Time was, I had a lot of respect for Kevin Smith. In fact, he was probably one of my favourite directors out there. He had a run of films that most directors would kill for, which ran for almost a decade.
His first film, Clerks, speaks for itself. Shot in black and white, on zero budget, the vulgar look at convenience store life was unlike anything that came before it. Next was Mallrats, an attempt to replicate the style of Clerks, but with a studio budget, which didn't get the same critical reception, but I found it to be a tremendously enjoyable comedy.
Next up was my personal favourite, Chasing Amy, followed by the controversial (but brilliant) Dogma. Then he gave his Jay & Silent Bob characters their own film, '...Strike Back', which was also great fun.
After that, Smith left the 'View Askewniverse' behind and made Jersey Girl, which got promptly ripped to pieces. Personally, I didn't mind it, in a disposable, watch once kinda way. With that, Smith returned and made another great Clerks film, and things looked like things were back the way they were.
I guess the beginning of the end was when he made Cop Out. Essentially, Smith wanted to outlaw critics reviewing the film after it started to receive an absolute pasting from them. The argument was "why do critics get to see my film for free, and slate it, when the public has to pay?"
The answer, of course, is because if the critics like the film, they'll give it a good write up etc. which may encourage some people to go see it, who wouldn't have before. But this wasn't good enough, I guess. In Mark Kermode's new book, he actually tells the story of electing to pay to see it at the cinema, hating it, THEN blasting it.
Of course, critics weren't the only people who hated Cop Out. The vast proportion of people who went to see it did also. I didn't catch it until it came out on Blu-Ray, and rented it from LoveFilm, with a completely open mind. It was Kevin Smith after all, he deserved the chance, even if I found the whole critic rant thing a bit odd.
I thought Cop Out was fucking diabolical (see the review here) but, it was not as if I had written the guy off as a director (although I was a bit worried about his next film), I'm sure next time he would be back to his best. And he was. Red State (click here) was fantastic, really exceeded expectations.
But what finally did it for me was a by-product of Red State (and nothing to do with the rant against the airlines he had for them kicking him off the flight due to his weight. That rant was deserved, but he did milk it a LOT), and it was the nominations for the Independent Spirit Awards.
This years nominations include Drive. Now that's all I should say, really. Drive is probably the best film I have seen this year, and there has been a lot of good stuff out this year. Other films nominated include Take Shelter, The Artist, and The Descendents. Previous winners include Platoon, Pulp Fiction, Leaving Las Vegas, Fargo, Memento, The Wrestler and Black Swan.
As much as I enjoyed Red State, it's not close to any of those films. And even though it's not really, it's still viewed as a horror, a genre which rarely gets any award credit. But regardless of that, it's a great film, with great performances, but it's not award worthy, it's just not.
So Kevin Smith tweeted the following...
"How the fuck did the @SpiritAwards not nominate Michael Parks? Nor John Goodman? Nor Melissa Leo? Fuck your idiotic organization. #FakeIndie"Crash! Bang! Smash! The sound of toys landing after being hurled from Kevin Smith's pram. Is this guy actually serious? Even if his film contained performances not seen since the glory days of De Niro, you don't post a petulant, whining tweet about how "fake" the awards are. Is it because Smith chose to distribute the film himself, touring it nationwide, he felt that automatically should include him in any 'Independent' awards?
Emilio Estevez toured his film 'The Way' (a film that was better, in my mind, than Red State) across America, and it was never released by a huge studio, making that quite the independent project, but have you heard him pitch a fit because he didn't get any award nods? Nope. Because that's not what grown up professionals do. The accolades of the viewing audience should suffice, and any awards it garners are just a nice bonus.
To end, consider this final fact. Even though Smith had boycotted critics after the theatrical failure of Cop Out, the UK distribution company for Red State still contacted Mark Kermode asking if they could use a quote from his positive review for the movie's poster. Considering Smith's hands on approach to the distribution of this film, he must have known that people were contacting critics for permission to use positive quotes right? The same critics he didn't need a couple of years back?
Apparently, Smith's next film (or films, if it ends up being a two parter) is his long awaited (for him) hockey film Hit Somebody, then it's onto just concentrating on his podcast network (and I'm sure he'll do well at it, he is still a funny guy when he's not repeating the same old stories), but after his behaviour and the total loss of respect I have for the man, this is one former fan that won't be watching. And that's a real shame. At least I have his back catalogue to keep me entertained.
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