Chances are - unless you live in a fundamentalist, anti-technology commune in Utah or unless all your friends are vigilant about keeping a swear jar - someone you know is a fan of Kevin Smith. Even if you missed the original indie firestorm created by Smith's low-budget debut, Clerks, back in 1994, there's a good chance that you've witnessed some part of the writer/director/actor's impressive resume in the subsequent 14 years. Since Clerks, he's written and directed Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, Jersey Girl, and Clerks II; acted in projects ranging from Daredevil to Live Free or Die Hard; created a Clerks animated series and authored several well-received comic books; worked on tons of TV projects, including appearing as a recurring commentator on The Tonight Show; been extremely active as an independent movie producer, AND, if that wasn't enough, founded probably the most active, vibrant, and merchandise-hungry web community on the internet at ViewAskew.com. ALL that and the man has his new movie, Zack & Miri Make a Porno, hitting theatres this Halloween. No matter how you feel about his decidedly R-rated sense of humor, you have to admit - Kevin Smith is an artificially-manufactured replicant who, apparently, doesn't require sleep.

And since we're convinced that this one-man media empire is a perpetual motion machine, the MovieRetriever staff spends an inordinate amount of time discussing the projects that we wish Kevin Smith would either write or direct (though, preferably, both). Yes, Kevin's docket is filled with upcoming projects like his horror movie, Red State, and his recently announced father-son sci-fi comedy, but we're greedy bastards and we want more, more, more. So, to appease our fantasy filmmaking urges, we've come up with five projects that we think would be perfect for Kevin Smith to direct and that, if we had unlimited Silent Bob-time, we definitely wish he'd bring to the big screen.

1. The Hugh Hefner Story

Yes, we know that geek arch-nemesis Brett Ratner has already signed to direct a Hugh Hefner biopic - and is, apparently, pursuing Robert Downey Jr. for the lead - but, frankly, he's a terrible, terrible choice. Ratner's films, ranging from Rush Hour to X-Men 3, display an ungodly sense of shallowness, and the director has an "alleged" reputation for being kind of a creepy casting-couch, wannabe ladies man. (Which makes it even creepier that he directs Miley Cyrus music videos.) Granted, the argument could be made that Hefner hasn't exactly been a feminist's best friend either, but, if Hollywood wants a Hefner biography to be anything more than a T&A fest, then hiring a director who arguably embodies Hefner's worst qualities is probably a bad call. Kevin Smith, on the other hand, is kind of an inspired choice. Both men - Hefner and Smith - have built media empires around the dreams of 18-to-40-year-old men and know a thing or two about male escapist fantasies. Smith's movies are largely about the relationship between a man and the women in his life, a relationship that ANY story about Hefner needs to emphasize beyond the titillating photo spreads, and Smith also knows how to turn those women into real-life, three-dimensional characters rather than just pretty window dressing. Yes, any Hef movie is going to be filled with buxom babes, but, if none of them are deeper than a thimble, The Hefner Story will have a hard time outgrossing Showgirls at the box office. And, if that wasn't enough, if you can believe it, Smith actually photographed his wife for Playboy in 2004, so he even has first-hand experience working in Hef's world. There might not be as many opportunities for dick jokes in such a semi-serious biopic, but Smith's storytelling experience with man-woman dynamics could really turn a Hugh Hefner movie into something more than just an episode of The Girls Next Door.

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2. Green Arrow: Escape from Super Max

OK, it was inevitable in a list of "Movies that Kevin Smith Should Direct" that we would have to include a comic book movie - if you didn't know, the man both writes comics and owns comic book stores - but we think a project like Green Arrow: Escape from Super Max would be a MUCH better fit for Smith's sensibilities than a simple, been-there-done-that origin story. For those unfamiliar, Super Max is a much buzzed-about spec script written by David Goyer and Justin Marks about the revered DC Comics archer-superhero Oliver Queen, a.k.a. The Green Arrow - he's like Robin Hood mixed with Batman - who gets framed for a crime he didn't commit and is sent to a special penitentiary for super-villains, several of which the Arrow was responsible for locking up in the first place. Hungry for justice and safer shower conditions, Arrow teams up with a rag-tag group of B- and C-list super-fiends to plan and execute a metahuman prison break. We LOVE the premise of Super Max (we're so tired of origin stories), but we're nervous that Ollie Queen, one of our favorite heroes of all time, might get a short shrift thanks to the big supporting cast and high-concept set-up. That's why we need a director like Kevin Smith behind the camera for Super Max. He's intimately familiar with Green Arrow, having authored an amazing Arrow relaunch for DC back in 2000, and few comic writers have better captured Queen's gruff, anti-authoritarian humor better than Smith. Also, while Smith has never directed anything as FX-heavy as Spider-Man or X-Men, the idea of taking super-villains and placing them within as mundane a setting as a prison sounds both within his scope as a filmmaker and filled with potential for hilarity. If Smith got Super Max, we'd seriously petition for him to, at least, do a re-write because the thought of Smith's dialogue pouring out of hard-nosed, semi-ridiculous villains like Mirror Master and Icicle is just too good to pass up.

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3. Kick Me

Anyone who's read Kevin Smith's hilarious blog "My Boring Ass Life" or seen any of the DVDs of his speaking engagements like "An Evening With Kevin Smith" knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that Smith is a Jedi master of a storyteller. The man can captivate huge audiences for hours at a time with just a microphone and his razor-sharp sense of self-depreciating humor. For a guy who's become a major celebrity, it's almost shocking how much Smith seems to love knocking himself off any pedestals, routinely regaling his fans with side-splitting stories of personal and professional embarrassments that would make any other filmmaker blush for days. (Want proof? Check out this story about Smith's unfortunate bout with an anal fissure.) As such, Smith would be the perfect director to bring Paul Feig's cringe-worthy-though-hilarious memoir, Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence, to the big screen. For those who don't know, Feig is a writer/director/actor probably best known for creating the cult classic TV series, Freaks & Geeks, a show now known for launching the A-list careers of Seth Rogen, James Franco, and Judd Apatow, among others. Kick Me is an unbelievably funny recounting of Feig's formative years, in which the self-admitted "geek" suffered through a series of degradations that would've turned weaker men into serial killers. On the back cover of Kick Me, Ira Glass from NPR's This American Life comments that, "It's shocking that one person could have so many humiliating experiences and even more shocking that he chose to remember them." A Kick Me movie could be an explosive hybrid between the honest, relationship-based teen humor of Superbad and the cover-your-face-in-embarrassment humor of Meet the Parents, but, to make it work, you need a director familiar both with being a geek and how to tell an amazing story. That's where Smith comes in. While the idea of Smith doing a teen movie seems a little odd, the subject matter is such a spot-on fit for the man's sense of humor and narrative flow that we'd definitely help our 13-year-old cousins sneak into R-rated screenings of a Kick Me movie. All that and Smith now knows Seth Rogen, thanks to Zack & Miri, so there's already a pretty great Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon connection between Smith and Feig already.

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4. Tag & Bink Are Dead

Kevin Smith has a well documented affection for the Star Wars movies - references to George Lucas' original trilogy pop up everywhere from Clerks to Zack & Miri - so, almost any time a new Star Wars project is announced, internet pundits either ask Smith for his opinion or petition for his involvement. (People are still waiting to see if Smith directs any episodes of the long-in-development, live-action Star Wars TV series.) Well, we're going to add ourselves to the list of people who want to see Kevin Smith working on a Star Wars project, and we think we have the perfect one in mind - an animated adaptation of the criminally under-appreciated Star Wars comic book series Tag & Bink are Dead. If you don't own your own Stormtrooper helmet, you've probably never heard of Tag & Bink, but, trust us, even if you're only sort of familiar with Star Wars, you'll still laugh yourself hoarse after reading it. The 2001 series was written by Kevin Rubio, the creator of Troops, a hysterical COPS parody following Darth Vader's Stormtroopers on a normal day of the job, which became a huge success after it was first circulated in 1997 and stands as one of the grandfathers of the modern viral video. (Check it out here.) The comic follows two hapless Imperial soldiers, Tag & Bink, who soon find themselves cast as the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the Star Wars Universe, witnessing all of the major events of the original trilogy from the sidelines, often influencing events in ways we never imagined. (Guess who really blew up the Death Star in Return of the Jedi? Hint: It wasn't Lando.) THIS is the Star Wars story that people want to see from Kevin Smith. The story of two normal Joes - who aren't unlike Dante and Randal from Clerks - who witness the much-beloved original SW trilogy in a way that's both sarcastic and reverential. Smith did a great job bringing his sense of humor to the Clerks animated series, and a direct-to-DVD, Kevin Smith-directed Tag & Bink animated film would make the Robot Chicken and Family Guy Star Wars tributes look like Bantha fodder comparison.

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5. Everybody's Dead

True fanboys have few things they love more than National Lampoon's Animal House and zombies. Might be hard for others to understand, but, for the misspent youths who spent their formative years being labeled as "the indoor kids," there's just something comforting about living in a world where John Belushi can trash a pompous homecoming parade or where shuffling crowds of the undead can devour all the cool kids hanging out at the mall. Kevin Smith definitely knows how to score with the frat comedy crowd and he's apparently a zombie fan - in Zack & Miri, Zack plays on a hockey team called the Monroeville Zombies, which is a great tribute to George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead - so he'd be dead-set perfect to helm a big-screen adaptation of Brian Lynch's sublimely funny comic series Everybody's Dead. The brainchild of Lynch, a screenwriter and author of IDW's popular Angel: After the Fall series, Everybody's Dead revolves around ten people at a college frat party who quickly realize they're the sole survivors of a global zombie apocalypse, forcing them to band together to defend themselves from the hordes of the undead and accept that they're forever stuck with the company of a bunch of idiots they met at a fraternity kegger. The tagline of the series says it all - "They're the last people on Earth who should be the last people on Earth." The comic is both a razor-tongued comedy and a really cool zombie story and, if Smith is still having trouble finding funding for Red State - his allegedly bleak script for what was supposed to be his first foray into horror - pairing Smith with material like Everybody's Dead seems like money in the bank. Plus, as an added bonus, Smith and Lynch are old pals, and Lynch has even made cameos in some of Smith's movies. While we don't want to discourage Smith from working outside of his comfort zone with something like Red State, we have to admit that we'd love to see the man's take on what could easily become the New Jersey version of Shaun of the Dead.

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Those are the projects that MovieRetriever wants to add to Kevin Smith's upcoming "to-do" list. What do you think? Did we miss some obvious choices? Any suggestions for future lists - 5 Movies Wes Anderson Should Direct? Eastwood? Lee? Ratner? (Perish the thought.)

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