Silent Bob Speaks: The Collected Writings of Kevin Smith »

Kevin Smith sold his comic book collection to fund the movie Clerks, and after it became a huge cult hit he was able to buy them back. One of the most successful and critically acclaimed independent film-makers of recent years, Smith was the producer of the Oscar-winning Good Will Hunting and has also written and directed Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl and Clerks II. He is an actor, having appeared in the new Die Hard movie and the Friends spin-off, Joey, among others.

From the award-winning screenwriter and director — a collection of irreverent and hilarious rants on the absurdity of just about everything.

In 1994, Kevin Smith debuted his low-budget film Clerks at the Sundance Film Festival. It became an instant cult classic and made Smith the top dog of the indie film world. Next he was an executive producer of the smash hit Good Will Hunting and quickly earned the title King of Gen X Cinema from Time magazine. He appeared on Charlie Rose, Politically Incorrect, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and currently holds a regular spot on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno hosting a segment entitled Roadside Attractions. Fans of his films will instantly recognize Smith as Silent Bob — the character with no lines. And last year Smith began writing a hilarious monthly column covering popular culture for Arena magazine.

In this side-splitting rant-fest, Kevin Smith waxes rhapsodic and obnoxious on everything from his platonic infatuation with Ben Affleck to his bloodcurdling hatred of Britney Spears, from his shocking diagnosis with morbid obesity to the fatal flaws of SpiderMan — all done in his inimitable, raunchy style.

Silent Bob Speaks interweaves the best of the Arena columns with a new introduction by the author to produce Smith's first collection of bawdy, over-the-top essays, guaranteed to make his legions of fans choke on their Cheerios.

Kevin Smith has written and directed the films Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Jersey Girl. He also served as executive producer of the award-winning Good Will Hunting. He lives in Los Angeles and is currently filming the sequel to Clerks.

Library Journal

If you had the cajones to approach writer/ director/producer/actor Smith on the street and launch into the inevitable fan-boy gush over Clerks, Mall Rats, and Chasing Amy, chances are you would not be shunned or dissed but rather invited for a drink to shoot the breeze. Smith-a.k.a. Silent Bob in the slacker generation's version of Laurel and Hardy, Jay and Silent Bob-is much beloved yet sometimes vilified because, like Richard Linklater before him, he crashed the chi-chi Hollywood party with a huge independent film. Smith's first book is an assemblage of 30 columns from Arena magazine. Alternately self-deprecating and defensive over his success, Smith is always entertaining and often insightful. Covering the pop culture milieu he knows like the Green Arrow knows archery, he can be both effusively adoring (as in his pieces on Ben Affleck, Tom Cruise, and Charlie Sheen) and bitch-slap ugly (Reese Witherspoon and Britney Spears). Per this anthology, the favorite cinematic son of Red Bank, NJ, is funny, sharp, and very smart. Yo, Silent Bob, speak some more! For all pop culture collections.-Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.