I've been excited for Kevin Smith's upcoming horror film "Red State". Not only because it will be Kev's first attempt at a horror movie but because of the interesting subject matter that he's planning to tackle. The first time I had read or heard anything about the movie was back just before he did "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" (which I have felt was one of his best well rounded films overall) where he hoped to do "Red State" next but ended up surprising everyone and directing "Cop Out" which ultimately enabled him to get the capital needed for "Red State". Here is the teaser poster and the log line for the fim. http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=71309 "Red State" is about a group of misfits who encounter fundamentalism gone to the extreme in middle America, and stars: Michael Parks, John Goodman, Melissa Leo, Michael Anagarano, Kyle Gallner (Bart Allen from Smallville), Steven Root, and Kevin Pollak.
Wow. Mocking and/or demonizing fundamentalist, middle-American Christians. How brave and edgy of him. (For the record, I'm Catholic and found "Dogma" entertaining back in the day. But it was sort of original back then. How many of these "Christians suck!" movies really need to be made? )
This has been planned for a long time and I'm not sure that mocking would be the term I would use to describe this rather than attempting to use a horror movie to make a social commentary on this subject and I seriously doubt that Kevin thinks he's being "brave".
Smith has been coasting on fumes since at least "Jersey Girl." Like everything he's done for the past ten or so years, I don't see this making much money. You'll get a few people grousing about the subject matter, a couple of people will point out that he'd never have the guts to do this kind of movie about fundamentalist Islam and then the film will vanish.
Smith is a film-maker I almost always enjoy, so long as he's not trying too hard to be funny as I think he did with J&SBSB and maybe Clerks 2. But when he gets his focus he can knock out a good movie. Dogma is one of my more favorite movies ever. This movie looks interesting and, I think, timely given some of the currently political climate we have.
So is Kevin Smith, actually. And I believe this is NOT his first horror film. Although it may be the first one he wrote.
Yeah, but Dogma is now eleven years old and, since then, he hasn't made a single good movie, despite releasing more than five films. That's a hell of a dry spell. I think the guy had talent and potential. He may still have potential. But it seems as if he really said all he had to say in his first four movies and, for one reason or another (and, ironically, not unlike his 'hero' George Lucas), never bothered to grow as a filmmaker after tasting early success and acclaim. Maybe he can turn things around but I think it's going to take going back to the indies and eschewing warmed over genre crap.
He didn't direct Vulgar. As to Smith's films not making much money, they actually do fairly well even when they're not big box-office hits, because he shoots on such a low budget. Whether or not it looks low-budget is a different argument for a different time; personally, the last Kevin Smith movie I really liked was Jersey Girl, though parts of Clerks II were okay, and he hasn't made a great movie since Dogma.
Kevin has often joked about him being the "30 Million Dollar man" at the box office, he was really concerned about his films making money he would have done the studio thing years ago. As has already pointed out Kevin only produced "Vulgar" it was written and directed by Bryan Johnston and has been brought up in previous Smith movie audio commentaries, particularly those for "Clerks" and "Clerks 2" since it stars Bryan O'Halloaran who plays Dante. I've never seen it but the plot seems interesting. I was sold on this movie as soon as I read the comments from Smith on the pitch for it. After this I believe the hockey comedy with Sean William Scott is up next on the docket which I'm kind of hoping doesn't get made and I'm a huge hockey fan.
Yeah. Poster and concept = bored now. But hey it's Kevin Smith, so maybe there'll be something worthwhile to it. AMERICA #1 IN TEH WORLD!!11!!!!