Southland Tales

[Stefen]

I called it. Check my first post on page one. This dudes a hack. I still never got through Donnie Darko, and I don't think I'm missing much. I put it in the same category of movies as Boondock Saints and Juno. Movies shitty people cite to define their hipness.

[brockly]

good call asshole. i didn't know you hated donnie darko so. im still hoping this might be good, though i'll be expecting a really bad film

[cinemanarchist]

At the very least the film is one of a kind and perhaps that's a good thing. I actually  had a great time watching it and I laughed my ass off but it's tough to say if I was laughing with it, or at it. To me this was like a really really pretentious version of Bad Boys 2...way too long and you wonder who at the studio said yes, let's release this as is, but I'm certainly glad they did.

[Kal]

I just downloaded this and I'm afraid to watch it

[picolas]

spoils

i CANNOT believe the amount of things that happen in this, visuals, plot devices, and specific lines, that also happened in Darko. it's like Kelly thought no one saw Darko and this was his chance to finally get those ideas out there. a rip in the fourth dimension that destroys the universe, a guy with a severe wound in his eye, "this is the way the world ends" x18, dancing on a dark stage contrasted with some kind of violent episode elsewhere, the influence of outside literature written specifically for the film, that bubbly world effect, other things i'm forgetting strewn everywhere.

i didn't sense a kevin smith influence when i saw darko the first time/was shocked by his appearance on the director's bad cut commentary, but his influence is RAMPANT here. nearly every scene has that feel of 'this is sooooo idiotic that it is therefore clever'. taser to the balls was actually pretty disturbing. there's no way that guy can have children now. and he would pass out.

another horrible thing: that gesture the rock does with his hands. NEVER. NOT ONCE. did i believe his character would do that. the rock didn't sell it. you know kelly was going "do the hand thing!" every time. the timberlake musical may have been the most embarassing part.

the ending is kind of ambiguous in a "did it or didn't it happen" kind of way, but i couldn't care. if the universe did end, it wasn't much of a universe anyway.

my theory is that darko was helped by the studio system.

[Kal]

this was a lot worse than everyone said it was... i'm so fucking disappointed... cause it could have been really great.

its just terribly bad...

[brockly]

this was a lot worse than everyone said it was...

kal didn't read the reviews..

It may rank as one of the worst movies I've ever seen

Could this be one of the worst movies ever made?

I'm going with yes.

spoils

i didn't sense a kevin smith influence when i saw darko the first time...but his influence is RAMPANT here.

[john]

I saw this a couple weeks into it's release, at a multiple screen art-house theater. It was on one of the smaller screens, and it was a Wednesday evening. I imagined the theater would be empty, but it was actually pretty full - even considering it was a small room.

Anyway, I usually try to sit relatively close to the screen at most movies to not be bothered by people getting up, coming in late, or generally stirring in their seat. I like to close out everything but the film, even if that means having to crane my neck just a bit.

This time, however, I had to sit in the very back and, for once, the audience was more enjoyable to watch than the film. My friend snuck in a bottle of Gin, and I'm usually against any sort of altered state when watching a film. Twenty minutes into the film, I changed my mind fast. An hour into the film, I was just bored, a bit drunk, and my head and stomach hurt. Anyway, back to the audience - a mix of elderly art-house patrons and young folks... all of which seemed even more restless than me. I don't think I've ever seen as many people give up on a film instead of sticking it out in my life... and I saw Irreversible in the theaters. The best was an old man who stood up, looked at his wife and loudly proclaimed "unbearable garbage.", then they left.

Was it unbearable garbage? I sat with it for a while, hoping to digest everything I saw and defend it's misunderstood audaciousness. A week later, I was no longer indecisive. It was garbage - perhaps not entirely unbearable, because I sat through the whole thing. Even worse, it was frustrating. Because it could have been audacious, and it really seemed to think it was. To be that tangential, and that absurd, you have to earn it... a film can be as wild, or as daring, as it wants - but you need to trust the director that you are in capable hands. Kelly didn't even bother to attempt to earn the audiences trust, he just assumed it was there because of Donnie Darko and the result feels pompous and insulting.

I hope The Box is a more restrained, conventional thriller - I really do. Because that seems to be what Kelly might excel, or at least be competent at... churning out decent Twilight Zone throwbacks. I enjoyed Donnie Darko, numerous times - but never got the impression that Kelly was Kid Wonder of modern cinema. Lucky McKee made a name for himself at, roughly, the same time... and earned a fair amount of insulated praise, but nothing near the attention heaped onto Kelly. It's a shame, too, because McKee is and will continue to be a much more exciting promise. McKee works in what are considered "genre" films, too, inverting conventions and expectations while still remaining a traditional storyteller, reverent to what makes an audience jump, or be involved with the characters and story. On further dissection, it might be a bit strenuous to compare the two directors, stylistically. But, at this moment, it seems apt - and I choose McKee.

[Kal]

this was a lot worse than everyone said it was...

kal didn't read the reviews..

It may rank as one of the worst movies I've ever seen

Could this be one of the worst movies ever made?

I'm going with yes.

spoils

i didn't sense a kevin smith influence when i saw darko the first time...but his influence is RAMPANT here.

i did man, but those reviews are very generous... i know when i'm watching a bad movie and i usually watch it all anyways... i remember seeing the britney spears movie back in the day with my girlfriend and even that at least i sat through it... this shit i just turned it off cause i want to waste my time its more interesting to sit at the dmv and watch people standing there in a bad mood.

also, i was looking forward to this probably as much as TWBB... maybe cause i loved darko, i thought kelly was the new promising director and considering he is close to me in age I was excited about his career... well FUCK HIM

[picolas]

so you were "disappointed" that it wasn't only "one of the worst movies ever made", but unwatchable?

[Kal]

so you were "disappointed" that it wasn't only "one of the worst movies ever made", but unwatchable?

correctomundo!

[©brad]

i definitely believe you guys but why did one of my favorite critics put this as his fav movie of 2007? ughhhh....

Muddled. Self-involved. Overbearingly ambitious. Insufferable. Funny how the critical mud slung at  Donnie Darko on release has the same consistency as the shit storm that raged against  Southland Tales, yet another—how dare he!?—ultra-convoluted sci-fi satire from the incorrigibly precocious Richard Kelly.  Darko's vindication started with a midnight run at the Pioneer Theater, and there are already signs of an incipient  Southland cult emerging from the same neighborhood. Late into its run at an East Village multiplex (the final stop on its way to grossing a grand total of less than $300,000), a friend testified to the enthusiasm of the half-capacity crowd, and reported the appraisal of some giddy über- hipsters after the show: "OMG, best movie ever!" Maybe not  ever, but I'll call it this year for wit, poignancy, honesty, and outrage, for the precise, inspired casting and the marvelous ensemble acting, but, above all, for committing to a resolutely contemporary address.  Southland Tales looks and feels more like life in 2007 than Juno,  In the Valley of Elah, and  Michael Clayton combined.

see his full list here.

[squints]

Nathan Lee on I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry:

"That shit is mad funny, yo."

[diggler]

i liked it

(ducks)

[Astrostic]

I more than liked it.  I saw the longer cut in Cannes and thought it was great.  I hate SNL humor (at least that of the last decade) and I thought this movie was very funny despite the comparisons (and the fact that most of the cast was from SNL).  None of it makes sense or amounts to anything as profound as it tries to, but I think it makes fun of itself enough to let that slide.  It presents the allure of spectacle in a way that I thought was very exciting and fresh when I saw it.  Maybe the new cut massacred what I liked about it, I'll have to see it.