The fanboy director, who parlayed one self-financed feature into a career as a geek auteur, is apparently the nerd barometer (or the canary in the coal mine) for directors tackling material aimed at Geeko-American audiences. Shortly after San Diego Comic-Con, Zack Snyder invited Smith to see an early cut of Watchmen -- possibly the nearly three-hour version that will likely never see the light (dark?) of theaters. (Warner Bros. has Snyder editing it down to two-and-a-half hours.) If that wasn't enough, Smith was then invited to J.J. Abrams' highly secretive alien-and-Felicity breeding lab to watch the new Star Trek. If Trek fans didn't have enough reasons to threaten him with a bat'leth before, they do now.

In both cases, Smith said basically the same thing -- that fans have nothing to be worried about, that the film's in good hands and that they won't be disappointed... except, you know, when they hear that the guy who directed Jersey Girl got to see these movies before they did. I assume the directors just wanted him to see the film because he's a fan and a nice guy, rather than for actual, y'know, advice. (At Comic-Con, Smith said of Watchmen, "After I see that movie, I can f---ing die." Perhaps Snyder was hoping to kill him?) About directing Star Trek, Smith even went so far as to say on the air that, "It would take a really insanely talented filmmaker -- a storyteller. So leave it to the people who are best equipped for it. I'm just the guy who should be watching those movies." We couldn't agree more, Kevin -- just please stop watching them before the rest of us get to. Or, if you do, please don't tell us.