Isn’t it amusing that a film in which young boys are ball-gagged, gay men are murdered because of their sexual orientation, and people are shot indiscriminately in the name of Jesus, is controversial because of a speech the filmmaker gave? Granted, if the speech was along the lines of, “Hey, isn’t killing homos awesome?” then it would make sense. Instead, Kevin Smith got up on a stage at Sundance and said he was going to distribute his newest film, Red State, himself. And then the film community lost their fucking minds.
I generally try not to read reviews before I see a movie, but it was hard to ignore all of the press coming out of the Sundance premiere — especially because a lot of it was so vitriolically negative. Drew McWeeny’s Hit Fix review was so bizarrely angry that after reading it, I was left with the distinct impression that at some point in the past, Kevin Smith had gone over to that guy’s house and taken a dump on his kid or something. It was so over-the-top furious that I was just left shaking my head in wonder.
Then, of course, there’s the now-famous “Watching Kevin Smith Implode” article that Mike Fleming at Deadline.com wrote after the Sundance screening. Although it’s not quite as angry as McWeeny’s article, it’s the one that will still send Smith off into a diatribe on one of his many podcasts even six months later.
However, I do trust Katey Rich over at Cinemablend, the first site I ever wrote for. So other than McWeeny’s, hers was the only Red State review I read immediately after Sundance. While she also gave the film a pretty negative review (grading it a C-), the review itself seemed fair. So while I wanted to like Red State, there wasn’t a whole lot going into it that gave me faith. I’m a Kevin Smith fan, but I’m not a fan who believes he can do no wrong.
One thing I was sure about was that I didn’t want to wait until Red State‘s official release in October to see for myself how good or bad it actually is. That’s why, when Smith’s Red State Tour came to D.C., I bough a ticket and headed into the city. I wanted to like it, you guys, but after everything I read I was worried. Luckily, it turns out that Red State is a lot of fun.
Seriously, if you like dark humor and don’t mind hyper violence, Red State is a good time. It’s by no means a serious treatise on the role of religion in general or the Phelps family specifically — it’s a treatise on shit getting blown up.
It probably could have used a little more character development, but on the other hand, the fact that we didn’t get the chance to know these people made their ultimate deaths more shocking. As an audience, we’re trained to wait for characters to redeem themselves before meeting their ultimate fate: there’s very little in the way of redemption in Red State.
What there is a lot of, however, is people getting their fucking faces shot off. In fact, that happens ridiculously often. Yet, it manages to be more shocking each and every time. Instead of becoming desensitized to the violence, which usually happens in a movie with a high body count, I couldn’t believe the amount of people who weren’t saved.
To me, the weakest point was the ending: John Goodman has two monologues where he only really needs one, and while I love Patrick Fischler in everything he does, his lines at the end rang false to me. I could suspend my disbelief through a series of crazy-ass events for an hour and twenty minutes but his scene, for whatever reason, is the one part that made me go, “come on.”
Overall, Red State isn’t going to change your life. But at the end of the day, it’s worth your time and money. I walked away happy that I went and curious to see how it will do when it goes to wide release in October. Kevin Smith hasn’t lost his damn mind. He just made a fun, bloody movie. It’s not the end of the world.
Clacked by Kona Gallagher 
on Jun 06, 2011 @ 09:00 EST5EDT
Kona,
I have been a fan and followed Kevin Smith my entire life, the DIY attitude has become me. I was so inspired by Kevin that with no background, other then the belief I could tell good stories, I set out to make a movie and I was going to do it my way come hell or highwater. That film got made and its called – The Perfect House.
While we were deep into post Kevin did his thing in Sundance and it stirred something that had already been building inside of me from hearing horror stories about what happens to indie films when dealing with distributors. When every one was going nuts about how crazy he was it was hysterical to me for the simple fact he had a fan base already, it was like shooting fish in a barrel for him. There was no way following common logic he wouldn’t turn a profit.
I followed his blogs and listened to him state his case and the more he did the more I realized the numbers could hold up for an unknown as well – as long as the product is great! Once our film was finished it quickly started getting attention from the major distributors but they wanted to pay us what we made it for. Im sorry but the friends and family that backed us on blind faith were not hoping to just get even they were hoping to hit a home run.
Unfotunately for the top three distributors in todays technology and social media, even is just not good enough. I was told repeatedly don’t worry about your investors, they’ll make their money back “eventually.” In the meantime you can go on to your next film and make something bigger and better. Of course with all new investors money that would be led to believe my original investors were all fat and happy because we had a “recognizable” distributor. There was and is no way I am making another film until my investors (family and friends) are not only paid back but rewarded hansomly for their risk.
We set out to test our film and Kevins theory on an unknown film and filmmakers. 6 cities across the country on nothing more than word of mouth and the result – people LOVED the film and even more so our cause, fans AND critics!
After months of fighting with advisors and people “in the know” (or so they portrayed) we have now held off on any deals with distributors instead planning a 34 city tour of free screenings designed to promote the release of our film FIRST on our facebook page via Flick Launch on October 1st. Using Social media and a tour bus wrapped in advertising of the release we intend to raise 1 million fans before October 1st. The entire tour will be documented and posted as a real time online reality show. Creating limitless sponsorship opportunities.
For a sample plan visit our interactive map from our first 6 cities at https://www.theperfecthousemovie.net . Currently we are seeking the funding for our 200k marketing plan we believe can bring our investors not only a revenue stream for life but the homerun they were looking for. After the successful release we plan to go back to the distributors, we asked to embrace our plan but instead looked at us and our ideas as a cancer attached to a great movie, and see how negotiations go then.
If you would like to do a story about the true indie filmmakers taking the real risks Kevin appeared to be taking with a multi million person fan base for a safety net we would be happy to share our story and film with you.