flyonthewall2983 wrote: with members of the Phelps family in attendance
The AV Club provides coverage. I'm incredulous that Kevin Smith has somehow managed to turn the Phelps family into his full-time interlocutors. This is like a Jerry Springer version of the roll out of The Last Temptation of Christ.
Why incredulous? Smith and the Phelps clan need each other--they're both out for attention without having done anything particularly deserving of it, so they manufacture protests and twitter feuds in order to get it. Outside of his films, Smith's persona is "Look at me! Look at me!", and the Phelps family's collective persona is "God hates fags! Look at us! Look at us!". These parties have read page 1 of any up-and-coming rapper's playbook: start a feud, get attention, take your act to the next level.
The fact that Smith and the Phelps clan are clearly in cahoots makes me even more disinclined to see this film.
So nobody here has actually seen it yet, right? Think about that: if nobody here (at the Criterion forum, for fuck's sake) has made any effort to see it, did anyone else outside of the fanboys actually go out of their way to see this?
Haha, I don't think this forum is really the target market, and honestly his strategy for releasing this movie seems to be aimed more at milking as much as possible out of the fanboy fanbase than any attempt to expand his circle of fans. Since he's selling out venues at $60 a head, I think he's probably doing ok, money-wise.
He has been, I even had press passes offered then rescinded because it was doing so well that they got to courage to say "fuck critics" on the whole. You gotta understand smith's fanbase and this page's population are on totally different ends of the spectrum (I think).
Crazy, I knew his fanbase was loyal but I didn't know it was that widespread.
I still think a lot of us on here would have given the film a chance had it been wide-released, or even selectively released (I know I probably would have, at least).
Indeed, October. It's not a bad plan, overall. They've made back about 1 of the 4 million with the previews, plan to make the rest selling it internationally, and they still get whatever they take at the domestic, even if it bombs they do fine. and if nothing else the previews lead to a few months of continued publicity and a few thousand fans of the film spreading good word. it wouldn't work for anyone but Kevin Smith, but he could do this all the time.
In terms of actually selling tickets, the wide release seems like a mistake. I'm guessing a pretty good chunk of the people who would ever want to see this movie will have seen it as part of Smith's tour, and his 'fuck the critics' attitude isn't going to help draw in anybody else.
I mean, God knows a horror movie doesn't need critical approval to make a lot of money- the Platinum Dunes remakes are more than enough to demonstrate that- but this doesn't look like it would appeal to the lowest common denominator gorefest crowd, his core fanbase will have already had a much more exciting Red State viewing experience, and anyone who's not predisposed to see it for one of those two reasons seems unlikely to be pushed into it for any other.
I'm not sure how the business model works, though. Does Smith have to pay any money up front to get chain theaters to book it? If not, he can point to the sold-out venues to artificially inflate its value, make a bunch of money on pre-sales, and then giggle his little fatman giggle to himself as everyone else loses their shirt.
It certainly won't register in the mainstream or anything, but I could see Smith making a decent sized profit (budget in consideration) off of an official release. What he'll be getting is both his obsessed fans seeing it for the second time, and a lot of people like me (and surely others on this board) who like some of his work ("Clerks", "Mallrats", "Amy", and "Dogma", to be a list making nerd) and would happily see all of his films... just not for $75.
It appears that Kevin Smith finally gave up on the whole self-distribution concept, so rather than giving this a theatrical release nationwide, he did one of those quickie qualifying runs in LA and then sold the film's home video rights to Lionsgate. As a result, the film is already available on demand through Amazon Instant, and I decided to watch it tonight for some reason.
Oh, boy. Smith tries really hard to make a good film out of Red State, but the problem lies in the fact that he has nothing to say about his subject matter. We're led to believe that a sinister cult exists in the public eye that kidnaps and murders gays during church services, and that nothing has yet been done about it. Smith's version of the Westboro Baptist Church (complete with the signs, on which he can't help but indulge his "I'm so clever" urges - one protest sign reads "PORK PRODUCTS NOT DUDES," for example) decides to go onto an online dating website and advertise for new sodomite sacrifices with a picture of a woman with breast implants who lives in Cooper's Dell, which is the church's compound. Three high school students who we're supposed to believe have any ounce of common sense decide to fall for this, and drive into the compound to get lucky with this fake-breasted religious zealot, and I can't believe I just typed that sentence. When they arrive, they encounter not only an extraneous Stephen Root subplot, but a trailer at which Melissa Leo's overacting begins - she drugs the boys, and they awake at a church sermon within the Cooper's Dell compound.
The sermon is led by Michael Parks' character, who is a soft-spoken, pleasant preacher who obviously was modeled after Fred Phelps - the congregation is made up of his extended family, who look on approvingly while he whispers through a sermon and then indulges the men in the opportunity for some hate crimes. The film shifts gears into a hostage film involving the high school boys, getting John Goodman's ATF Agent character into the mix and resulting in the most prolonged and boring shootout in movie history. Imagine the first few minutes of The Devil's Rejects extended into a 45 minute back-and-forth. Speaking of The Devil's Rejects, I kept thinking to myself how much this film could use Rob Zombie. Not only Zombie's smart horror sensibilities (which Smith lacks), but his rough cinematography - Red State is shot in HD, and manages to look too slick by half, the film's mediocre and under-dressed sets aren't done any favors throughout - though by default, this is the best looking film Smith has ever made.
My issue with the film, especially with the last few minutes of it, is that it has no fresh angle on the Westboro Baptist Church, its motivations or the hazy questions of free speech that its existence raises. By making Cooper's Dell a violent compound that quickly attracts a Waco situation, Smith takes all of the air out of any opportunity to address these issues, most likely because he'd have no idea how. John Goodman's character is introduced as an intelligent and competent man, and he is suddenly done in by the stupidest plot device imaginable and the film comes to a halt, save for a Burn After Reading-ish recap featuring two of my favorite character actors (Patrick Fischler and Damian "Bus Driver Stu" Young) that accomplishes far less than it thinks in explaining away the point of this film's existence. The phrase "Patriot Act, bitch." is uttered defiantly during this scene, in case anyone was wondering.
And that's the problem here: Despite strong performances by some of the leads (save Leo, who I must mention again is the hammiest ham to have ever hammed), there is no reason for Red State to exist. It's not scary, it's not funny, it's not insightful, it's not particularly interesting. The entire film can be boiled down into this theoretical conversation with a friend or co-worker:
"Hey, have you ever heard of the Westboro Baptist Church?"
"Oh, those 'God Hates Fags' people?"
"Yeah."
"Yeah, they're crazy."
"Yeah."
I finally caught up with “Red State” from the comfort of my living-room sofa and liked it better than I expected to. I suppose it must have once been intended to read as an allegory about American life, but instead it feels like a late-night oddity along the lines of Quentin Tarantino’s “Death Proof,” a basic-cable throwback that’s simultaneously good and bad. It’s a charming if conspicuously unfinished film, a half-riotous, half-idiotic send-up of the teen horror genre with a vaguely hip political twist.
I found Red State ultimately disappointing. There are elements to like- Goodman's performance, Park's performance, the sermon- but on the whole it felt too hodgepodge and infantile. I've never been a fan of Smith as far as his directing style goes, but now I find that his storytelling capabilities are diminishing. He adds in the close up shaky cam style to no affect, and he throws out ideas but never actually explores them. So yeah, hodgepodge and infantile (the fate of the sheriff comes to mind) about describes Red State.
the only interesting part for me was the cast, though they didn'y do anything i liked. Spoiler
i saw kevin smith's wife in the film, but i did not see his daughter, maybe she was in it, dunno, but i thought since it seemed like she was not, that the kids would definitely be getting shot up, and since this didn't go theatrical, that it would be the meat of the film, the kids getting shot, but that didn't happen! the very ending (prison) was funny/cute but i really hated all the dialogue, and kevin smith making john goodman walk seemed cruel, i wanted more of the three boys atleast, i dunno, i really liked kevin smith but this is nothing
