Kevin Smith Brings 'Red State' to Austin

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Kevin Smith in Austin

Filmmaker Kevin Smith is currently doing a national roadshow for his latest movie, Red State. Last night, I had the opportunity to catch the screening here in Austin at the Paramount. This is a must-see movie. The most difficult aspect of this movie is describing it. The movie has elements of a dark comedy mixed with intense action thriller sometimes bordering on horror. For what Smith claims to be his second-to-last movie, he has redefined himself.

Red State opens with three high-school boys setting off for a sexual encounter they've arranged via a swinger's website. This encounter takes them to a trailer in the woods inhabited by Sara Cooper, played by 2010 Academy Award winner Melissa Leo. It doesn't take long to learn that Sara is actually a wolf in sheep's clothing.

After consuming drug-laced beer, the boys find themselves prisoners of ultra conservative preacher Abin Cooper (brilliantly played by Michael Parks). Preacher Cooper is based on the real minister Fred Phelps, of the Westboro Baptist Church (better known as the church that likes to protest funerals). The initial scenes of these kids being imprisoned takes you immediately (almost jarringly) from a happy-go-lucky Porky's type adventure to the realization that these kids are in Deep Bandini.
The movie remains pretty intense from this point forward. One scene that I found most jarring was taken right out of Michael Cimino's Deer Hunter. It is hard to describe what the scene is without spoiling it but it reminded me very much of the jungle scenes in that film.

Through a roundabout set of circumstances (trying to keep spoiler free here), the Cooper compound raises the attention of the ATF. The ATF man in charge of investigating the Cooper is the one and only John Goodman. When I initially heard about Goodman's involvement as an ATF officer I wondered if he was miscast. I fondly recall his role in Barton Fink as a crazy man and felt he would have been better in the role of the preacher. I was wrong about this one. Goodman does a great job in the role of the ATF officer in charge.

One thing I can say is that no character is safe in Red State. Smith knocks off characters left and right and this is a good thing as it keeps the heart-pounding intensity high.

After the screening, Smith had a Q&A session and discussed many aspects of creating this film. Two items stood out in the Q&A. The first is Smith mentioning a panel he was on at SXSW 1997 with Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Mike Judge and others. An attendee asked a question of the panel about how to become a filmmaker. Smith said that Tarantino answered with two questions:

Q: "How many of you want to be filmmakers?"
A: The entire audience raised their hands.

Q: "How many of you want to be distributors?"
A: Crickets (silence)

Tarantino went on to say that with all of these filmmakers, someone is going to need to distribute these movies. Smith told us that this was the seed that initially started his idea of distributing his own movies.

The second item Smith mentioned in his Red State Q&A was the Phelps family and its trip to the Supreme Court. While I find what the Phelps family does is reprehensible, it is part of protected speech in this country. Smith compared their story to that of the People vs. Larry Flynt and he was dead on. As soon as we limit people like Phelps right to speech, it will not take long for our free speech to be infringed upon.

The Q&A sessions with Kevin Smith were a can't-miss (as long as you don't mind crude humor straight out of Clerks).

Red State is releasing nationally on October 19, 2011. I highly recommend  this movie. For more info, check out the film's website.