ARTICLES

Fast Times In Hollywood, High!
August 16, 2001 http://www.etonline.com

Jersey's most infamous slackers will hit Hollywood in writer/director KEVIN SMITH's next project, 'Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.' 

Jay (JASON MEWES) and Silent Bob (Smith) are two of suburban New Jersey's most clueless characters. When they're not discussing their drug intake, working at the local Quick Stop or insulting each other, the buddies can usually be found discussing all their outrageous conquests with the chicks (all imagined or totally blown out of proportion, naturally). Of course, Silent Bob doesn't actually say anything out loud because he's, well, silent -- but it's all understood. Certainly, the trash-talking Jay has a mouth big enough for the both of them! 

The boys are always on the fringes of Smith films, including 1994's 'Clerks' and 1997's 'Chasing Amy,' starring a lesser-known BEN AFFLECK. At the end of that film, as any Smith fan will recall, a comic book was being made based on Jay's and Bob's little lives. Well, the new film picks up at the point where the comic book is being made into a major movie -- and the boys head to Hollywood to have their say in the matter. Once there, of course, they run into all the beautiful people, including SHANNON ELIZABETH, JASON BIGGS and such previous Smith stars as Affleck, MATT DAMON, JASON LEE, SHANNEN DOHERTY and JOEY LAUREN ADAMS. 

Throw in a quartet of sexy diamond thieves, an orangutan and ALANIS MORISSETTE, who may or may not be playing God, as she did in the filmmaker's controversial 'Dogma,' and you've got what sounds like one heck of a unique movie! Smith even has his art imitating his life when he makes his two most memorable characters crash the set of a Miramax movie; Miramax's Dimension Films subdivision is the studio behind 'Jay & Silent Bob.' 

What with all the wackiness, the characters will go out with a bang. Yes, that's right: Smith says he is retiring his Garden State gang once and for all after this film. "I'm going to be 31 in August," the director has joked. "I'd like to afford myself a shred of dignity before my kid's old enough to notice her old man's a walking, non-talking cartoon." 

So shout it out for 'Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back'