Southland Tales (2007)

Directed by Richard Kelly

Starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar

Welcome to Shitflix! Where we review only the worst movies that hit the screen. That’s right, watching dozens of movies a month is inevitably going to result in the viewing of some truly awful films. Films that just make me mad that I wasted the time watching them, but I shouldn’t think of them that way really, they’re learning experiences on what not to do. For those of you who say, well it’s easy to critique when you don’t create, fuck that shit, I do create, I’ve even created and worked on some turds, and know a turd when I smell it. So we’ll kick it off with this turd…turd.

Being an avid fan of Donnie Darko, Kelly’s first feature film, I was excited to see his sophmore attempt. I tried to learn as much as I could about it, talking to fellow filmmakers who were involved in the film, hearing all kinds of crazy stories and descriptions about it being a musical, no a comedy, no a sci-fi film. Starring the Rock? Buffy as a porn star? I was intrigued.

Then the reports from Cannes starting pouring in. To sum them up in one word: scathing. A sampling referencing Wikipedia: “Salon.com critic Andrew O’Hehir called the Cannes cut “about the biggest, ugliest mess I’ve ever seen.” Jason Solomons, in The Observer (UK), said that “Southland Tales was so bad it made me wonder if [Kelly] had ever met a human being” and that ten minutes of the “sprawling, plotless, post-apocalyptic farrago” gave him the “sinking feeling that this may be one of the worst films ever presented in [Cannes] competition.” Ebert called it “The most disastrous since, yes, The Brown Bunny.”

I saw Brown Bunny. It’s a piece of shit. 2 hours of why Vincent de Gallo feels sad and simultaneously a worthy enough filmmaker to shove a fake mold of his dick in Chloe Sevigny’s mouth.

So that was enough to get me not to see it in the theater, that and my cohort’s luke-warm review of the film when most of his reviews are very forgiving. Still curious though, I flipped through the first graphic novel, but slapped it back on the shelf when it failed to grab me after the first few pages. It read like a college student’s first road trip to Vegas, showing the author’s age and experience. It reminded me of a coworker who went to school with Kelly and related his disgust with his daily hubris on the budding Darko script. How, in his words, it was just a blatant rip-off of Harvey. It made me wonder if he had an orginal idea to present.

Well I took the plunge last night, actually two nights ago cause I couldn’t sit through the entire thing in one sitting. When I’m by myself and audibly sighing, I know there’s something wrong. The story was like a 3 year old finger painting, dialogue was atrocious, the performances were noticably self-aware of the quality of material and as a result, were detached and a little embarrassing to watch. Specifically the forced quirkiness of the characters, the Rock’s finger twiddling, Bai Ling’s girations, Lovitz’s monotone monologuing. Timberlake’s musical number is probably one of the few redeeming things in the movie, but the end dance montage with Mandy Moore, Buffy, and the Rock was painful to watch, making me grab frantically for the remote.

Those of you looking for the depth and subtext of Darko will be disappointed with the heavy-handedness of the plotting and reiteration of story points. The film was overbloated with subplots that went nowhere and then hit a lazy climax that just felt sloppy. Even without knowing the back story, I felt like I was retreading the same material over and over again. I can’t imagine what it must have been like to sit through the 160 minute version at Cannes.

This looks like a student film and reeks of inexperience and self-indulgence. Kelly self proclaims his Lynch influence, but you can’t force weird, it just feels forced. He tries to make fun of the Hollywood system but instead entrenches himself further in said system. His next film stars Cameron Dias and James Marsden and after that he’s rumored to be making Donnie Darko 2. You don’t get more Hollywood sellout than that.

Mr. Kelly, I question your commitment to Sparkle Motion.

Other Notable Films by this Director: Donnie Darko (2001)

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