By Jason Apuzzo. Variety and the few critics allowed to see Kevin Smith’s Red State at Sundance are panning it, with Variety calling it “a dull blade slashing wildly, predictably and ineffectually.”
Also, in a profanity-laced, 20 minute speech after the screening of his film, Smith announced that he would be self-distributing the film himself. According to Hollywood Reporter:
Smith lambasted movie studios for a system he said is unfair and outdated and too focused on advertising. Smith said that he had never intended to get into the business of the movie industry — noting that he’s simply a “fat, masturbating stoner” — but the state of the industry essentially forced his hand.
Translation: the film bombed, and he had no takers.
Deadline Hollywood is also reporting that even if there had been any enthusiasm for distributing his project among the many distributors who brought their teams to the screening, Smith alienated them all by generally acting like a psycho and insulting the distribution business. He also claims that this will be his second-to-last film.
Free Game Pass revoked. Kevin Smith=Game Over.
Also: this is another sign that political cinema is currently dead, having been killed, ironically, by the very people who practice it.
Posted on January 24th, 2011 at 10:32am.
The thing is, he might have been able to make it work as a horror movie without the politics. I think that these people get so isolated that they have a hard time understanding just how many people there are in this country who are in “red states” and might not be on board with an unfair bash fest. But these same people may have gone to see a well done horror movie that wasn’t trying to make them all out as murderous psychopaths. I live in an area that is close enough to the Westboro Baptist Church er, cult to see some of their protests. Most reasonable people despise them and what they are doing and would be none too happy to be lumped together with them just because people like Smith fail to see the need to differentiate between “people who may disagree with you” and raving lunatics.
BTW, A movie that I’m looking forward to is Tucker & Dale vs Evil, which plays around with these stereotypes in what looks like an intelligent way. But it’s not on netflicks yet so I can’t say much more about it.
We’re agreed on all points, Matt, and thanks for the note about “Tucker.”
I think it’s actually at Sundance! I hear it’s a riot.
Yes, we reported on that below.
And of course what is also worth noting is that none of the negative reviews out there criticize the film for the garrish stereotypes etc. Some say it has a noble purpose but is poorly executed. So many critics wanted to like this thing but could not.
That begs the question…how bloody awful is it!!!!?????
Probably quite awful.