Red State (Kevin Smith, 2011)

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flyonthewall2983 · #1 Post by **flyonthewall2983** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 2:13 pm

First look at Kevin Smith's Red State

#2 Post by **mfunk9786** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 2:43 pm

Aside from his wife, that's a surprisingly restrained and impressive cast for a Kevin Smith film, especially one that may end up to be absolutely awful.

#3 Post by **swo17** » Fri Dec 24, 2010 4:38 pm

Becoming a Republican now out of spite.

James Mills · #4 Post by **James Mills** » Wed Dec 29, 2010 9:54 pm

Not sure why my take on this trailer was deleted, but I'll repeat myself:

I'm impressed with Kevin Smith's efforts, as there's definitely some creative compositions in this trailer. I have a feeling it'll be either pretty good or really awful, but I'm somewhat excited about the idea itself.

Tribe · #5 Post by **Tribe** » Wed Dec 29, 2010 9:57 pm

James Mills wrote:Not sure why my take on this trailer was deleted, but I'll repeat myself:

You misunderstood. It wasn't deleted and moved here so you could re-post in this thread.

#6 Post by **mfunk9786** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:59 am

Kevin Smith has stupid film distribution idea that isn't going to work out; will retire from filmmaking after the hockey movie he's making next

Cold Bishop · #7 Post by **Cold Bishop** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:10 am

Michael Parks?! Speak of the devil... (although its not likely this will break his bad movie record)

#8 Post by **mfunk9786** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:17 am

I can only imagine how terrible this movie will be. If Smith had any confidence in it, he'd obviously entertain bids to sell the damn thing. I find it really hard to believe that he has the money or the ability to give it anything even close to a nationwide Halloweentime release, which is obviously what it calls for. This is a nice way of sidestepping rejection, but it's really easy to see through. It's a shame what happened to his career, and I think it's probably rather upsetting to him when he looks back on how much time he wasted on garbage like Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back when he could have been capitalizing on the critical success of Chasing Amy in a more mature way (rather than making all the movies he'd always wanted to make - has that ever worked out for any marginal filmmaker?)

knives · #9 Post by **knives** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:24 am

mfunk9786 wrote:capitalizing on the critical success of Chasing Amy in a more mature way (rather than making all the movies he'd always wanted to make - has that ever worked out for any marginal filmmaker?)

What do you mean by this? Don't most film makers capitalize on accidental success by making the films that they always wanted to. I'm thinking primarily of more talented people of course, but that has little to do with it. Considering that he had been working on Dogma for example since Clerks it seems like he was before the massive mistake that was Cop Out going the route most do in that situation. Also I think he has been trying to be more mature, but that always bites him in the ass(due to a lack of talent I think)causing him to regress.

#10 Post by **mfunk9786** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:30 am

Someone in the film industry must, must have tapped him on the shoulder after reading the screenplay for Dogma and warned him that it was terrible and he should just scrap the idea and come up with something else to have a studio waste millions of dollars on. If that never happened, every preconceived notion I've ever had about Hollywood is wrong.

In my imagination, the conversation went something like this

#11 Post by **swo17** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:33 am

I was under the impression that Smith and his fans generally consider Dogma to be one of his best films.

#12 Post by **mfunk9786** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:35 am

Exactly.

knives · #13 Post by **knives** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:38 am

It's not any worse than your average comedy(in the '80s at least)and I'm sure the Weinsteins thought that people would just follow Smith on anything. Plus wasn't this around the time when Affleck and Damon had won their oscars? On paper that sounds like a recipe for success. It's really telling how terrible that Red State must be that the Weinsteins didn't even pick it up after it was made ala Chasing Amy. They have a weird loyalty to those guys that helped them out in the first place. Than again they passed on Machete and that was fantastic in its own way.

In Dogma's defense it is dealing with it's subject in a really interesting way with a few great moments(I'm thinking of Affleck's speech after they're thrown off the train) that's just surrounded by a sea of mediocrity. Though Rickman makes even the worst film mildly entertaining.

Murdoch · #14 Post by **Murdoch** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:41 am

Dogma's the only movie where I prefer the TV edited version to the uncut, I'd call it a decent comedy in spite of Smith. I remember watching it a bunch on comedy central in early college and liking it, then a friend showed me it uncut and I hated it.

#15 Post by **mfunk9786** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:46 am

Smith's misunderstanding of the subject matter is downright absurd though, and anyone who doesn't find long sequences of the screenplay completely inscrutable is lying to themselves. He had a good thing going with a lovable indie (in my opinion, still lovable after all these years), a majorly flawed but perfect for late night Showtime teen flick, and a critical darling that has serious flashes of maturity among its cringe-inducing missteps. Then he immediately bought into the idea that he and the characters in his three (count 'em, three) films were brands in and of themselves and that he needed to include them in everything he did until the shtick got old (and boy, did it ever). Dogma is the perfect example of a filmmaker's career going right down the tubes with one arrogant chess move.

ianungstad · #16 Post by **ianungstad** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:48 am

I think Kevin Smith will do fine. His plans to tour with the film isn't much different from the many spoken word tours he's done. As for the wide release in October, I'm sure his company will utilize an outfit like Freestyle Releasing or some other D-I-Y label, with Smith putting up the money for P+A. This was a similar strategy that worked out well for Exit from the Giftshop. (Though it could also be a disaster like Me and Orson Welles)

More power to him. Most people in the industry can't devote that much time to following a film around and have other projects to work on. His career is over anyways, he doesn't have anything else to do.

What I thought was distasteful about tonight's gala screening of Red State was that he had all the various potential distributors there to see the film and make their bids during the auction, only for it to have been a stunt, wasting everyone's time and apparently causing a lot of New Yorkers to miss a highly anticipated hockey game. He brought them there to say "Fuck you guys" and rant about the current distribution model for indie film and grab a few headlines? Pathetic.

I'm just glad he's going to retire and we won't have to hear from him anymore.

knives · #17 Post by **knives** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:51 am

Murdoch wrote:Dogma's the only movie where I prefer the TV edited version to the uncut, I'd call it a decent comedy in spite of Smith. I remember watching it a bunch on comedy central in early college and liking it, then a friend showed me it uncut and I hated it.

It should be telling than that I've only seen the teevee cut of that one.

#18 Post by **mfunk9786** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:51 am

It should be telling that I love it when people type out "teevee"

ianungstad · #19 Post by **ianungstad** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:59 am

Just looking at the reactions to the film hitting the net. The general consensus seems to be that it wasn't awful but is a very mixed bag. I guess he needed to drum up all the attention to hide the fact that the actual product wasn't all that hot.

James · #20 Post by **James** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:21 am

ianungstad wrote:What I thought was distasteful about tonight's gala screening of Red State was that he had all the various potential distributors there to see the film and make their bids during the auction, only for it to have been a stunt, wasting everyone's time and apparently causing a lot of New Yorkers to miss a highly anticipated hockey game. He brought them there to say "Fuck you guys" and rant about the current distribution model for indie film and grab a few headlines? Pathetic.

I'm just glad he's going to retire and we won't have to hear from him anymore.

My god, I can't think of a bigger "attention whore" filmmaker.

knives · #21 Post by **knives** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 6:56 am

What's worse than his attention whoring is his fan's excuses for Smith's baby like behavior. Here's an actual quote of one of these imbeciles.

As for Smith, I know in recent it seems like he bitches about everything, but i think if you sit down and dissect it, he is just saying some hard truths. His ramblings about Critics, i agree with. These critics see his movies for free so that they can shit on them. The movies he makes are for the fans of his who would see anything he made because they are his fans, Smith is a man with a very dedicated fan base (Present company included) and I would see any movie he was involved in. Will I love every movie he was involved in? No! I did however really like Jersey Girl, a movie Smith shits on more than anyone else! I thought Cop Out could have been a lot funnier, i think Clerks 2 is his best movie.

That's some bad regurgitating of his huffing.

James · #22 Post by **James** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 7:09 am

I think the entire "filmmaker vs critic vs viewer" mentality is extremely childish, which is generally why I try to disassociate myself from his films — they tend to carry over similar qualities and merely expand on the childishness and anti-intellectualism. While the trailer was well cut, it's now clear to me that the film is the same old tired routine in psuedo-political comic book form and Kevin Smith's constant cries for attention and overemphasis on film promotion proves that he no business behind a camera, or at least not really worthy of any true cinephiles' time (every film I've seen of his supports this).

James Mills · #23 Post by **James Mills** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 7:21 am

Does anyone know what Red State was shot on? You guys were right about the trailer, it had a very poor home video/tv drama look to it.

I'm still interested in seeing it, for some reason.

knives · #24 Post by **knives** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 7:26 am

Believe it or not despite the terribleness of the texture it was shot on a redone.

ianungstad · #25 Post by **ianungstad** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 7:30 am

I suppose the nice thing about debuting the film in front of 1200 people at Sundance is that most of the mixed to poor reviews of Red State are coming from his "fans" that bought tickets to the screening rather than professional critics, so he can't blame film critics for maliciously turning public opinion against him this time.

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