By Steven Zeitchik

Among the final panels we caught at Comic-Con this weekend was the one-man show of Kevin Smith, contractually obligated to attend every comics convention in Christendom even if he has no movie to promote (which he didn't).

We're usually pleasantly surprised when we see Smith perform, often freeform, because he manages to work a room much larger than any standup normally works without a single word written or seemingly even prepared. His schtick is crude but not cruel, and it's actually pretty dexterous and funny, which makes us wonder why his last four movies are neither.

Smith always strikes an honest note, but on this day he was taking candor to the point of self-lacerating. After coming to Comic-Con last year with "Zack & Miri Make a Porno" and coming up with a dud several months later, Smith is feeling humbled. He made numerous jokes (part savvy deflection, part genuine confession, it seemed) wondering why it's been so long since he had a hit and questioning whether fans should still put their faith in him.

Smith is at work on a studio picture now — his first — the Warners buddy-detective comedy "A Couple of Dicks" and while the Jersey boy didn't tip much about the February pic, he did say fans shouldn't get too attached to the title.

By Steven Zeitchik

Kevin Smith is changing.

If you watch “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” which opens today, there won’t be much evidence of that. Apart from the fact that there’s a woman at the center, the movie is a classic Smithian bromance, all pop-culture references and outrageous gags you’re likely to hear repeated (and which of course originated) in the junior-high boys room. (The sweet uplift you’ve been reading about is there, but it’s in the second half and not the movie’s main deal).

But Smith is, make no mistake, evolving. The man who’s always put the joke first and the idea second wants to reverse that order, if not upend the model entirely. It’s a position he outlined, subtly but clearly, in a series of responses during a recent interview Risky Biz conducted with him at his Hollywood Hills home (which is filled with a giant painting of Mickey Mouse and frat-house kitsch like a foosball table, natch).

The simple logline is that he wants to direct more serious films. But his desire is more than that, a fundamental shift not only in what he does but in how he’s viewed.

Exhibit A is his next project, “Red State” a political drama about a domestic terrorist that he feels strongly enough about he’s wiling to make even without the backing of a studio — the first time he’s done that since his first movie, “Clerks,” fifteen years ago.

He describes “Red State” thusly: “It’s political, it has something on its mind. It’s a bleak movie, it’s dark, its not commercial. Everyone dies. It deals with religious issues. It’s just a tough pill to swallow. It’s not funny.”

And with a kind of drive that’s at once mid-90’s indie and mid-60’s auteur — but certainly not a typical position for a man with a half dozen comedic moneymakers under his belt — he’s pushing on despite the commercial ambivalence.

“I imagine by now i should be like ‘If enough people say it stinks, it stinks. And they’re not saying it stinks. But they’re saying its commercial chances are small. I should be saying ‘F%&* it,” if enough people say it, it’s gotta be true’. But for some reason it pumps me a little but more. I really feel this is what I should be doing right now. So as soon as they say no, they’re quick to be like ‘But do you have a comedy’ and I’m like ‘Okay, I get it. I’m the comedy guy.’ And I love doing comedy and I’ll totally do one after but when I got into indie film, I didn’t get into it saying I want to make comic movies. I got into it saying I want to make films.”

(BTW, his anecdote about how the Weinstein Company passed is hilariously telling: “They did it like this. Classic Harvey and Bob.  Harvey read it, says ‘horror movie, it should go to Bob.’ Okay, Bob reads it, goes, ‘This is nothing like any horror movie I’d do, so I don’t know how to market it. So both of them have this plausible deniability.”)

But it’s not just enough to get it made — Smith needs it to work, commercially and critically, for reasons having to do with his…soul.

“‘Red State’ will be a true indicator of whether or not I’m truly a filmmaker. because most days i don’t feel like a filmmaker, I feel like the guy that makes the d@#k and fart joke movies. But if I can pull off a movie in a completely different genre where have no net to fall into in terms of like ‘Quick, I’ll whip out a c@%k joke or something like that, then maybe i’ll feel like a filmmaker.”

Of course in the interim Smith has another movie — “Zack and Miri,” whose performance will tell another story.

“If it doesn’t do better than our best movie theatrically then we’ve f@#%ing  failed somehow,” Smith says (that amount is Dogma’s $31 million).

So what is the over-under on this as a mainstream success for Smith and a company-redeeming play for the Weinstein Company? Smith may have put it at $30 million but we’d say reasonable expectations should be in the $50-60 million range. That will help establish Smith as a mainstream commercial filmmaker — even if it risks pigeonholing him further as a raunchy-comedy guy.

Thin-skinned director/blogger Kevin Smith fights back against all criticism, big or small.

I understand what director Kevin Smith means when he tells the LAT why he likes teaching young directors before they get ruined by Hollywood. He is teaching short filmmaking at UCLA–for mobile phones.

I was talking to Sony Pictures Classics’ Michael Barker about how great it is to talk to a young director after he or she has made their breakout film, when they are still gratified and thrilled to be so well-received. I had just met with The Lives of Others director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. Talking to a smart young director has long been my idea of a good time. I love to figure out what makes them tick—before their heads get turned by too much Hollywood fawning and they get guarded with the press.

Andy Horbal lines up all the links having to do with Kevin Smith’s recent dust-up with critics in one place, in case anyone is still interested. I like Kevin Smith, but he should have absolutely no say as to who sees his movies. If he wants to complain about what critics write about him, it’s a free country and he more than most people has several bully pulpits where he can speak his mind. PR-wise, it’s just plain foolish to bar a major critic from a screening.

Smith is quite articulate, by the way, as is the always-astutely funny John Waters, in Kirby Dick’s This Film is Not Yet Rated, which is a fascinating example of post-Michael Moore documentary as participatory entertainment. No one could have made this arcane subject matter more amusing. Good-looking and likeable, Dick takes the Moore approach of inserting himself in the movie as a participant in the action, accompanying a charming private eye as she tracks and photographs secret members of the MPAA ratings and appeals boards. Dick is on a reformist’s mission, and makes his biases clear. But going through a ratings board member’s trash—as enjoyable as it is to be caught up in the chase—seems less than dignified for an Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker.

Dick (with filmmaker Atom Egoyan, who is on the left) makes a strong case for where the board goes wrong on straight and gay sex and violence, which has long been a problem. But some of the NC-17 films that are shown here should be rated NC-17. The fact that Blockbuster or Wallmart won’t carry them is another question.

I do not agree with October Films co-founder Bingham Ray’s assertion that Hollywood could do without the ratings board altogether. I have always accepted former MPAA chief Jack Valenti’s argument, for example, that even a flawed industry ratings system is better than local censorship. I do believe that in this country, that is what we would inevitably get. Yes, fix the system, make it consistent, fair to indies and studios alike, logical and transparent, and lose the secret board members and clergy on the appeals board. Dick unwisely focused his ire on the outgoing Valenti. New MPAA head Dan Glickman says, at least, that he’s willing to address these issues.

Writer-Director-blogger-actor Kevin Smith announces his latest promotion for Clerks II on MySpace: he’s going to be a special guest critic on Ebert & Roeper.

Mark Olsen tackles the multi-talented self-promotion machine that is Kevin Smith. I’m not criticizing. Smith harnessed the power of the internet before most people, as well as supporting Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells at Movie Poop Shoot until Wells went into business on his own.

In a Clerks II-related story, EW’s Christine Spines profiles the behind-the-scenes troubles of Clerks II star Jason Mewes.

I went to the Clerks II premiere last night. I’d missed it at the end of Cannes and I’ve long been a Kevin Smith fan. (He’s doing a ton of PR and <a href="blog and MySpace promotion—30,000 friends, not bad.)

The movie is just what you expect: more polished than the first, shot in color, with a fine musical number (thank God for Rosario Dawson, with Smith, left) and lots of talking, much of it scatalogically funny. The guys go on astonishing riffs (my fave is a heated debate over the merits of Star Wars vs. LOR) and Smith makes sure he gets some pretty hairy (literally) R-rated shit in for the fanboys. (Dogma and Chasing Amy remain my two favorite Smith movies.)

I’m glad Nora missed this one. She wanted to see it, because she rented the original from Netflix (and loved it) after poring over the comedy issue of Premiere. (She systematically typed titles into her beefed up summer Netflix queue: Chasing Amy, Dazed and Confused, Mallrats, Old School, National Lampoon’s Animal House, A Fish Called Wanda, Stripes, Trading Places, Blazing Saddles. Now that she’s out of the house for a while, I can catch up with Jonathan Glazer’s Birth, which I’ve always regretted missing and read about recently on various blogs. I have a thing for amazing long shots like Orson Welles’ opening of Touch of Evil, Brian DePalma’s Snake Eyes and Bonfire of the Vanities, or the camera that goes out the window in Antonioni’s The Passenger.)

Anyhow, I lasted about ten minutes at the Avalon after party—no food, too loud. I went back outside, where I introduced Landmark Theatres exec Ray Price to Harvey Weinstein, who was gracious and talked up his fall Oscar contenders, including Emilio Estevez’s Bobby. Ray and I greeted Kevin as he climbed out of his limo, then went out for supper at the Arclight cafe, which stays open until 12:30 PM.

Photo: Wireimage/Jeff Vespa