brave as they want, he doesn’t give a shit. He’s going to demolish them. His job, when he comes out of that cave, is to terrify the other guys that are alive. That’s what Donny is there for, because we need information out of them. So, this guy knows that he’s dead and he wants to die with dignity – fine. Donny’s gonna make it entertaining either way. But that’s what I thought made it great, that little encounter between the two of them right before he smashes them with a bat. That made it really, really interesting. We had a wonderful time doing that scene.

RS: Quentin has expressed admiration in the past for some films of the period, mountain films and other stuff. What’s your position on those German directors?

ER: Mixed emotions. There are some amazing, amazing films of that period, but the directors that were Nazis, I don’t watch their movies on principle. I think Riefenstahl was a good filmmaker. You watch her films and they are well-made films, but there are so many other directors whose films I’d rather watch! [laughs] Most of the directors from that world at the time fled Europe for Hollywood. They fled the Nazis. So, yeah, those filmmakers [who stayed behind in Germany] disgust me. I want to kill them. If I saw Nazi filmmakers today, I would kill them. That’s how I feel about them, to be honest. I don’t want to dignify their work, based on what they did. But then you have to draw a line – it’s like, are you going to do that with every artist and every filmmaker? But the Holocaust is such a personal thing to me. Many distant relatives of mine were murdered in it, and anyone who contributed to that, I want to see them killed.

RS: Some have compared the last act of this film to Raiders of the Lost Ark. It’s obviously a much lighter entertainment, but both films evoke a sense of almost divine retribution.

ER: Well, the end of this movie is a cathartic ending, but at a certain point when you see the Nazis burning, their uniforms burn off. There’s a point in that fire sequence where it’s not enjoyable anymore and that’s a good thing. People should feel a bit uncomfortable and suddenly recognize that these are human beings that are being torched in that scene. And it’s not God coming down and doing it. It’s human beings doing it. The Nazis effectively built an oven with their own propaganda. They built their own inferno. So, I feel like it’s a much more complex and a much different film than Raiders of the Lost Ark. The purpose of Raiders is to have you cheering at the end of it, but with Inglourious Basterds it’s a kind of reserved cheer. The purpose wasn’t for us to get a bigger cheer than Raiders, I think this is a different movie trying to achieve different things. People feel good about the ending, but it’s not to the point that the theater erupts in joy. The scene goes on long enough that we say, wait a minute, these are people too. The fact that you are affected by it shows that you’re in touch with your human side.


Inglourious Basterds opens in theaters everywhere today.

Now that SG is putting up darker, more creative sets on the weekend, I was wondering what are some of the darker sets people would like to see go up. Personally I'd like to see, Sash-Buffalo (image) Vice-Trash (image) Kraven-Eternal Life (image) Serene-Dark Divination (image) Agy-Mrs. Mia Wallace... more

Now that SG is putting up darker, more creative sets on the weekend, I was wondering what are some of the darker sets people would like to see go up.

Personally I'd like to see,

Sash-Buffalo


Vice-Trash


Kraven-Eternal Life


Serene-Dark Divination


Agy-Mrs. Mia Wallace

(image) by Bob Suicide Hi, my name is Bob Suicide and I'm a shy gamer. Generally, there isn't a lot of stigma being a shy, quiet geek. After all, as a group, us nerds aren't known for being boisterous. We play our games, download/stream our shows, and read our comics all from the safety... more

by Bob Suicide

Hi, my name is Bob Suicide and I'm a shy gamer.

Generally, there isn't a lot of stigma being a shy, quiet geek. After all, as a group, us nerds aren't known for being boisterous. We play our games, download/stream our shows, and read our comics all from the safety of our solitary couches. However, with the recent surge in mainstream desire for geek culture, we've been thrust off of our couches and into the social scene.

You know you're a hardcore gamer when you can watch someone else play a game with the same satisfaction you would received if you played it yourself. I've "played" many a game sitting next to the controller as the go-to strat guide girl or the rapt spectator rooting my friends on. Generally, my shy nature doesn't preclude me from enjoying the ridiculous level of gaming that I expect from my daily life. But sometimes you just have to be the one pressing the buttons to get the full joy from the experience; sometimes, you can feel a little left out sitting on the sidelines...and it's then that I lament my epic shyness.



I HATE talking on the phone, I'm horribly awkward in social situations, and -unlike most people - that social reservation doesn't wane when I'm hidden behind a headset or a computer. I'm just as gawky and graceless, and I have the same problems talking to strangers whether I'm on Vent or in the street. I don't raid, I won't give you my gamertag, I don't want to join your guild, and I'm WAY to shy to play co-op with you. I was always picked last in school...I don't want to be the toon with her hand up begging to be added to your party (regardless of how good I may actually be). And, considering the aforementioned stereotyping that comes with being a geek, I know I can't be the only "Shy Guy" out there.

In this overly-PC (politically correct...not Microsoft) arena, it's a wonder that the extrovertedly-challenged aren't politely represented in more games. We have rights too!

However, with the recent issues surrounding the PSN hack, it's become clear that the online multiplayer format is now core to the hardcore gaming experience. The focus of some games is entirely multiplayer which means I'm relegated to the sidelines because of my introversion.

It would be great if more FPS had amazingly captivating storylines like Modern Warfare 2. While the bulk of the game's longevity can be owed to it's robust multiplayer mode, I sill find myself staring longingly into the middle distance as my brain softly whispers, "Ghost," and "Remember... no Russian." I didn't feel like I was missing out on gameplay by sticking to the story mode...and I find myself playing it over and over. And, I loved Gears of War. In fact, it was a perfect blend of sci-fi, 3rd person shooting, and ass-kicking marines that stuck a chord deep in the pit of my geeky soul. But, with only five chapters, the story mode left this geek wanting more. I just can't bring myself to join a game of capture-the-flag while waiting for Gears of War 3's release.

I don't want to give up my hardcore gamer status because of my social deficiencies. I don't want to be left behind as the trend in gaming becomes more socially based and less experience based. I don't want to feel like I'm missing out on "the good stuff" because I'm shy or anti-social. I want a satisfying gaming experience that doesn't involve being teased by strangers or joining a raid of people I've never met.

After all, we turned to games back in the day so we wouldn't have to play outside with the other kids...why is Brink forcing me to log-on and play with the other children?

I'm Bob Suicide and I'm a shy gamer...who's with me? (Don't worry, you don't have to raise your hand...us introverts don't like to be singled out.)

In a board that won't get swamped... (image) Rigel

Kevin Smith became more famous for just talking than he ever was for making movies like Clerks, Chasing Amy and Zack and Miri Make a Porno. His public speaking Q&A sessions fill large theaters, including Carnegie Hall. Arguably, his tales of debating a giant spider with producer Jon Peters, finding... more

Kevin Smith became more famous for just talking than he ever was for making movies like Clerks, Chasing Amy and Zack and Miri Make a Porno. His public speaking Q&A sessions fill large theaters, including Carnegie Hall. Arguably, his tales of debating a giant spider with producer Jon Peters, finding a camel for Prince and having unprotected sex with an open sore on his penis contain more laughs than any one of his films. In between public talks, Smith has graduated from journaling his random diatribes online to recording them in podcast form.

The Smodcast is Smith’'s audio sessions with friend and producer Scott Mosier. The name is simply the combination of the names Smith and Mosier with the word podcast. They debate such diverse topics as Helen Keller (was she faking it? Did Annie Sullivan have to explain sex to her?), cloning (would your clone be your best friend? If you slept with your clone, would you be gay?), the metaphysical (What if Smith hired Jennifer Connelly to become Scott Mosier while Mosier was still there observing?) and just plain sex talk (lap dances, puberty education literature, etc.) Friends and frequent collaborators Bryon Johnson, Walt Flanagan and Malcolm Ingram also join in from time to time.

"“On some level, it fulfills that childhood aspiration to have a comedy album,"” Smith told Suicide Girls in an exclusive phone interview. "“That’'s what I listened to when I was growing up, people doing bits on comedy albums whether it’'d be sketches or just standup material. Number one, I’'m not a comic so I could never do that sort of thing. But, because of what I do, I’'ve gotten this kind of backdoor into the world of standing on a stage with a mic and making people laugh, this quasi-standup world of mine with this Q&A or by extension, the Smodcast stuff. So it kind of works like that, where you could put it out there and people could listen to it. Granted, we'’re not selling it like they did back in the day with comedy records, but I kind of dig it. I know on some level it fulfills that desire of the 11 or 12-year-old in me to be Bill Cosby for a minute, but a really filthy mouthed version of him.”"

A collection of Smodcasts is coming out in print form as the book Shootin’ the Sh*t with Kevin Smith: The Best of Smodcast. Smith took the interview call from home, with his wife Jennifer Schwalbach out at Yoga and his daughter Harley at a playdate. That left Smith free and clear to discuss the depraved subjects of his Smodcasts and start a few new ones too.

Fred Topel: Did you always conceive of the Smodcast as potential material for a new book?

KS: The weird thing is, the idea for the Smodcast book came directly from the good folks at Titan. [Editor] Adam Newell was just like, “Hey, we had this idea about we'’re going to do an interview book with you, but why don'’t we just transcribe some of the Smodcasts? They'’re really funny.” And I was just like, “I don't know if it would really work in print form, dude.” He had two of them done, transcribed and then sent them to me. Reading it out loud, I was like, “That is actually kind of funny.” And it’'s weird because I know the material so you’'d imagine that wouldn'’t have caught me off guard but a couple things made me chuckle out loud just by reading it.

FT: Did you ever follow up on Helen Keller?

KS: It'’s so weird you say that because two days ago, somebody on the Twitter feed said, “Hey, here'’s a video of Helen Keller.” It was on YouTube and it was Helen Keller essentially displaying, showing the folks that she could indeed speak, putting her fingers to Annie Sullivan’s mouth and throat or something like that. Then she kind of echoed what Annie Sullivan said. It was amazing. I’'d never seen it before and I’'d never seen what either of them had looked like but I saw the cinematic depictions and sh*t. You'’re always seeing the wild feral girl in the beginning, and she just looked like some old timey lady, but not like this feral wild child that could barely speak or barely knew of its own existence. What was great about that episode of Smodcast was how much we learned after that. I know way more about Helen Keller now than I did before we did it, and it became a kind of signature Smodcast mood for me and Mosier where we would just speak at great lengths about something we didn'’t know that much about. And we never spoke with authority, like, “Oh, this is what really happened” but it was like, “I think I remember hearing it like this and this kind of thing happened.” Then the tradition that follows is you go to the website and you read the 100 corrections that people are like, “Dude, Helen Keller wasn'’t born that way. For a year and a half she could hear and see.” Or, “There is video of Helen Keller.” Stuff like that, where you’'re just like, “Well, I guess we were way the f*ck off base.”

FT: Well, you asked if she had sex or wanted sex, and then how Annie Sullivan explained it to her. A biography by Dorothy Hermann says she did like sex.

KS: That is wild. That gives me a great deal of relief but how does that get explained? I mean, how the f*ck did Annie Sullivan explain that.

FT: Don’'t we have to read the biography now to find out?

KS: I don't know. I don't know if I could commit that much time. I’'d rather somebody else read it, distilled it on the internet, I could read that.

FT: When you talk about having Jennifer Connelly remake Scott Mosier, did it occur to you that that’'s similar to the plot of Synechdoche, New York?

KS: No, is it? I don't know, I never saw Synechdoche but now, to even have kind of a similar idea to a genius like Charlie Kaufman would be kinda cool. But no, no. I don't know if Mosier ever saw it but I love the idea of f*ckin’ Jennifer Connelly trying to play Mosier.

FT: Now since you talk about sex a lot, do you mind some dirty questions?

KS: Not at all.

FT: For some reason I’'m worried about offending you.

KS: Oh, never.

FT: On that note...


KS: Get to the dirty stuff, go.

FT: You always say you like your wife to be on top. Can you come that way?

KS: That’'s the only way I come, brotha’. I mean, I could come any way I guess but, and this is so weird, we were talking about this last night. I have been married for 10 years and my wife has never really seen me do anything physical, up to and including my very limited role in our sex life where she does 95% of the work. But, when she saw me go play in the Walter Gretzky Street Hockey Tournament up in Brantford, For a dude of my size I’'m pretty limber. And, I was surprisingly good, for a guy who hadn’'t played goal in 15 years. The wife was just like, it was almost as if I was like, “Oh, you didn'’t know that I could make my c*ck three inches bigger? Like, I’'ve never told you that before? I'’m sorry. I just never wanted to do it until now.” It was just she’'d never seen that side of me. I caught a momentary flash of her being utterly impressed but then she quickly put it down because she’'s like, “I’'m not going to give him this.” Because she thinks I get too much affection everywhere in this world anyway. So I waited for like a minute or two to pass and then I was just like, “Admit that you got just a little bit moist when I blocked that shot.” And she'’s like, “I gotta tell you, it’'s impressive but it’'s befuddling because you won'’t f*ck me. I always have to f*ck you yet I can watch you explode in a display of physical prowess. I don'’t understand why you don'’t bring that to the bedroom.” And I was like, “Because I don’'t have to. What’'s the point? If you do it all, I’'m happy with that. And you like it better doing it also. I'’m happy with that. That’'s a good thing for me.”

FT: Then, isn'’t cuddling underrated? Laying in bed naked playing with boobies is nice too.

KS: It is. I used to be a huge foreplay guy. I married somebody who’'s not. I married somebody who'’s just like, “Why are you wasting my time? Let’'s f*ckin’ bone.” So it'’s kinda hot. She’'s very much the dude in this relationship. I am total femme dude in every way, shape and form with the exception of I don’'t take it. She just controls it on when it comes to that aspect of our lives and I wouldn’'t have it any other way.

FT: Now to get deep. You talk about the ramifications of cloning in the Smodcast and the book. Do you think about the current debates like health care? They’'re worried about death panels. How could they ever handle it if human cloning became a real possibility?

KS: You’'re killing me here, man. You’'re blowing my mind. I mean, we all just sat around goofing about Walt wanting a clone which we all thought was adorable. So uncharacteristic that the dude expressed like, “I’'ve always wanted a clone.” The ramifications of cloning we touch on a little bit only inasmuch as let’'s get the comedy going. I don't think it’'s going to happen, dude. I mean, it ain'’t gonna happen for years. We really have to evolve as a species and a culture before that could ever be considered bringing into practical reality. Like creating whole people just to harvest them or creating whole people, I mean that’'s just more people to feel. This planet has a problem feeding who'’s here now.

FT: Do you think about politics? Do you ever share political views?

KS: Oh, like in practicality, in real life, outside of Smodcast?

FT: Yeah, because you stay away from political stuff in the public forums.

KS: Yeah, just because I'’m not that bright. I could speak knowingly or knowledgably about any number of subjects but politics, not at all. Mosier is our political guy and even he’'s not as immersed in it, but man, he knows way more than I do, that'’s for sure. I always tend to stay away. I'’m not very political. It’'s weird, when I became “successful” inasmuch as I started making money doing what I love, people were like, “You should go Republican, dude, because you’'ve got money now.” I’'m like, “Why? I don’'t understand that.” “Well, they'’ll help you keep that money.” I don't know, the money aspect to this job, I'’ve got a good relationship with it. I’'m never ashamed of it but at the same time, it’'s never been the driving factor so it’s also never been a problem for me. So for me, it’'s always about how cool it is to do it. You look at something like Clerks II. I literally took no salary to make the movie. Nothing whatsoever. I earned nothing off of Clerks II. I just did it because I wanted to do it and I was like, “Thank God somebody’'s giving me the money to do it so I don'’t care. I’'m just happy to do it.” [My next film] A Couple of Dicks, I took a huge price cut to do the movie just because that was the only way the movie was going to get done based on the budget. I was like, “You know what? I always wanted to make a Bruce Willis movie.”

FT: You got to be in Live Free or Die Hard and now direct a Bruce Willis movie. Things really worked out for you since he turned down Jersey Girl.

KS: Yeah, things panned out for me, man. I don't know, you stick around long enough and all your dreams come true I guess.

FT: What can you tell Batman fans about the series you’re writing, Widening Gyre?”

KS: The story, we re-introduced Silver St. Cloud into the matrix. Batman’'s past kinda comes into his present and it’'s good, dude. I like it. I hope people aren'’t getting ready for a f*ckin’ slam bang action-fest run. It’'s really kind of more about what happens when Bruce reaches this point in his life where he'’s seen his kid sidekicks grow up and go onto their own lives and have normal lives and girlfriends, the things that other people have that he’'s always sacrificed, that he’'s always said, “I could never have.” Suddenly, it’'s coinciding with the appearance of this new vigilante who Bruce is just like, “You know, I’'ve always been training kids. Maybe if I f*ckin’ brought an adult under my wing, it might be different and I can take some more time for myself.” So that’'s kind of what it’'s about and I probably turned off everybody that had half an interest in it but I don't know, I dig it. The folks at DC have been so accommodating and wonderful and what not. Everybody, our team on the book is great. This dude Mike Marts is a really wonderful editor that Dan Didio gave us and we got Art Thibert doing the inks on this one. He honors Walt [Flanagan]’'s inks but still kinda brings out a lot of great stuff in it. We got Art Lyon doing colors. Looks really, really f*ckin’ good. It’'s just a really strong book, so happy with it and it’'s something that I’'m going to enjoy. I remember reading the kind of mediocre review and going, like, “I don't know, dude. I’'m sitting here holding my Cacophony hardcover and it'’s just a cool thing. Whether you like the story or not is kind of irrelevant at this point because I'’m holding a hardcover of this comic book I wrote a couple months back and my friend Walt Flanagan, who I’'ve known for over 20 years, drew.” It’'s just way bigger than whether or not somebody thinks I did a good job writing Batman dialogue. This is far bigger than that, dude. This isn'’t about me making a paycheck. This is about a kid getting the keys to the f*ckin’ candy store and being told like, “Hey, go have fun. With your friend!” Like oh, that’'s amazing. Sh*t like that happens to me and I’'m always just like oh, that'’s the best part of the job, man. Don’'t get me wrong, money is f*ckin’ cool and it affords you a lot of cool things but money’'s just never been the driving factor for me.

FT: When will you start work on your Green Hornet comic, based on the script you wrote for a movie back at The Weinstein Company?

KS: Dicks took a lot out of me and rightfully so. I had to devote all my attention to it. For the first month, I was splitting my attention to the movie and the Carnegie Hall thing, the Walter Gretzky Street Hockey Tournament thing back in June, but then once Carnegie Hall was done, then it was all I could focus just on Dicks. Everything else went to the side. So now that I'’m done shooting Dicks and I’'m working on fine cutting it right now, I can kind of go back to the Green Hornet script and break it down because I don’'t want to just give them the script that I wrote for the movie and be like, “Here, figure it out.” I want to see if I can maybe break it down for whoever the artist is going to be, the same way that I write any comic book script. [Dynamite President and Publisher] Nick [Barrucci] wants to make it part of the canon for their Green Hornet tenureship so I said, “Dude, that’'s very flattering. I think my script for Green Hornet was all right, but in some places it was goofy. I don't know if you want that to be part of your continuity.” And he was like, “Well, we can have multiple Hornets as you know. We can have Hornet in the past, you’'re doing the Hornet most people would know from the Van Williams/Bruce Lee era so to speak. Then we'’ll do future Hornet as well. No, I want your story to be in continuity.” So I don't know, I’'m still going to fight him on that I think.

FT:You were one of the Weinsteins’ golden boys back in the Miramax days. Even with the recent success of Inglourious Basterds, why do you think The Weinstein Company has struggled? They used to be the masters of indie films.

KS: Yeah, you'’re absolutely right. They were the masters and they invented the game but the problem is, everybody else learned how to play the game too. Like when Wayne Gretzky broke out in the NHL, nobody had ever seen a player like him before but by the time Wayne Gretzky retired, there were a lot of people who played not specifically like Wayne Gretzky but a lot of people were now playing at his level of proficiency. I think it’'s kind of the same thing here. When Miramax got into the game, they were such f*ckin’ game changers, man. Nobody knew what was happening. It was like watching Billy Smith get scored on by Wayne Gretzky. Maybe not Billy Smith because he’'s actually able to f*ckin’ defend against Wayne Gretzky. But it’'s like watching an NHL goalie circa 1983/84 face off against Wayne Gretzky. They just weren'’t prepared. They were like, “Where the f*ck did this come from?” It was the same thing with the brothers Weinstein and Miramax. When they sprang onto the scene, they took the world by storm. They were just brilliant geniuses at doing what they did. But the thing is, you do that long enough and people observe you, they'’re going to learn how to do it too and other people started doing it. For me, to my reckoning, the moment that Dreamworks put out American Beauty, that’'s when other studios figured out how to make a Miramax movie. Once that happened, they had way more resources, all these studios and whatnot, to make those kind of pictures. So Harvey started competing at that level and that’'s where the Cold Mountains come from and The Aviator. The dude created something that everyone else learned how to do from him and then they just learned to do it so well that he kind of had to learn to play catch up. It doesn'’t mean that they’ll never be great again but you’'ve got to stay sharp, dude.

FT: Finally, to preview A Couple of Dicks, how did you end up directing a movie you didn'’t write?

KS: Dicks kind of sprang at me, which sounds so erotic, it was after San Diego Comic Con, not this year but the year before. Jeff Robinov who heads up the motion picture group over at Warner Brothers was at this Q&A I’'d done with Zack Snyder. It was me, Zack Snyder, Frank Miller and Judd Apatow and I guess I was funny because the dude was like, “Send him in because I want to meet with him.” It was weird because we’'d had some friction in the past and we were just like, “Hey, let'’s put that aside.” He’'s going, “I think you'’re funny and I want you to work here and blah blah blah.” And I was like, “Yeah, man, one day, whatever you got, we'’ll see.” He had sent it to me and he hit me with the e-mail with, “What’'d you ever think of Dicks?” I was like, “Hey, man, I don’'t run that way.” Then he explained what he was talking about and all bad d*ck joke puns aside, I read the script. I was like, “Wow, this is kinda like a cop movie if I would’'ve wrote the cop movie.” He loved Zack and Miri so he was like, “I want you to do what you did to Zack and Miri but with this movie.” I was like, “What, give it a f*ckin’ title that nobody will go see it and we'’ll have to fight for?” Because that’'s where we are right now. [Laughs] Fighting for the Couple of Dicks title. Not fighting but it’s weird. It’'s not a fight yet. CBS, NBC and ABC all said that they would not run a spot before 9 o'’clock p.m. Now, that’'s fine because it’'s an R-rated movie but at the same time, you want to be advertising this R-rated movie during sports.

FT: So you might change the name before this movie comes out?

KS: Look, Warner Brothers is doing everything they can but you can'’t fight City Hall. This all comes down to Janet Jackson'’s boobs still. That’'s where the problem is. I'’m just like what f*ckin’ financial crisis are we in where a network can afford to turn down pricey top dollar advertising just because they're like, “We'’re uncomfortable with the word Dicks, what it may infer to people.” I mean, yes, it'’s a double entendre. Of course it’'s a double entendre. That’'s what’'s funny about it. It’'s not even a discussion, dude. In this world, it’'s just like, “All right, of course we'’ll do something about it because why would we go through all this effort just to have nobody see the movie because we can'’t advertise the movie because of the title?” Simply change the title. Movie doesn’'t change.” If they had gotten me prior to Zack and Miri, I probably would’'ve went down swinging like, “No, it’s all about the integrity of the title.” After having gone through the debacle of the Zack and Miri Make a Porno title, believe me, dude. I’'ve been f*cked once. I don’'t want to get f*cked again. Probably not a week of my life goes by in the last year where I wasn’'t like, “Why didn’t I just call the f*ckin’ thing Dirty Movie? What was I, an idiot?” When Humpday came out, I was like, “These motherf*ckers are brilliant! What a great title. Why did I go with Zack and Miri Make a Porno? I’'m such an idiot.” I mean, I like the movie and stuff. It’'s just the title, man. The title really, really hurt us.

Shootin’ the Sh*t with Kevin Smith: The Best of Smodcast is available September 22.