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Culturegasm: Southland Tales

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      CommentAuthorjohnjones
    • CommentTimeMar 16th 2008
     (638.21)
    Okay, I just read the summary of this thing on Salon.net and I'm pretty my brain is bleeding. I've no idea what would happen if I actually watched the sucker for real. I admit I've yet to see Donnie Darko as well. And after what I just read, I think I'll keep it that way.
  2.  (638.22)
    Just saw this... thing. Now I don't mind a film that makes no sense - I love INLAND EMPIRE for example - but it was just so very full of itself for no good reason.

    It did, however, drive me to formulate what I think is a valid truism about American intellectualism, thus:

    Many American writers and thinkers believe that quoting TS Eliot and Robert Frost makes them deep and cool.
    They are wrong.
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      CommentAuthorDIGIT
    • CommentTimeApr 9th 2008
     (638.23)
    I've yet to see the movie. There were 3 graphic novels released (by Richard Kelly) set as official Prequels to the film. I loved the first 2. Missed the release of the third - and after the HUGE delay in the release of the film, forgot about it completely. I don't even think I saw a listing of it in any theaters in Washington State - but I could have been too wrapped up in the nonsense of work to pay attention.

    So, I'll see the movie. Once I re-read the graphic novels.
    • CommentAuthormatt d
    • CommentTimeApr 9th 2008
     (638.24)
    Many American writers and thinkers believe that quoting TS Eliot and Robert Frost makes them deep and cool.
    They are wrong.


    can i second and third this?
  5.  (638.25)
    @DIGIT: I read the comics first - didn't help much.
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      CommentAuthorAdmiral Neck
    • CommentTimeApr 9th 2008 edited
     (638.26)
    The comics promise something much more interesting than the film can provide, featuring concepts that are actually concrete (the origin of Liquid Karma, the notion of Jericho Kane's tattoos providing a guide to which Messiah will return to earth, the connection between Boxer, the Taverners and Pilot Abilene), whereas the movie is too busy throwing empty but cool-sounding dialogue and random visuals at the wall to actually do anything interesting or entertaining.

    One of the only visuals in the movie that I liked was Seann William Scott's reflection being out of synch. That was really clever. Then a couple of weeks ago I saw David Twohy's Below (from a script co-written by Darren Aronofsky, who could eat Kelly for breakfast), and Holt McCallany did exactly the same thing, except four years earlier. What with the Repo Man rip at the end, and the celebrated lipsynching bit being nothing more than a pop video plugged into the middle of the movie with no bearing on anything else going on, and the finale being a big stupid joke, i.e.
    Boxer's tattoo bleeding heralds the Second Coming just before the zeppelin is destroyed by Martin Kefauver, so yeah man, Jesus gets destroyed by a bored kid, maaaaan,
    it really does amount to a big fat nothing. Terrible stuff, confusing multi-referential graffiti with profundity. And it looks ugly too.

    But I get that it's going to be dividing opinion for a long time. That's a given. Ambitious projects usually do.
  7.  (638.27)
    Big fan of Donnie Darko, probably catching this flick tomorrow night.
    • CommentAuthorsacredchao
    • CommentTimeApr 9th 2008 edited
     (638.28)
    After the thrashing it got at Cannes a couple years ago, I'm expecting a train wreck. But, then again, who doesn't like watching a train wreck?

    I'm quoting myself here from near the beginning of this thread.

    Turns out I don't like train wrecks that much. Southland Tales was unbearably stupid and boring. I was appalled.
    • CommentAuthorBurke
    • CommentTimeApr 9th 2008
     (638.29)
    It is a hilariously ambitious fucking train wreck. By the time they got to the musical sequence with Justin Timberlake I had lost any sort of expectations I had for the movie. Also, it features a bunch of people from Saturday Night Live as a group of neo-marxist terrorists.

    I'd recommend checking it out, just for the utterly bizarre casting.
  10.  (638.30)
    Also, it features a bunch of people from Saturday Night Live as a group of neo-marxist terrorists.

    Amy Poehler and Wood "The Wire" Harris provided the only humour in the movie that didn't derive from The Rock playing a crazy person, but Cheri Oteri and Nora Dunn need to be exiled to Mars. Their sour, unmodulated performances made me hate life itself.
    • CommentAuthorScottS
    • CommentTimeApr 9th 2008
     (638.31)
    I still have not decided if I liked the movie or not. Even while watching it my wife and I were agreeing that it had some funny moments (whether intentional or not) and some interesting ideas, but the story never really pulled those ideas together into one cohesive unit. I thought Sarah Michelle Gellar did a decent job, and we both thought Dwayne Johnson did an excellent job (I particularly liked his nervous habit of tapping his fingers together). I wouldn't say I'd recommend this movie to anyone, but I wouldn't warn them against it either.
  12.  (638.32)
    DarkKnightJRK, I see you're in the USA - the film was released on DVD on March 18. My copy's in the room with me as I type this.

    Overall, while I found the film flawed I still definitely liked it, enough to see it a second time when a local arthouse theatre ran it here in late February and to pick up the DVD so I can get friends to see it. My longer remarks (warning: some spoilers) are over on my review of the film on my livejournal.

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