Kevin Smith Suffers Meltdown Over the Multiple Failures of Red State

Full disclosure: I am not a big fan of Kevin Smith. Most importantly, he has repeatedly insulted reese witherspoon. Attacking my baby is the unpardonable sin. Secondly, I have never gotten into his films. He certainly is wordsmith with dialogue. He ranks right up there with Quentin Tarantino in that regard. But unlike Tarantino, he does not have any other talent to go along with it. I thought Chasing Amy was mildly amusing, but mostly because I pictured armies of slacker geeks attempting to convert lipstick lesbians. Bottom line; I rank slacker film down there with Hick chic like My Name is Earl. Mayber I am just too yuppie to get into either genre.

All that too say I am going to pile on even further with smith’s recent complete meltdown over the failure of his latest film Red State to generate the sort of anti-christian controversy that he used to make Dogma, a film specifically attacking Catholicism, a decade ago.

If you are not aware of the background, Smith has filmed his first horror movie called Red State. the horror element is that ordinary people do really grotesque things. In this case, it is a Fred Phelps-type murderous holy man. As you can guess by the title, the film is an ‘expose” on how fundamentalist Christianity promotes violence. What may surprise is that distributors have passed on the film and critics have ravaged it, not because it bashes Christianity, but because it is an awful film. The already clear failure of Red State sparked a complete meltdown by Smith at Sundance a few days ago.

Take your pick on the root of Smith’s problem:

One option is his frustration with Christian conservative outrage to erupt. He had made it well known his film was going to be about before he even had the script done. As I said above, he already knew how to puush the right buttons to incite controversy. He used to send incendiary faxes to catholic organizations hoping they would protest Dogma which they did. More people bought tickets because of the free publicity. So christian groups are not buying into his promotional strategy.

The second option is the fact smith is a one trick pony capable of nothing but snappy dialogue is being apparent to Hollywood. The idea is something smith himself has not really hidden. He refused to direct .Green Hornet because he felt it was too big a job for him. What Hollywood creative type ever says something like that? Not one with much of a future in the business. Regardless, Red State has failed to impress distributors because of its sheer lack of quality. Smith’s limitations as a fiomaker have finally caught up with him.

That sundance meltdown involved Smith blasting the Hollywood mechanism for distributing movies. He claimed he was going to self-distribute Red State and had planned to do so all along even though one presents his film at Sundance in order to find distribution in the first place. He also announced his retirement from filmmaking after his next effort. It all adds up to the realization of his own failure at keeping his career going.

Smith plans to take Red State across the country for personal screenings. He is assuming his loyal fan base will show up and help him recoup the $ 4 million budget. Why else would he go to so much effort? He would noty be so otherwise dedicated to a film if it was not his Citizen Kane, which it obviously is not. He has lost his mastery of marketing, his status in Hollywood, a bundle of cash, and it looks like his grip on sanity.