I KINDA LIKE TO THINK OF THEM AS ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN MEET VLADIMIR AND ESTRAGON: I can't imagine I'm the only one here who'd rather see a studio film written by Kevin Smith and directed (at last!) by someone else than a studio film directed by Kevin Smith and written by someone else, even if it stars Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as buddy cops.

I'VE GOT A WEIRD THING FOR GIRLS WHO SAY 'ABOOT': In going through my pop culture autobiography in my head, one of the definite markers is Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy, a movie that hit me at a particularly relevant point at my life. It's Smith's best film, and I think it really got into a lot of real and thorny emotional truths about the personae we construct and carry into each new relationship.

Still, I have two problems with the film, though I'm going to put the Joey Lauren Adams' Annoying Voice thing to the side and focus on the second: the movie's ending just doesn't work. I don't know that Smith wrote himself into a box from which he couldn't escape or what, but that big confrontation scene at the end just felt contrived and false. For a movie's ending to be satisfactory, it need not be happy, but it does have to feel like the natural conclusion of all that came before.

That very last scene is probably where this story was supposed to end; it just didn't get there the right way. I'm interested in whether anyone out there shares this sentiment, and whether anyone had any ideas on how to rewrite Smith's final act.

ONCE MORE, WITH FEELING: What does it meant to still be a clerk, a decade later, and why would a director still make movies about them? These are the questions which Clerks II: The Clerkening seeks to answer, and it does so in surprisingly entertaining fashion.

Let me get the negatives out of the way first: Kevin Smith should never cast his wife in another movie. Nobody else does, and there's a reason. And he still doesn't know how to create a realistic female character -- they're all saints or bitches, with the exception of the title character in Chasing Amy. And Smith still doesn't know what to do with a camera.

But with a pen, writing male dialogue and with the pop culture references . . . he has his moments, and many of them are quite good. Exuberant, even. I will not spoil them here.

What really saves the movie is the third act, because it makes a pivot towards the questions I alluded to above, and handles them in a way that's both true to the characters and, much like Shyamalan attempts in Lady in the Water, explains what motivates Smith as a writer-director after the failure of Jersey Girl.

Also, there's a donkey.

DOWN THE SHORE EVERYTHING'S ALL RIGHT: Could Kevin Smith have been right about the Times would review Jersey Girl?

I don't think they liked it a lot:

[S]adly, Mr. Smith has made a movie so false and blatantly icky that it's the film equivalent of making goo-goo noises and chucking a baby under the chin for 103 minutes. At the end, all you're left with is drool and a mountain of baby powder.

The cautionary lesson of "Jersey Girl," which opens today nationwide, might be that when it comes to screenwriting, facetiousness is a lot easier to convey than deep personal feeling. The movie, crammed with wince-inducing contrivances, false notes and fizzled jokes, all leading to a tired race-against-time ending, is so bad that it could stand as a textbook example of what not to do if you're an independent filmmaker flirting with the Hollywood mainstream.

The review is titled "How To End A Career", incidentally. It describes a plot point in the movie, but I'd say both Smith and Affleck need to start making better decisions.

WHAT ELSE IS A FARM BOY FROM CANADA TO DO? On the eve of tonight's glorious #crushthecanucks (and ice dancing and other stuff) Olympic bonanza, Kevin Smith has revealed that Seann William Scott will play the lead role of Buddy in his film adaptation of Warren Zevon's "Hit Somebody." Said Smith:

I look at this as Seann's opportunity to go to the (Tom) Hanks level. Hanks for years and years did this (lesser) role and then he became that (blockbuster movie) guy. This is Seann's chance to do that as well, not just be Stifler. And it's my chance to not just be the "Clerks" guy. It's my chance to do something big, epic in scale. Stories I tell span one day. … This spans 30 years. You're talking a period. You're trying to bring people to a time in your life that hasn't existed in 30 years. The look of it, the feel of it, the sound of it -- everything I have is going to be in that movie.

Whatever of interest happens on ice and snow tonight, we can talk about it here.

NEXT, "THE HULK GOES TO THERAPY," BY JONATHAN FRANZEN: When some people opt for guest-writing stints on comic books, it makes a lot of sense--for instance, I immediately understood why Kevin Smith would want to write Daredevil and Green Arrow, why Brad Meltzer would want to write Green Arrow and Identity Crisis, and why Joss Whedon would want to write X-Men, and why the comic companies would want them to write, as their names appeal to a traditional comic book audience (especially Smith and Whedon). But the news that Jodi Picoult will write 5 issues of Wonder Woman leaves me perplexed. I doubt Picoult's audience and the comic book buying audience have a great deal of overlap, and Picoult's not exactly known for thrillers. That said, I'll certainly be taking a look when it comes out.

AND TWO -- BECAUSE YOU'RE A MAN: I'm just sayin', is all, because it was on my tv last night . . .

. . . . but is there a worse case of vanity casting in recent film history than Kevin Smith putting his wife Jennifer Schwalbach as "Missy" in Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back.

Schwalbach was, of course, a journalist at USA Today when they met, and this was her first acting role. (It is not her last; however, she has yet to be cast in a movie not directed by Smith or a friend of his.)

Now, true, when you look up "self-indulgent" and "onanistic" in the film dictionary, this movie may well top the list. But, still: putting your wife in a black PVC jumpsuit and filming her with the same leering, slo-mo photography afforded Eliza Dushku in the movie?

I didn't need to see that.

YOU'RE NOT GOING TO FALL FOR THE BANANA IN THE TAILPIPE? The problem with Kevin Smith's Cop Out is that it doesn't quite know if it wants to be an homage to 80s/90s interracial buddy cop flicks or a parody of them. Yes, there are amusing moments, but the tone's all over the place and the movie is indeed something of a mess.

The problem with the movie is, in many ways, the best thing about the movie: Tracy Morgan, who essentially is playing 30 Rock's Tracy Jordan thrown into police work. In other words, he often goes off into these unhinged, nonsensical riffs during the movie -- which, while often funny, undermine the credibility the character needs to remain seen as a competent police officer, which he never does. [You never questioned, by way of contrast, whether Axel Foley was a qualified police officer. Here, you're shocked when he does something right. Also, I felt like there was a whole subplot about Kevin Pollak being a corrupt cop which was snipped from the final version.]

Inserting Tracy-being-Tracy into a script originally written for Robin Williams and James Gandolfini, then Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (plus the goofiness of the Seann William Scott character) sabotaged the authentic tone which the film was otherwise seeking with its Harold Faltermeyer score and solid Brooklyn location shooting. It added jokes at the expense of coherence, and the result is a movie in which you're never quite sure what kind of movie it is. Wait for cable.

WHAT'S WORSE, HE CAST HIS WIFE IN THIS ONE TOO: Via Gawker, we learn today that Kevin Smith is afraid of Jersey Girl's critical reception tomorrow:

The film's not gonna be a critical hit. It's an extremely sentimental film, and most critics don't like sentiment. Don't expect big, critical kudos this time around (in fact, we may be less well-reviewed than we were on "Strike Back"). The NY Times is gonna shred the flick. LA Times too, I'll bet. EW probably ain't gonna be onboard.

Does the Times hate sentiment? Let's take a look:

50 First Dates: "[T]he unlikely sweetness of the story carries the day. What is most astonishing is the confidence with which the filmmakers push their premise to its logical conclusion, turning an ending that could have been either laughable or appalling into something so effortlessly heartfelt as to be nearly sublime."

Elf: "Elf' is a charming, silly family Christmas movie more likely to spread real joy than migraine, indigestion and sugar shock. The movie succeeds because it at once restrains its sticky, gooey good cheer and wildly overdoes it."

Monsieur Ibrahim: "This modest, sentimental film looks nostalgically back on Paris in the mid-1960's and casts a loving, oblique glance at the French movies of that era. . . . The two central performances help the lesson go down easily, and Mr. Duperyon's unassuming, slightly ragged realism gives the movie a sweet, lived-in charm."

The Cider House Rules: "The Cider House Rules is an unabashedly sentimental movie that wants to pluck our heart strings, and now and then its tone (and its quiet but incessant soundtrack by Rachel Portman) turns cloyingly sweet. But the performances have an understated gravity and the screenplay a thematic consistency that largely avoid tawdry manipulation."

About A Boy: "The Weitz brothers . . . handle the sentimentality of the story with a light, sweet touch. You succumb to the movie's warmth and bonhomie because the alternative is to remain in the isolating, self-protective cynicism from which Will has been lucky to escape."

Maybe, just maybe, Kevin, what the Times is really biased against is when you make a shitty movie.

(Then again, they've liked all five of his movies so far, even at his most self-indulgent. Go figure.)

THE FIRST BLUE JAY CAP IN THE HALL:  Despite the best efforts of ESPN's Barry Stanton to elect BJ Surhoff, Tino Martinez, Don Mattingly and neither of these guys, the Baseball Writers Association of America has voted Roberto Alomar (90.0%) and Bert Blyleven (79.7%) into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Next closest to the line were Barry Larkin (62.1%), Jack Morris (53.5%), Lee Arthur Smith (45.3%), Jeff Bagwell (41.7%), Tim Raines (37.5%) and Edgar Martinez (32.9%).

Rafael Palmeiro (just 11%) and Juan Gonzalez (5.2%) stay on the ballot for 2012; Harold Baines and Kevin Brown are among those who failed to clear 5%. There are no huge names joining the ballot for the first time in 2012 -- Javy Lopez, Tim Salmon and Bernie Williams represent the cream of that lesser crop.

added:  Sean Forman would love to know how Lee Smith gets 45.3% of the vote when John Franco and Kevin Brown each fell below 5%.

WHAT'S A CANADIAN FARM BOY TO DO? Oh, this makes me happy -- Kevin Smith and Mitch Albom to collaborate on a film adaptation of Warren Zevon's "Hit Somebody", the greatest hockey song ever.

BEST KEVIN SMITH FILM PROMOTION EVER:  35,000 walruses have suddenly beached themselves on the Alaskan shoreline.

I'M WAITING FOR KEVIN SMITH TO WEIGH IN: There are many classic geeky arguments--Kirk vs. Picard, Imperial Star Destroyer vs. Starship Enterprise, Buffy vs. Faith, whether or not Deckard is a replicant, Marvel vs. DC, Aliens vs. Predator--but I've found the sina qua non of all geeky arguments. Mario vs. Sonic, who would win in a variety of track and field events?

"THIS IS A SONG THAT I WROTE WITH A VERY GOOD FRIEND OF MINE NAMED MITCH ALBOM ... THERE'S AN AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION ASPECT  TO THIS SONG":  Ten years ago this month, Warren Zevon performed around the corner at Philadelphia's Theatre of the Living Arts, and thanks to the glory of the Internet it's all downloadable and streamable for free at archive.org.  It's got all the hits you'd want to hear, and the recording quality is so pristine that if you listen real carefully during "Hit Somebody," you can pretend to make out my voice among the throng.

(The other great thing about that particular track is that this was before the song was available in any format, so we were all hearing it and responding to Buddy's story for the first time.  FWIW, Kevin Smith's film adaptation of the song is now set to film next summer, with Nicholas Braun replacing Seann William Scott in the lead.  No, I can't think of a successful film that was based on a song -- what, "Alice's Restaurant"?)

HI! I'M THE DELIVERY MAN: The Zack and Miri Make A Porno redband trailer is now available (NSFW), and it's full of ALOTT5MA not-quite-faves-but-we're-fond-of-thems including Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, The Office's Craig Robinson, the guys who played Silent Bob Jay & Randall Graves and, of course, writer-director Kevin Smith, who has indeed cast The Schwalbach in another film.

BEFORE THE COOL DONE RUN OUT I'LL BE GIVING IT MY BESTEST: In an episode more padded than what an errant Southwest flight attendant imagined Kevin Smith's ass to be, Hollywood Night 3 was just a weird mess. Structurally, it reminded me of the first scene in the last season of The West Wing -- once you tell us who's in which room, you've sucked out a lot of the drama and suspense from what's to come. I much prefer the old way -- let 'em perform, then do the shtick with the rooms, then the March of Death.

What can be said about the Top 24 as it's shaping up is that, at least for now, it's an older, more mature group than we're used to seeing. One more hour tomorrow night (presumably capped by the Wacky Dancing Parade), and then the march from 24 to 20 to 16, 12 and beyond begins ...

TODAY'S POST BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE ANDROID'S DUNGEON & BASEBALL CARD SHOP: Although comic books began simply as reprinted collections of newspaper comic strips, by the late 1930s and 1940s they had come into their own as a full-fledged form of popular culture. (Their history gets a rich, engaging retelling in Bradford Wright's Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America, as well as the History Channel documentary, Comic Book Superheroes Unmasked, which features talking-head commentary by Michael Chabon and Kevin Smith, along with many comic-industry greats.) The most popular comic-book figures were costumed heroes like Superman, who burst onto the scene in 1938 in the famous Action Comics No. 1. Superman was quickly joined by colleagues and rivals like Batman, Captain Marvel, and the recently deceased Captain America, and the boom in superhero comics fueled a wider expansion of the comic-book industry into genres ranging from romance and detective to Western and horror.

After World War II -- during which comics became a favorite entertainment of American GIs -- comics reached even greater heights of popularity. Sales figures were breathtaking, with average monthly circulation reaching 70 to 100 million by 1953, and well over 90 percent of teenagers reportedly read comics regularly. At that very moment, however, comics ran into growing criticism from politicians, civic leaders, and child-development experts, who argued that comic books corrupted their young readers by condoning violence, mocking authority, and trafficking in sexual innuendo. Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham brought the anti-comics crusade to a head with his 1954 book, Seduction of the Innocent, which in turn led to an investigation, public hearings, and a scathing report by the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency (commonly known as the Kefauver committee). In the familiar pattern of an entertainment industry choosing to censor itself (rather than allow government officials to do so), the leading comic-book publishers hurriedly unveiled the Comics Code Authority in October 1954; much like Hollywood's Hays Code, the Comics Code prohibited potentially offensive content and required writers and illustrators to secure the CCA's seal of approval for any publication. At precisely the moment when the movies and popular music were starting to embrace youth culture and to commodify teenage rebellion, the comics were becoming domesticated and sanitized.

Of course, the comics weren't dead yet, as they would enjoy a revival in the 'sixties "Silver Age" and another wave of commercial and critical success with the ambitious "graphic novels" of the 'eighties. Yet comics would never again enjoy the broad-based popularity they had in the early 1950s. Still, comic book lovers remain an unusually and intensely devoted audience, perhaps the ultimate "fanboys." (I believe we have a number of comic aficionados around these here parts.) But what exactly causes this geekly love? Why do comic books inspire such fanatical commitment among their readers? And is that commitment fundamentally different from the devotion stimulated by other forms of pop culture?

Next week: the birth of rock 'n' roll, Elvis, and baby-boomer girl culture.

WE CAN BE HEROES JUST FOR ONE DAY: Part of the plan for Heroes this season is that the show will wrap up early and end the year with a spinoff called Heroes: Origins, which will be an anthology-type show, allowing a group of writers and directors to develop their own Heroes, who may be added to the main show as regulars or even become their own spinoffs. Half the writer/directors have now been announced, apparently, and they include:

• Eli Roth (Hostel, Cabin Fever)
• Kevin Smith
• John August (Charlie's Angels, Big Fish, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory)
• Michael Dougherty (co-writer of Superman Returns and X2)

Any of these intrigue you?

ALL HE EVER DOES IS GET INDUCTED: The seventeen finalists for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame are:

Cris Carter, Dermontti Dawson, Richard Dent, Russ Grimm, Bob Hayes, Claude Humphrey, Cortez Kennedy, Bob Kuechenberg, Randall McDaniel, John Randle, Andre Reed, Shannon Sharpe, Bruce Smith, Derrick Thomas and Rod Woodson, plus contributors Ralph Wilson, owner of the Buffalo Bills, and former commissioner Paul Tagliabue.

Semifinalists who missed the cut, according to one FO contributor, include Roger Craig, Terrell Davis, Chris Doleman, Kevin Greene, Ray Guy, Charles Haley, Lester Hayes, Art Modell, Ken Stabler, and Steve Tasker.

John Randle, Shannon Sharpe, Bruce Smith, and Rod Woodson are all first-year-eligibles; Dawson and Kennedy were eligible before, but made the final ballot for the first time this year. The voters are listed here, and somewhere between 4-7 of these men will be inducted. Before looking at the statistics (to the extent that football performance can even be measured numerically), I'd have to think Shannon Sharpe, Bruce Smith, and Rod Woodson are as close to locks for eventual induction as can exist, and Derrick Thomas and Cris Carter sure as heck belong in.

HE COULD PAINT AN ENTIRE APARTMENT IN ONE AFTERNOON. TWO COATS: There is perhaps no more lazy form of blogging that the "here's a few more Hitler/Downfall parody videos that I like" quickie post, especially almost two years since the meme first took off. Conceded. Hitler finds out Kevin Smith was kicked off a Southwest flight; Hitler deals with the Grammar ... strict police and Hitler can't get Billy Elliot tickets.