michael parks Tagged Articles at Cinematical

"It's so bleak, it makes f**king Dark Knight look like Strawberry Shortcake." -- Kevin Smith on Red State

Last month, I traveled to Red Bank, New Jersey and enjoyed a very cool lunch with a very cool dude by the name of Kevin Smith. While we scarfed down some tasty Italian food, I recorded roughly an hour and a half of our conversation -- all of which would be way too much to read in one post. Thus, I've decided to break some stuff up into sections and post them separately, then I'll be back with much more in the coming days leading up to the October 31st release of the hilarious Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Toward the end of our conversation, we turned to Smith's future projects -- most notably Red State. Check out what he had to say about the film, as well as which Tarantino regular he wrote a part for.

On financing Red State: "It's tough to get money for this one. And I don't want to bring it up to [The Weinsteins] again because there's something kind of exciting about going out and trying to finance it myself and raise some financing. I mean the harsh reality is if I said hey, who wants to do my next comedy, I've got money coming out the ass. But when I hand in this, like, 89-page script that is dark, there's nobody to root for, there are no heroes, it's depressing, it's critical -- it's so bleak it makes f**king Dark Knight look like Strawberry Shortcake. Not a lot of people want to pony up for that movie, man. Especially when I start out by saying, 'Look, it's decidedly not commercial. It's not a standard horror movie where you make it for $20 million. It's bleak and it's not going to get any lighter.' People aren't whipping out checkbooks when you give them that rundown."

Here's a hypothetical question: How would you get along with your father if he was bed-ridden ... and a vampire?!! That's part of the premise for Maidenhead, an independent film starring AJ Bowen (The Signal) and the great Michael Parks (a bunch of cool movies, including both installments of Kill Bill). The trailer is up exclusively at Icons of Fright, and it is quite intriguing. It's shot in black and white, has a lovely retro look, and features a big-mouthed narrator with a flat accent.

According to an interview the site conducted with Bowen in the past, Maidenhead is "kind of a counter culture black & white Twilight Zone episode. ... It's really about a creepy guy who finds his soul." Bowen says that writer/director Jim Spanos was influenced by the usual (good) suspects: David Lynch, George A. Romero, David Cronenberg, and Alfred Hitchcock. As I commented above, the trailer has a retro look; Bowen commented: "It's stylistically, aesthetically not of this time. ... [But] we didn't want to try to say specifically what time it is."

Dread Central pointed to the trailer, and is also hosting ten exclusive stills. Like the trailer, they're evocative without being explicit or giving anything away about the story. The official Maidenhead site is no less secretive; all it has is the trailer so far. If nothing else, the film has a different look and feel to it, so count me in as another curious soul. We'll keep an eye out for future details.

[ Via Dread Central ]