Southland Tales

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Cold Bishop
Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
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#101 Post by Cold Bishop » Thu Nov 15, 2007 11:52 pm

Make no mistake... this is an awful, awful film. Richard Kelly cannot keep his narrative under control, his ambition far exceed his ability maybe more so than I have ever seen in a film, his stunt-casting (and stunt-everything really) falls on its face and never has the self-irony he aims for, either feeling contrived and stupid, or becoming the very thing he's trying to lampoon (his use of SNL stars, for example, begins to give the movie the feel of a bad SNL comedy, and several bizarre Lynchian music numbers (he goes as far as to get Rebekah Del Rio) feel just like very bad and lifeless music videos). The movie lacks the atmosphere or mood which was one of the few endearing qualities of Donnie Darko, and just feels bland. The movie really feels like all the terrible early 2000s comedies like Joe Dirt, Bubble Boy, Rat Race, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Backetc. if they had any ambition to be political and satirical as oppossed to plain dumb. The movie seemingly fails at everything it aims for - his satire is far to dumb, shallow, and immature to be poignant or biting (if you're gonna reference Pynchon and Dr. Strangelove, you better step it up a little bit, and don't get me started on the "Warhol meets Dick" scenario he promised), the use of casting actors against type, and in fact using their images as part of the overall commentary really doesn't work, and just feels ultimately as way to be hip and irreverant (as already mentioned with the SNL members), and while I was at least glad near the end that he didn't try any of the prententious and meaningless metaphysical hodge-podge he did with Darko, he proves me wrong with the last twenty minutes, including more Christ Figures than you can count.

While there was few chuckles from the dumb humor of the film (there are a few memorable lines of this nature, I guess), and maybe there was a point here or there where the film worked (though I cant think of any at this moment), the whole thing was really, really, really, bad. Just bad... its a film which gets worse the more I think about it. I didn't think highly of Kelly to begin with, but I at least gave him the benefit of the doubt that he could get better as a filmmaker, but this is such a jump of quality from Darko (and I'm no Darko fan) as to be mind-boggingly. I feel as if I'm rambling now, I can't even formulate the badness of this film into proper words and paragraphs.

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exte
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#102 Post by exte » Fri Nov 16, 2007 9:10 am

So it sucked?

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domino harvey
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#103 Post by domino harvey » Fri Nov 16, 2007 12:38 pm

Ebert weighs in with a rare post-surgery slam
Note to readers planning to write me messages informing me that this review was no more than a fevered rant: You are correct.

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Cold Bishop
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#104 Post by Cold Bishop » Fri Nov 16, 2007 2:22 pm

exte wrote:So it sucked?
Did you not see me mention Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back?
Roger Ebert wrote:Note to readers planning to write me messages informing me that this review was no more than a fevered rant: You are correct.
I quite understand the feeling.

Nothing
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#105 Post by Nothing » Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:56 pm

It's not that bad. Better than Darko. Still nothing to write home about.

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chaddoli
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#106 Post by chaddoli » Sun Nov 18, 2007 5:29 pm

Wow, I thought Ebert quit giving any other rating than * * * *

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Antoine Doinel
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#107 Post by Antoine Doinel » Sun Nov 18, 2007 6:18 pm

That seems to be ending as he also was unimpressed with Love In The Time Of Cholera and Spiderman 2 this week.

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Barmy
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#108 Post by Barmy » Mon Nov 26, 2007 2:17 am

I'm retracting anything negative I've said about this film. I loved "Darko" and feared that Kelly was using its success as a springboard to make some dumbshit serious political film.

Instead he has made a jaw-droppingly goofy flick with some jaw-droppingly sublime moments. The SNL and the The Rock casting fit this approach to a tee. Moreover, Stifler, the American Pie dude, gives a genuinely affecting OscarTM-worthy performance.

Who knows how much of this was intentional. There is a scene in the middle where Moore and Gellar first encounter one another that is shot and acted so badly that I suspected that Kelly and his cast had come down with cerebral palsy or worse. Yet later they do a dance scene that is incredibly moving.

One of the 2 or 3 best American films of 2007.

And it has the best credit ever: "Personal Trainer to Ms. Oteri".

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domino harvey
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#109 Post by domino harvey » Mon Nov 26, 2007 2:23 am

Can we get a moderator to jaw-droppingly delete these jaw-dropping posts as they come from a user who jaw-droppingly lost his I'm Not There bet?

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tavernier
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#110 Post by tavernier » Mon Nov 26, 2007 11:27 am

Barmy's back!!!!!!!!!!

And Domino's got 'im.....

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chaddoli
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#111 Post by chaddoli » Mon Nov 26, 2007 12:14 pm

What a piece of shit. Ed Gonzalez called it an "artless upchuck." I can't think of better words. Boring, stupid - nearly lacking ANYTHING redeemable. Some of the most inane, unfunny attempts at satire I've ever seen. The whole thing would have been saved if it was at least funny, but it just goes on and on.... The end credits song was something like "You just have to get through it." I couldn't.

The worst film of the year.

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#112 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Thu Dec 06, 2007 5:57 pm


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jorencain
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#113 Post by jorencain » Thu Dec 06, 2007 9:37 pm

flyonthewall2983 wrote:My Year Of Flops Case File #91
The best part of this review:
I literally could have stripped off all my clothes and somersaulted down the aisle screeching the lyrics to “Umbrellaâ€

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Dylan
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#114 Post by Dylan » Thu Dec 06, 2007 9:48 pm

jorencain wrote:
flyonthewall2983 wrote:My Year Of Flops Case File #91
The best part of this review:
I literally could have stripped off all my clothes and somersaulted down the aisle screeching the lyrics to “Umbrellaâ€

THX1378
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#115 Post by THX1378 » Fri Dec 07, 2007 5:22 am

One of my friends went and saw this tonight because she is a Darko fan, and here is a good question. She asked if reading the comic books helps understanding the film any better because even for her she was so lost that she just gave up on the film. And she loves head-case films like these but said that the film was so all over the place that there was no way unless reading the comic helps that you could understand any of it at all. But she did have to say that even if the film was a mess, that it was still ten times better than something like Number 23 or any other bad film thats came out this year.

DrewReiber
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#116 Post by DrewReiber » Fri Dec 07, 2007 11:50 am

THX1378 wrote:But she did have to say that even if the film was a mess, that it was still ten times better than something like Number 23 or any other bad film thats came out this year.
Yeah, but what is the likelihood she said that because there were so many recognizable cast members in this movie who could have entertained her by their appearance/performances alone? It seems like the final safety net this movie has is that even if it sucks, the people in it are not necessarily responsible and have enough of a following that they might still receive some kind of positive response. I'm not saying she's blind, simply that you still have a smorgasboard of stars to find something redeemable through. That's my take, anyway.

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Barmy
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#117 Post by Barmy » Fri Dec 07, 2007 1:25 pm

The comic book helps, but really you just need to see it twice. It is extremely tightly scripted. The plot is linear and coherent. There are little bits of dialogue and minor events throughout which become more resonant as events unfold, but of course it's harder to detect that in the first viewing.

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Jean-Luc Garbo
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#118 Post by Jean-Luc Garbo » Fri Dec 07, 2007 2:36 pm

So has the scene with Timberlake, nurses, and the Killers song hit YouTube yet? :P After reading that Onion MYOF piece, I'm looking forward to catching this. Unfortunately, I doubt it'll be on the big screen if this movie is really doing so badly.

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John Cope
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#119 Post by John Cope » Tue Dec 11, 2007 3:32 am

Given his predispositions I wasn't exactly surprised by Steven Shaviro's response but still...wow.

I must see this immediately.

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Jean-Luc Garbo
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#120 Post by Jean-Luc Garbo » Wed Dec 12, 2007 11:36 pm

Given that this film is supposed to be a media satire, isn't the casting of such people as The Rock, Gellar, and Timberlake less stunt casting and more part of the satire? These are all celebrities of sorts and I think they're not in the cast for the value of their perceived demographics, but as commentary for the film. I think this can even include the lesser celebs like the SNLer's, Garofalo, Wallace Shawn, and Mandy Moore. It's just a thought that occured to me and I didn't know if anyone else had thought so, too.

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Cold Bishop
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#121 Post by Cold Bishop » Thu Dec 13, 2007 1:09 am

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:Given that this film is supposed to be a media satire, isn't the casting of such people as The Rock, Gellar, and Timberlake less stunt casting and more part of the satire? These are all celebrities of sorts and I think they're not in the cast for the value of their perceived demographics, but as commentary for the film. I think this can even include the lesser celebs like the SNLer's, Garofalo, Wallace Shawn, and Mandy Moore. It's just a thought that occured to me and I didn't know if anyone else had thought so, too.
I would say that casting them as part of the satire is still stunt casting. And the satire doesn't work.

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John Cope
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#122 Post by John Cope » Fri Dec 14, 2007 3:50 pm

But that's assuming that satire is the major goal here. I keep seeing Southland Tales compared unfavorably with Idiocracy by those who claim that it isn't as good a satire. Well, it probably isn't because Idiocracy is only a satire. Its ambition is more limited and within the boundaries of that ambition it is successful. Southland Tales has vastly different goals. That doesn't mean, however, that it doesn't work as very astute satire. The reference Shaviro makes to the way the dominant American culture of frivolity and entertainment soldiers on in the face of nuclear attack and the imposition of a police state is an example of this satirical vision. And it's astute precisely because it isn't satisfied with hitting one target like a punchline. All its observations are tied up within a dense network of political, cultural and meta-textual implications. The accumulation of detail does not inherently render the film a confused mess but rather elevates it to a place of grand formal insight and design.

The Onion piece concedes Kelly's ambition but remarks that in a year with so many films which satisfy their ambitions, being ambitious simply isn't enough. I disagree on these terms: I believe the ambitions here are greater than most of the other films I assume he is referring to--the net Southland Tales throws out is a broad one and one that continues to expand as it unfurls. Also, as with the most profound of philosophical questions, perhaps the form of the "question" or in this case the notion of Kelly's "ambition" itself needs to be reframed to be understood. I don't believe that there is even a way to satisfy most of Kelly's purposes here in any traditional sense and I don't believe that is the point. What's exhausting and exhilarating about this great film is the way it never ceases challenging us to examine our own preconceptions, question our axiomatic starting and ending points and our willingness to find additional dimensions of significant meaning, to determine what is ultimately significant at all. This is post-modernism at its absolute zenith but also the best possible depiction of what post-modernism's critics detest. It's unafraid to be seen as "murky" (God forbid!) and recognizes that this is necessary to give our present society and our present intellectual development its due. While the culture around us seems increasingly degenerated we have the ability to recognize aspects of it that are less obvious but no less legitimate for being so.

I am especially drawn here to the literally endless ideas circulating around identity theory as this is one of my own personal obsessions. Any given scene in this picture is front loaded with multiple individually motivated layers of subtextually informed meaning. As the narrative seemingly spirals out of control what really happens is that these meanings begin to pile up in such a way that their implications are undeniable, though what's brilliant here is the way in which Kelly maintains a facile surface over all of this. The employment of pop figures functions to foster the illusion of irrelevance, which is the dominant illusion of our whole lives. What results, however, from this tactic is a supremely elegant and balanced vision of great power and beauty. The indifference with which this has been met is staggering and deeply sad.

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Satanas
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#123 Post by Satanas » Sat Dec 15, 2007 2:25 am

John Cope wrote:The indifference with which this has been met is staggering and deeply sad.
It is indeed. For all its faults (and it has many), I would rather see cineplexes bombarded with 50 films that attempt to be as ambitious and batshit crazy as Southland Tales rather than have a handful of dull, middle-of-the-road indie fare like Rocket Science take up screen space.

The thing that continues to intrigue me about the film is that, frankly, I'm still not sure if I like it or not. I've seen it twice; the first time on opening night with a half-full theater audience (who laughed with the movie during the funny parts, as opposed to laughing at the thing, as I feared might happen just from hearing about the bad vibes at Cannes), and the second time three days later in a theater with only four other people in it (half of whom walked out during the Timberlake/Killers sequence). Normally, when I watch movies, even if the pacing is off-putting or if some of the content might fly over my head, I usually walk away from a viewing knowing firmly whether or not I like the film. Walking out at the end of I'm Not There, I liked the movie, even though I felt I missed out on a few things. In the case of Southland, I felt dizzy and baffled, exhilarated at the film I had just seen and also quite confused, frustrated, and vexed with it. The second viewing did not clarify my feelings on the film. I walked out yet again unsure as to whether or not I saw something genuinely subversive and worthwhile, or if I had been baffled by bullshit.

There is a line in Ebert's review that sums up why I think Southland is a worthwhile viewing experience: "He is a cinematic anarchist, but the problem is, he's throwing bombs at his own work." I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing. I think his choices are interesting even when they seem to be awful ones. Case in point: the SNL cast members playing the Neo-Marxists. I can't tell if that is supposed to be a parody of the media portrayal of "Hollywood Liberals" (a la Janeane Garefalo), or if Kelly actually thinks putting Cheri Oteri in a film is a good idea (thank Christ for the absence of Chris Kattan in this flick), or if Kelly just hates SNL and wants to make all these actors look like idiots. Hell, I'm a proud Lefty, but the Neo-Marxs just made me cringe. I have to admire the balls of such a casting strategy, in that I still can't get a handle on it. Was casting Jon Lovitz as a psycho cop brilliant against-type casting, or just plain retarded? I still don't know (although I still groaned at his "flow my tears" line... I'm a huge P.K. Dick fan, but that was a bit too ham-handed, even for this movie). I will give Kelly this: casting an action star like The Rock and then have him spend the entire film not doing ANYTHING effective as an action star was great. Every time The Rock picks up a gun or tries to be intimidating in Southland, he gets shut down. I also liked Wallace Shawn as the straight-out-of-a-Pynchon-novel Baron Westphalen, even if the sight of him swapping spit with Bai Ling was a bit... grotesque.

Before this post reaches Infinite Jest levels of length, let me actually say something positive about this film. What struck me from viewing this movie was that it seemed as if Kelly had just spent a couple of months discovering the work of beautifully-crazed authors like Dick and Pynchon and that with the zeal of a fresh convert, he tried taking their paranoid, madcap styles and paying homage to them in film. The crazed dopplegangers, the cynical military pilot dealing experimental drugs on the side, alternate dimensions, ridiculious character names, dozens and dozens of plot points that come out of nowhere and sometimes don't get resolved at all, the grim + occasionally sophomoric humor (i.e. the HUSTLER ads painted on the U.S. tanks), the apocalyptic and bizarre finale, the David Lynch handjobs, the constant tone shifts from grave and contemplative to Koo-Koo-For-Coco-Puffs lunacy... Southland feels like a love letter to kooks like Tom and Philip and Dr. Strangelove and Repo Man. While his peers like Kevin Smith (who was certainly the second worst thing in the movie, behind the Killers sequence) obsess over slacker heroes and Star Wars references, Kelly is stepping out into Discordian territory. He may be trying to wrestle with these ideas with all the grace of a jackhammer, but at least he's trying, and I can't fault him for that.

Sorry about the long post. I still have very mixed feelings about the film, and it is hard to be succinct in trying to convey them.[/i]

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Barmy
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#124 Post by Barmy » Sat Dec 15, 2007 2:00 pm

One of the reasons this isn't getting more traction is that the leftist enemedia is appalled that the lefties in the film are mostly played by SNL losers. I can't believe that Kelly didn't intend them to look and act ridiculous.

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pianocrash
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#125 Post by pianocrash » Wed Jan 16, 2008 4:06 am

DVD on March 15, already? No commentary listed, so I guess it'll be a few more years before the double-dip reveals that "Wallace Shawn was the dude in The Princess Bride!" If the Best Buy tie-in/exclusive is a t-shirt proclaiming "ARTLESS UPCHUCK", I'll buy three copies at three different locations.

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