Purile? Yes. Crass? Sure thing! Reliant on dick and fart jokes? Well I’m sorry – we can’t all be Shakespeare!
Say what you will about Kevin Smith, the man has carved an impressive niche in the landscape Stoner/Slacker comedy. A forerunner of 90s Indie filmmaking and stalwart of the boom years of Miramax –the man is a true auteur whose trademark ‘Jersey Chronicle’ films with their unique brand of dialogue, ensemble casts and goofy hi-jinks defined a generation’s experience of growing up, and set a low-bar of attainment and ideological life choice that teens were happy to live out.
THN, has on countless occasions, got into hot water when divulging it’s love for the filmmaker and his back-catalogue. Such professions never fail to provoke a torrent of criticism from pretentious and learned film scholars about how base and devoid of meaning his movies are….True, we nod in agreement…but you can’t deny they tickle the funny bone of that immature kid inside all of us – a truth that usually prevails when you remind even the most stoic Smith-Objector (or Bob-jector) of a few choice scenes and quotations. Whether it’s Stink Palms, Donkey Shows, Hetero life partners or the Hulk’s ‘Dork’ – name enough of them and they’ll crack a smile eventually.
Perhaps it’s just THN’s nostalgia for a series of films that occupied far more of our teen years than we really should admit. It’s fair comment that Smith and his films have been kept afloat by a loyal fan contingent – and that in recent years directorial efforts such as Zack and Miri, Jersey Girl and Cop Out have showed little innovation and have played second fiddle to a string of acting roles and cameos. But all this could change this week with the release of RED STATE; Smith’s return as an auteur and perhaps a rejuvenating vindication of the self-styled filmmaker’s talents. The film stars Michael Parks and John Goodman and Melissa Leo.
RED STATE is the story of a group of middle-American teens seeking sexual encounters over the internet. Little do these hapless horny friends realise it’s actually the rues of a group of Christian fanatics bent of purging the sins of the unholy. The films subject matter and visual style is a huge departure from his usual fare, RED STATE is a gritty, disturbing and an uncomfortable viewing experience. It’s been loosely tagged as a horror – but is really a mish-mash of horror, action and some of Smith’s standard comic dialogue.
The film’s ‘baddies’ are inspired by (but by no means based on)the Westboro Baptist Church and their leader Fred Phelps, you may have seen the Louis Theroux BBC documentary on the group – whose fundamentalist beliefs and catchy slogans (‘God hates fags’) are in a very real world context disturbing and unnerving. With a real life start point and dense subject matter in play, RED STATE will prove far harder hitting than any of Smith’s previous works.
The Phelps family and church actually picketed the film’s premier at Sundance, prompting Smith to protest their protest with sarcastic placards (God hates fat). It’s also worth noting that Smith has gone the unique route of self-distribution after the Weinsteins (his filmic bedfellows) claimed they didn’t know how to market this new brand of movie. As is traditional Sundance practice after RED STATE was screened the film was auctioned but this process didn’t get far as Smith’s first bid of $20 was immediately accepted – a clever marketing technique for a movie whose success is likely to be based on word of mouth promotion. Smith coined this route of distribution as Indie 2.0 – although fellow filmmakers are critical that it will change the way movies are made and distributed. Still it’s nice to see a man returning to his indie routes!
RED STATE is out 30th September and we’re very excited to see what Smith can do when he’s not writing dialogue for Jay and Silent Bob…well for Jay at least.
