It was the mid-90s; probably 1995 or 1996. I was over at a friend’s apartment, sitting around watching TV. We were both a couple years out of high school, rather aimless, but full of big ideas. Out of the blue he said, “Oh! I forgot! You’ve got to see this movie! This guy’s girlfriend…she sucks thirty-seven dicks!”
Now, if this were a perfect world, I wouldn’t responded, “In a row?” Alas, the universe did not provide me with the appropriate line, so I simply said, “Good enough for me!”
And for the next hour and a half, I watched Clerks for the first time. And it resonated. Big time. After all, my friend and I were Smith’s ideal audience. I was a college student, working part-time at Sam’s Club and trying to figure out what the hell I wanted to do with my life. My friend was bouncing around from shit job to shit job, aspiring to be a professional musician, but without the true skills to back them up. We were, to use a clichéd term relevant to that era, slackers.
As luck would have it, my friend had also rented Smith’s second flick, Mallrats, which we immediately dug into. From there, I became a pretty big fan of Kevin Smith’s work. Not the über-fan who buys tons of merchandise, hangs on his every word, and travels to Comicon just to see him speak. More like an “ardent appreciator”. Though, admittedly, Smith’s work influenced a bit of my personality and humor back in those formative years when the characters who populated movies like Mallrats and Chasing Amy seemed to be drawn straight out of my life. I own all of his movies (including Jersey Girl), listen to the bulk of the shows on his SModcast podcast network, and at least skim through his mountains of tweets on a daily basis.
Despite all of this, I wasn’t sure I would like Red State. In fact, I feared it would be a mess. And it’s not because it wasn’t a comedy. I’ve read plenty of Smith stories that stray from the laughs and get downright serious. Hell, his Batman book “The Widening Gyre” was a masterpiece, showing a side of Bruce Wayne that nobody’s ever thought to explore in such an intimate way. But there were warning signs with Red State. The Weinsteins, usually home to all of Smith’s film endeavors, passed on the flick, forcing him to search for outside investors. Furthermore, no one from his traditional stable of players was set to be cast in the movie. And though real heavyweights like John Goodman, Melissa Leo, and Michael Parks were eventually announced, I wasn’t certain that Smith could get their best. And finally, the initial reactions from the Sundance screening were a real mixed bag with some claiming that Red State was a rambling, jumbled movie that didn’t know what it wanted to be.
I’m not going to preface this any further: Kevin Smith’s Red State is the absolute best movie of his career. (Which is terribly depressing considering the fact that he’s planning on giving up directing after his next flick). The movie is tense, uncomfortable, sharp, fascinating, and wonderfully-produced. And yes, for those Smith fans who aren’t comfortable with the idea of him not doing a comedy, the movie can also be very funny at times. The cast he has assembled is brilliant, with the aforementioned Michael Parks, Melissa Leo, and John Goodman delivering the standout performances. It’s a movie that will stick with you for days, and one that I can’t wait to see again when it hits theaters in October.
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Now that it’s on its third iteration, we pretty much know what to expect from a new entry into the Evening with Kevin Smith series. Smith is going to get on stage in front of a packed house of adoring fans, open with a story and a few jokes, and then field questions from the audience for 3+ hours while sweating like a pig. It’s pretty standard by now and if you enjoyed the first two, this one will be right up your alley as well.
