Southland Tales

[GORDON]

Somebody be a lamb and tell me what the hell is going on in this trailer.

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809233751/trailer

[Malcolm]

It looks like someone's trying to make an artistic statement & has the potential to fail exceptionally in the negative realm.

[Leisher]

It was panned by audiences and critics in Cannes. It has gone through editing since to try and make it good.

Can editing actually change a movie from "sucks" to "good"?

I doubt it.

[Malcolm]

It looks like someone's trying to make an artistic statement & has the potential to fail exceptionally in the negative realm.

DVR'd this off cable a bit ago. Finally got around to watching it.

This is the sort of flick that a group of high school film or theatre students would make if you gave them shrooms, a camera, & virtually unlimited access to all your favourite character actors circa 2005-6 or so.

There're some positive aspects here ... mostly they're just surreal :

(1) Cheri Oteri kicking the shyte out of the Highlander, Christopher Lambert

(2) Jon Lovitz getting a chance to pull a serious Dirty Harry impression

(3) John Larroquette getting his balls taser'd

(4) a couple trippy sequences, one of which is a partial reshoot of a "Killers" music vid

... and a few more.

That out of the way, there's nothing but problems from the first five minutes. Writing, directing, plot, theme, you'll find none of that in any coherent form. The editing they were pushing as an "improvement" looked like it was done by someone with Parkinson's standing next to the unrolled film while wearing a Freddy Krueger glove. The pacing goes from "less than zero background, nuclear explosions, military police state in two minutes" to "come the fuck on, SOMETHING explode."

The dialogue is beyond hilarious, but I get the feeling that was unintentional. This really is an ensemble cast, w\ The Rock (as an amnesiac movie producer/director/actor), Seann William Scott (as ... something to do w\ either the cops or the military ... fuck only knows), & Sarah Michelle Gellar (as a porn star) getting most of the screen time.

I got no idea how any real director could think the shots put to the film (apparently approved) would get taken seriously. So, it's either that & he's insane, or he's incompetent because he let the actors try to carry the entire 2.5 hours. That might've worked had the writing/screenplay not been pure shit. It's a collection of concepts that, in the hands of someone who's not a hack, could've been made interesting. Instead, there's obviously some political bias injected which either prevents the development of the interesting concepts or forces them to interact in such convoluted ways that it takes any credibility or point & flushes it.

This is a film made entirely by people who must've thought, "I'll point out my ... uh, I mean THE universal truths of existence. Someone else will make the story entertaining, engaging, enjoyable, or profitable. I've got The Rock AND Buffy. How can I lose? It's already entertaining and profitable. I can do whatever I WANT," then went & did some drugs & started shooting scenes.

Oh yeah, plot synopsis. Probably the least important part of this flick. A nuke goes off in the U.S., which ratchets up the gov't police state (& sweeps Republicans into office in record numbers) to the point of military snipers in turrets w\ high-powered rifles at strategic street corners. Reelection is coming up (in 2008). It's Clinton-Lieberman vs. [insert evil, fictional pachyderms]. Anyhow, the evil pachyderm running for prez has this dumb-ass, spoiled daughter married to The Rock. He was in the Iraq War (which has ballooned into conflicts in Syria & other Middle Eastern countries ... somehow), mysteriously brought back to the U.S., wakes up w\ amnesia, & meets up w\ the Neo-Marxist resistance who plan to use him in a plot to extort/kill/stop the current administration.

There's a few memorable scenes & one-liners, but nothing else. I mean nothing.



Edited By Malcolm on 1243278196