Incomprehensible garbage, Wallace Shawn in semi-drag, and John Laroquette looking like he's the only one who knows that he's in a movie that is total dreck, this film is filled with so many ugly people and characters that it borders on being the worst movie ever made, no wonder it destroyed Richard Kelly's career, such as it was
shareI agree, it is one of the most fascinating and enjoyable experiments in mainstream avante-garde filmmaking.
shareI think this film is becoming more relavent with each passing day.
shareI love myself a mind-scrambler movie, hell David Lynch is probably my favourite director, but this was shallow, confusing nonsense that dragged on, and on.
I found it to be a sophomoric jerk-off, but you’re right - it carries the stink of California smugness as well.
The most annoying thing is that you're supposedly meant to read some accompanying graphic novels to even start making sense of it. It takes some arrogance and a need to seem smarter-than-thou to make something needlessly confusing, and then insist people buy your books to understand it.
The thing is… I don’t want to understand it. With a Lynch film you care about the central character and there’s a deep sense that all the abstractions are motivated by the emotional and spiritual turmoil of the protagonist. Southland Tales has dozens of characters, none of whom I cared about, lots of unwelcome politics, and lashings of weirdness for the sake of it.
It wants to be taken seriously, but at the same time has a campy, absurdist veneer which makes that impossible.
I’d like to think this was a misfire from Richard Kelly, but then he followed it up with The Box, whose reviews are almost as bad. Donnie Darko won’t sustain Kelly forever, he needs to make a decent film.