[DVD Review (R2)] SOUTHLAND TALES
It always amazed me that we never got as strong a reaction to the opening line of Kristina’s review of Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales as I thought we would. If ever there was a line to stir the proverbial pot marked “controversy” it was Kris’ assertion that, after watching the movie, she wished Kelly’s mother had aborted him! Hell, when I read that comment I laughed a little guiltly, shook my head in semi-disgust and then muttered something along the lines of “Man, funny! But harsh!”
Now? Now having seen Southland Tales for myself I’m beginning to realise that, whilst it’s never big nor clever to wish death on anyone (or indeed wish that their mother had aborted them!), one viewing of this film can change all that and the reason we never received a single complaint about such a comment was because the majority of the population could well have agreed with Kristina. Richard Kelly has stolen and abused two and a half hours of our respective lives that we will never, ever be able to get back. I could actually imagine Kelly’s own mother walking out of the first screening of this movie and muttering “Shit, Kristina had a point! Why didn’t I make that choice thirty three years ago?”
The film had SUCH an impact on me that I went home and started ringing round hospitals, enquiring as to whether thirty three years old was too old to be aborted:
THEM: You wish to know if a person can have an abortion at aged thirty three?
ME: No, I want to know if I can have a thirty three year old aborted!
THEM: No, sir, that isn’t abortion. That is murder!
ME: I think we’re just pissing over mere technicalities now!
Southland Tales, I’m serious, is the sort of movie where - before you’ve seen it - you look at Kristina’s comments and think they may well be a little OTT but - after seeing it - you champion Kristina for her honesty and start planning ways to stuff Kelly back up his mother’s cooch yourself! This, I assure you, is less of a movie and more the cinematic equivilent of a tramp forcibly flatulating into your open mouth for two and a half hours relentlessly.
Go into this movie knowing only this: Southland Tales is not “the difficult second movie” from the man that directed Donnie Darko. Southland Tales is the “train wreck of a follow-up movie” from the boyish egotist who wrote Domino.
The common thread with this movie seems to be that if you hate it, its defenders - as incredulous as it is that it has any at all - just come out and cry “You just didn’t understand it! You didn’t get it! That’s why you didn’t like it!” Just check out the remarks made by Andreas at the end of Kristina’s review for example ["... Are you guys retarded? Southland Tales was superb, beautiful, amazing and fresh. Even I understood what it was about. I’ve seen it twice now and I think I will see it a third time with my girlfriend (she is also smarter than you guys, so I think she will get the movie.) Peace..."] Not so, I assure you. Having a full and measured understanding of a film does not certify your pleasure towards it. I don’t fully understand everything that Kelly’s Donnie Darko offered up, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being a viewer with it. I don’t mean to be all let’s-blow-raspberries-in-your-general-direction-and-look-at-me-and-how-great-I-am but I “got” this movie but “getting” it does not put it in an exclusive partnership with “liking” it.
This is one of the worst cases of egotism and arrogance outweighting talent and intelligence that I have ever seen on the big screen. This is nothing more than a walking example of a ‘new talent’ believing his own press, taking the biggest cash offer he could find for his follow-up film and deciding to splash the screen with lots of half-baked and semi-grasped ideas and ideologies that he’s picked up from Time magazine and evesdropping at parties he would have been doing the valet parking for a few years earlier.
Read any and every review and it seems that there’s nary a critic out there that wants to fully slaughter this lame piece of cinematic cancer completely. Nobody ever wants to go the whole hog these days in that respect and there’s a lack of integrity there because of it. I once went to a seminar where a leading British film critic was speaking and he said “With the internet in existence, no critic wants to call today’s flop an outright dog only to see it become tomorrow’s cult masterpiece. So they tread carefully in just how they fillet the stinking fish.” Every review seems to latch on to something, anything, to try and prevent calling this for exactly what it is. They’ll hold up comments about visuals or an eclectric ensemble cast or Justin Timberlake lip-synching to a Killers track.
It’s all utter bullshit. It’s all just people pulling up short from calling this a total, career-defining disaster because they don’t want to be the journalist printed off from the net in five years time and quoted as the person who just “didn’t get” this “misunderstood masterpiece”. Well, let me tell you that this isn’t going to happen. Southland Tales is not going to be re-evaluated because there is absolutely nothing that needs re-evaluating.
It is an absolute mess of a movie from start to finish in both it’s design and it’s execution and in what it thinks it is trying to say. That is never going to change. This will either prove to be a blip on Kelly’s long and illustrious career like many a Spielberg movie or it’s going to derail him and his directorial weight a la Michael Cimino. I guess we’ll have to wait with baited breath for The Box to get a clearer idea.
There’s only one review you need to read that captures the true horrendousness of this film. It’s right here on this very website. It starts with a wish made towards the mother of the director and it concludes with the saddened declaration that even a half-naked Dwayne Johnson didn’t do anything for the Dwayne Johnson obsessive who was writing the review. Believe EVERY SINGLE WORD as it is written. This movie is a true monstrosity of the highest order. Justin Timberlake alone delivers a performance here so, so, so bad it makes Edison Force look like a masterclass that should be taught to budding acting students.
You must have a fair idea of how many films I have to watch in a week in order to do my “job” here on the site. Then you should take into account the personal back catalogue I actually own on DVD. Add all that together, addressing the fact also that I’m 28 years of age so I’ve seen a fair few films over those nigh on three decades of existance. And… after all is said and done… believe me when I say:
This. Is. The. Worst. Movie. I. Have. Ever. Seen. In. My. Entire. Life.
Richard Kelly has stolen from me nearly two and a half hours that I will never, ever get back. Watching Southland Tales is the viewing equivilent of having someone break into my home, tie me up, strip me naked and tap dance on my scrotum for two and a half hours. Then pour bleach where the ‘old boy’ used to be and then dance some more. THEN when I’m admitted to hospital, in searing pain, with my wounds dressed and bound, the very same someone comes to visit me and sing off-key in my hospitalised ear for ANOTHER two and a half hours and…
… I need to go lie down!
This movie raped my intelligence!
Related Posts:
- SOUTHLAND TALES Final Poster
- SOUTHLAND TALES Trailer Online Now!
- [Movie Review] SOUTHLAND TALES
- SOUTHLAND TALES UK Poster Online
- [DVD Review (R2)] TALES FROM EARTHSEA
2 Responses to “[DVD Review (R2)] SOUTHLAND TALES”
YES!
Trackbacks
What's Your Opinion?