I haven’t covered Kevin Smith’s great Red State experiment as much as I probably should have, for the simple reason that I’m really lazy, and Kevin Smith can’t so much as order a taco in less than 700 words.  He’s mostly likable, but my God, the man is exhausting.  In any case, the short version is that none of the studios wanted to make Red State, so Smith got it financed himself.  Then he invited studio reps down to Sundance to bid on distribution, where he promptly gave them one of these and said he was distributing it himself.  That way, he wouldn’t be subject to anyone’s notoriously-shady accounting practices or have their wasteful marketing expenses deducted from his bottom line.  If it seems obvious, the reason no one else had done it was that getting your self-distributed film into theaters where people can actually see it is next to impossible.  But when you have a jillion Twitter followers, a popular podcast, and can afford to front your own money to rent out theaters, and then charge people $40-plus for a screening and live Q & A, self-distribution suddenly seems plausible. …Sibilance.

Now it seems that the experiment has paid off, because, despite the fact that almost no one but the jortsingest, most hockey sweatery Smith fanatics have seen it, Red State is already turning a profit.

The film, which cost $5 million to make, saved $1 million from California state tax incentives, making the total investment $4 million. It then grossed about $1 million on the first leg of the tour, took in $1.5 million from a handful of foreign sales and is about to close a $3 million domestic distribution deal to release the film every way but theatrical. Do the math and Smith’s little experiment is now officially in the black, and it’s still six months away from theatrical distribution with another tour in the works. [SlashFilm's recap of info from Smith]

Say what you will about the combination of hubris and narcissism it may have taken to get it done, it’s still an achievement.  Smith celebrated in typical Smith fashion, writing an exhausting (but entertaining) 3,000-word blog post about screening the film for Quentin Tarantino, which I shall attempt to summarize below.

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UPDATE: I added the new trailer at the bottom.

At Sundance, Kevin Smith made headlines for faking everyone out at a screening of Red State, where, after inviting studio people out to bid on distribution rights, he bought the rights himself for $20, which I imagine he promptly spent on a new pair of baggy jean shorts from Ross.   (That’s the short version, anyway. For the full story, see Jay & Silent Bob’s Smoddy Red State Podcast parts one through 387). 

On Saturday, at Radio City Music Hall, the first of 14 planned locations across the country, a screening of Red State grossed $161,000. That would qualify it for the 10th-highest per-theater average ever, though it’s sort of cheating, considering the average ticket price for the 3,800 paying customers was around $43, and because the screening included an insanely thorough Q & A with the director himself, who told stories about each individual frame, including what he had for breakfast that morning and the contents of his bowels.

And if you’re looking to do more math (YAY, MATH!), Smith said he paid $60,000 to rent out the theater, and the movie cost $4 million to make.  Meaning he’d need to do about 40 of these shows to earn his money back, although that doesn’t include what he earned on his books, soundtracks, posters, monogrammed snuggies, and kissing booth.

Post-screening Smith took to the stage with most of his major cast members — including John Goodman, Melissa Leo and Stephen Root — fielding questions from adoring fanboys and even a few girls.
Goodman warded off applause for his earlier oeuvre, and Leo bantered with Smith over her own foul-mouthed slip at the Oscars (“I have a really hard time thinking that’s the first time that happened,” she quipped).
“Let this be a lesson to you that anyone can rent Radio City Music Hall,” Smith told the crowd, “even a fat kid from New Jersey.” [THR]

Yeah, yeah, you’re a regular guy, we get it, you can stop dressing like you’re going to a Candlebox concert now.  Asked whether the film itself was actually any good, one journalist covering the event quipped, “The who with the what now?”

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Oh yeah, like that's a novelty.

Every time I want to jump on the internets-hate-Kevin-Smith-now bandwagon, and it’s often tempting, I’ll hear him on some radio show and can’t help but think that he’s still a pretty likable guy.  And anyway, what’s so wrong with wanting to distribute his own movies?  He might take forever to get to the damned point (and sh*t), but it still seems like a perfectly worthwhile, not-necessarily-narcissistic goal (and whatnot).  That being said, when you show up on daytime TV talking to Joy Behar about your recent weight loss, that seems like a pretty clear indication that you’ve overshared.

The director and ‘Jay and Silent Bob’ star told Joy Behar about his 65-pound weight loss in a high-energy interview that led her to ask, “Are you on amphetamines?”

Ouch.  Damn, son, you just got asked if you were on drugs by a chick that used to work with Sherri Shepard.  Then again, I guess anyone would seem like a speed freak compared to those lobotomized lumps.
Sorry, back to the interview.  So, Kev, tell us, why the f*ck are you still wearing that butt-ugly hockey sweater?

Smith told Behar he “spent most of my life yo-yoing in terms of weight” and likes to wear loose-fitting hockey jerseys no matter what his weight is. “I call up Omar the tent maker,” he joked. “Get me a hockey jersey, and he takes all the rayon, all this material … and makes my jersey. It’s a whole team I’m wearing! I’m wearing twelve kids on my chest.”

Haha, great, that totally makes sense now.  I’m glad we had this talk. I can’t wait to see Kevin Smith eye-raping me at the checkout stand from the cover of his next People Magazine tell-all exclusive, “I LOVE SHANTS! Clerks director finally comes clean about his lifelong love of the relaxed fit, hatred of exposed leg skin.”

Anyway, here’s a new clip from Red State.  (Remember that?  Kevin Smith directs movies.)

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One of the shadiest things you can do as a journalist is ask someone their opinion about someone, then, when they answer candidly, take their answer out of context to make it sound like they’re starting a beef and manufacture a controversy around it.  That being said, controversy = pageviews, pageviews = money, and daddy’s feet = in need of a new pair of shoes. So…

FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! (*flicks lights on and off, claps cats together*)

[CinemaBlend's Katey Rich, on interviewing James Marsh, director of 2008's Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire, and this year's much-buzzed Project Nim.] I talked to Marsh in an excellent 20-minute conversation this afternoon.  Apparently as caught up in all the Sundance gossip as the rest of us, Marsh took some time– totally unprompted by me– to criticize the filmmaker for striking back against critics and audiences after so many years of success.

Here’s what Marsh said:

“You can’t try to control response to your film, nor should you. …Unless you’re Kevin Smith, I guess. Whole other story.

What’s his problem, anyway?  Why [does he have a chip on his shoulder]?  He’s had such a great run.  You know, he’s not Orson Welles.

And, I mean he gets his films made, he’s rich… he’s got money… Now he turns around and says suddenly, “I’m so hard done?”  What’s his f*cking problem?”

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"Hey, Kev, catch this Moon Pie!"

With all the hubbub over Kevin Smith’s Westboro Baptist counter protest, his Sundance auction that wasn’t really an auction, and his plan to self distribute his movie, this week in Kevin Smith has been a VERITABLE AVALANCHE of news I started reading then quickly lost interest in, then felt bad about for not caring, and then completely forgot a few minutes later while daydreaming about a stegosaurus.  But finally, BestWeekEver‘s Noah Garfinkel has dug up some  news about K-Smeezy that doesn’t require me reading 1200 words in 140 character chunks on Twitter.

Two nights ago, I ended up watching Kevin Smith: Too Fat For 40, a two hour lecture by the writer/director that is available to watch instantly on Netflix.

I imagined the talk would be long winded, but would probably also contain story or two that would be engaging enough to not bore me to the point of getting wound up and having to switch to something else. Perfect, right? No.

I ended up wide awake watching with rapt attention as I noticed unfolding before me what amounted to an accidental montage of a specific nervous tic. Below is a video that required me to watch Kevin Smith: Too Fat For 40 twice and then took me 7 hours to edit. It is a collection of every time Kevin Smith says “and sh*t” over the course of the two hour lecture. No clips have been repeated, and, in fact, some have not even been included.

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