I'll be the first to admit that I am an unabashed Kevin Smith fan.
And why not? The guy is obviously talented. From his movies to his books, podcast projects, business ventures and even his live shows which function more like stand-up, it's clear this guy is very smart and very gifted.
For those who have no idea who this guy is, let me explain. This is the writer and director of Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Dogma, and Jersey Girl just to name a few. A lot of his movies are known for being vulgar, but to leave it at that is to be ignorant. Most, if not all of his movies have massive heart and are stories that have something to say with totally relatable characters who speak the way most people I know speak. Some call it vulgar, I call it being real.
Smith has also acted in most of his movies but also taken roles in such films as Live Free or Die Hard and Catch and Release.
He's written best-selling books as well as comic books. Hell, he's the guy who brought Green Arrow back to life...and for that I will be eternally grateful.
He runs a podcast through his website which he calls smodcast. You can find it here: SMODCAST (internet radio show)
And in the last few years he's been touring live, just telling stories...except these stories are usually extremely insightful, offering an inside peek into some of the various happenings within the studio system of Hollywood, and their hilarious to boot.
For example:
He's clearly a genuine renaissance man who almost always has something going on and has his fingers into a little bit of everything. If you watch enough of his "stand-up" shows (which are collected on DVD and Blu-Ray on an Evening With Kevin Smith and an Evening Harder just to name two which I totally recommend you buy) you'll see him make fun of himself to the point where I'm not sure even Kevin Smith understands how talented he is. However, I think most talented people don't truly ever realize the vastness of their talent, so I guess that's okay.
Lately though, he's been a target of sort's. And just in case you're wondering, I'm not even going to bring up the whole too fat to fly debacle. Even though it was an attack on Smith by the media, it was so stupid it doesn't deserve any more attention than it's already gotten. On to the important points.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a great flick. It's funny as Hell and very touching. But it didn't do all that well at the box office and I think it sort of broke Kevin Smith's heart. Smith's movies have almost all been low-budget, indie successes. Meaning he makes cheap (but great) movies that make way more than they cost but still don't do major blockbuster business. That's still reasonably fine since most comedies and drama's (which are the genre's that Smith works with predominately) don't really do high numbers business in terms of box office. Yet with Zack and Miri, Smith was working with Judd Apatow (40 Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, etc.) who has been massively successful with directing and producing Smith-like comedies that have hearts while being real/vulgar. I think he felt that this was an easy knock-out. And I truly think it would have been...except for the title. If the word PORNO hadn't been in the title of this movie, I think Zack and Miri WOULD have done Knocked Up kind of business. But the movie didn't and it was heralded as a failure and Smith took the brunt of this.
Cop Out was the first movie that Smith signed up to direct without actually having written. The script was supposedly hilarious and Bruce Willis was attached and had wanted to work with him after Live Free or Die Hard. It was a big studio picture...meaning, Willis had total control. From the word GO one can see the problems forming. You have an extremely independent director in charge of a movie with an ACTOR who can and will pull all the strings without having any sort of formally dictated control (unless there was something in Willis' contract which gave him this...which to be honest, wouldn't surprise me). Rumors of on-set fighting between Willis and Smith were abundant. Later on, once the movie was out and had promptly failed to gain an audience, Smith admitted that things were difficult on-set to say the least. I've watched Cop Out and the problem with that movie was not Smith's direction. It had a weak script with two leads that were pretty much miscast. Yet again, Smith took the blame for this failure.
Finally, this brings us to Red State. This was a passion project for Smith. It's something like a horror/drama with maybe some standard suspense-thriller thrown in for good measure. The heavy religious stuff he tackled in Dogma is here as well but with an equal measure of political commentary. It's easy to see at first glance why he couldn't find anyone to distribute it. So it was taken to the Sundance Film Festival and screened. After the screening, Smith took to the stage and bought his film from his producer instead of trying to auction it to one of the studio's. He then went on a tirade about how he was going to take the movie theater to theater and try to sell it in an almost grass movement fashion.
I don't think any of you watched that 26 minute video up above, so I won't pretend that you even watched some of it, even though I think you should.
So I'll break it down for you. Kevin Smith basically asked Hollywood to buy his movie by showing it and auctioning it off at Sundance. He then went on to almost literally tell them to fuck off, bought his own movie, and went on to explain to them how their system is broken and corrupt.
FYI, on top of being talented, Smith has huge, hairy, brass balls.
Here's the thing, I completely agree with him. The studio system IS broken. As the constant stream of remakes and sequels spewing out of Hollywood tells us, this just doesn't work anymore. You've got people working in the industry because they're related to each other with no sense of business or artistic savvy which is needed in a movie making industry, however millions if not, BILLIONS of dollars are on the line. It's an industry that runs more like a monopoly that is extremely resistant to change and almost impossible to break into. It doesn't work.
Yet while I agree with what Mr. Smith is saying I don't know if I would have done what he did and said what he said in this fashion. He's pretty much painting a target on his back and declaring that he never wants to work within the studio system again. Still, I believe in what he's trying to do. The idea of taking independent movies to the theaters yourself and helping other filmmakers do so is not only revolutionary but extraordinarily kind and generous.
That being said, this was a while back. Smith took Red State on the road and received mixed critical and commercial success. He sold it to PPV and I believe it's currently available now on DVD and probably Blu-Ray. Apparently the fall-out has been nil.
Or has it?
His next movie will reportedly be a hockey-themed comedy called Hit Somebody. Yet production hasn't started. Smith is also claiming that this will be his last directorial effort and that he will continue telling stories via his Smodcast and live shows.
This to me sounds like the talk of a man who has been beaten and broken. He's had enemies come at him from all sides and a clearly sensitive and talented man has been wounded.
It's sad because it almost seems like he's been continually punished for wanting to try and do new things. Every time he branches out, people knock him back. And I don't think Smith understands how many fans he really has or how much talent he has just in his pinky. I think he's started to believe the negativity and really let it affect him.
He shouldn't.
If I could talk to Smith right now, I'd tell him to man-up. It's time to cut back on the self-doubt and the weed and get back to basics in order to school some fool's (yeah, I went there). It's either that or go big or go home. This is a man who was once attached to direct the Green Hornet but dropped out because he didn't have enough faith in himself and his skills. With his comic love and knowledge, I think a superhero blockbuster is just waiting to come out of him (heh). Or he can get back to some good old raunchy comedy. In those terms, maybe Hit Somebody is the PERFECT movie for him. A raunchy Hockey comedy? I'm game. Sounds like FUN. Maybe Hit Somebody is the comeback movie just waiting to happen for him. Either way, don't listen to the hater's, Kevin.
No matter how Kevin Smith makes a comeback, it needs to happen. But more importantly we need to give him the chance to let it happen.
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