Monday, March 31, 2008

Southland Tales

By the guy who did Donnie Darko (which I resisted seeing for a while but eventually did see and was quite impressed). Southland Tales did so badly with critics that it barely got shown anywhere. I managed to find a bootlegged copy (and it was damned awful- it was handheld shaky camera in a movie theater). I just finished the movie on DVD and I love it. I can understand why it was so divisive- it's a bit convoluted, disjointed, and maybe even pretentious. But it actually has an exceedingly interesting story and is visually stunning. It's also perplexing (seems to be this director's MO) but that makes it great. Great ending. Some funny moments. Visually arresting. Great political commentary and satire (and not in a partisan way). Go see it.

79%

3 comments:

John said...

I've been saying that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Moby should get together on a project for years.
Just kidding. It's nice to see John Larroquette and Jon Lovitz getting some work, though.

Too bad you (and Glenn) didn't like Donnie Darko. I think it's a great movie.

Nick said...

No, I did like Donnie Darko. I said in the post that I was impressed. I resisted, because it looked like some kind of teen film or "goth" flick, which I was not interested in. But when I finally did see it, it was great. Not my favorite by any stretch, but very well done.

Southland Tales is extremely disjointed and at times incoherent, with an even more maddening ending than Darko or any other film I've seen in recent memory, but just based on the visuals and moments in the film and the overall feel of it, I loved it. And yes, I was happy to see Larroquette, and Lovitz as a dark character.

John said...

In my haste, I misread your post. I thought you said you resisted seeing Southland Tales b/c it was done by the guy who did Donnie Darko.

My bad. Glenn hated it, though.