Sorry, I haven’t been posting recently; I’ve been on holiday for two weeks.  For my, wait for it.. 30^th birthday present, my parents paid for me to go to New York. And then off on a cruise to Boston and Portland in America, and St. Johns and Halifax in Canada.

FILM 1429: TAKING LIVES

TRIVIA: A scene was shot in which Illeana drives back to her house with the old pick-up and a branch from a tree falls and breaks the windshield. It took several takes to get the shot, and apparently destroyed the last remaining windshields for the pick-up available anywhere in North America at the time. The scene was not used.

FILM 1267: TUSK

TRIVIA: Quentin Tarantino was offered the role of Guy Lapointe, but turned it down saying he dug the script and "couldn't wait to watch Michael Parks let loose his internal Kraken," but he had no interest in acting at the moment.

The first film in Kevin Smith's Canada-based trilogy. The second film will be Yoga Hosers (2015), based on Smodcast episode #288. The final installment will be Moose Jaws (2016).

The idea for the movie came during the recording of "SModcast 259: The Walrus and The Carpenter." Smith with his longtime friend and producer Scott Mosier discussed an article featuring a Gumtree ad where a homeowner was offering free room and board if the lodger agreed to dress as a walrus. The hosts spent almost an hour of the episode reconstructing and telling a hypothetical story based on the ad. Smith then told his Twitter followers to tweet "#WalrusYes" if they wanted to see their hypothetical turned into a film, or "#WalrusNo" if they didn't. The vast majority of Smith's followers agreed that the film should be made. The post turned out to be a prank by Brighton poet and prankster Chris Parkinson, a fan of Smith who hoped to get in touch with him. Kevin Smith eventually hired Parkinson as a producer.

Kevin Smith and Johnny Depp's daughters play clerks. Clerks. (1994) launched Kevin Smith's career as a movie director and script writer.

Wallace's ringtone is from the Kevin Smith and Ralph Garman podcast "Hollywood Babble-On." The song is actually a fan-made song created using Garman's impression of Al Pacino.

In Teddy and Ally's room, where they miss phone calls from Wallace, a framed picture of Kevin Smith's Dog, Shecky, is on the wall.

Ponder rock, where Howard Howe gets stranded, is a reference to the podcast "Smodcast #224: Ponder Rockin' with Emo-Kev", posted September 16, 2012. Kevin and Scott talked about a cassette tape Kevin found in which he dictated his banal thoughts when he was 19 years old.