DISCLAIMER: THIS PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT IS NOT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR...
You know what, fuck it. I'm sorry, I can't get into the Modest PSA zone. I can't get into character. This movie pisses me off so much. It would just be stupid for me to say it is not meant to be taken seriously. It's totally meant to be taken seriously. Here we go. Southland Tales.
For those of you fortunate enough not to know, Southland Tales is the second film by director Richard Kelly, the creator of one of my favorite films Donnie Darko. Now Donnie Darko is a sweet movie. I don't mean cute and cuddly sweet, but BADASS sweet. It's a damn cult classic and belongs in my library of films new and old. When I heard the whiz kid filmmaker who created that monster was going to be making another film. A film made with bigger actors and on a wider scale of epicness so it was told. A film that mixed together political and religious satire with some existential thoughts and threw at the audience in a web of comedic cinema. Well needless to say I was pumped and excited. Then I saw it.
I was disappointed at first. I wasn't angry like I am now and forever will be, but I was let down. Where to begin: everyone involved with the film should forever be embarrassed. It's a stain on everyone's reputation and the beginning of The Rock's downward slope in movies and he was doing so damn good. He isn't The Rock anymore. He's Dwayne Johnson starring in bad Disney movies. You'd think a movie with an ensemble cast: (featuring just about every modern or former SNL castmember, Sean William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Kevin Smith, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, Holmes Osbourne, that psychic chick from Poltergeist, Mr. Inconceivable from Princess Bride, Bai Ling, and the bad guy from Richie Rich...Okay fine there aren't that many famous people in this movie!!! Or at least no one to write to home about). Let's just say no actor is good in this movie, besides Holmes Osbourne (because his character is just as confused as the audience), and leave at that. The story is just all over place, doesn't make any sense, especially when handing out explanations. There's something about time travel, and then the story bears a striking resemblence to a script The Rock and Gellar wrote, subplot after subplot all of which go nowhere, some kind of Apocalypse happening at the same time of a revolution, all to the tone of really cliche post 9/11 bullshit or some new American disaster. Makes no fuckin sense. I guess if you want to look at production value like the sets and special effects I suppose this could be pretty good but you just don't care as story and performance are what mainly hold any movie up at all. Richard Kelly, who showed a lot promise in his ability to direct actors in his previous film, cannot direct a single one in Southland Tales. It leads me to think, as I've said in my Netflix review of the film, that Kelly must have been shot in the head to make a movie this devoid of reason or logic or emotion when his last film had a wealth of all three.
To make matters worse, Southland Tales has a cult following. It's like those really bad movies that people somehow just can't help but respond to. It's like how Napoleon Dynamite is to me and other people.
Everything that could be wrong with a movie is here. Southland Tales is just something a filmmaker who shows as much skill as Richard Kelly cannot live down. You can make any Richard Matheson adaptation you want but it won't make me forget. Southland Tales, what a horrible movie. Even if you manage to figure out what it all really means in the end, it'll just make even less sense. Don't even look at this movie's cover. Watching it may cause you to cover your ears and rock in a corner for several hours, have delayed schizophrenic outbursts, or random self mutilations. Or maybe it'll just leave a bad taste of your mouth and make you beg for the two and half hours of your life you spent watching it. You don't watch a movie like Southland Tales, you survive it.
So now you and knowing is half the battle. And Your Modest Guru recommends you take care of the rest. Thanks for reading. Jesus...
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