The View Askew-Niverse

The enthusiasm 26-year-old writer-director Kevin Smith has for his craft bubbles under the uncluttered and inviting main page of the site he's put up as a mecca for fans, The View Askew-Niverse (www.viewaskew.com). Named for his production company, the jam-packed site, as low-key as the subject himself, offers some standard fare — film and sound clips, reviews, behind-the-scenes goings-on, merchandise, and bios of the casts and crews of his critically lauded debut, Clerks, the poorly received Mallrats, and his third and latest release, the sweetly dysfunctional triumph Chasing Amy (inspired, he says, by his true love, its star, Joey Lauren Adams.) But it also showcases the offbeat — a tour of Smith's Red Bank, N.J., office, a Clerks program from the 1994 Cannes film fest, and a spicy sound bite in which one of Smith's pals tells off a bookstore employee for insulting the director. Go ahead and bow to one of the freshest talents in film today. A