Kevin Smith and George Lucas: Bad Decisions and Power in Hollywood

(Due to the greater extent of the work needed on a real life project this past weekend, review delayed till late this week. Instead, enjoy the following)

Tell me if this sounds familiar: a filmmaker bursts onto the Hollywood scene, and is hailed with accolades, and proceeds to build himself an empire of loyal fans with whom he can rely on to spend money on his products. As time goes by, his actual interest in the making of films seems to wane, and he spends his time on other ventures. During this empire building, he seems to surround himself with an increasing number of yes men who merely reinforce his ideas about how to operate in filmmaking. When he does make a film, and both critics and audiences are critical, he lashes out at them, and knows that his loyal fan base will stick with him. And more than anything else, this filmmaker seems obsessed with filmmaker rights to the point that the audience is almost entirely ignored.

If you think I am describing George Lucas, you would be right. Except these days that narrative applies not just to Lucas, but also to one of his biggest fans: Kevin Smith.

Ok, the two on the surface seem hardly comparable. Lucas created Star Wars, the seemingly billion dollar a year generator for Lucas’ empire, while Smith created the series of Jay and Silent Bob films that play to a much, much smaller crowed. Lucas’ grasp extends to toys, games, films and television, while Smith dominates his little section of the Internet, Q and A sessions, and the occasional book. Yet put aside the scale of their empires (for now, at least), and their paths seem to run fairly parallel to one another.

Consider the past year for Kevin Smith since the release of, and negative reaction to, Cop Out. Since that time, Smith has pretty much stated he does not need to listen to critics, increasingly plays (and listens only) to his base, and now seems intent on burning as many bridges as possible with the Hollywood system following the premier of his latest film Red State with his auction stunt.

Oh, and he announced he is pretty much quitting filmmaking (or at least writing and directing) after his next film Hit Somebody.

Right. Sure Kevin. We will see when Clerks 3: Midlife Crisis is released, followed by Mallrats: The Reboot and Jay and Silent Bob Time Travel to 2011, wherein the duo attempt to stop Kevin Smith from making the biggest error in his career.

Here is the thing: as much as Smith might have a loyal fan base that loves to hear him talk, and as much as Smith may hate the Hollywood system, in large part Smith’s appeal as a personality steams from his tales that result from his interactions with the system. It is not just how Smith talks, but what he talks about, like that great Prince story. Or his seemingly volatile “relationship” with Tim Burton. Or the hell that was dealing with ABC during the production of Clerks: the Animated Series. Smith’s life is nothing less than a real life version of Charlie Murphy’s “True Hollywood Stories” from Chappelle's Show.

To keep those stories fresh, Smith needs to keep making films. More to the point, he needs to keep dealing with Hollywood and the people that become the basis for his tales and his appeal. Without keeping this stock of stories fresh, that hardcore fan base will gradually dissolve. This is why the idea of Smith retiring is ludicrous. Besides which, Smith has made similar declarations in the past that have never held up, like the idea that Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was the final film set in Smith’s “Jersey-verse.”

Still, Smith seems intent on burning his bridges with the industry. Which brings us back to George Lucas.

As I noted, Smith and Lucas at this point are rather similar except in terms of the scale of their operation. And while Smith seems intent on following every error made by Lucas when it comes to his films and the filmmaking process on his smaller scale, he needs to remember that the scale of George Lucas’s empire means he holds a great deal of power. If Lucas did what Smith has done, or even went as far as to punch a studio executive in the nose, moon every distributor personally, and even kicked a puppy for the hell of it, he would still be welcomed back with open arms if he announced new Star Wars projects.

Smith, do you really think Jay and Silent Bob have that kind of pull if you ever want, or more likely need to go back into the world of filmmaking?

As a film fan, I am the first to admit that most of the practices of the Hollywood industry are annoying, backwards, and destructive. And I would be lying if I did not admit that Smith’s self distribution approach of road showing a film is not something that I thought (or more accurately, daydreamed) about myself. Developing a reliable niche audience in this economy makes perfect sense. And it is always fascinating to hear filmmakers talk about their problems with the system.

But even the most vocal critics will admit you need to play the politics of the system to a point. Even George Lucas has done so, regardless of how poor his films may have turned out.

Keep it in mind Smith. It is in your best interests.

Cop Out (Smith 2010)

Cop Out: it is a tribute to the buddy cop films of the 1980s.

That is about it.

Ok, Cop Out is a decent tribute to the buddy cop films of the 1980s that manages to amuse, but not much more than that. Director Kevin Smith, working for the first time on a script that he himself did not write, claimed that the reason he did the film was because it was one that his father would have loved. While that might be the case, I cannot help but feel that another reason Smith did the film was because he simply needs an outright hit, something which he has never quite managed to achieve thus far in his career. Given how conventional and safe everything is in Cop Out compared to Smith’s usual work, I can only imagine that it must have seemed like a possible contender to be box office smash, as it lacks the wit, warmth and daring of Smith’s best, but financially underperforming, work.

Cop Out follows the story of Jimmy Monroe (Bruce Willis), a cop who’s daughter is about to get married. With the wedding costing $48 000, Jimmy decides to sell a rare baseball card to pay for the whole thing. However, when attempting to sell the card, it is stolen in a hold up, leaving Jimmy and his partner Paul (Tracy Morgan), who is preoccupied with the possibility of his wife cheating on him, to try and recover it.

Cop Out is a work that is so indistinctive that the only thing that really manages to be of any interest is Smith’s involvement in the film. Outside of a few Star Wars references and the appearance in Jason Lee in a cameo, good luck finding anything to mark this as a Smith film. At his best, Smith has always been the most personal of filmmakers, wearing his feelings and ideas of his sleeves on just about any topic he wishes to talk about, from religion (Dogma) to geek culture (Clerks; Clerks II) and even fatherhood (Jersey Girl). Cop Out however is a film that is shocking in just how impersonal it is. Even in the fairly critically slaughtered Jersey Girl, you could feel Smith’s personality shine through, blending toned down crudeness with sweetness in his attempt to pay tribute to his father. Cop Out is just plain crude and not even inventive in its methods of crudeness, seeking no emotional investment on the part of the viewer, nor offering a unique take on the genre. It is pure imitation of better films.

My main question with regards to the film is this: why were Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis put together in this film? They are actors who work best when taking center stage by themselves, with well defined, bigger than life personalities. Morgan and Willis are not bad together, but they hardly have much in the way of chemistry. Bruce does his thing, and then Tracy does his. Their best moments are actually when they are apart or with other characters, and when a buddy film is at its best when the buddies are apart, then there is a serious issue here. In fact, arguably, the film would have been more interesting if it had followed the rivals of Jimmy and Paul, Hunsaker and Barry played by Kevin Pollack and Adam Brody. That pair are just so bizarre in their behaviour and relationship; it would have been fun to spend time inside their odd little world.

Actually, there is no point about talking about the buddies of the film because there is no reason why this needed to be a buddy film in the first place. The story is supposedly about Jimmy trying to pay for his daughter’s wedding, losing the baseball card that would do just that, and then trying to recover it. What role does Paul serve in all this? Well, nothing: he has his own story that is in no way connected, either plot wise or thematically, to Jimmy’s story. Meshing the two together just creates a narrative mess that goes nowhere. The wedding story is lost and seemingly forgotten until the end of the film, and at no point is the Paul subplot about his wife’s possible infidelity treated with any actual weight. The events simply happen, with no actual meaning or impact upon the characters. Cut down to one story, the film at least might have been focused.

I could go on Cop Out, but there is very little point. If you attend, you will be amused, but not much else. It is simply a film that exists as product, tying over the cast and crew until better film projects come along.

Freak Out (Jones 2003)

I remember a long time ago hearing Kevin Smith talk about how when he first was showing Clerks (1994) to potential distributers, that producer James Jacks wanted to buy the film and remake it rather than release the original film, filming in colour and using professional actors. Thankfully, that did not happen, and Jacks would go on to produce Smith’s follow up Mallrats (1995) instead. However, on some level, one can understand Jacks point of view, even if it would have been a bad idea. Nobody will claim that Clerks is the remotely polished on the technical front, and some of the acting outside the main cast (scratch that, INCLUDING the main cast) is amateur. But at the end of it, these flaws not only add to Clerks charm, but give it an aesthetic quality that is oddly memorable and appropriate for the subject matter.

Freak Out, an independent film shot on home video, is a film that I very much look at and feel the same way as James Jacks felt upon seeing Clerks: I would love to see it remade with a budget and access to a solid kit of cinematic tools to play with. Freak Out’s director, writer and star Brad Jones (of Cinema Snob fame) has created a film that is rich with raw potential and ambition that often is outside the grasp of his available resources, but none the less fascinating to watch.

Set in the late 1970s, the film focuses on a teenage high school dropout named Wayne (Nick Forester), who along with two friends makes his way to the home of Dean (Jones himself), in search of a hang out and drugs. Dean however, has a big secret: he is a sadistic murderer who commits his crimes in his basement, and manipulates Wayne and another dropout named Dave (Buford Stowers) into capturing his victims for him. While Dean agrees not to kill or torture Wayne’s friends, as the night goes on, things begin to unravel, and neither Wayne nor his friends may be safe.

While the story of the film might sound like the premise to a modern day horror film, Jones’ film most surprisingly is evocative of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948). Like Rope, the film centers around a party in which the guests are not aware that their host(s) are murdering psychopaths (or perhaps sociopaths in the case of Rope), where much of the tension lies around the threat of the guests not only finding out, but also from the tension that develops between the murders as their separate desires, personalities and possible guilt come into conflict. As such, the film is less a horror film or thriller and more of a character study, as we are brought into Dean’s world as it is “invaded” by the party guests.

Without question, the best element in the film is Brad Jones himself as Dean. While many of the other actors, particularly Sarah Ogg as Rhonda, are wooden or uncomfortable, Jones throws himself into Dean with glee, crafting a villain that manages to dodge many of the serial killer clichés of the past thirty years to become a twisted, memorable villain. The film never gives an explicit reason for the reason Dean acts, thankfully dodging the wretched moment that plagues many of these films as a killer’s psychosis is the result of a single incident. While the film does unfortunately want to bring the question of Dean’s sexuality into being a possible reason, Joes does work in that it may not be Dean’s sexual orientation is connected to his actions, but instead his reactions to the judgments of others towards his entire lifestyle.

Where Freak Out falters is the result of the lack of resources and occasionally experience, as the film is a first time effort from Jones and his crew. While Jones and crew do their best to make the home video look of the film work, the film rarely is able to overcome the low quality of the source. This is worse on the audio front in many instances though, as dialogue is frequently hard to hear, which is a shame, as Jones writing is often the best element of the film. Another frustrating element to the film was the decision to set it in the late 1970s. While I understand the artistic intent in doing so, the materials needed to successfully pull off a period piece are not present in the final work. Rarely, aside from the soundtrack (which features excellent selections of period music), does the film manage to successfully evoke the 1970s. For the sake of this version, setting it in present day may have assisted in avoiding this issue.

One of the more conflicting aspects of the film is the use of violence, or rather, some of the execution. The first murder committed on screen by Dean is chilling, and effectively shot and edited and a good indicator of just how dark a film this is going to be. However, given the excellent tension developed through the dialogue and the overall situation, the level of graphic violence in the second murder is gratuitous at best, and seems more of an attempt to shock than to unsettle. The implication of what Dean is about to do to his victim is far more chilling than the actual witnessing of the act and its removal from the film would have likely strengthened the scene. Furthermore, witnessing this outburst of violence midway through the film undermines the later horrors of the final scenes, giving the audience too much too much too soon that the final sequence feels milder compared to this earlier scene.

Lastly, the ending of the film is somewhat problematic. Throughout the film, the character of Rhonda is built up as being one of our lead protagonists throughout the film. However, by the time the final scenes arrive, Rhonda has been entirely sidelined from the film, as if she has been forgotten about. While I have noted that I was not taken with Sarah Ogg’s performance, (SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT) her reduction to being a victim in order to bolster Wayne’s position in the narrative is confusing, given the time that has been spent with her as a character up to this point. Furthermore, it is has been her character that has slowly begun to piece together what Dean, Wayne and Dave are involved in a series of unsolved murders, so her absence seems odd at this key point in the narrative. If she is murdered, it is unclear, given the murky image in the final scenes. Should another attempt at the film ever be mounted, the ending would benefit from a rewrite.

On the whole though, Freak Out is a film that is worth seeing for horror fans. It is not perfect, but shows a level of talent that will be interesting to see develop. The film can be found at Jones’ site here, in three parts. For those without a strong stomach though, you might be advised to look at other works on his site instead.