LoginSouthland Tales Reviews
An average movie
Posted : 10 years, 9 months ago on 4 July 2013 09:11
Even though this flick had a pretty bad reputation, I was still eager to check it out. I mean, before it was released, there was pretty good buzz about it. Indeed, after 5 longs years, Richard Kelly was finally coming up with a new directing effort after the acclaimed 'Donnie Darko'. Eventually, his sophomore outing was a huge flop, critically and financially, and his career has never really recovered from the blow. So, how was the damned thing? Well, it was indeed a huge mess... I mean, I think I liked the 5 first minutes. Basically, it was some kind of home video of a birthday, and at some point, there was some nuke exploding starting WWIII. It was a promising beginning but, unfortunately, all the rest was just a disjointed and tedious mess. At some point, I got so bored and started to count all the actors involved who obviously thought this movie could shake their image and boost their career (Sarah Michelle Gellar, Dwayne Johnson, Mandy Moore, Seann William Scott, Justin Timberlake,...). Honestly, I gave here Kelly a few extra points just for trying something highly ambitious but, dear, the end-result was just so underwhelming. After watching this, it felt as if he just got lucky somehow with 'Donnie Darko' which must be one of the most inspired mind-f*cks ever created. Well, this time, he managed to create the most cringe-inducing mind-f*ck ever made. To conclude, I think I'm being really generous with my rating here, this movie is a real mess and a boring one and it is not really worth a look, I'm afraid.
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Southland Tales review
Posted : 11 years, 10 months ago on 1 July 2012 08:43
Hämmennyksen valtaan jääminen elokuvan jälkeen ei ole yksiselitteinen hyvä tai huono. Tämän elokuvan kohdalla puoli vuotta lepoa ja uusinta katsominen voi tehdä hyvää lopputuomiolle. Ensi katselulla sekava mutta...
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Duck Tales! With no flap or quack...
Posted : 15 years, 5 months ago on 2 November 2008 12:47
''This is the way the World ends. This is the way the World ends. This is the way the World ends. Not with a whimper, but with a bang.''
(Adjust that to ends with whimper, no bang...)
Southland Tales is an ensemble piece set in the futuristic landscape of Los Angeles on July 4, 2008...
Dwayne Johnson: Boxer Santaros / Jericho Cane
Southland Tales isn't a movie for most audiences. You won't relate to any characters, and you won't follow or really care about the preposterous plot. It is dark and cynical. Despite it's heavy-handed political story, there is no deep, introspective meaning behind anything whatsoever. This is why many people won't get it, and thus will hate it. It's a dark film with a dash of comedy and a heavy dose of LSD.
Critics have used the word mishmash...and it is. Just like David Lynch and Terry Gilliam, Richard Kelly is clearly conflicted between telling a coherent, compelling story while simultaneously expressing his creative vision. Sometimes you have to choose one or the other, and he chose the latter this time. With disastrous consequences... This movie is a disgrace, and if you are confused or put off by the plot, just grimace or leave the room for a few moments to recover momentarily. The entire story is explained very early on during an awfully amateurish movie pitch scene. After that, all that matters is you survive proceedings.
''Scientists are saying the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted.''
Director Richard Kelly's life he's leading as a director is more akin and similar to that of George Lucas.
Tons of half-baked ideas, some terrible casting choices, and nobody to whisper and tell him "Make some serious script revisions, or have somebody else write your screenplay for the love of God."
Kelly seems overwhelmingly convinced that he is a genius, as his pretentious storyline shows, only the last three ''chapters" (If you can call them chapters, I call them disjointed and misused) of an apparent six-chapter saga are presented in the film,(Like the first Star Wars movies!) with audiences expected to buy the first three chapters in graphic novel form - essentially forcing people to once again do lots of homework in order to fully get the movie, just as like with Donnie Darko. Boy oh boy, what an ego this man's got. But I'm not falling for it. Despite the heavy-handed use of Biblical references (how sickeningly original) and classic poetry (particularly T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men, which Kelly paraphrases), the low crass humour and flat stale festering dialogue in this intrepid satire are what betray Kelly's true sensibilities.
Richard Kelly clearly made this movie for himself and for himself only. Sure, the movie cost very little to make, but I think most people would have put the money to more effective means. So self indulgent, so esoteric that the idea revolves in some alternate little world that only exists in Kelly's muddled mind. Where do you start to explain the madness?
''Let's dry our tears and face our fears.''
Clearly, the whole alternate time line stuff did not work. The primary idea of making a neo-futuristic movie is to put it in the future, not start it in the past or present. Its one thing to say that a nuclear war was started in Abilene, Texas, but it is another thing to say it started years before the suggested time line of the movie. Therein lies the first big problem with Southland Tales. There is no Urban Pacification Units, there is no USIdent and there is no weird scientist creating a new energy source to ween us off of oil. Now, if this movie was placed in the near future, like say seven or eight years from now, then the audience is instantly drawn into the fantasy and the impact of the images. Instead, the audience is lost and they know they are watching a poorly delivered movie.
Look, there's Kevin Smith dressed up like an old man! John Larroquette from Night Court having his balls tasered! The Rock just called that slutty Bai Ling a bitch and then she fell on the floor going "Ooh!", that'll show her! This is to put if politely a truly AWFUL film, devoid of any truth, emotion, intelligence or genuine creativity. (Kelly works hard to explain a lot of his story here, too, and guess what - in the end, it's kind of a rip off of the masterful Donnie Darko, with its parallel universes and temporal shifts and such.) The actors, most of whom are the sort who need a lot of direction to be good, recite their lines without feeling or emotion, as lost as the rest of us are. (I assume Johnson, Scott and Gellar signed on for Kelly's hipster credits, the rest of the cast were surely just hungry for any work whatsoever. Especially Justin Timberlake who kills us with badly delivered narration and acting) Even the CG effects are abysmal! The cinematography's horrendous! I could go on for a few lifetimes, but what depresses me most is that there will doubtlessly be new additional fans who will defend all this shabbily-executed nonsense as visionary, and the misguided cult of Richard Kelly will only grow, but seriously only deluded or drug addled people will make sense of this catastrophe.
While antics may appear to be weirdly amusing, it leaves you severed on an emotional level. Donnie Darko worked so well because it drew you in, but Southland seems to deliberately keep you at arm's length lest you miss out on some of Kelly's political messages. For all its mystery, intrigue, and action, it feels a bit soulless, and goes out with a whimper as opposed to the bang it so desires.
''Ladies and gentlemen, the party is over. Have a nice apocalypse.''
(Adjust that to ends with whimper, no bang...)
Southland Tales is an ensemble piece set in the futuristic landscape of Los Angeles on July 4, 2008...
Dwayne Johnson: Boxer Santaros / Jericho Cane
Southland Tales isn't a movie for most audiences. You won't relate to any characters, and you won't follow or really care about the preposterous plot. It is dark and cynical. Despite it's heavy-handed political story, there is no deep, introspective meaning behind anything whatsoever. This is why many people won't get it, and thus will hate it. It's a dark film with a dash of comedy and a heavy dose of LSD.
Critics have used the word mishmash...and it is. Just like David Lynch and Terry Gilliam, Richard Kelly is clearly conflicted between telling a coherent, compelling story while simultaneously expressing his creative vision. Sometimes you have to choose one or the other, and he chose the latter this time. With disastrous consequences... This movie is a disgrace, and if you are confused or put off by the plot, just grimace or leave the room for a few moments to recover momentarily. The entire story is explained very early on during an awfully amateurish movie pitch scene. After that, all that matters is you survive proceedings.
''Scientists are saying the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted.''
Director Richard Kelly's life he's leading as a director is more akin and similar to that of George Lucas.
Tons of half-baked ideas, some terrible casting choices, and nobody to whisper and tell him "Make some serious script revisions, or have somebody else write your screenplay for the love of God."
Kelly seems overwhelmingly convinced that he is a genius, as his pretentious storyline shows, only the last three ''chapters" (If you can call them chapters, I call them disjointed and misused) of an apparent six-chapter saga are presented in the film,(Like the first Star Wars movies!) with audiences expected to buy the first three chapters in graphic novel form - essentially forcing people to once again do lots of homework in order to fully get the movie, just as like with Donnie Darko. Boy oh boy, what an ego this man's got. But I'm not falling for it. Despite the heavy-handed use of Biblical references (how sickeningly original) and classic poetry (particularly T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men, which Kelly paraphrases), the low crass humour and flat stale festering dialogue in this intrepid satire are what betray Kelly's true sensibilities.
Richard Kelly clearly made this movie for himself and for himself only. Sure, the movie cost very little to make, but I think most people would have put the money to more effective means. So self indulgent, so esoteric that the idea revolves in some alternate little world that only exists in Kelly's muddled mind. Where do you start to explain the madness?
Clearly, the whole alternate time line stuff did not work. The primary idea of making a neo-futuristic movie is to put it in the future, not start it in the past or present. Its one thing to say that a nuclear war was started in Abilene, Texas, but it is another thing to say it started years before the suggested time line of the movie. Therein lies the first big problem with Southland Tales. There is no Urban Pacification Units, there is no USIdent and there is no weird scientist creating a new energy source to ween us off of oil. Now, if this movie was placed in the near future, like say seven or eight years from now, then the audience is instantly drawn into the fantasy and the impact of the images. Instead, the audience is lost and they know they are watching a poorly delivered movie.
Look, there's Kevin Smith dressed up like an old man! John Larroquette from Night Court having his balls tasered! The Rock just called that slutty Bai Ling a bitch and then she fell on the floor going "Ooh!", that'll show her! This is to put if politely a truly AWFUL film, devoid of any truth, emotion, intelligence or genuine creativity. (Kelly works hard to explain a lot of his story here, too, and guess what - in the end, it's kind of a rip off of the masterful Donnie Darko, with its parallel universes and temporal shifts and such.) The actors, most of whom are the sort who need a lot of direction to be good, recite their lines without feeling or emotion, as lost as the rest of us are. (I assume Johnson, Scott and Gellar signed on for Kelly's hipster credits, the rest of the cast were surely just hungry for any work whatsoever. Especially Justin Timberlake who kills us with badly delivered narration and acting) Even the CG effects are abysmal! The cinematography's horrendous! I could go on for a few lifetimes, but what depresses me most is that there will doubtlessly be new additional fans who will defend all this shabbily-executed nonsense as visionary, and the misguided cult of Richard Kelly will only grow, but seriously only deluded or drug addled people will make sense of this catastrophe.
While antics may appear to be weirdly amusing, it leaves you severed on an emotional level. Donnie Darko worked so well because it drew you in, but Southland seems to deliberately keep you at arm's length lest you miss out on some of Kelly's political messages. For all its mystery, intrigue, and action, it feels a bit soulless, and goes out with a whimper as opposed to the bang it so desires.
''Ladies and gentlemen, the party is over. Have a nice apocalypse.''
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