Kevin Smith sticks it to the Man.

After leading people to believe that he was going to auction off the distribution rights to his newest film, Red State, after its Sundance 2011 screening, Kevin Smith gave movie studios the collective finger by announcing that his plan was to distribute the film by himself all along. So he’s doing a Red State tour around the country for a few months, screening the movie in select locations and culminating in a more traditional theatrical release later in the year. He’ll spend no money on advertising.

Quick thoughts on this and full video of Smith’s speech below.

In the past, Smith has been very vocal about his misgivings with the press thanks to various misquotes and things taken out of context during interviews and whatnot and now he’s made it clear that he doesn’t buy the current studio model either, what with advertising costs of a film being sometimes triple that of what it cost to make the actual movie in the first place. Say what you want about Smith but I can do nothing but applaud him for this. The impenetrable nature of the current distribution model and all the needless red tape this brings about is no doubt a detriment to the artistic pursuit of a lot of filmmakers. You hear stories all the time about how bone-headed decisions by studio executives in not just films, but animation and video games as well, bring about nothing but frustration and mediocrity. Spider-Man 3′s forced inclusion of Venom comes to mind. So Smith decides that he simply doesn’t want to play that game and foregoes all of it in favor of what I described earlier.

It’s a bold move and it’ll be interesting to see if he succeeds and what the measure of that success is. Personally, I can’t wait to get my ass to Radio City Music Hall this March for its Red State screening because, all this drama aside, I just really want to see the movie. It’s also worth pointing out that he hopes to bring this distribution model to independent filmmakers that might be discouraged from going forward with a movie for the very same reasons that Smith is being so vocal against. For that alone, Kevin Smith must be commended.

Stay ahead of that puck, Smith.