Exploding onto the scene back in 2004 with their witty and sarcastic commentaries for the Star Wars prequels, Red Letter Media has gone on to become superstar movie critics. Their often scathing, consistent, and comprehensive film and TV reviews uploaded to their YouTube channel amass millions of views and loyal followers.
Unbeholden to any mainstream media entity, the Milwaukee-based pop culture gurus unleashed a particular brand of cynicism and hilarious negativity toward Hollywood that appropriately spawns from the Midwest. The group regularly uploads content breaking down the failings of Hollywood with brutal honesty. They have grown in relevance over the years, gaining more and more respect (and appropriately feared by some) as some of the most unfiltered and honest opinions about the current state of Hollywood and popular franchise films. Often breaking into skits, the various shows on the channel like Half In The Bag and Best of The Worst feature brilliant moments of parody, comedic filmmaking, and highly calculated editing to reinforce their opinions, resulting in one of the most entertaining and relatable outlooks on pop culture, even when you disagree with them.
The group's core members, Mike Stoklasa, Jay Bauman, and Rich Evans, collaborated on a feature film called Space Cop back in 2016. The film was an exercise in "bad as form," but it may also just be bad. Feature films are a tricky cocktail, especially for comedic entities that suddenly break form and attempt taking on a hundred-plus minute narrative structure. Mr. Show's Bob Odenkirk and David Cross learned this lesson when attempting to make their 2002 Run Ronnie Run movie, which was mediocre at best. Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim also struggled with a feature-length running time in Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie, though it certainly has fans.
Films from the often cynical minds of movie critics can be fascinating, as the sheer volume of content they consume tends to drive their storytelling instincts into bizarre, untrodden territory. Roger Ebert's script for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls reinforces this, and some of the world's greatest screenwriters and directors like Jean-Luc Godard and Paul Schrader began their careers as movie critics.
While it is unlikely Red Letter Media will tackle a genre outside of comedy, fans would be quick to support another feature effort from the team no matter what they may decide to do. Considering some brilliant moments of absurdity the team has featured on their channel over the years, it may be worth pondering different kinds of comedy the team could tackle. Let's take a look at their legacy and why YouTube's favorite movie critics should take another stab at the big screen.
Finding the Right Theme
A strong theme can help drive any piece of content. The Red Letter Media team does this well in many of their reviews. In their recent summation of the Picard series, their intense disdain for the show is represented in countless creative ways, from outrageous costumes to special makeup FX shots of the guys randomly bleeding. It's possible with the right formula, they could expand upon more self-reflective themes.
While a Half In The Bag movie may seem a bit absurd upon initial thought, it may be worth pondering a feature approach to the concept. Imagining a more expanded setting where the Lightning Fast VCR repair shop resides is fun. The world of Half in The Bag could be developed further to include other establishments like a bar, a video store, etc. Considering Kevin Smith was able to build a film career off a black and white film about two guys running a convenience store with 1994's Clerks, a similar path could be forged by Mike, Jay, and Rich.
It's also worth noting Clerks was made in 1994, just before the world would be irreversibly mutated by the internet. This begs the question, if the internet had been what it is now back in 1994, would Kevin Smith have found the same success, or would his content be relegated to a popular YouTube channel?
Red Letter Media Biopic
Another approach could be similar to Howard Stern's 1997 movie Private Parts or the upcoming Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. A formula that explores the early days of the team's life leading to their current situation could be embellished with countless parodies and satire of coming-of-age movies and biopics.
While it's certainly fun to imagine the possibilities of more Red Letter Media movies, it may also be a futile gesture. Once plugged into the YouTube platform, there's an algorithmic framework for content the website rewards, and deviating from that path can have a negative financial impact. This is challenging for web-based content creators who find a certain amount of success and aspire to take on more challenging projects.
Popular YouTube channel, Cinemassacere's James D. Rolfe attempted to break form with a feature film, funded entirely by his fans, in 2014's Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, which bared similar results to Space Cop. It was a hopeful venture into "bad as form" cinema with lackluster results. The whole bad-on-purpose approach to filmmaking can also be attributed to a kind of security blanket for some artists. The thinking is that if it's intentionally bad, it can be free of criticism. While there are examples of movies so bad, they are good, attempting to capture this style intentionally rarely pans out.
The irony is heavy when scathing critics are given the opportunity to show the world how to do it right and then fail miserably. It can be pretty embarrassing. It brings to focus a line in the sand between filmmakers and critics. Nevertheless, there remains hope that another feature effort may one day come to fruition from Red Letter Media. Sometimes, countless creative excrement piles need to be jettisoned before a masterpiece is born.