Above: Kevin Smith makes a movie about his right temple and you'd better not criticize it.Let me propose something: no single individual has been affected more negatively by the coarsening of American popular culture than Kevin Smith. Back in the day, after Clerks almost got an NC-17 rating for language and went on to become a word of mouth cult hit, Kevin Smith was widely seen as a daring counterculture auteur whose unabashed vulgarity stood in bold contrast to the staid mainstream cinema of the day. More simply put: Clerks had a lot of dick jokes at a time when people actually stood a chance at being legitimately offended by dick jokes. In the past 15 years, Kevin Smith has mostly demonstrated his ineptitude at all the part of movie making that don't involve writing down dick jokes and Star Wars references and our culture has pretty much lost the ability to be offended by anything. This is a big problem, not just for Kevin Smith's current terrible movies, but also for his past movies that everyone used to like. In a time when we can hop on the Internet to read the richest athlete in the world's text messages about wanting to piss on porn stars, I'd venture to guess that the blowjob jokes in Clerks don't hit as hard as they used to.
For whatever reason, complete artistic irrelevance hasn't made Kevin Smith any less visible. Mostly, this is because of Kevin Smith's other skill, which is starting to look more and more like his true calling: endless and defensive complaining about every single real and perceived slight he experiences. Last week, he posted a diatribe on Twitter about the injustice of professional film critics pointing out that his latest movie, Cop Out, is a piece of shit, including this rebuttal:
Smith goes on to unveil his master plan to replace the tyranny of professional criticism:
The supreme irony of this whole episode is that Kevin Smith is bar none one of most critically over-praised filmmakers in recent memory. Gaze upon the favorable reviews for Clerks II, a movie I'm still bitter about wasting money on four years after the fact. Remember Dogma, which was marketed as a bold skewering of religion and was actually a tedious blend of pseudo-theological nonsense and forced attempts at "edginess"? Critics liked that one, too. (Sidebar: the Catholic League should have gotten some back-end points on Dogma, since their protests basically were the movie's marketing campaign. Although since the organization is currently attacking the New York Times for exposing a cover-up of horrific child abuse by priests, it's probably best they don't have any more money than they already do.) Even Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, essentially a feature-length complaint by Kevin Smith about how people make fun of him on Internet message boards, got average reviews.
Probably the real reason that Kevin Smith is so emotionally volatile about criticism at the moment is the relative commercial failure of his last movie, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which as I understand it was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Seth Rogan by remaking the little-remembered Comedy Central original movie Porn 'n Chicken. Clearly, that didn't work out the way it was supposed to. He admits as much in this junket interview:
In fact, Kevin Smith's unfettered access to so many forums for his ceaseless bitching, lucrative as it may be for his lecture DVD and book sales, is probably the worst thing that could happen to him as a film director. That's because it reinforces his biggest flaw over and over again: his pathological inability to detect the line at which a good idea starts becoming a bad one. For instance, take the incident in February in which he was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for being too fat. It'd be pretty reasonable for him to be upset about that, to take the issue up with the airline, and to use his celebrity status to raise awareness of his displeasure at the incident and the broader (no pun intended) issue of the way the airline industry treats the overweight. Instead, he declared a goddamned electronic jihad against Southwest: according to his Wikipedia page, he devoted two hourlong podcasts and a series of 24 YouTube videos to the subject (the latter of which I was heartened to find out that hardly anyone watched), along with several lengthy diatribes (the second of which is hilariously titled "Running out of gas on this subject") on his blog and who knows how many tweets. I remember sitting in O'Hare airport right after this happened and wondering why in the fuck CNN was reporting on Kevin Smith's Twitter feed, and getting kind of annoyed with the whole thing.
Similarly, Kevin Smith's whole "I'm a regular dude with a limited formal background in movie making, and I'm not a great visual stylist" persona used to come across as refreshingly unpretentious and in keeping with the spirit of independent film making. When he does it nowadays, it looks like he doesn't give a shit about developing his formal command of his medium, despite his resources, because he knows that if he throws enough "fucks," oral sex jokes, and Star Wars references into a script, his devoted fanbase will eat it up with a spoon, and when his attempts at making a more serious film fail miserably, he can just shrug it off with a few one-liners in his interviews rather than trying to take any sort of lesson from it.
Anyhow, the other bit of Kevin Smith news from the past week is that his next movie is going to be Red State, a low budget horror film about fundamentalist Christianity reportedly inspired by the notorious Fred Phelps. It's being pitched as a dramatic departure from his usual work, which I guess it would have to be, so good for him. In typical Kevin Smith fashion, this quote about the film gives me pause:
For whatever reason, complete artistic irrelevance hasn't made Kevin Smith any less visible. Mostly, this is because of Kevin Smith's other skill, which is starting to look more and more like his true calling: endless and defensive complaining about every single real and perceived slight he experiences. Last week, he posted a diatribe on Twitter about the injustice of professional film critics pointing out that his latest movie, Cop Out, is a piece of shit, including this rebuttal:
“Like, it's called #CopOut ; that sound like a very ambitious title to you? You REALLY wanna s**t in the mouth of a flick that so OBVIOUSLY strived for nothing more than laughs. Was it called "Schindler's Cop Out"?”He then goes on to compare his movie to a retarded child. No, really. The substance of his argument isn't that his movie is actually good, it's that he wasn't trying very hard, so pointing out the fact that it isn't good is mean. Hey, Kevin Smith! People that go to the movies don't get a discount on the price of admission because you decided that doing a studio comedy gives you carte blanche to phone it in. We all still have to pay $9.50 to watch you fail at your job.
Smith goes on to unveil his master plan to replace the tyranny of professional criticism:
“Next flick, I'd rather pick 500 randoms from Twitter feed & let THEM see it for free in advance, then post THEIR opinions, good AND bad. Same difference. Why's their opinion more valid?"I can spare Kevin Smith the cost of setting up a screening room for 500 of his Twitter followers for his next movie and tell everyone right now how this would turn out: they'd all give it rave reviews. Why? Because they're following Kevin Smith on Twitter, and Kevin Smith has one of the most slavish fanbases in the entertainment industry. This is a man who puts out DVDs of himself giving lectures and Q & A sessions as if he were Noam Chomsky or some shit, and people buy them. If they get invited by Kevin Smith himself to an advance screening of a new Kevin Smith movie, they're going to be coming in their pants no matter how objectively awful what's onscreen is. Of course, that's not a problem for Kevin Smith, but it is a problem for non-Kool Aid drinkers trying to figure out whether to spend their hard-earned dollar whatever self-indulgent bullshit Smith decides to throw onto the screen next go round.
The supreme irony of this whole episode is that Kevin Smith is bar none one of most critically over-praised filmmakers in recent memory. Gaze upon the favorable reviews for Clerks II, a movie I'm still bitter about wasting money on four years after the fact. Remember Dogma, which was marketed as a bold skewering of religion and was actually a tedious blend of pseudo-theological nonsense and forced attempts at "edginess"? Critics liked that one, too. (Sidebar: the Catholic League should have gotten some back-end points on Dogma, since their protests basically were the movie's marketing campaign. Although since the organization is currently attacking the New York Times for exposing a cover-up of horrific child abuse by priests, it's probably best they don't have any more money than they already do.) Even Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, essentially a feature-length complaint by Kevin Smith about how people make fun of him on Internet message boards, got average reviews.
Probably the real reason that Kevin Smith is so emotionally volatile about criticism at the moment is the relative commercial failure of his last movie, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which as I understand it was an attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Seth Rogan by remaking the little-remembered Comedy Central original movie Porn 'n Chicken. Clearly, that didn't work out the way it was supposed to. He admits as much in this junket interview:
“That was supposed to be the one that punched us through to the next level. Everyone thought it would do $60 (million) to $70 million, and it wound up doing Kevin Smith business. I was like, ‘I’m done.’ If I were to write at that point in my life, it would about the poor fat kid whose movie didn’t make enough money. . . ."Whatever dark night of the soul the underperformance of Zack and Miri caused him to experience clearly didn't last long enough, because within the same fucking interview he's saying:
“All the (stuff) I used to put in the films, I can put into my blog or into my podcast, so that leaves me wide open in terms of what do I want to do in film.”If you've paid to see more than two of Kevin Smith's films in your lifetime, did you ever leave the theater thinking that his problem was a surplus of good ideas that couldn't be fully mined by just one mode of expression? Unless you're a member of the Kevin Smith Cult, my guess is no. In fact, you were probably thinking something like "why does he keep dragging out Jay and Silent Bob again and again?"
In fact, Kevin Smith's unfettered access to so many forums for his ceaseless bitching, lucrative as it may be for his lecture DVD and book sales, is probably the worst thing that could happen to him as a film director. That's because it reinforces his biggest flaw over and over again: his pathological inability to detect the line at which a good idea starts becoming a bad one. For instance, take the incident in February in which he was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight for being too fat. It'd be pretty reasonable for him to be upset about that, to take the issue up with the airline, and to use his celebrity status to raise awareness of his displeasure at the incident and the broader (no pun intended) issue of the way the airline industry treats the overweight. Instead, he declared a goddamned electronic jihad against Southwest: according to his Wikipedia page, he devoted two hourlong podcasts and a series of 24 YouTube videos to the subject (the latter of which I was heartened to find out that hardly anyone watched), along with several lengthy diatribes (the second of which is hilariously titled "Running out of gas on this subject") on his blog and who knows how many tweets. I remember sitting in O'Hare airport right after this happened and wondering why in the fuck CNN was reporting on Kevin Smith's Twitter feed, and getting kind of annoyed with the whole thing.
Similarly, Kevin Smith's whole "I'm a regular dude with a limited formal background in movie making, and I'm not a great visual stylist" persona used to come across as refreshingly unpretentious and in keeping with the spirit of independent film making. When he does it nowadays, it looks like he doesn't give a shit about developing his formal command of his medium, despite his resources, because he knows that if he throws enough "fucks," oral sex jokes, and Star Wars references into a script, his devoted fanbase will eat it up with a spoon, and when his attempts at making a more serious film fail miserably, he can just shrug it off with a few one-liners in his interviews rather than trying to take any sort of lesson from it.
Anyhow, the other bit of Kevin Smith news from the past week is that his next movie is going to be Red State, a low budget horror film about fundamentalist Christianity reportedly inspired by the notorious Fred Phelps. It's being pitched as a dramatic departure from his usual work, which I guess it would have to be, so good for him. In typical Kevin Smith fashion, this quote about the film gives me pause:
"...it's not like a splatter film, it's not like slasher balls-to-the-wall gore, it's more unsettling and disturbing type of horror."So it's going to rely on Kevin Smith's ability to convey tone, pacing, and insinuation? Good luck with that. If, say, Eli Roth were announcing this film, I'd be intrigued. Hell, if Kevin Smith were making this film six years ago, I'd be cautiously optimistic. Maybe I'm wrong, and Red State will turn out to be the next Exorcist or something. More likely though, it'll be a wildly uneven mix of Smith's trademark diminishing-returns "edgy" dialogue punched up with some gratuitous violence and a running, ham-fisted attempt at social commentary. None of that will matter, though, because Fox News will get wind of it and start running a series of its trademark saturation-level outraged editorials about "Hollywood sneering at conservatives again" a month or so before it releases. To which Kevin Smith will respond with his trademark genial mock-surprised smartassedness on the ten thousand forms of electronic communication over which he has provenance. Then the media coverage over the "controversial new film" will ensure that it at least recoups expenses with a bit of return, since Kevin Smith certainly isn't going to spend more than $15 dollars making it. Also, I imagine that a fair number of critics will praise it for its "boldness" and "irreverence" regardless of its actual quality, except for one or two scribes whom Kevin Smith will complain at length about in his podcast and next DVD. And everyone will come out a winner except the people who have to pay to see the movie.
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