Santana with Rob Thomas is called Smooth. I love how the voice sounds with the guitar.
All kinds of great Las Vegas hotels behind me as I get shaded briefly by a bridge.
I'm going to tell you more about the Sports and Music Fest a little later on.
Remember I caught up with the cast of Dogma.
Kevin Smith, the writer-producer, was so amazing to sit down with.
We talked about the controversy surrounding the film and some of the hate mail he's received.
Take a look at part one of my time with Kevin Smith.
I'm sitting here with Kevin Smith, the writer, director, and also acts in Dogma.
You play Silent Bob. We know you well as that character.
Thank you. Thanks for giving me props as an actor. I rarely, rarely get that.
This movie is going to bring a lot of controversy, but I don't think in the way that people expect.
Even I, seeing the trailers, went into the film expecting something totally different than what I got.
Do you think the controversy is going to be lived up to?
I think most people walking into this flick thinking that they're in for a controversial movie
or a movie that does this to the church for two hours are in for a big disappointment.
It's not really that. It's actually a really devout flick.
The controversy will be that they were sold false goods.
This isn't a movie that has teeth or attacks the church.
It actually upholds everything the church believes in.
I've seen a lot of hate mail in regards to the movie.
I haven't received the brunt of it right because I'm Catholic.
They just say he should know better.
When this was a Miramax film, Bob and Harvey Weinstein still to this day,
even though they're not involved with the movie anymore, get tons and tons of hate mail.
Anti-Semitic stuff that you just wouldn't believe.
It's the kind of stuff that you shake your head and go like,
I'm sorry, they're supposed to be Christians.
How can you call yourself? Yeah, exactly.
What a contradiction to what you say you believe.
It is. I've read the Bible a few times in the teaching of Christ.
He didn't mention anything about shotguns and killing Jews.
Just because they didn't believe in Jesus.
I'm looking forward to that. November 12th is when Dogma comes out.
Stick around. More from Kevin Smith, more from Las Vegas,
and a video from Mr. Lou Vega.
Mamba number five coming up when Hot Zone comes right back.
That's a lady from Juvenile. Back that thing up.
Juvenile is going to be part of our Sports Music Fest 3D weekend
coming at you from the beautiful Las Vegas.
Mamba is on the strip right now
checking out all the great buildings.
This is only my second time in Vegas and I got a little more time to spend.
So you and I are going to explore the city all week long
and Juvenile is going to be performing along with tons of other great people.
I'll tell you all about that during the show.
Let's get to part two of my chat with Kevin Smith,
the writer and director of Dogma. Check it out.
How did you come to God's view of reflecting like Alanis?
Looking like Alanis?
Well, Alanis was a friend first and foremost and I really dig her.
You know, she's really nice. You know, you met her.
She's just really great.
And since you met her, you know, like if you sit in her presence,
you're hanging out with her for like two minutes.
I totally get why you choose her.
Yeah, she's a very ethereal cat and has a very spiritual nature about her.
And you could be sitting there and having just the worst day of your life.
I just said the S word on TV.
But you can have the worst day of your life
or just, you know, bogged down by pressure or the kind of crap we get in stress and whatnot.
And after hanging out with her for a few minutes,
you're like, everything's okay, isn't it?
She's one of those people. She's very rare.
Her energy's very balanced.
And I'm sure some people bag on her and stuff because whatever she did.
Well, because they don't get it.
Yeah, they don't get it or, you know, it's common and great
and one of the great American national pastimes to backlash anything you once liked before
as soon as it gets really popular.
Oh, right, like Hanson.
Like Hanson.
It almost seems like every actor's dream to get a film where they actually get to reflect
probably what they believe is true in the real scheme of things of how we perceive God.
And it's also well written. It's well done.
Thank you.
It's funny.
Right. I think most people like to be funny.
And doesn't exclude reality.
No.
People are cussing.
They're like, you know.
It's different. It's just different.
It's not like a movie. I mean, say what you will about the movie.
Maybe people will think it's just horrible or like,
I can't believe the clerks guys make another movie.
Why do they keep giving them money?
But I mean, the movie is different.
You know, it's really different than most other flicks that are out there.
I've never seen anything quite like it.
So, I mean, you at least got to give me props for that.
Props.
Props indeed.
I'm gonna give you props for that.
Thank you.
For real.
Thank you. That's right. Y'all better go check out Dogma.
November 12th is when it opens.
I got more from Vegas on the way.
Little Jennifer Lopez coming up for you after break.
Hot Zone is coming right back from the Las Vegas Strip, baby.
The world has come down from above.
Dogma is out of this world.
No way.
The New York Times says it's wildly irreverent, boldly funny.
This is one of the best films of the year.
Outstanding work.
Dogma, rated R, starts Friday in theaters everywhere.
What?
Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are two fallen angels having a blast,
turning the world upside down unless these guys can stop them.
Ben, stop!
Dogma.
Outstanding work.
Rated R, starts Friday in theaters everywhere.
All right, everybody.
We're back.
We're in Los Angeles.
My first guest tonight received an Oscar for Good Will Hunting
and has also starred in such films as Armageddon and Shakespeare in Love.
His latest movie, Dogma, opens this Friday.
Let's take a look.
Man, now here's what I don't get about you, man.
Why do you feel the need to come to this place all the time?
My friend, because this is humanity at its best.
Oh.
Look at them.
All that anger, all that mistrust, all that unhappiness.
Forgotten.
That one perfect moment when they get off the plane.
See those two?
But that guy doesn't know is that the girl cheated on him while she was away.
She did?
Twice.
Nice.
It doesn't matter right now because they're just both so relieved to be with one another.
I like that.
Please welcome Ben Affleck.
Ah.
Very exciting.
That's nice.
Very nice.
You serving drinks in the line outside?
Yeah, there we hit.
We have a kegger going on here.
You can tell.
Yeah.
Ah.
How are you?
Really good.
How are you?
Yeah, we're doing great.
Thanks.
Very nice to have you on the show.
Very exciting.
Well, you know you're in LA.
We wanted some big names in LA.
We certainly got one.
I'm sorry.
I didn't pay it out for you.
No, it's we who are sorry.
I thought you guys were doing well, too.
I know, I know.
Nice to have you here.
We've actually, you've been in the newspapers a bit lately.
I have been.
You should talk about this.
Because we never, we usually get guests long after their little scandal is over.
You had yours what, just last week?
You guys couldn't book Botafuco right after it happened.
We're getting him in about a month.
We'll figure out what happened with him.
But you've been in the papers.
What's been going on?
Well, I had a little bit of a, you know, I did this interview, right?
And with Playboy magazine.
And I thought, because they were doing this movie Dogman.
It was kind of edgy.
And so I thought, well, you do the weird magazines, the Playboys, the adult stuff.
Right, you can get a little risque in those interviews.
In fact, that was the idea.
They kept saying, you know, look, it's an adult men's magazine.
It's not, you know, for the kids.
So you can talk about the adult stuff.
So, so they mentioned the sort of popularity of Viagra in this interview, the interviewer.
And I thought it would kind of be funny to, to joke about taking Viagra.
Yeah.
See, I don't really take Viagra.
No, it doesn't work.
Or so I'm told.
Well, thank you.
Thanks, buddy.
I'll get my lesbian kiss after all.
All right.
So, so you saw, so I went into the thing and I said, oh yeah, well, you know, you take
Viagra when you're 27 to feel like you're 15.
But then I said, oh, I almost had a heart attack and I fell over and, and, you know,
I thought it was kind of funny.
Maybe not that fun.
I'm not a professional comedian like you.
But, but this is like one of those examples of how weird my life is.
And then like it got published and the people from the company got very upset.
The Pfizer Pfizer people, the good people from Pfizer.
And they issued a statement in response to what I said, which was that Viagra is not
for recreational use.
In fact, it's purely for medical use and recreational use.
Right.
Entirely inappropriate.
Do not give it.
Yeah.
Do not listen to Ben Affleck.
No, don't.
And I then it occurred to me like, well, isn't that the whole point that it's recreational?
It is for recreational.
Like, I mean, where does it get medical?
Even Bob Dole, he takes it really seriously and he's like, stay still, lady.
It's a serious business.
Ha!
You just ruined our cool LA set.
Our set is made of spun sugar.
It's melting now.
It's uh, no, but I mean, they do.
I mean, I've heard stories that they hand Viagra out in clubs here.
I don't know if that's true that if you go to certain clubs, they hand it out.
It'll be a dessert topping in like a year.
Yeah, you can get that with the coffee.
You know what I mean?
Put some, uh, put some Viagra on my froger.
Uh, let's talk about.
They didn't, they weren't that pleased with me.
Really.
No, no, don't worry.
Did your parents get upset about this?
I always worry about what my parents are going to say.
Yeah, see, I have a problem with that where I don't think about it.
I do the interviews and I think it's like me and the guy and we're kind of talking and
hanging out.
And then I got this email because my mom, my mom discovered the email.
You know what I mean?
And she's like, I love the email.
You can write the letters, you know?
And so I get the email from my mom and, uh, and then I got this email the other day was
subject line was just playboy interview.
It occurred to me that maybe, maybe it wasn't the best idea to be talking about, you know,
maintaining and achieving erections.
And the interview that my mom was doing.
Yeah.
But then the note and I was like, it's really a nice interview.
You're so funny and very charming.
I thought that's a mom, right?
Yeah, she's got to stand by you.
I'm sorry about the problem.
She should be proud that you're trying to deal with it.
Now, uh, dogma, let's talk about dogma because you did this with your,
you did this with your good friends, Matt Damon, of course, Kevin Smith.
These are very cool people.
These are, these are pals of yours.
I was thinking if you're doing a movie with friends like that, there's the set.
Is it a lighter atmosphere?
Do you goof around?
Yeah, it's definitely a lighter atmosphere.
I mean, one of the nice things is like, you know, I know Matt, I did a bunch of moves
with Kevin and, and then, uh, but then there are people that I didn't know, you know what
I mean?
Who you get a little bit sort of more nervous about like Chris Rock, who I've always been
a fan of Chris Rock and he's very funny.
So I thought I'd, um, you know, but like try and see if rock had a sense of humor in real
life, because if you noticed that you must meet a lot of comics and stuff and you think,
Hey, this guy's really funny.
And then you kind of meet him and you try to do a joke.
A lot of comedians are like sort of self-hating and quiet.
They take it really seriously.
And you say something, you think it's kind of funny and they're like, yeah, yeah, man.
Yeah.
You know, and so I, I figured, I thought I was very nice to you backstage.
I thought you, yeah, but, uh, so you're going down that flick.
You better do my show.
That's right.
Yeah.
But, uh, so I went up to rock and I said, Hey, Chris, you know, we were kind of talking
and then it halfway through the conversation. I was like, you know, I gotta go use the phone.
You think I should dial 1-800-collect.
Did he like that?
He did like it.
He went for it.
Turns out he had a sense of humor.
He's like, yeah, that's funny.
I like your Chris rock.
Yeah.
Do a good rock.
You've done the, uh, you've done the big budget films.
I have, yeah.
Uh, like Armageddon.
You've also done the movies with practically no budget.
What's it like going from one to the other?
You're on a movie where they put $800 million into it.
And then you're on a movie that's like $13,000.
The main difference, the really lowest budget movie I did was Chasing Amy,
which was a Kevin Smith's movie about all the people who saw the movie sitting in this audience
are here. And, uh, I went and did that movie and it was like a $200,000 budget, which is almost
nothing. And, uh, so one of the things, the ways that, that it was different from that, uh,
from Armageddon was that I had to stay at Kevin's house on his couch while we were making the movie.
Was it a foldout couch?
It was a foldout.
Oh, there you go.
Yeah. So it was a foldout couch.
You get to learn things about people. I actually prefer that experience. For example,
the other woman in the movie at the time was dating Kevin. And the nice thing that, uh,
that I got to learn about him during the course of my stay there was that
when special time happens, the moonlighting soundtrack goes on.
You know, the TV series, Moonlighting.
Yeah. Yeah. What are you talking about? That's what he would make love to?
Evidently. I mean, it wasn't like, you know.
Not like Barry White or...
No, no, he would throw on Moonlight. And it's not just the theme song. It's like songs inspired by
the television series. You know what I mean? So you always knew when Moonlighting came on that maybe
you don't go knocking on the door because that was, that was friendly time.
I was alone.
I used the, I used the, uh, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang soundtrack.
You know, who doesn't?
Yeah.
You know, who doesn't?
I always liked to...
I'd give Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty, yeah!
And I'd get going. It works for me. You should try it.
I will try that.
No, you won't. You're lying to me. Dogma, which I saw, which is a fascinating movie.
I haven't ever seen a movie quite like this before.
It's funny. That clip was kind of a somber,
like meditation on the human existence. It's actually sort of a fun... I think that was the
only clip that could be shown on TV because they're all the swear words.
It's an interesting, fascinating movie. People should check it out. Dogma opens this Friday.
Ben, really cool to meet you.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for coming here. Nice to have you.
Ben Affleck, Denise Richards coming up. We'll be right back. Stick around.
I just, you know, met...
That's the latest from Britney Spears. It's called Crazy. Darren Henson choreographed that.
Good job. This is Ananda. Of course, you're watching Hot Zone. We're hanging out here
in Las Vegas for the Sports and Music Fest coming out this weekend.
Got a lot to fit in. So let me skip the SMF 3D info. I'll give you that later.
Let's talk about Dogma. This film opens Friday and this weekend I got to sit down with the cast.
Yesterday we talked to Kevin Smith. Today we're going to talk to Linda Fiorentino first. Let's
see what she had to say about her character, her religion, and her faith. Take a look.
I'm sitting with Linda Fiorentino who plays Bethany in Dogma.
Gosh, Bethany becomes almost this like martyr woman. You know what I mean? How did that feel
as an actress? And thinking of like...
The same way I feel today, I feel like a martyr doing the press showcase. This is my 30th interview
and that's only halfway done. So there's some martyrdom going on here today.
Do you think, like I think when I sat and watched the film, it's a long time coming for a film like
this that actually deals honestly, realistically, and really pervasively, like over everybody's
religion with the topic of religion and more so faith. Was that true for you when you read the
script you said finally? Well, I mean, I wasn't really looking for a movie that had religious
content in it. Anything that didn't say sexy sultry was good enough for me and this certainly
fit the bill in that respect. You also called your character, Bethany, a version of Dorothy
in The Wizard of Oz. And then when I heard you say that, like when I heard that you said that,
I thought of it again. And yeah, there's like Toto, there's the scarecrow and everybody's there.
Cowardly lion. Yeah.
You know? The tin man.
Exactly.
Everybody's there. And we all, I think-
Kevin didn't do that on purpose.
I think he may have subconsciously have done that or he may have even followed the structure,
but I think I was the only one who guessed that he had done that.
Really? I guess we all-
But I lived with a screenwriter for seven years, so I kind of look at that.
I look at the structure of the screenplay. But I needed something, you know, to be able to
identify, you know, each like section of the film. I needed something. And it's kind of,
you know how Dorothy like loses her faith and, you know, wants to get away and run away from home.
And you know, and then she finds out in the end that home is home.
Meets Oz. It's the wizard.
Exactly. Exactly. Alan Rickman is Glenda.
Exactly.
The good witch.
Exactly.
See?
Wow.
I think we uncovered something.
I highly recommend Dogma. It challenges everything you think you believe,
and I think that's a good thing. So stick around. I'm going to talk with Salma Hayek.
We're going to talk about her musing in the film. Also, more from Las Vegas about SMF 3D
and a timely video from Will Smith. Take a little break and come right back
for more Hot Zone from Las Vegas.
What do a single white female, two prophets,
the 13th apostle,
and,
have in common? They're all trying to stop two fallen angels
from destroying all existence.
Outstanding work.
Dogma.
They want the dead do the most of their time.
Watch the living, especially in the shower.
Play the door.
Starts Friday in theaters everywhere.
Melanis Morissette, uninvited.
I love that.
So Nanda, this is Hot Zone, of course, still hanging out in Vegas.
And speaking of Melanis, she has a very big role in Dogma.
Not that you see her all through the movie, but it's a very important role that she plays.
Right now, it's time to chat with another cast member, Salma Hayek,
who's a muse in Dogma. Let's talk about her character. Take a look.
No, I play a muse, and I play a wonderful character because
she's a muse that has an existential crisis.
And it's very, very valid because she feels that she's been overlooked.
She feels that she has inspired all these great artists of the world,
like Mozart and Shakespeare and Picasso.
And they have gotten all the fame and respect and adoration from the public.
What about me? Okay?
Nobody acknowledges that serendipity was part of that process.
Nobody gives me credit for all my work that I've been doing through time, through history.
So she asks God for permission to come to earth and try her own fame and fortune as a writer.
And that doesn't work, and she turns out...
And that doesn't work at all.
We got more from TJ Lavin's house on the way, more FMF3D,
a video from Brandi and her friends, and more stunning stuff here in Vegas.
Coming back, more hot stuff in a minute.
Two fallen angels are about to set the right things.
Wrong.
Outstanding work.
Unless these guys can stop them.
Oh, that's tough.
The New York Times says dogma is mercilessly funny.
Oh, lighten up.
Newsweek calls it...
Survey says...
Outrageous.
It's one of the best and most exciting films of the year.
What about sex?
No sex.
Dogma.
I'd love to keep those guys on their toes.
Rated R. Starts Friday in theaters everywhere.
From Enrique Iglesias. It's called Rhythm Divine.
As you can see, I'm highly distracted by all the great clothing here at the attic in Las Vegas.
I'm gonna tell you more about the sports music festivals, which is why we're in Las Vegas.
But first, remember I was telling you I checked in with the cast of Dogma?
All right, let's check out part one of my talk with Chris Rock.
We talked about a number of things concerning his role in Dogma.
Take a look.
It's Ananda here hanging out with Chris Rock.
Oh, hot zone.
A star in Dogma.
Sizzle, baby.
So first off, nice ass.
I never got to see your ass before.
I know. We've never got around to that.
We never got around to that.
You and I.
Were those squats or is that like an implant job?
That was very... It was like bubbly.
I did a lot of work on the ass.
You did?
Yeah.
I'm like, what? You threw me off in that like...
Yeah, when you see the director's cut, it's really...
It's good. Did you roll over on that?
Yeah.
Okay. Cut it out.
Kevin says he hates improv and that specifically asks you to stick to the lines.
But you did go off on one.
A couple.
A couple? They told me one.
How difficult was that for you? Being an improv king, like how difficult was that for you to just be like meticulous for me?
It wasn't that hard because the script was really good.
And so the scenes are already funny.
Normally you have to improv because they give you a plate because it seems dead.
And it's like, come on, help us out here.
Give us something.
But it wasn't that hard because I really...
Especially after seeing Chasing Amy, I had such a respect for Kevin.
So I was like, okay, I'm going to put myself in his hands.
That's Chris Rock, Endogma.
Very funny in this film.
We got more from him when we get back.
Plus a little more hot videos for you.
Got the latest from Feeling Apple and more hot stuff from Vegas.
You guys get out of here and take a break.
I'm going to try on some coats.
It's colder in New York than it is here.
I'll see you in a minute.
Brian McKnight is called Back at One.
Do another video in the shower, Brian.
Tananda here back at the attic in Las Vegas.
Not only do they have really cool clothing, furniture is off the hook.
And look, LPs, baby, the dinosaurs of the music business.
We got more cool stuff coming up.
Let's take a look at part two of my talk with Chris Rock, of course,
about his role in the upcoming film, Dogma.
Take a look.
So what about the swearing in the movie?
I think one of the biggest things, like,
religious people are going to say is, hey, don't cuss in there.
But do you think apostles really cuss?
Hey, I mean, what's cursing, though?
Think about cursing.
Yeah.
It's not the words.
It's the intent of the words.
Are there any footage of a Hitler cursing?
No.
But he was cussing.
Everything he said was a curse word.
The 13th Apostle, that's who you play,
isn't mentioned in the Bible, feels completely disrespected because of that.
But I didn't get what you were doing for the last, like, 2000 years in between.
Well, that's not...
What were you doing?
I had a show in the UPN.
That was...
Brothers from Out of Space.
Stop it.
Did I say that?
You get to come back together with some people you worked before
that you hadn't seen in a while.
No, everybody.
I just met everybody on this movie.
I didn't know anybody.
Really?
It was great.
It was...
Refreshing?
It was refreshing because everybody was kind of going through the same things.
Everybody was kind of, like, in a similar space in their career.
Everybody was coming off major success.
Yeah, that, Damon Ben Affleck's film, all of you guys.
They won the Oscar while we were filming the movie.
And, you know, Alanis was just coming off of her thing.
And Kevin just did Amy, and I just did Bring the Pain.
And it was weird.
And it was great to be around all these people at the same time.
Energy must have been nice.
It was like a...
It was, yeah, it was a weird energy.
Do you agree with Kevin's appearance of God?
Did you like that?
Well, God is whoever...
The appearance of God is...
It's gonna be different for everybody.
It's basically whoever can talk the most sense into you.
Whoever can crack through all your BS is gonna be God.
And for Kevin, that person was Alanis Morissette.
Right.
Good old Chris Rock.
That was a lot of fun.
All right, we got more stuff coming up.
One more hot video.
Fatboy Slim is on the way.
Plus, more from the attic.
I'm gonna try on some more clothes and try to find myself some bargains.
We'll be right back.
Ladies and gentlemen, the star of Politically Incorrect, Bill Maher.
Bill's guest tonight, ER's Laura Innis.
Terry Mandel, Dogma director Kevin Smith, and Bob Larson.
And perfect.
What a crowd.
Thank you very much.
Hey, I know why you're...
I actually don't know why you're that excited.
But there was some good news today.
President Clinton said today, he said the Y2K bug will cause no major problems
when we finally hit December 31st.
And, whoo, an anxious nation breathes easier.
Now, the president said, I thought this was quite a quote, he said,
this is the greatest management challenge the world has faced since World War II.
Wow.
And Bill Gates called it the exciting new feature of the Windows operating system.
I...
Well, this is a big week for the military tomorrow as Veterans Day.
Today was the 224th anniversary of the Marines.
And the Marines here, there you simplify, exactly.
Who, by the way, are awfully sensitive about the gays and the military issue.
Today, they announced that they're over Hill, but no longer over Dale.
I...
You know, I...
Now, hey, speaking about sensitive to gay, do you know that Pokemon, the movie,
opened today and already protests.
I tell you, every time that there's a kid's...
You remember Teletubbies?
Tinky Winky?
Oh, yeah.
The Christian right is protesting saying, if he's not gay, why isn't it Poke a woman?
That's...
I...
Really, silly.
Silly.
I...
And finally, you may have heard about this.
In a big controversy down in Miami, a restaurant is being sued because the owner of the restaurant
added a tip to a black customer's check because he said black people don't tip as much.
It's not me.
This is what this guy said.
And already there's a huge firestorm about it.
Louis Farrakhan today called on O.J. to kill another waiter.
All right.
That's me on panel.
He has his own radio show and his book is Extreme Evil, Kids Killing Kids.
Eww, Bob Larson.
Bob.
Hello.
Hi, Bob.
Good to see you again.
Thank you.
The feel book, feel good book of the summer.
He is the critically acclaimed director of Clerks and Chasing Amy, his new one,
Dogma opens tomorrow.
Kevin Smith, director.
Kevin Smith.
Kevin, how are you?
I'm not here.
No, right there.
She is one of the fine stars of ER Thursday nights on another network like you don't know.
It's NBC.
Laura Annis right over here.
Hey, gorgeous.
Thank you.
Thank you for coming.
You're welcome.
And he's a fabulous actor, comedian, and cartoon character.
Howie Mandel is over here.
Howie Mandel, how are you?
Okay.
All right.
Kevin, let's get right into your movie.
It opens tomorrow, Dogma, and like a lot of movies that deal with religion,
people are protesting it who have never seen it and will never see it.
I saw it and I'm protesting it.
You saw it already.
I saw it already.
I saw it last night.
We started already.
No, it's not out, but I guess you got it.
It's not out, but I've seen it.
This is not the Divine Comedy.
This is Satan Meets South Park.
I thought South Park was Satan Meets South Park.
Okay.
Now, for those of you who don't know.
When he says that, it makes me want to go see it.
Yeah, which is how these movies very often get a lot of extra business.
Yes, it's been a self-defeating campaign on the behalf of the people that have spoken out about the movie.
Right.
I just don't believe that if you want someone to ignore something that you point at and scream,
don't look, see it, don't look at it.
If you don't want people to know it, just ignore it.
Let it go away.
It's a movie.
It'll be gone in a week.
Well, in spite of the fact I may be the best publicity you've got,
I still think not even being Catholic,
somebody has to speak out against the outrage of this film.
I mean...
Let me tell you some of the things that are in the movie.
Excuse me.
And then we'll go right to you.
All right.
It's about two fallen angels who are trying to sneak back into heaven through a divine loophole.
Okay?
The hero is a descendant of Jesus Christ, which kind of intimates that he was active.
No, no.
Oh, whoa, whoa.
Yeah, no, no.
It says that you're gonna be in more trouble than I've been already,
and this guy's gonna cross me.
I missed that part.
Right, right.
Well, that's not it, Bob.
Trust me.
It says that Christ had brothers and sisters after Mary's virgin birth.
He had brothers and sisters.
But she advocates abortion, right?
Well, she works in an abortion clinic.
Works in an abortion clinic.
There's a 13th apostle who was black,
who says he was sort of left out because he was black.
And John the Baptist is referred to as Jack.
No, I made that last one.
Okay, so that's what people are upset about.
Laura, it is now...
You know, I saw the movie Saturday night,
and I'm just amazed at your reaction to the movie.
Here is a person who's totally in a very active and heartfelt way
trying to explore his beliefs and his faith in a contemporary way,
which is throughout history, this is something that people have pursued,
trying in their own way to define their religion.
Do we have to have a potty mouthed prophet leading people to the divine gate to heaven?
In the movie, there is so much finding of faith and love of God in this movie.
The potty mouthed...
The bashing of the church.
It's like the church has never done anything good.
It's like there are no Rose Kennedys, there's no Brother Teresa's,
there's no Catholic hospitals, there are no Catholic charities.
We tried...
It's like the church never did anything right.
Bob, we tried to get Rose Kennedy, and it didn't pan out for us.
Let me add something.
The way this guy remains...
Well, you couldn't have him fall naked from the sky like you did Chris Ross.
Let's hear from the Jew.
You know, I just...
What I don't understand, and first of all, I want to say,
I'm probably the only one here that hasn't seen the movie.
I didn't get invited to the movie yet.
But I'm going to go when it opens.
But I'm a fan of your earlier work.
And from what I understand, and I may be wrong,
and you're right here to tell me if I am, it's comedy.
Right? It's a comedy, and it's a movie.
And what I don't understand is how that can affect the church.
How can a movie affect the church?
If people are so ignorant that they will go to a movie, a comedy,
and take what they are seeing to heart,
like the 13th apostle is actually Chris Rock, or that...
I mean, I don't understand.
Why is it probably...
Then we've got a bigger problem than this movie.
It's probably as...
But isn't a bigger problem with the church
is that nobody believes and follows what the church says anyway,
including the Catholics.
Catholics practice what they want to practice.
They go to see the pope because he's a big celebrity,
but they go home and they masturbate, they practice birth...
Well, they do.
It's amazing how many people can applaud with one hand.
But if you're going to deal with the serious issues of faith,
of God, of the devil, of demons, of eternity, of heaven and hell,
I mean, you have to have it one way or another.
This is either a comedy, it's either irrelevant or it's deliberate.
But at times he gets very serious and he...
But doesn't every comedy have a theology?
Any comedy you've ever seen, I have not seen this one,
but any comedy you've ever seen,
aren't the issues always based in serious issues?
Isn't it always a relationship comedy?
Isn't it always an adventure?
Isn't there...
Dog comedy as well.
That's what we're doing here.
That's how we get our comedy.
And the fact of the matter is anything that's...
We're laughing, we're talking about something serious.
Anything that's going to speak about faith to an audience
that doesn't really think about faith or go to church anymore,
even if you're doing it in a potty mouth fashion,
isn't the end result what matters the most?
I think the end result is a challenge to authority.
And I think, you know, when that man walked into...
When that man walked into Wedgwood Baptist and said,
religion is BS and started firing away, I'm sorry.
I think it's time to take a step back.
It's our kids who are killing...
I gotta take a shot at Wedgwood Baptist.
I don't think we need these type of religious challenges
to authority.
I think we need affirmation.
Commercials, commercials, more commercials.
We'll be right back.
APPLAUSE
MUSIC
Join us tomorrow when our guests will be Eric Idle,
Meredith Brooks from Will and Grace,
Eric McCormick and Jack Berkman.
APPLAUSE
All right, we were talking about God and religion.
And by the way, you look fantastic.
Oh, my gosh, thanks.
Um...
LAUGHTER
And you said something interesting, Bob.
You said, you know, that he is blasphemous.
But, you know, Kevin is a practicing Catholic, right?
You go to church every Sunday.
Every Sunday and the holidays.
You tithe.
You give 10% of...
Some of that money goes...
10%.
That's as much as we give to our agents.
Yes, 10% to an agent, 10% to a...
APPLAUSE
It reminds me of the way, because it was in the news today,
that Newt Gingrich's deposition was taken from his girlfriend
of six years, that he was with her for six years
while he was married.
OK, the Republicans always criticize for Clinton
for being what he is.
But they get divorced.
Clinton stayed with his wife and worked it through.
It seems like the same thing.
I mean, he's a Catholic who's working it through.
Working through...
But working through what?
By attacking every major tenant of the faith?
You're...
But that's wrong.
That's absolutely wrong.
It doesn't attack every major tenant of the faith.
It attacks the politics.
If it attacks at all, it attacks maybe the politics of the church.
But I don't even think it's an attack.
I think it's a ribbing.
And by sitting here and saying, like,
it attacks every major tenant of the faith,
and people hear that, they're like,
God, he's right.
He must be right.
He's on TV and whatnot.
But you have to know the benefit of letting people
see something for themselves before making a judgment call.
Plenty of people know, like, that you perform exorcisms
and they don't see it.
And they're like, he must be a cook.
But like, if they saw you in action,
you would like them to see you in action.
Some of the things that you challenge ought to be challenged.
You perform exorcisms?
Yeah, absolutely.
Wow.
The real thing.
Is there a Jane Fonda tape for that that I'm not aware of?
But there is a...
But you know what?
There is a real...
There's a real demon named Loki.
I'm interested in knowing how did you ever come up with that name?
Because there really is a demon named that.
I contrary to what you may believe, I read sometimes.
Where do you...
I don't know.
But you know, the good that's coming out of this film
is the fact that you're having this discussion right now.
And that it is opening people's eyes to this.
If there is one problem with the church or synagogue
or whatever organized religion is the fact
that there aren't that many people, as Bill stated, flocking to it.
So maybe through comedy and entertainment,
more people...
I'll give you that.
You do deal with...
Absolutely.
The movie makes people...
You didn't evade the most important issues.
Thanks.
You didn't evade the important issues of life and death and eternity
and God and the reality of Jesus Christ.
And you've done a favor in doing that.
Exactly.
I mean, any movie that's...
But if I may pause to correct something,
you shouldn't, I don't think, lump in the synagogue with the church.
They've operated very differently.
Okay?
The synagogue, and I'm not Jewish, but I was raised Catholic,
was never as corrupt as the Catholic church.
The Catholic church, which is people, not God, running it, okay?
Okay.
Hugely corrupt, did horrible things through history, maybe.
Okay.
Because they were that powerful.
And a lot of good, too.
So, I mean, they shouldn't come into a little ribbing?
Absolutely.
They've got some of it coming, particularly the plenary indulgence thing.
I mean, where do you get the power to before?
So where do you sound like you're on my side?
I'm on your side?
You have.
I'm on, even on your side,
in the issue of whether or not Mary and Joseph had children.
I say right on.
You're a Protestant, yeah?
It's just that when you've got an F-word spouting potty mouth prophet running around
who's saving this woman who's had an epiphany.
I'm sorry.
I mean, this is kind of the dumb and dumber version of theology.
But that's fine.
There's an overriding problem with your point of view, from my perspective.
Is there such hypocrisy about being so judgmental about somebody else's
expression of their faith or search for their faith?
And by the kind of thing that you're talking about is so alienating to people,
and in my opinion, that kind of alienation is what causes the kind of problems you write
about in your book.
It's not that people don't need to be told how to think and what to think.
You know, they need to find their time.
What's alienating is giving a message to our young people that they don't need to respect authority.
That's not the message of the movie.
The message is maybe think for yourself, which of course causes a lot of problems with religion,
because they don't want you to do that because it's called a religion.
And Bob, at the same time, you're Christian, yes?
Yes.
Isn't it better that somebody's out there talking about Christ, even if it isn't
sometimes four literate terms?
It's not the whole movie.
They don't always use the F word and talk naughty stuff, just sometimes.
But isn't it better that somebody's out there talking about it rather than nobody
or ignoring it or saying God is dead or something like that?
I think there's a constructive way to do it, and the constructive way to do it is not to
take a celestial being, put her in a strip bar where men can oogle at her, and then the
next thing we see, she's on an elevator to heaven.
Again, that makes me want to see it.
Okay, Kevin, this movie, which I'm going to open, it's Friday, not tomorrow.
Actually, tomorrow we have Eric Idle, Meredith Brooks, and Eric McCormick from Will & Grace,
and Friday we have our special child actor show.
So you get home from the movie and see that, it'll take the edge off.
Now, speaking of this kind of righteousness, John Glenn's book came out this week, and the big
story in the book was that he said that he was passed over as the first guy to go up in space.
He obviously was the first orbiter, but he wanted the first shot that Alan Shepard got.
He said his fellow astronauts who got to vote on it,
voted him down because he was always lecturing them on keeping it zipped.
You know, these were like, these were hot dog fighter pilots, and they were running around,
you know, it was like the I Dream a Genie guy.
Right.
You know, I mean, they were astronauts running around Cape Canaveral,
and they were getting astronaut tang.
And they resented him for telling them that because he wanted to stay home and
polish his helmet.
Okay, so who's right?
Don't you think these guys were right?
Well, I think he miscalculated.
I think that he purposely, he probably would have loved to have been a womanizer himself,
and I think that he lectured them and tried to pee them off so that they would vote
to get him out of there in space so there'd be more women for them to go around.
If they could just get him up in space, then there would be, it didn't work out that way.
But don't you think in a life and death situation where you're in that capsule and,
you know, your life is on the line, there are issues about integrity
regarding the people who surround you?
What does that have to do with getting it on Earth?
And wouldn't that reflect on their moral character?
Wait a second.
If it's reflecting on their moral character, I mean, he's a guy in a spaceship and he's
up in space.
You're a minister or you're on the radio.
I'm a little bit of everything.
You name it.
A little bit of everything.
He's an exercise.
And you exercise people.
And you're a public figure, a role model of sorts, but there have been allegations about
your past and whatnot.
People say all types of things.
When you're in the public eye, people say all kinds of things about you.
Absolutely.
Exactly.
But nobody says, get him off the air because he might have cheated or he might have slept
with some chicks or something like that.
Let him do his job.
But wait a second.
You know.
Yes.
This went from John Glenn to me.
They both seem to me to have like huge moral lapses because whoever should have been voted
in should have been voted in on their merit.
Even if he was a jerk for lecturing to them and even, you know, whatever.
If he was the guy, he should have been the guy.
So they both, it sounded like everybody was asking.
Didn't they all have equal merit?
I think they all had equal merit and they got to choose who was going to go first.
They had the right stuff.
But wait a minute, you're comparing his ministry with astronauts.
I mean, he's in the business of morality and a little too far into it, in my opinion.
Excuse me.
These guys are astronauts.
What the hell does that have to do with morality?
Is this the Jesse Ventura school?
A tail hook is okay because these guys are risking their lives every day?
Exactly.
You can't expect guys who risk their life, who are these kind of hot shot fighter pilots.
To not sexually harass women?
Yeah, but that's not sexual harassment.
Nobody's talking about sexual harassment.
Right.
In Jesse's case.
They're talking about having affairs, right?
In Jesse's case, they were sexually harassing women.
No, they weren't.
They were at a home.
Is Jesse going up in the space?
No.
No, no, no.
Wait, you're talking about, but you're talking about a tail hook, right?
I'm talking about a tail hook in Jesse Ventura's comments.
The tail hook wasn't harassment either.
They all were at the same party.
They were in Vegas.
They were drunk.
They were military.
Grabbed a little ass.
Let it go.
Okay.
What you're talking about, guys, this was the Cold War.
The Cold War.
We were fighting the Russians.
But they were going up one at a time, right?
So each guy was probably going to be in a capsule for days alone.
So you want to get your quota before you leave.
You're going to be...
Right?
And when you're up there alone, you got a glove on.
Didn't the spacesuits have gloves?
That's a big glove.
Yeah.
Is it?
That's the second masturbation joke you got off today.
Class.
You mean you're saying that it would be hard to hitchhike to heaven wearing a big space glove.
Talk about liftoff.
Is there a message in the fact that who are those men and are they known anywhere today?
But look what happened to John Glenn, who became a very, very great American.
Oh, are you serious?
I'm serious.
Is there nothing to be said of the fact that his moral integrity helped to ground him as a human being
to become the leader that he was for our country in the Senate?
But do you enjoy being lectured by other people who are your colleagues about your personal life choices?
Would you enjoy that?
And does it happen to you?
Or are you the one doing the lecturing?
Sure, it happens to me.
I think it happens to anybody who is in public life.
But we're talking about-
No, I'm not talking.
I'm talking about your colleagues, the people in your workplace.
Would you appreciate them coming into work and saying, you know, I have an opinion-
Is there an exorcist office?
Do you have an office?
Do you have a receptionist?
Okay.
I have to take it from here.
We'll be right back.
You think about that, young man.
You're planning to be in the Los Angeles area and would like free tickets to Politically Incorrect.
Call 323-575-4321.
All right.
I just have time to answer your question.
I don't think John Glenn is more moral because he made us put him up in space when he was an old man.
It cost a lot of money.
We could have just put him at Epcot and told him he was in space.
Tomorrow we have Eric Idle, Meredith Brooks from Will and Grace, Eric McCormick,
and our conservative Jack Burke.
Thank you, folks.
That's the latest from Britney Spears.
It's called the crazy Darren Henson choreograph.
What's up, homie?
It's Hot Zone.
Of course, we're hanging out in the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino,
one of the many sites of SMF 3D coming out this weekend.
I'll tell you more about that a little later on.
You know we've been hanging out with the cast of Dogma all week.
The movie opens Friday. That's this Friday, November 12th.
Let's see how part one of my chat with Ben Affleck went
when we talked about how he hopes the movie will change people.
Take a look.
Finish the statement for me.
This movie will change the way people look at...
Um, Salma High Express.
And behind too, actually.
I don't know.
Organized religion. How's that?
Good.
Do you have any organized religion that you follow?
No.
So your faith wasn't... was your faith challenged by doing anything that you did?
My faith is... my... no, I took a continuing thing for me.
I was like, oh boy.
You know, this is really...
For me, this was about like playing a superhero.
You know what I mean?
Because Kevin took religious theology and made it into this kind of superhero movie out of it.
And ultimately, kind of thematically, it's Kevin's...
it's Kevin's struggle trying to reconcile being a devout Catholic with like the...
The real world.
...what he sees in the world, yeah.
And that was his, you know, thing that he was on.
And for me, it really wasn't about that as much.
It was about just kind of the acting challenge and trying to make it convincing.
It's kind of weird because it's this weird, funny, satire movie, but I kind of am more serious,
like especially towards the end when I become the antagonist.
So you got to walk a fine line and you don't want...
You know, if it's bad, it could really be embarrassing, you know?
And so I had to...
I was really preoccupied with that for the most part.
Ben Affleck doing his thing in Dogma.
We got more of Ben Affleck in a little bit.
Plus a little booty shaking video from Ricky Martin.
He doesn't call it that.
I just did.
Hot Zone's coming right back.
I'm gonna try to win some money while y'all are gone.
See you in a minute.
That's Santana featuring Rob Thomas with Smooth Ananda here, of course.
Hanging out at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
Actually, I'm staying here.
And the rooms are very cool.
Plus they have great slot machines and like gambling games, even though, you know, you gotta be 21.
Don't forget.
But look, Jimi Hendrix.
All right, y'all.
I'm gonna tell you more about SMF 3D coming at you this weekend.
But first, let's take a look at part two of my interview with Ben Affleck.
It's all about Dogma.
See what he has to say about the film that opens this Friday, November 12th.
Take a look.
You and Matt, obviously, it's easy for you guys to play buddies.
It's the reality of your real relationship.
What relationship do you think it would be really difficult to play opposite?
Probably...
Well, I mean, anything where our ages were different.
You know, where we had to like...
Yeah, anything where we had to assume like some kind of a really dramatically different relationship.
Or anything.
It would be really hard to play opposite Matt.
Like if we were both of us playing really far afield, like if he was playing, you know,
some crazy old Cajun farmer and I was supposed to be at Eskimo.
Y'all want to, but who's?
And I'd keep be looking at him.
He'd be there going, oh, I know that good.
And I think, that's just bogus.
You know what I mean?
You guys signed on to do the film while you were doing Cudwell Hunting.
And I know probably in Matt, I mean, in Kevin's mind, maybe if it were me,
I'm trying to put myself in his shoes, I'd be like,
oh my God, the press has made them huge like stars now.
Are they still going to do my own dogma film?
Was there ever a time where you thought of turning your back on this film?
Or did you really believe in it from the beginning?
No.
And in fact, it was also one of those things where...
This is a movie that I had been wanting to do for a long time.
Since Chasing Amy when he gave me the script.
I really want to be a part of this.
And then we both kind of, you know, officially signed on during Cudwell Hunting.
And it was like a low budget movie for no money.
And then after Cudwell Hunting, it started to get a little bit more.
They were going to put more into the effects and they got this really cool cast.
And then we were getting offered all this money.
And so we kind of thought like, oh, maybe they'll pay us some money.
You know what I mean?
We were like, well, you know, maybe we should get paid because this is like
the fourth movie I've done for like zero money for free scale.
And for Kevin, I did Chasing Amy.
I lost money because I had two speeding tickets.
That's quite a deal.
So I was kind of like, I thought maybe I could get over, you know,
and they were like, no, it's cool.
You just don't have to do the movie.
Which basically because they knew that I would never walk away.
I would never walk away from doing Kevin's movie.
So it just ended up being another free movie.
I got a little luck on my side.
I wonder why you guys are away for a minute.
Love been asked like, all right, take a little break.
Come back more hot sun from the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Vegas.
And one more hot video from a woman who is definitely buzzworthy.
Stick around and see if I can't get myself paid.
Probably not.
See you in a minute.
Next week on the show, by the way, I'm not sure where we're doing it.
We may be going back to America, but Bill Maher, Merv Griffin next week,
Christina Ricci and a musical group called the Violent Femmes.
Wow. What a week on the Late Late Show.
My next guest is our second Oscar winner this week.
We had Faye Dunaway on earlier.
I guess that's another advantage of being in LA.
Great guests.
You may have seen him in such films as Good Will Hunting and Armageddon.
His latest dogma opens today.
See, in the beginning, it was just us and him, angels and God.
Then he created humans. Ours was designed to be a life of servitude and worship
and bowing and scraping and adoration.
He gave them more than he ever gave us.
He gave them a choice.
The greatest actor of our time.
This has been a flat.
Oh, my God.
Thank you. Thank you for doing the show.
Thank you for coming.
I used to I think you actually are the greatest talk show host who ever lived.
It used to be the Roe Show for me, but then the Roe Show.
Who's that?
You didn't watch the Roe Show.
Rolanda.
Oh, Rolanda. How did I forget?
Yeah.
Richard Bay, the Roe Show and then Kilburn.
But now that I've had some exposure here.
I love being compared to Richard Bay.
Oh, but he did the funny noises.
Remember, the guests would be that.
I think you watched more than I did.
By the way, we've all seen Ben in the movie screen.
I've actually met you a couple of times.
You look good on the movie screen, but I'm always taken aback.
In person, you are just a very, a very.
You're a very, a very handsome man, as they say.
Thank you.
Well, you're you're you're very well groomed.
Tall.
Well groomed.
Tall.
Okay, it opens today, Dogma.
We're all on the fence.
It's controversial.
Are we supposed to go see this, Ben?
You are supposed to go see it.
In fact, it's kind of required because otherwise you won't know what to say.
We have to make our own decision.
Work.
You do have.
That's how you do that.
You go, you see it, you make your own decision.
No, it's really actually not very.
I mean, I guess it's controversial.
It's not really the legitimate, you know, like the church or any kind of serious minded people.
It's kind of like Frank and Larry with their internet site in their basement protesting.
You know what I mean?
And getting their name in the papers.
Oh, so nobody important is.
No, nobody important is going to get in your way.
Our audience, some of the guys.
Just some of the, yeah, yeah, the low end folks.
Uh, the low end, right.
Now you're reunited.
What an all star cast with Matt Damon.
Now, can I, we want to go see you and Matt together.
Do we have to sit through other people in the movie or?
How does this work?
Only a little bit.
Now you, you do have to sit through some other people, but they're, they're all right.
They're pretty good people to sit through, actually.
George Carlin.
George Carlin, who's really cool.
He's a, yeah, he's very good.
It's funny, you know, like you do this, do these movies and I don't know any of these people.
So there's like Carlin and Chris Rock and Alanis Morissette and I sort of don't know what to think.
And you, you have this sort of hero worship sense of them.
And then you're like, wow, George Carlin, you know, I'm a big fan of yours.
And he's kind of like, yeah, yeah, kid, I got tapes.
You know, I'm funny.
I was real funny.
Here's you a couple of tapes.
And he's kind of like, go watch that in the room and then come back.
He makes you, he makes you rush up on his legend.
He wants you to know the material.
You know what I mean?
And I hope Chris Rock, he didn't do that to you.
No, no, but he's rocking that.
Anybody wants some little penny sneakers?
You know, it didn't sell that well.
So he's got some in the trailer that you could get for free.
Ah, and I don't want to ask about Alanis.
What was that like?
You know, I thought that Alanis was going to be very, you know, like the girl from the record.
You know, like I thought maybe she'd be very hateful towards me and my gender in general.
And really angry.
And I was afraid I was going to remind her of all her savage ex-boyfriends.
And she might castrate me or something.
And then I met her and she's just this very kind of like innocuous little Canadian girl.
You know, and she's like, hey, hi, how are you?
Oh, great.
It's so nice to be here.
There's a whole movie and I'm like, what happened to ironic and the pill?
That ruins it for all of them.
Go down on you in the theater.
She's like, oh, I don't do that.
What role does she play in Dogma?
She plays our Lord and Savior.
And I don't know why they're protesting this movie.
It just seems like, yeah, she plays God.
And Kevin Smith wrote and directed it.
And you worked with him before Chasing Amy.
Yeah, we did Chasing Amy, which was a success.
And Mallrats, which was a catastrophic failure.
I don't know if you saw Mallrats.
But you enjoy working with Kevin.
I do.
I like working with him.
He's really, you know, he's a very good guy.
You know, the only problem really is that he tended to, particularly in Chasing Amy,
you know, he had his script and it was this little movie, this little budget.
And I just thought, hey, it'll be fun.
We'll go there and we'll try the scene like in other movies.
And if you would deviate even the slightest little bit from what he wanted you to say,
he would get really upset.
He'd stop the take in the middle.
He'd kind of come out and he'd be like, cut, cut.
And I kept trying my own little bits.
You're a very funny guy.
And you do a lot of ad libs.
I do do the ad libs.
Eventually, he just was like, you know what?
Let me tell you something.
You think you're so funny?
You think you're talented?
Go write your own script.
And that inspired Ben to write Good Will Hunting.
Is that what it is?
I had something to sort of thank him for.
Of course, then I realized that when I actually wrote it and had to give it to other actors,
because when you're just acting in it, you figure, whatever, it's just the lines.
And then when it's your script and other people are saying it, you're kind of like,
and they just start trying out their weak material.
You're kind of like, this is just something that we just thought up.
We really poured over this stuff and thought it out.
And I realized everyone gripes about the studio executives giving you the bad notes.
And that's sort of the Hollywood cliche.
I realized it's actually the other actors.
Who have the worst notes.
You wrote Good Will Hunting.
I hope that the funny man, Robin Williams, didn't ad-lib anything.
Well, Robin threw in a thing or two of his own.
He'll do that from time to time.
But no, it's not really the Robin actors.
It's more like the egotistical actors who they pretend that it's notes for the scene,
but really it's kind of like you're acting in a scene with them and they'll be like,
you know what?
I had an idea for this scene where maybe you don't talk.
That's good.
Maybe you're back there.
Yeah, that's good.
And I'll just turn and talk to the camera.
That's good.
And it'll be my soliloquy.
And you're kind of like, well, yeah, I guess that could be good.
You know what I mean?
And that's terrible.
I've been cut out of more movies that way.
I was in The Graduate.
Now listen, now listen.
You're 27.
I told you it's a bad joke.
Can you get that?
Ah!
No, no.
Get it out.
You're 27.
You're a huge star.
First of all, you haven't a peak to where...
I'm trying to get to Richard Burton, but I'm...
But we don't have to worry about you, do we?
You're always going to be big.
You're not going to be like being naked
playing the bongos anywhere one day.
I do that all the time.
No, I think it's...
I think you know what?
I think you're a bad judge of your own character,
but I've noticed in other people I know, like Matthew McConnie,
who's a really great guy,
and other people who I've met who are famous,
I guess, for lack of a better word,
that really what it tends to do is
kind of exaggerate the qualities that you already had.
You know what I mean?
Which is good for me,
because I wasn't all that nice a guy to begin with.
You know what I mean?
Or all that considerate.
But now I can say,
instead of just like I do something sort of rude or inconsiderate,
and they'd just kind of be like,
this guy's a jackass.
Now they kind of go, well, he's changed.
You know, it's Hollywood.
That's the way he is.
So I guess your advice is to the young...
The young jackasses out there is to go in a movie.
Try to get into the pictures.
Because you can get away with stuff.
You will then be accepted.
Yeah.
Are you at all nervous about Five Questions?
Because I know you're a very competitive guy.
I'm very tense, but I think I can handle it, yeah.
Stay with us.
Five Questions.
You better answer it.
We'll be right back.
And now tonight's late late show trivia question.
The hot new LA catchphrase is,
A. See you later, Isimo.
B. Until we meet again, Isimo.
C. See you soon, Isimo.
D. Goodbye, Isimo.
The answer when we return.
And now the answer to tonight's late late show trivia question.
If you said B. Until we meet again, Isimo, you were correct.
Here once again, Craig Kilborn.
Dan Alclac is right here.
Let me... I don't want to put you on the spot.
I want to ask you about some...
I'm sure you get a lot of scripts to do movies in the future.
And we took a poll in the office.
And the leading ladies, maybe you decide on who to work with depending on who you like.
We had the men in our office.
I want you to work with Angelina Jolie.
The women are pushing for Jodie Foster.
And then three guys want you to keep working with Matt Damon.
But who do you... How do you pick?
Is there someone you want to work with?
You know, it tends to be like, you know, by the script and then who's kind of...
Who'll take me? You know what I mean?
I'm attached to the script.
They kind of find out we lose a few right off the bat.
Right.
I actually like Jodie Foster a lot.
She'd be really cool to work with.
I mean, you know, I like these women that aren't quite as famous.
Like you ever see Fargo, Frances McDormand?
Yes.
She, I think, is incredible.
Yeah.
Or, you know, that Julianne Moore.
Did you see her in Shortcuts?
Did not.
I didn't see enough movies.
I don't see enough movies.
She was in nine months, but in Shortcuts, she did some really wonderful work.
And so you just decide...
You write your own scripts, but you take other ones and you guys decide...
Yeah, which is largely...
I don't make any of those decisions.
Actually, it's all my agent, Patrick Weitzel, incidentally.
He is supposed to be one of the top agents in Hollywood.
That's largely a myth.
Is it Weitzel?
It's Weitzel.
We call him luckiest man alive around the office, but he's a very nice guy.
This is going nowhere.
It is time for Five Questions.
We actually were told...
These are tough.
We were told that you're a very bright young man.
Where did you go to college?
No, I didn't go to college.
You got the wrong information, but go ahead.
Fire away.
Did you drop out?
Okay.
Your new movie is Dogma.
We all know Man's Chinese Theater is on Hollywood Boulevard.
Where was Jesus crucified?
On the cross?
He was Golgotha, is a hill.
That where he was crucified.
Calgary or Golgotha.
That is correct.
Calgary is where the flames lay.
Calgary. There's a monster in Dogma.
That's how I know that.
Are you a sports fan?
A little bit of a sports fan.
True or false, the Boston Red Sox will win a World Series title in your lifetime.
True?
False.
Besides Little Genie and Someone Saved My Life Tonight,
what's your favorite Elton John song?
Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road.
Incorrect.
Benny and the Jets.
Because this next one I don't think you're going to get.
It's a five question classic.
I've asked it once before.
In 1961, this is baseball again.
Roger Marisla, the majors and home runs.
That year, who got hit in the head with the most balls?
It's very tough.
Don Baylor.
Liberace.
They wanted to hear it, Ben.
You need this one for a good score, okay?
I do.
We were rough on you.
I'm going to be bad on who wants to be a millionaire.
Right, right.
Thank you.
It's the rare audio fifth question.
And finally, Ben, come on, admit it.
You could kick Leo DiCaprio's ass.
He's a pretty big guy.
He's tiny.
He's very tiny.
Do you know?
The answer is?
The answer is I wouldn't know.
I wouldn't.
You'd have to be celebrity death match.
I'd be mad on celebrity death match, though.
The answer is yes, you could.
That is correct.
Yes, you could.
Thank you for being here.
The movie is called Dogma.
Big hand for Ben Affleck.
We'll be back with Giannino.
Coming up, Craig tries desperately to keep it real despite supermodel Jamila's efforts
to make it not so real.
All that and oops, there's the Ewok guy again.
Look at him.
We'll be right back.
Sam and Shel Geller, the music of Sugar Ray, and four people who won our jaywalking segment.
You know these things where we talk to people on the street?
Well, we pick four of our three of our smartest contestants.
They will be pitted against each other for battle of the jaywalk all stars.
They will battle questions here on our stage.
Unbelievable.
Also coming up Heather Locklear, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Arnold would be here.
We're seeing Arnold's movie tonight.
My date, Kevin Eubanks, Tom Hanks, Cameron Diaz, John Glenn, and Garth Brooks.
A good week coming up.
All right, my first guest, beautiful, talented young actress whose films include Desperado,
Wild Wild West.
She's also co-starring in the controversial new film Dogma,
which is in theaters right now.
Please welcome our buddy, Salma Hayek.
You look lovely.
Thank you, Jay.
I love dark-haired girls.
See, this town goes nuts for blonde.
I love that.
Thank you.
I like your hair.
You look great.
You look lovely, too.
Thank you.
I used to have dark hair when I was your...
You can tell.
You can tell you can still see some remnants of you.
Isn't that nice?
Now, let me ask you, have you ever been to a sea world?
No, I've never been to sea world, but I've been kissed by a dolphin.
Kissed by a dolphin?
Yes.
In your apartment?
No, no, no.
One time I jumped into this place where dolphins were where I was not supposed to jump in.
That would be the ocean?
No, no, it was a place where they just had them like sea world, you know, but I...
You snuck in, you mean?
I just jumped in.
I just could not help myself.
It was love at first sight.
I saw these dolphins and I just threw myself at him.
Really?
Were you skinny dipping?
No, I had a bathing suit.
I was around.
They had like water slides and stuff.
Oh, I see, I see.
And I started making noises to the dolphin and he just came and kissed me on the lips.
What?
Now, you have a picture.
This is a picture, let's see, where is it?
Let's see.
There we are.
Oh, there you are.
Oh, look at that, making a little dolphin.
Oh.
I'm not making it up.
Now, we were talking before, you tell me you have insomnia?
Yes.
Yes, you have trouble sleeping?
Very bad problem with insomnia.
You know, I could help you out there.
Not teasing, not teasing.
I'm being silly.
Really, you have trouble sleeping?
Yes, I do.
Why?
Why do you have trouble sleeping?
I don't know, because I'm very creative and I'm always trying to...
Maybe it's what you're wearing.
What are you wearing when you sleep?
Well, I've tried everything and nothing.
You tried nothing, nothing worked.
Yes, well, nothing works, you know, but...
So what do you do?
Do you have cures?
Yes, you know, people are always trying to tell you the most ridiculous cures.
Like, you have to soak in a bath with lettuce, you know, the lettuce that you eat.
Wait, with lettuce?
Yes.
I never heard that.
Why would you soak in lettuce?
I don't know, because they're supposed to be relaxing.
My friend Mia from Argentina told me to put my feet in hot water with mustard.
Take a mustard bath for the feet.
And that will put you to sleep.
I haven't quite tried that one.
Yeah, I would stick with lettuce.
Yeah, I think you can make a salad and go to sleep.
And my favorite one is the counting of the sheep.
The counting of the sheep?
Yes.
Counting of the sheep?
I count the sheep.
How many did you get up to before you...
I've gotten to 7,000, you know.
Really?
Eventually you go to sleep, you know.
It seems like the sun would come up by 7,000.
Probably, you get one hour of sleep.
Now, if you lose count, you go back and start...
Ah!
You go back and start...
Yes, but you know, sometimes it's...
Like, right now it's not very practical because I'm doing this movie called...
Time Code 2000 with Mike Figgis and there's no script.
We're improvising everything.
There's no script.
That can be troublesome.
I know.
Trust me, no script.
So, I find myself, like, without not a lot of sleep, you know.
I find myself talking about sheep all the time.
People start telling me things and all I improvise is, yes, on the sheep game and the sheep and...
All I can see are the sheep that I was counting the night before.
So, that's not working for me anymore.
That's not working?
No.
What do you do?
In the middle of the night you can't sleep, you get up.
What do you do?
Is there a ritual you have?
Yeah.
No, I don't have a ritual but I get, like, a creative bust and I start doing weird things.
Really?
Yes.
For example, I decide I'm going to make the best body lotion that's ever been made in the...
That was going to be my guess.
You're going to make the best body lotion?
Yes.
You know, it seems to work.
Yeah, it does and I start, like, making...
No, what do you mean?
How do you make body lotion?
What do you do?
Well, I take existing body lotion and start mixing them up with, like, oils and honey and
maybe perfumes and stuff and sometimes you have to throw that all away, you know.
But during the night it was very entertaining.
Yeah, yeah, no, that I can see how that could be...
That could be entertaining in the middle of the night, yeah.
I mean, you do all this alone.
Sometimes it works but if you want to repeat it you're in trouble.
Yeah.
So what's the craziest thing you've done?
What do you think?
In the middle of my insomnia attack.
You know, it's really fun.
Well, it doesn't work anymore but I used to call people, like, at three and four in the
morning, you know, to go to the bathroom and say, you know, I'm going to go to the bathroom
at four in the morning.
You used to call people.
And they must really enjoy that.
You pretend it's the wrong number but you go like, Jane?
Oh, Jane, I'm calling you from Egypt.
Who's this?
This is your aunt Rose.
But, you know, star 69...
Star 69 and the other one, the caller ID has enabled me to do this.
Taking all the fun out of that.
Yes.
How could your friends not know it was you?
Hello, T.C.
I mean, I...
Can you do an accent?
Can you fake an accent?
No.
They know it's you.
Now, tell me about Dogman.
You know, I haven't had a chance.
We were supposed to get a screen in this movie.
I'm sorry I didn't see it.
But it's caused a lot of controversy, hasn't it?
Yeah.
Now, you're Catholic.
Are you upset about this movie?
Because a lot of Catholics seem to be upset.
No.
I'm not upset about it.
No.
Now, you're working with Matt Damon, right?
And Dan.
A lot of handsome men in this movie.
Yes. And Chris Rock and Linda Fiorentino.
Now, do these guys all...
Do they all flirt with you?
Do they all hit on you?
Not at all.
Really?
They don't pay any attention to me.
No.
Really?
But they do something funny.
Every time one of these members of this cast saw me,
especially at the beginning,
Yeah.
they would start like thinking of the one song they know with Spanish,
you know, words in it.
Like, for example, Ben would go,
Oye, como va?
And then I would walk by Matt and he would go,
Besame, besame mucho.
They sing to themselves.
And Linda would sing, Guantanamera.
And Kevin Smith would always sing,
La cucaracha, la cucaracha.
And Chris Rock would sing, Feliz Navidad.
Feliz Navidad.
And by the end of this movie, I said,
okay, this is never going to happen to me again,
because this big cast has gone through all the songs with Spanish.
And then I went to my next movie, which is Chain of Fools,
and I worked with Jeff Goldblum.
Jeff Goldblum.
And the first thing he says to me is,
That's the thing.
You see the Latin thing?
That's what's happening.
Yeah.
That's where it is.
Now, what is this club?
What are you playing this movie?
I play a muse.
A muse?
Oh, you're like a spirit.
You're someone who influences.
Inspiration.
You're an inspiration.
Well, that works for me.
All right, let's take a look.
Well, I'm a former muse.
A former muse.
Serendipity here isn't technically an angel,
nor is she by any means a human being like I was and you are.
I used to be an abstract.
Now I'm really confused.
I'm a muse, stupid.
I can't take much more of this.
So you what?
Inspire people.
What's this one done with your friends over there?
He doesn't really take a muse to inspire
hordes of retards to empty their wallets.
I used to specialize in entertainment.
For example, I'm responsible for 19 of the 20 top grossing films of all time.
19?
Yeah, the one about that kid by himself
and his house burglars trying to come in and he fights them off.
I had nothing to do with that one.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
Don't let them feed us right now.
And you're going over to...
You're going over to Kosovo, right?
Did I read that?
Yes, I'm going to Kosovo on Monday.
And what are you doing in Kosovo?
I'm in Macedonia.
I am serving dinner for the soldiers.
Thanksgiving dinner.
Oh, that should be fun.
That should be fun.
Are you going to perform?
Well, Jay, I wanted to ask you advice on this.
I mean, I wish I could tap dance,
but I don't know how to tap dance.
I don't know what I'm going to do for them.
I don't know what you could do for those men over there, really.
Do you have any jokes for me?
I'll give you some jokes.
The men would love to hear some.
I'll give you some good jokes.
Okay.
All right, Salma Hayek.
Well, good luck.
Good luck in Kosovo.
We'll be right back with Christina Ricci right after this.
I'm mainly here to correct a major error
that you people have been basing the faith on.
What's that?
Jesus wasn't white.
Jesus was black.
I don't buy it.
Kevin Smith became an instant icon
to struggling independent filmmakers in 1994
with his surprise hit, Clerks.
Now with his forth writing and directing effort,
he has made one of the most controversial films in recent years.
Dogma is the film that the Catholic League has been incensed about
since its debut last May at Cannes.
It has been both protested and praised
for its biting commentary on modern day Catholicism.
And here is the trailer for the film.
You call me, you tell me it's important.
We're going home.
Take it, man.
Quit leering at me.
People are going to think I just broke up with you.
Two fallen angels
have just discovered a loophole that can get them back into heaven.
Outstanding work.
All they have to do is get to Red Bank, New Jersey.
There's only one problem.
What are you?
What do you want with me?
Stop a couple of angels from entering
and thus negating all existence.
I hate it when people need it spelled out for them.
Now, I'm to charge you with a holy crusade.
One person has been chosen to stop them,
but she won't have to do it alone.
I'm Jay.
This is my favorite life mate, St. Bob.
You gotta be kidding me.
Prophets.
In a manner of speech.
What about sex?
No sex.
Guys, I guess you still follow the sky, you know.
Oh, that sucks.
What are you?
I was the 13th apostle.
You knew Christ.
No.
Brother holds me 12 months.
I thought she looked familiar.
Let me guess.
The 14th apostle.
Would you like to taste the New Jersey, please?
Jersey's sold out, sir.
I suggest you not underestimate the staggering
drawing power of the Garden State.
They're successful?
You?
Me?
All of this ends in a heartbeat.
I feel like Han Solo, you're Chewie, and she's Bank Kenobi.
Prepare to taste God's wrath.
Anyone who isn't dead or from another plane of existence
would do well to cover their ears right about now.
Whole world's against this dude, I swear to God.
What's he like?
God?
He's got a great sense of humor.
Take sex, for example.
Sex is a joke in heaven.
The way I understand it, it's mostly a joke down here, too.
Get it?
Kevin Smith is a writer and director and co-star of this much-talked-about comedy.
He is joined by Chris Rock, one of the top comics working today.
He stars in Dogma and currently hosts his own self-titled talk show on HBO.
Welcome.
What's this so...
I mean, why is this so controversial?
I think it's because Chris's butt shows up in the movie, Naked Butt.
Really?
Well, some people will be...
Other people...
I think because it's the only movie in the last six months without Sam Jackson in it.
So I think that has a lot to do with it.
Yes.
Sam's not in this, is he?
No, no.
Then people are awfully upset.
How did you get all these people in this film, is my better question.
I don't know, because we didn't pay them.
I mean, everyone worked for scale.
And then scale is kind of like the minimum wage of the movie business.
But either they like the script a lot or they just have really bad agents.
Terrible representation.
Yeah, I got nothing.
I had lost money doing this movie.
Exactly.
I love the script.
That's why I did it.
Yeah.
But did you want to work with him?
I mean, before the script, there was something about Chasing Amy or something.
Yeah, I saw Chasing Amy.
And I was like, whoa, okay.
This is finally a new romantic comedy.
I consider every other romantic comedy in the last whatever 15 years
to be basically a ripoff of Andy Hall.
Chasing Amy is a new kind of romantic comedy.
But we're here to talk about Dogma.
And once I saw Chasing Amy, I was like, I got to work with this guy.
Yeah.
So then you get a script.
I get a script.
First, Harvey tries to get me to do a movie about a bunch of rappers on a bus.
Harvey being?
Harvey Weinstein.
Yeah.
And I couldn't do the bus movie.
No.
So I said, what's Kevin Smith doing?
And they gave me a script and I liked it.
And I met with Kevin.
And then he said, this is scale.
And you said, nobody cares.
Sam Jackson said, I'm not taking scale.
They gave me a call.
So you got all these good actors.
You got the script that you like a lot.
Mm-hmm.
What's the plot line?
The plot line concerns these two angels who were kicked out of heaven years ago.
And they find a loophole centuries later, eons later, millennia later, that allows them
to get back into heaven.
But if they do it, what they don't realize, it'll end existence because it would prove
God fallible.
So a bunch of people kind of set out to stop them.
Chris is one of them.
Linda Fiorentino plays a character named Bethany.
She's another.
Sam Hayek plays a muse.
Serendipity.
She's another.
Two characters we've used a lot in our other pictures.
Jay and Silent Bob, they're prophets in this movie.
I mean, they're all.
So why is the Catholic League so upset?
The Catholic League, I think, is upset because it was a Disney movie initially.
This is my feeling.
The film was a Miramax movie.
By virtue of that, it was a Disney film.
The Catholic League is an organization, as you know, they're heat seekers.
They love to go after stuff that raises their profile, doesn't necessarily go after things
that are really intentionally attacks on the faith or the church.
They go after things that they feel attacks them as Catholics.
They feel that Disney attacks Catholics constantly, whether it's with Nothing's Sacred,
the TV show that was on ABC a little while ago, or Priest, the Miramax movie that was out a few years ago,
or Disney's same sex health benefits policies, or the alleged gay day they have at Disney World every year.
Always going after Disney.
And we were just the ripe, luscious opportunity for them to go after Disney that week.
We were kind of the target du jour.
You think it's simply that?
I mean, they don't not think that was offensive to them, nothing that they thought.
Surely they hadn't seen a frame of film.
And they maintained, well, we pulled the script off the internet, but that's just not the same thing.
It was the third draft, we shot it six or seven.
Why is the script on the internet? That's a whole new...
I don't know, that kind of ticked me off as well.
It did upset me, but I couldn't be upset that upset because back before I made movies,
I used to go to comic book conventions and buy scripts of movies that were in production.
So, you know, turnabouts fair play.
For what effect? Why would you do that?
To read, just to see more...
I mean, that's why the script was on the internet, it wasn't up there because people were trying to pooch my project.
People liked what we had done, so they kind of wanted to get ahead of themselves and read the script.
So, to me, the Catholic League's real outrage about the movie was not an outrage at all.
It was a very well-designed publicity campaign.
And if you read their materials and whatnot, it reflects that as much to me.
I mean, I've read so many things where Bill Donahue said, I tried to contact Eisner about this movie.
He's their spokesperson.
Bill Donahue is the spokesperson, he's the head of the Catholic League.
I tried to contact Eisner, he says, when I heard about this movie, because I wanted a meeting with him
and I wanted him to show me the script and he wouldn't contact me.
It's just like, well, why not call me? I'm the author, you know what I mean?
I'm accessible, I'm in Jersey, I'm not doing anything.
You could find me any time of day, but there's no press in going after the guy who made Clerks or saying,
I talked to the guy who made Clerks, you know, and people are like, so?
The Eisner equation was the big thing for him, and that became very clear to me, too, once the...
six, seven months into this campaign by the Catholic League against the movie,
we finally got a call in our office from the Catholic League, and this was about three weeks ago, saying,
Dr. Donahue would like a screening of the film set up, this was great, it was a message I wanted to frame, it was so good.
Dr. Donahue wants a screening of the film set up for him so he can speak about it intelligently.
And I was just like, what's he been doing for the last six months?
Makes no sense.
Why didn't he hold his fire?
So what do you think about this controversy there?
The controversy, to me, it shows a lack of faith in God when you really think about it.
Because if you really believe in God, then he's powerful.
He's all-knowing.
He's all-knowing and all-powerful and can pretty much handle everything himself.
So to me, the Catholic League, or whoever, is protesting, is actually dissing God more than this movie ever will.
It speaks volumes of a lack of faith in God.
It really speaks of a lack of faith in God.
Only Chris Rock can make that connection.
That's my connection. God's like, oh, you want to cut on the sun while you're at it?
You're saying the Catholic League is unknowing about God?
I'm saying if you can, the movie, it's just a movie, can only affect mortals in the movie business.
A movie cannot affect God. It can't affect my God. My God's powerful.
My God made the moon, the stars, and the water, and the trees, and everything. My God made everything.
You can make all the movies you want about my God.
He doesn't care. He's right. He's way above man.
He's powerful. He's God.
The other thing is, my God's too busy to care about a movie.
My God's got things to do, man.
He's got wars to worry about and suffering in all kinds, so we don't want to be involved.
Everybody else's God's going to the multiplex, but my God's got a full plate.
He's not worried about what you do on HBO. He doesn't care.
He said, what? He was irreverent? Chris, who?
God's got a really full plate.
You question, well, you're saying basically they're doing this for PR purposes, to raise money or whatever?
Absolutely. If you look at their literature, and I've had a chance to do it over the last few months,
it doesn't really talk about the faith, it doesn't talk about Christ.
It talks about how their outrage as Catholics, how as Catholics they have to defend themselves against attack,
against them being Catholics. They take everything very personally.
We saw it with the Brooklyn Art Museum, the Sensations exhibit.
There's a painting of the Madonna done by somebody using elephant dung in places,
but a painting that wasn't made, it's not a painting that mocks the Catholic League,
with a picture of Bill Donahue as a clown or something like that.
That's a painting of the Madonna, and they're like, that's an attack on us as Catholics.
That makes no sense to me. I mean, it's not really an attack on them as Catholics.
It's them as Catholics taking something far too personally.
The only problem I have with that is that you can't reach inside of somebody's motivations
and know what the hell they're thinking. I mean, I suspect there are some people
that legitimately may feel very strongly about the exhibition, or legitimately may feel strongly about whatever it is.
Sure, that's why I'm not saying across the board, it's like anyone who's upset by that is wrong.
Catholic League though, I mean, saw it as an excellent opportunity to just build publicity for themselves,
based on the Sensations exhibit, because for the first half of the year it was all about dogma.
And as soon as the Sensations opened up, boy, suddenly, you know, he was like,
we're going over there, never mind dogma. Which is fine, it was great.
It cut us some slack for a little while.
So you were there praising Sensations.
I was, I was just like, you know, I feel bad for the city of New York,
and I feel bad for the artists, and I feel bad for America.
But I'm certainly glad it's taken me off the hot air.
Anything that's going to take me off the hot air, that's great.
Tell me the character you play in this movie.
I play Rufus.
Rufus?
Rufus, of Chaka Khan. No, Rufus the 13th Apostle.
Yes. I didn't know about Rufus before.
Yeah, left out of the Bible because he was black.
And it's trying really hard to get back in the Bible.
That's why he's going to help out Bethany, you know, with her whole thing.
And Rufus knew Jesus personally.
Rufus was Jesus' best friend. Stickball buddies.
Chris, why didn't I know?
Added that little bit of phrasal motivation while he was shooting.
Kevin, did they play stickball again?
I'm like, whatever, Chris. He's like, excellent, they were stickball buddies.
Put it in the film. Yeah, that's right.
And Jesus owes Rufus some money, doesn't he?
Jesus owes Rufus about $12.
That's a big deal in those times.
And plus interest.
That was money, big money at that time.
All right, roll tape, here is Chris.
He's introducing Salma Hayek, who plays Serendipity, to Bethany, who's played by Linda Fiorentino.
Serendipity here isn't technically an angel, nor is she by any means a human being like I was and you are.
I used to be an abstract.
Now I'm really confused.
I'm amused, stupid.
I can't take much more of this.
So you what? Inspire people?
What's this one done with your friends over there?
He doesn't really take amuse to inspire hordes of retards to empty their wallets.
I used to specialize in entertainment.
For example, I'm responsible for 19 of the 20 top grossing films of all time.
19?
Yeah, the one about the kid by himself in his house, burglars trying to come in and he fights them off.
I had nothing to do with that one.
Now, you define the kind of movies you make.
Personally or defined?
Words of the reviews that I've seen.
No, what you see.
I think I make films that are kind of personal.
I put up movies that I kind of would like to see myself.
And I like to make movies about guys or situations that I find myself attracted to
or just kind of interesting or stuff I haven't seen before.
I like movies. I like all kinds of flicks.
I like going to big bombastic type Hollywood movies.
But you don't really identify with them all the time.
It's great to watch Die Hard and see John McClane running around.
But I don't identify with John McClane.
I would never jump off a building.
I would never shoot a terrorist.
I would never take my shirt off in public.
Yeah, yeah, the character that Bruce played.
I wouldn't. I wouldn't take my shirt off in public.
Sam was in that.
Yeah, Sam was in that.
He was in one of the other ones, right?
Die Hard, which one?
Whatever.
Die Hard 3, Die Hard 2, Die Hard 4.
With a Vengeance.
So sometimes I just like to make flicks that I would like to go see
and see myself in, reflected in.
I guess that's kind of the small audience we have digs that as well.
You feel good about this.
About the movie?
I feel wonderful about it.
It's a funny, funny flick.
And it makes you think.
If you walk out of the movie and maybe you think about your own faith or your own spirituality
or maybe not, at least you've been entertained.
And you want people to do that?
That'd be nice.
And that's why I couldn't understand why people would be so up in arms about a movie
that made anyone think about their own religion or their own faith.
Because nobody does that.
No movies make you do that anymore.
Movies are largely...
Pokemon.
Alright, besides Pokemon, no movies really make you do that.
And regardless of whether it's kind of surrounded in foul language
or whatever that we've been accused of having in the movie,
as long as you walk out thinking about something,
other than like, oh, that popcorn was expensive
or oh, that movie sucked, I think that's a good thing.
Thank you.
Great to have you.
Thank you.
Dogma.
Go see it.
Back in a moment.
Stay with us.
Tonight, sex in the 20th century.
Who better to chronicle the story than editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, Hugh Hefner.
Also on the guest list, a musician you're going to hear a lot of this holiday season,
saxophonist Kenny G.
And it's full of treats to eat and it might help save your life.
Michael Milken, Kansas survivor, joins us to talk about a terrific new cookbook.
Plus, this show business veteran pulls no punches in his Tinseltown memoirs,
Bernie Brillstein says you're no one in Hollywood unless someone wants you dead.
And finally, a new movie, Dogma, has some folks mad as heck.
We'll talk controversy and Catholicism
with its brilliant young writer-director Kevin Smith.
All next on Larry King Live.
MUSIC
We begin with Kevin Smith.
He's at our studios in Washington.
He's the writer and director of Dogma, the comedy which opened last week,
distributed by Lionsgate.
This was originally, Kevin, supposed to be distributed what?
By Disney, right?
It was a Miramax film originally, which by virtue of that makes it a Disney film, yeah.
And then the Weinstein brothers, those terrific guys, got a lot of complaints
so they bought it out and gave it to Lionsgate, right?
They did. They kind of saved the movie from winding up on a back shelf somewhere
at the behest of Disney, had it actually come to that.
They bought it and then found a home for it at Lionsgate.
This is satire, is it not? Dogma is a con...
I saw on CNN last week, you got a great review and one of the boys said he was an altar boy
and he couldn't stop laughing. It was funny.
Yeah, I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it satire.
Satire is usually reserved for brilliant people and certainly not brilliant.
But there's some satiric material in it and it's very funny.
But overall, it doesn't really go after Christianity the way some people have said it has
or really go after Catholicism the way that some people say it has.
It's just kind of a funny movie with a lot of faith in it.
Why is...and you're Catholic, right?
Yeah, practically.
Why is your church so adamant about, like, if not banning, maybe a strong word,
certainly coming out very strong against you?
Well, to be fair, it's not really the Catholic Church.
Catholic Church hasn't really said anything about the movie.
It's this group called the Catholic League, which is kind of self-appointed media watchdogs,
which have been coming after the flick for the last six or seven months.
And the nearest second figure is that they went after the movie
because they're kind of heat seekers.
They go after anything that will bring them some national attention.
At the time we were a Disney flick, it made absolute sense, I guess, for them to go after us.
They seem to go after Disney quite a bit.
They go after Disney for their same-sex health benefits
and for the alleged gay day that Disney World has every year
and Nothing Sacred, which was on ABC, the show about the priest,
that they claim they got taken off the air
even though they never mentioned the bad ratings the show had.
Are you mad at Disney?
No, not really. I mean, at the end of the day, it's business for them.
And do they really want to get behind a tiny $10 million flick
that's going to bring them a lot of heat from a very small right-wing group?
Or do they just want to do business as usual?
They are the family-oriented company.
So, no, I guess I can kind of understand why it was better not to have this movie for them.
And just as I understand it was better for us not to have them as our distributor or distributor.
Well, you had a very good opening. Why do you think...
One thing incomprehensible is when you bring about to slam something,
you increase the interest in it?
I guess. Yeah, it's always kind of...
I find it puzzling that the campaign was so self-defeating.
Like, in all their effort to chastise the movie or chastise such a soft word,
to get it banned, they really brought a lot more awareness and attention to it.
However, it wasn't the kind of awareness or attention that I was really looking for.
I mean, it's an entertainment, right? And they turned it into a polemic.
And of all the movies about Catholicism or movies in which priests are portrayed
or tenets of the faith are portrayed, I mean, this movie comes up so on their side.
I mean, it extols all the virtues of Christianity, comes up on the side of church and God,
and it's kind of conservative in its weird off-the-wall way.
But this was the movie they felt they wanted to make an example of, I guess.
In a moment to describe it, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are...
They play a couple of angels who were cast out of heaven.
Old angels, right?
Old angels, yeah, real old angels.
And they've been on earth for quite some time.
They were kind of cast out.
And they find a loophole in Catholic dogma that will allow them to reenter heaven,
but in the process that would prove God fallible,
and the existence would kind of crash in on itself.
So there's a small group of people who are kind of set out to stop them.
This woman who's a descendant of the Christ line,
and a 13th apostle played by Chris Rock, Salma Hayek plays a muse.
And these two characters have been in all the flicks we've done,
Jay and Silent Bob, who are supposed to be prophets in this movie.
And God is a woman, is she not?
God, yeah, she was as both, as a man in the beginning, as a woman at the end.
Was this the kind of thing fun to do?
Was the cast having fun doing it?
I would hope so, because nobody got paid, so I would really hope that...
You didn't have to pay Matt... Matt Damon took what, scale?
Yeah, everyone took scale, which as you know is kind of like the minimum wage of the movie business.
So either they had a passion for the project or a really bad representation.
I can't figure out which.
You're in it yourself, right?
Yeah, I show up as Silent Bob, a character I've played in four films we've done so far.
You were originally writing comic books, right?
I came to comics later. I wanted to be a comic book writer,
but I thought film was kind of easier to get into, and at least I found it was easier to get into.
And by virtue of the fact that I was a filmmaker, it made it a lot easier for me to write some comics.
So I've written a lot of comics based on the stuff we've done, this movie Clerks,
and there was a Jay and Silent Bob mini-series, and I worked for Marvel Comics
and did this eight issues on this title called Daredevil.
The original Daredevil or a new Daredevil?
It's the original Daredevil, Matt Murdock, blind lawyer, blind...
Yeah.
...radioactive isotope, yeah, who goes out in the red suit, fights crime.
It was one of my favorites, red and blue?
At one point he was yellow and black, and then kind of in the 70s he became red, all red.
But it's a character who has a deep Christian background as well, he's kind of raised Catholic,
so it was a lot of fun for me to work on.
Is Catholicism still very much a part of you?
Absolutely. I go every Sunday. I just last night had my daughter baptized.
I had a four and a half month old daughter, and she just got baptized.
We just brought her into the faith as well.
You must be shocked then that the church is doing this to one of its believers, or an element of the church.
Yeah, yeah, the element of the church, which isn't even really to me even an element of the church.
I mean, like I said, they kind of come across to me as heat seekers,
and don't really talk about Christ or Christianity much in their propaganda or their material.
It's all about how they're offended personally as Catholics.
They kind of tend to put themselves before the Lord, which I find quite interesting.
Is it also true, Kevin, you've got out of all this a new deal with Miramax?
Yeah, we re-upped recently. We've been with Miramax for years now, since like 95,
and we just re-upped the other day, which was kind of cool.
I mean, it's still our home. We love Harvey and Bob. They've always been good to us.
They started us on our careers with clerks.
Yeah, great people. Continue doing what you're doing, Kevin. We need more people like you.
Thanks, man. I'm gonna try.
Kevin Smith. The film is dogma. He's the writer and director, and it's playing everywhere.
And we'll be back with you, Hefner, who might have some words on the same topic right after this.
You're talking about raining down fire and brimstone, punishing the wicked.
He's all about that. I know he'd want this done.
There hasn't been an angel of death since you quit. Doesn't that mean anything to you?
And besides, what if you're wrong like you always are?
If I'm wrong, which I'm not, it's not gonna matter.
We're gonna pass you your arch thing anyway. We're gonna be forgiven, no harm, no foul.
Well, he does hit competition. I will say that. And your movie certainly falls under that heading.
All right. Where is this church we have to go to?
New Jersey. We'll be in dedication ceremonies in four days.
Last four days on Earth? Yeah.
But I'd go get laid. We can do the next best thing.
What's that? Let's kill people.
Oh, not you.
Scene one, office day. Mr. White says, I will stop you.
And Mr. Black says, you won't stop me. Mr. White says, yes, I will stop you.
I read that wrong. Yes, I will stop you.
Robotic space worm enters, destroys city, the end.
Or is it?
Space Ghost
Greetings. I'm Space Ghost, architect of the future. Welcome to the show.
So, how was your weekend, Zorak?
I, uh, I did some volunteer work over at the orphanage.
While I was... Yeah. While I was finishing up my screenplay, and it's brilliant.
Brilliant! Now play me to the desk.
Some of my director pals are dropping by the studio tonight.
And if one of them plays his cards right, I'll affix him to my movie.
You don't know any directors.
Sure I do. Moltar's a director, aren't you, Moltar?
Yeah. Check it out.
Ta-da.
Zorak.
Hey, Space Ghost, how about you let me direct your movie?
Moltar, Moltar, Moltar, Moltar, Moltar, Moltar, Moltar.
That's very thoughtful of you. But your specialty is cartoons.
So?
So cartoons are kid stuff. I need someone with real adult film experience. I'm sure you understand.
Oh, I do.
And would you lose the title card? We're not doing Three's Company here.
Sure.
Ahhhhhhh!
Moltar, save me after the show.
It's a pleasure to be here.
Who are you?
Um, I'm Ben Stiller.
Is that a wig?
It sure looks like a wig.
Sorry about that, Ben. Can we get you anything?
I probably could use some coffee.
Yeah. Coffee would be good.
Um...
Ben.
Yeah?
You have a kind face.
Thank you.
The kind you would like to do what to, Zorak?
The kind I'd like to chew off and spit on and spit up and stomp on...
You know what?
And slap... and push and kick and push and kick.
Zorak, I enjoy the... your ribald sense of humor that you bring to the show.
Yeah, I'm ribald.
And I think you are a necessary evil.
Yeah, I'm evil.
If you will, on this show.
Yeah, I will.
I think you guys have a great little repartee thing happening.
Don't mind Zorak, Ben. He's just a squirrel.
Okay, uh... uh-oh.
Uh!
Hi, God.
Ah!
Thank you.
Ooh.
Anyway, I think you should direct my movie.
Yeah, Cable Guy 2, starring Space Ghost.
You could be the cookie guy who comes and hooks up the...
Let me get my people, Ben. I'll get back to you on that.
Zorak, Moltar, meeting.
Gentlemen.
Stinks.
Pasadena.
Ben, we love the idea, so we're gonna pass.
Moltar and Zorak, they just don't share our vision.
Okay, thank you.
Moltar and Zorak.
Ben, you've been making movies since before you were born.
If you could give me any advice about my movie career, what would it be?
Um, I would start out with comedy, like you're doing.
Start... out... with...
Okay, start out with comedy, like I'm doing.
Do the stand-up. I'd love to see you do some stand-up.
The stand-up. Like this?
Uh...
Is this funny?
No.
How about floating?
Okay.
Is that funny?
No.
Now, if I'm not completely satisfied, you say I get a full refund.
That sounds fair. And still keep my miracle hat?
I think I do know a couple of people who may be interested.
No.
Okay.
Zorak, you want in on this?
Hey, how are you, Ghost?
I'm on the phone, that's how.
Rude.
Okay, put me down for six dozen more.
Yeah, I can hold.
Where'd you get that sweater?
It looks cheap.
I hate it.
Okay, then. Thank you so much.
Bye now.
Alrighty. Identify yourself, Kevin.
Um, I'm Kevin Smith.
I directed Clerks and Mallrats and Chasing Amy.
And that's why you're here, to discuss my movie.
Uh, I'm Kevin Smith.
I directed Clerks and Mallrats and Chasing Amy.
And that's why you're here, to discuss my movie.
Um, I guess I should pitch you something, huh?
Are you up for that?
I'm up for sitting by the pool and watching the jack roll in.
I'm up for a Peabody.
Squirrels don't win awards.
Stupid squirrels.
Zorak.
Kevin.
Zorak.
Kevin.
Zorak.
Hey, Ghost.
Sorry.
So, Kevin, what's the plan? What now? Where to?
What's next for the Space Ghost?
I think you just need to work with the right director.
I'm sure this is boring. Zorak.
Yeah, I turned off my ears five minutes ago.
Then how did you know what he said?
Huh?
I said if you turned off your ears, how did you know what Kevin said?
What?
I said if you...
Huh?
I said if you turned... Did you say turned off?
Yep.
I said if you turned off your ears, how did you know what Kevin said?
Eh.
Zorak.
Floating isn't funny.
Dad.
You laughing at me, boy?
No, I didn't mean that. I was laughing with you.
But I wasn't laughing, was I?
No, you hadn't.
No, I hadn't. Had I?
No.
So it's all settled then. Now I have a contract drawn up for you to direct my movie.
All you need to do is sign it and then go away.
I'd be up for that. I'd sign a waiver.
Actually, it's a little more binding than a waiver. It's more like a trap.
So if you just go ahead and sign that, we'll begin principal photography in what, say, ten minutes?
You are taking care of business. He is taking care of business, Zorak, isn't he?
Screw he, ain't it?
Never mind the big, uh, bust the power band move.
Listen, Kevin, if you're not going to take this seriously...
I have a question, though. Where's the monkey?
That's it.
The monkey can't get a break in this business.
Maltar.
Q-fire.
Ah!
Meeting.
Is everyone here?
Yep.
Good.
All righty. Please say hello to my last and final guest, Jim Jarmusch.
I'm really happy to be here, but I'm a little confused because I, uh...
Okay, quit horsing around, Maltar. You're embarrassing me.
That's better, thanks.
The last thing I remember was I was asleep at home in my bed, and then there was this really intense white light that...
I usually see skyrockets.
I see.
Yes. Then the depression and guilt.
Really?
I don't need to tell you that.
Out loud.
Meeting.
Hey, could I say hi to some of my friends in the cartoon world?
Because I've never been right, like, in cartoon land before.
How you doing there, Maltar? See you later.
Actually, Jim, I...
Ah!
Oh, I love that.
Jim.
Yeah?
You have a kind face.
Meeting.
Anyway, about my movie.
You could, like, grow an extra head or, you know, die and come back to life or, uh...
Meeting.
Hello.
Sorry, Jim, but we're in a hurry, and the only reason you're here is that you're a director.
So help me or leave.
Yeah, I...
What's up with Zorak? Is he, uh...
He's like some kind of outer space grasshopper or something?
Help me or leave, Jim.
Is he related? Is he like the evil twin of Jiminy Cricket?
You know, the...
Help me or leave, Jim.
And another thing I wanted to ask you, you know, why do you superheroes, like,
wear your underwear on the outside of your pants?
Maltar.
Ah!
Da heck, I'll just directed myself.
Help me!
Oh, be quiet.
Ah!