I finally caught up with the new Clerks II trailer at apple.com. It bodes well that it received an eight minute standing ovation at Cannes last month, but after seeing the first 20 minutes of Jersey Girl again on Sky, I can't get over the dichotomy that Kevin Smith is a dick.

Let me rephrase, as that comes across as I don't like or respect the guy. He made Clerks and Mallrats, two movies I love. He's a maverick independent film-maker. He's best buds with Tarantino and Rodriguez. He talks openly yet eloquently about his productions, his life and his friendships. But here's the rub: he made Jersey Girl and he consistently whores his wares across all his company's websites in such a fashion to make said sites almost unreadable. Maybe I'm just jealous — teeth-grindingly, shaking-fist-wildly-in-the-air jealous — but for a guy with such clue, he seems to fumble the ball more often than most in recent years. This galls me, because as I said, it's not that I don't like or don't respect him.

I'm struggling to find a point here. Perhaps I just need to get these two minor points off my chest: people will buy Kevin's stuff regardless of how heavily or lightly it's pimped on his websites, and Jersey Girl really, really licked balls. Seeing another Smith production making its way towards the cinema merely returns those emotions to mind and gives me the chills that the Jersey Girl Effect could happen again: great cast + shit script = shit movie.

viewaskew.com reports that Kevin will be in the UK in August to promote Clerks 2's likely end-of-August release date over here, and with the first leg of the trip being in Edinburgh, that seems to co-incide with the Fringe (or more specifically the Edinburgh International Film Festival). I may just have to wander across and ask these very questions in a less vulgar manner. "Oi, Smith, you're a dick: explain" may not be received too well in person!