Posted on 04/06/2007 5:29:41 PM PDT by Tangerine Time Machine
"Rotten Tomatoes UK can exclusively reveal that Kevin Smith's next project - a horror movie - is called "Red State". Up until now Smith has revealed little about the film other than the fact it's a horror movie and it'll be decidedly less joke-y than his back-catalogue. But, in addition to the title, Smith was keen to give us a head's up on the plot of the film.
If you've seen any of his "An Evening With..." DVDs, you'll know how much fun it can be to sit down in an audience and listen to "Clerks II" director Kevin Smith talk. In London this past week with his family - his daughter Harley is missing Johnny Depp's daughter Lily-Rose while he's in town working on "Sweeney Todd" so they arranged an international play-date - Smith took to the stage of the Prince Charles Cinema just off Leicester Square for two of his infamous four-hour Q&As.
But even in the relatively small company of five hundred that packed into the cinema on each night, getting a question in proved difficult as Smith worked his trademark tangential style around topics as diverse as his favourite dinosaur, why he hasn't yet seen Firefly and what happens to a Dachshund post-coitus.
So RT-UK naturally leapt at the chance to spend some time with Smith one-on-one while he was in town and he graciously allowed us a whole two hours to riff on whatever came to mind. We'll be sharing the full conversation very soon but we did want to rush this item to your attention right away.
UK audiences recently saw documentary journalist Louis Theroux spend time with members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, a controversial church group made largely of members of the Phelps family and run by preacher Fred Phelps. Infamous in America for taking a supremely homophobic stance and for picketing the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq, the group see media interviews as a platform for airing their views and the word of their founder, Fred Phelps.
"That dude has always fascinated me and he's really informed the horror movie that I'm working on," Smith told us, "The movie's called 'Red State' and it's very much about that subject matter, that point of view and that position taken to the absolute extreme. It's certainly not Phelps himself but it's very much inspired by a Phelps figure."
But while Smith is convinced that "horror" is the right definition for the film, he's not so sure audiences will agree. "To me there's all kinds of horror, and killing someone's not the absolute worst thing you could do to another human being," he said, "The death in a horror movie has always been the money shot in a very exploitative manner. Stabbing somebody and splashing blood all over them is the equivalent to some dude exploding over some broad's face.
"And to me, too, the notion of using a Phelps-like character as a villain, as horrifying and scary as that guy can be, there's even something more insidious than him that lurks out there in as much as a public or a government that allows it and that's the other thing that I'm trying to examine in a big, big way. It's weird because for a few months I've been saying 'horror movie' and technically it is, but it's also not a very traditional horror movie in the sense that people have been asking me, 'Is it a slasher movie? Is it like the Japanese horror flicks?' It'd be much easier to just show it to them when I'm done and be like, 'This is what I meant.' At which point I'm sure there'll be people saying, 'This ain't a horror movie!' But to me, it is."
Smith is planning to write the film in the next few months before shooting it later in the year. "We're going to shoot it somewhere in the middle of the country, in a true red state." And it's not the only feature project on the horizon, as Smith told us he's in the middle of writing a comedy to shoot in the winter. "It takes place in the middle of winter in Minnesota so we have to wait for snow," he said.
Our full conversation with Smith, including more about "Red State", is on its way, but for now why not have your say on the forums or visit Smith on the web at silentbobspeaks.com and viewaskew.com.
Many, many thanks to Kevin for being so generous with his time, on Good Friday of all days, and to his wonderful assistant Gail Stanley we are enormously indebted for the late nights she's pulled putting us in touch across time-zones."
Smith told us he’s in the middle of writing a comedy to shoot in the winter. “It takes place in the middle of winter in Minnesota.
Maybe that picture will be called Blue State, and a comedy at best, wishful thinking.
I agree that the Phelps clan is rather scary, but to associate all Red States as being as messed up as them, thats just wrong.
I think MANY Red State theaters won’t be carrying this movie.
Any publicity is good publicity.
From Wikipedia:
“Phelps has run in various Kansas Democratic Party primaries five times, but has never won. These included races for governor in 1990, 1994, and 1998, receiving about 15% of the vote in 1998.[30]
Support for Al Gore
Phelps supported Al Gore in the 1988 Democratic Party primary election.[31] In his 1984 Senate race, Gore opposed a “gay bill of rights” and stated that homosexuality was not something that “society should affirm”.[32] Phelps has stated that he supported Gore because of these earlier comments.[33] According to Phelps, members of the Westboro Baptist Church helped run Gore’s 1988 campaign in Kansas. Phelps’ son, Fred Phelps Jr., hosted a Gore fundraiser, which Al and Tipper Gore attended, at his home in Topeka.[9][33] Fred Phelps, Jr. served as a Gore delegate to the 1988 Democratic National Convention.[33][34] Gore spokesman Dag Vega declined to comment; “We are not dignifying those stories with a response.”[35]
interesting....
even more interesting to know that Gore said those things about homosexauls, I wonder if the gay crowd knows he used to have those views...
He had run for political office as a Democrat several times (without national media attention nor rebuke from the DNC).
He "was" friends with Sen. Al Gore Jr. until Phelps' comments and Gore's rising star as VP made such publicly acknowledged friendship "uncomfortable".
I suspect that Fred Phelps and his family (who are the primary group who make up his 'church') do so strictly out of smearing "conservative" Christians. Certainly in the press AND in politics Phelps is wrongly painted to be a Republican.
And this article does more to spread the Big Lie. Goebbels would be proud.
Sen. Al Gore Jr. is the son of a successful Tennessee Senator (Albert Gore Sr.) who missed out at his shot at the top ticket when Estes Kefauver (also Sen. Tennessee) got the Democrat’s VP nomination in the 1950s.
Al Gore Jr. is an opportunist. Who knows what the hell he actually believes. The “evil rock movement” that he and his wife ran in the 1980s (with the PMRC, Senate hearings, and content labels) seems to have been put out of mind and is ignored by MTV’s Rock The Vote movement.
So now he declares himself Pope Gore and offers salvation from apocolyptic doom if only you’ll buy his carbon credits.
exactly, and I hear a lot of DUmmies over at DU think Gore is their Night in Shining Armor. If only they would dig into their cannidates past, and call them out for what they have said as much as we do to our main guys. They didn’t do it with Kerry and it ended up hurting them bad when he got the nod.
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