Red State (2011) or, End of Days II

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3 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Supporting Actor: Michael Parks (lost to Michael Shannon for Boardwalk Empire S2)
Best Supporting Actress: Melissa Leo (lost to Agnieszka Grochowska for In Darkness)
Best Practical Effects (lost to Haywire)

+ Wildest Movie of the Year
+ Best Independent Movie of the Year

The gritty-cool poster for Kevin Smith's Red State

Three high school friends find a middle-aged woman online, who wants to screw them. But as they search her out, they walk right into a trap set up by a hateful, Christian doomsday sect.

Red State is a hard-boiled, crazy, cool little indie film, replete with biting societal criticism of both government and religious fanaticism and bolstered by vivid action and pitch black (sometimes nearly bizarre) humor by writer-director Kevin Smith (Clerks (1994)). It is well-written and dazzlingly carried out with very limited funds, (the budget for special effects were reportedly just 5,000 $.)
Red State has some fantastic performances; by John Goodman (Flight (2012)) and particularly by Melissa Leo (Flight) and Michael Parks (Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)), who plays the deluded father in the film with an intensity and gusto that simply knocks you over: In his long speech scene, his charisma and rationale almost gets us to understand his congregation.
The film is intermittently very dark, funny and scary. A wild ride and probably the most kick-ass piece of independent American film-making of 2011.
Smith has several projects in the making; he is involved with the filming of Holidays right now, a horror movie that he both stars in and co-directs, with several others. He is also debuting his new movie Yoga Hosers, the sequel to Tusk (2014), later this year.

Related posts:
 

Kevin Smith: Tusk (2014) - Smith goes all-out wack
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Cop Out (2010) or, A Couple of Dicks 

Michael Parks' lunacy is quite convincing in Kevin Smith's Red State

John Goodman is a no-bullshit type government agent in Kevin Smith's Red State

Watch Kevin Smith introduce the teaser for the movie here

Cost: 4 mil. $
Box office: 1.8 mil. $ + 3 mil. $ from VoD
= Even Steven
[Red State's distribution was as controversial if not more controversial than the film itself: After its Sundance screening, Smith had said publicly that he would sell the distribution right auction-style, so he gave the crowd long faces when he told them after the screening that that wouldn't be the case anyway; because he would sell the rights to himself for 20 $, and that he thinks that it is the way forward for independent filmmakers of today, - distributing their own films and avoiding the distributor's often sizable box office cut. Smith then showed Red State for a week in his pal Quentin Tarantino's cinema in Los Angeles and went on a roadshow in North America, starting in Radio City Music Hall, with the film and himself, whereupon it was released to VoD and video. The reception to the film has been wildly mixed, and Smith has burned many bridges for himself with his 'auction', but Red State has been praised by peers such as Richard Kelly, Tarantino and Ben Affleck. Note that the VoD-figure listed above comes from Smith and could be misleading.]

What do you think of Red State?

Tusk (2014) - Smith goes all-out wack

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+ Strangest Movie of the Year

The creepy, stylish poster for Kevin Smith's Tusk

Great writer-director Kevin Smith's (Red State (2011)) new film is based on one of his 'SModcast' podcasts, where his following encouraged an idea developed on the air to be developed into a feature film:

A douchy podcaster (Justin Long (Die Hard 4.0 (2007))) goes to Canada to interview a new viral phenomenon, who commits suicide before he gets to him. Instead, he finds an exotic old hermit, whose life's tales he thinks will provide a great replacement. The only problem is ... this hermit's got a secret ... wish to ... SPOILER make strangers into ... - a walrus!

This truly dark and weird plot, no doubt formed by writer-director Smith in some measure due to his self-admittedly weed-addled brain, mixes dark satirical comedy with body horror and (in the second half) farce!
The concept is to confront a representative of dumb, vulgar, unsophisticated 'modern man' with a classically schooled misanthrope, who turns out to be what you might term a proactive ditto. Michael Parks (Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)) lights up the part of the eloquent madman just as he did with a different, but also nutjob character in the great Red State. Parks makes Tusk work, and the oppositional energy between the two leads works, (even if Long's character comes off as surprisingly well-read, picking up many of Parks' elusive literary references while still obviously being a complete boob.) - Smith originally wanted master filmmaker/actor Quentin Tarantino (Django Unchained (2012)) for the part, but, luckily I think, he had no interest in acting at the time.

Justin Long finds himself in the darnedest 'pickle' in Kevin Smith's Tusk

Michael Parks is not quite the host he had imagined, in Kevin Smith's Tusk

As pod-casting partner/'friend', we get Haley Joel Osment (A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)), who has recently made something of a comeback in the public awareness in more or less farcical comedies as The Spoils of Babylon (2014, TV-miniseries), Alpha House (2013-14), Sex Ed (2014) and now Tusk. Genesis Rodriguez (The Last Stand (2013)) acts well and looks very well as the young woman between them.
- And then there's the surprise major star appearance of Johnny Depp (The Rum Diary (2011)), which people who see Tusk are inevitably talking about after: - Was it really Depp? (It was.) He is disguised under a heavy hair, prosthetics, costume and make-up job here as a Quebecian detective, and he is a ton of fun in Tusk, injecting some juice into what could otherwise have been a fairly thin second half of the film. Indeed the poking fun at Canada/Canadians and America/Americans are a big chunk of the comedic side of Tusk, and, to me, it was quite funny.
A trivia note is that the teenage daughters of both Smith and Depp act in minor parts in Tusk, as the store clerks who (deservedly) dis Long. (Strangely fitting, in a way, since Smith's own career was boosted from his writing, directing and acting in Clerks (1994), about a couple of store clerks.)
Tusk is a fun film, perhaps for the few. - It certainly doesn't deserve the harsh words it has gotten from many critics and unprepared audiences. It makes a dark horror comedy out of material that is inevitably linked to Tom Six's truly off-putting The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (2009), and does so successfully.

Related posts:

Kevin Smith: 2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V] 

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV] 

2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 


Cop Out (2010) or, A Couple of Dicks 

Watch the wacky trailer for the film here

Cost: 3 mil. $
Box office: 1.8 mil. $ (US only)
= Huge flop
[Tusk opened #14 at the US box office in November '14 on 602 screens. Reviews of the film differ wildly. Smith has conceived the film as the first in a trilogy called True North, (riffing, perhaps, on 2014's successful detective TV-series True Detective.) It is set to be followed up with Yoga Hosers (2015), an action-adventure starring the two daugthers, Lily-Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith. The trilogy will end in a film called Moose Jaws, which Smith says will be "Jaws with a moose." - I'll be ready for that, but let's see if it happens first ...]

What do you think of Tusk?
Do you want to see the two next films in the proposed True North trilogy, if and when they get released?