Friday 6 February 2009

Southland Tales

I think I found it. The worst film ever made.

That might be a bit harsh. I'm sure there is some Grade D porn out there that is probably worse. And yet those films might fill the need of sorts for some desperate soul who really needs it. And I've got a soft spot in my heart for bad porn just as I have a soft spot in my heart for bad mainstream films. Everyone has their fetishes, ya know.

But this shit was awful, yo!

Now, I've never seen Donnie Darko. I've heard wonderful things about it and it is highly recommended by a few friends of mine whose opinions I trust. It's on my Netflix queue. And this piece of shit was the followup by writer and director Richard Kelly. So one would think that it would have some redeeming qualities. One would think, but one would be sadly mistaken.

And before any fans of it out there start with me, I get it. I get it. Really, I get it. I FUCKING GET IT!!!

I get the "statement" he is making about the media, the far right, the government machine and everything else he references and their roles in the eventual breakdown of our society. I get it. Religion, the environment, the trauma of war...I FUCKING GET IT!!! The film spends 2 and 1/2 hours beating us over the head with it. Only a freakin' moron wouldn't get it. But is so un-interesting and bland that it compares badly with watching paint dry.

Lemme throw some random plot points and characters out at ya. The Rock plays an action movie hero who disappears and then reappears with amnesia. But he actually is a time traveler and his own future self. Sarah Michelle Gellar (Buffy!!!) plays an ex-porn star who is working with the neo-Marxist underground a bit unwittingly and planning her new reality series. Sean William Scott is a neo-Marxist posing as his twin brother, a cop. Or is he? Remember...there is time travel and inter-dimensional stuff going on. Justin Timberlake is a damaged Iraqi war vet who acts as narrator and chronicler of the whole mess. He makes no sense at all. Meanwhile Miranda Richardson is the behind-the-scenes focus of the whole film as the head of the fascist government agency that the neo-Marxists are targeting.

That last paragraph was the most boring and exhausting thing that I've ever written. Holy crap!

And I didn't even mention the most creepy role that Wallace Shawn has ever played or the bad cop that John Lovitz played or the paraplegic war vet with a ZZ Top beard that Kevin Smith played. All of these were done with tongue firmly placed in cheek. I hope. Dear God, I hope.

But it was all so freakin' boring and useless. Littered with silly pop culture references and bad special effects and goofy media hyperbole.

Ugh! I hated this fucking movie.

Stay away. Stay far away. You will thank me for this. I promise.

UPDATE:

This is the only 3 minutes of the movie that I liked. Justin Timberlake lip syncing to The Killers in a weird Lebowski-esque dream/fantasy sequence. The song kinda got stuck in my head.