comment #1

erniesouchak says ...

Could be that it stinks and Langella didn't want it to interfere with his Oscar campaign. Or maybe it's just a studio in upheaval, what with all the layoffs, etc. "Valkyrie" suffered a similar fate, and most people think it isn't an atrocity.

comment #2

Rich S. says ...

And this premise sounds like it has just enough gas to power a 30 minute TZ episode, rather than a 100 minute movie.

comment #3

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

Anyone else and I would wonder just how they got a 90 minute (we can assume) thriller out of such a straightforward, simple premise. But I will give Kelly the benefit of the doubt, because even such "disasters" like SOUTHLAND TALES are still more interesting than overpraised crap like IRON MAN.

Small films are very tricky to market. It has no built-in audience to speak of, has two actors not known for putting butts in seats and Kelly doesn't do gore, all of which making it harder to find an audience. On top of all of that is the fact we are talking about Warner Bros, the folks who gave up on SLUMDOG because they didn't think they could market it.

comment #4

actionman says ...

I really enjoy watching Southland Tales (especially the last 30 mins). It's the very definition of hit-and-miss but there is some truly unique and interesting stuff buried in that overstuffed narrative.

I still think that both Donnie Darko and Domino are brilliant pieces of work so I will always check out what Kelly has to offer.

But yeah, seems a bit questionable that a supposedly simple thriller like this is taking so damn long to reach theaters.

comment #5

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Well, I will see it, but this is Kelly's last shot with me (a la Bale, "after this, we are done professionally!").

Narrow scope, modest budget, small cast, adapted creative material...let's face it, this thing can only be so good. Hopefully he embraces his limitations and focuses instead on mood and mis-en-scene so he can learn a thing or two for his next movie (if there is one).

Yeah it's one of Fincher's worst films, but if it turns out anywhere near as good as Panic Room, I'll be quite impressed. Kelly is in serious danger of turning into cinema's version of the one-hit wonder (which, given his penchant for 80s new wave pop on his soundtracks, he would probably take as the highest compliment).

comment #6

Don Murphy says ...

I read the script- it was really good. Warners didn't pay for the film so they probably don't care that much about it. Stop trying to create fires where there are none.

comment #7

Mark says ...

Thriller? Panic Room? Don Murphy maybe could elaborate, but i don't see how this movie works at 90 minutes at anything other than an outright comedy. The Coen brothers would have knocked this out of the park 20 years ago.

comment #8

televisiontears says ...

Really hope Kelly can reign it in with this one. The man's got oodles of potential. I'll second actionman and call Southland Tales probably the most brilliantly frustrating film I've ever seen. It goes from one of the most surreal, original, and jaw-dropping things in years to the worst movie you've ever seen, and then back again about 30 times.

Last I heard, they were finishing up the visual effects on The Box and working away at sound design, and given Kelly's Lynchian attention to detail in the latter department, that seems like time well spent.

Speaking of the sound, freaking Arcade Fire are scoring the whole thing, which gives me nerd goosebumps. Nerdbumps, if you will.

comment #9

televisiontears says ...

Mark, it's based around a moral hypothetical, like diverting the train to kill one person instead of ten. I don't think it could work as a comedy. But yeah, the Coens could pull it off.

comment #10

Jeremy Fassler says ...

It's an interesting story, but as someone said earlier, try to expand a Twilight Zone to ninety minutes and you're left with nothing. Most of the one hour Twilight Zone's don't hold up at all, so even at fifty-five minutes it's a stretch.

For the record, "Button, Button" was done during the first revival of the Zone, in the 80s.

Also for the record, someone somewhere has been trying to make a film out of the original Zone episode "The Howling Man," about a man who accidentally lets the devil go free in the summer of 1914. Although it sounds like a decent idea, the episode itself is a twenty-five minute B horror film to begin with, so why try to expand and "improve," when there's so little improvement to be done?

comment #11

George Prager says ...

"Electric Grandmother" was made into a movie. Hard to believe.

comment #12

Mark says ...

I've seen Button Button. It has amazing stickiness, as Malcolm Gladwell would say, as I remember it vividly and i was probably under 10 when i first saw it. But there's no way that Diaz will play the shrill wife straight. Diane Venora, maybe, but Diaz will no doubt play an extension of her Very Bad Things character, and will do so for laughs. It doesn't make sense any other way.

comment #13

hunterd says ...

This film has one of the worst scripts I have ever read. It literally has entire pages of dialogue taken from Sartre's "No Exit"...and set on mars. Incomprehensible drivel.

Here's a Kelly screenplay.

A: A semi-obscure (second level college English class level) piece of literature designed to make hipsters feel smart for "getting it"
B: irreverent pop culture
C: Dick jokes
D: overwrought sci-fi elements
D: the apocalypse.

There you have it. That's Kelly's formula.

One of the signs of aspbergers syndrome is the use of metaphors meaningful only to the speaker. After Indianapolis, Southland Tales, and The Box, I think Kelly needs to get checked out.

It's a real shame. The guy can write brilliantly, he just has no idea how to tell a story.

comment #14

sawsidyesterday says ...

- Read the screenplay a while ago. It's completely shit.
- Runs out of steam on Page 25, should have been a short.
- Unnecessary car chases, explosions, twisted plot points that are not credible.
- The entire premise is hard to digest but people do suspend their disbeliefs (i.e. benjamin button) if there is a valid philosophical quest at hand. Not the case here.
- MRC made it because they wanted to get a motion picture off the ground and with Cameron Diaz in it, they might be able to recover their investment. The budget was a measly number before -- the biggest line item is Diaz's salary.

comment #15

D.Z. says ...

Poor Richard Kelly. Forever forced to be known as the hipster Shyamalan.

comment #16

Gordon27 says ...

"Obviously concerns and hesitations are afoot here. Release dates getting shuffled around like this always means something's amiss."

So, you're saying that WB at first thought "Yeah, whatever," then decided to move the movie up [which is usually a good sign], and then, only recently, decided that it wouldn't be ready in time and shifted it back to the only other time of year that horror movies do well [first three months of the year or a month on either side of Halloween], and you're assuming that's a bad sign?

Look, I want Kelly to fail horribly as much as anybody, but I almost can't imagine how anybody who knows anything about film could possibly mess this story up too badly. It's too straightforward. If he fucks this up, he deserves to be the pariah that Cimino is but doesn't deserve to be.

comment #17

renegade8 says ...

I read the script too Don. It stinks. No real suspense, convoluted and aimless.

comment #18

Deathtongue_Groupie says ...

"After Indianapolis, Southland Tales, and The Box..."

I can't seem to find my hipster decoder ring in the desk today, anyone know what "Indianapolis" refers to?

comment #19

The Winchester says ...

"And this premise sounds like it has just enough gas to power a 30 minute TZ episode, rather than a 100 minute movie. "

Shymalan has made an entire career out of this concept.

Oh dammit, DZ sort of beat me to this.

And HunterD, don't forget to throw in
-rip in space/time continuum

He seems to enjoy that one a lot.

I heard Kelley is a reasonably smart guy, the guy that his fellow film school nerds couldn't stand being around.

comment #20

MilkMan says ...

I don't get the whole Richard Kelley thing. Southland Tales was fucking horrible. And look at the above still of Marsden and Diaz. Look at the lighting. It's lit like an episode of Three's Company. The easiest way to trick people into thinking you're "smart" is to write sci-fi. His movies are completely incoherent, obvious, and peppered with some of the lamest cock humor this side of of Mike Myers.

And I'm glad Don Murphy decided to come on here today and put his two cents in because I had completely forgotten what a fucking snarky ass tool he is. Dude, you've got a great job, probably live in a nice house and drive a nice car, and most likely get a lot of sex from whatever preference of human you're into. Why are you coming onto movie blogs and getting nasty with people? Don't you have anything better to do? I don't. That's my excuse. What's yours?

comment #21

hunterd says ...

Indianapolis is another unproduced Kelly script.

comment #22

Gordon27 says ...

"Southland Tales" is the worst-directed movie I've ever seen, but somehow, it was much more memorable than a lot of the "good" movies I saw last year. It's amazing to see somebody with that much ambition fail on so many basic, relatively easy levels.

comment #23

televisiontears says ...

Great post MilkMan, but I can't agree with you on a few key things. The above is a production still, it isn't a screen grab that's indicative of what that scene will end up looking like. Also, I believe good sci-fi is one of the hardest things a screenwriter can achieve. How many sci-fi films have you seen that veer into unintentional comedy? Probably more than you've liked.

Donnie Darko, while perhaps a fluke, remains a masterpiece to me. The tone is haunting, yet inviting. It seems contained and personal while still feeling huge, epic even. That's no easy feat. I know it's a cliche to love that film, but I'm hard-pressed to care less. Kelly's got a lot of growing up to do, but I hope he makes good on the enormous promise he showed on DD.

Gordon27, no offense, but you're on a site for the film-obsessed. Terms like "worst-directed" just don't cut it. It's a bit general. Again, no offense at all.

comment #24

The Winchester says ...

And Donnie Darko, the theatrical cut, is far better than the "Director's Cut", mostly because the director's cut shows that even the director didn't have any clue as to what he was doing.

But I guess so long as you do it with confidence and Jake Gyllenhaal, you'll be declared a genius.

comment #25

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Television is right. The above is a production still, and that is actually Marsden's genuine reaction to looking at his entire salary for this film.

"But, but...they gave me a few more of these when I played that mutant with the giant eye!"

comment #26

JapAdapters says ...

Don Murphy says he read the script and it's good and he's immediately followed by several posters who say they read it and it's crap.

Who would you bet is right?

comment #27

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

JA - I'll give anyone the benefit of the doubt, as long as they're not responsible for producing Transformers and Double Dragon.

comment #28

Gordon27 says ...

"Gordon27, no offense, but you're on a site for the film-obsessed. Terms like "worst-directed" just don't cut it. It's a bit general."

It only sounds general because I have no interest in sparking a long-winded conversation about 'Southland Tales' anymore. I'm talked out on that movie. It's a lot of fun to talk about how bizarre and misguided it is, I'm just not up for it now.

However, I stand by it. In terms of storytelling, it is badly directed - a lot of time is wasted on needless exposition that goes nowhere, and never adds up to much, while important information is sped through too quickly. At the end of it, I can tell you exactly what happened, but only because the movie stopped at several points along the way so that everything could be absolutely explained through dialogue (which is Bad Storytelling). in terms of acting, it is badly directed -- no two performances seem to be in the same movie even when they're in the same scene; it ranges from overly, unneccessarily serious (Jon Lovitz) to overly, unneccessarily farcical (Wallace Shawn & Curtis Armstrong). In terms of production design, it is badly directed -- everything manages to be both distracting *and* cliched. I won't criticize the fact that it has no consistent tone, since that was obviously a choice, but I will say that it rarely, if ever, clicks on any of the tones it wants to. It hires half the cast from SNL or MadTV, and then gives them the serious roles, and then hires serious actors to play comedy.

At a certain point, when every choice a director makes fails, it becomes easier to just say "This is honestly, no-hyperbole, the worst-directed movie I've ever seen," rather than making a comprehensive list.

comment #29

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

TT - You have to give Gord the benefit of the doubt here. Southland may not technically be the worst-directed film ever, but it is definitely in that ballpark -- for the reasons he listed above, and countless others.

This is actually coming from someone who thought there were some good conceptual ideas at the base. But Jesus, the execution is so wrong-headed...watching it just really makes you wonder how this guy ever became a filmmaker in the first place.

comment #30

D.Z. says ...

Kane: I keep wondering how you can eff up Double Dragon; but then that Polish answer to Uwe Boll managed to lower the bar even further with Doom and Chun Li. I'm surprised Paul Dini still kept his name on there, though, since I'd definitely be opting for Alan Smithee in that situation.

comment #31

D.Z. says ...

there=DD

comment #32

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

D.Z. - Finally something we can agree on!

Doom should have been far more entertaining, what the hell happened there? They would have been better off just projecting someone going through Doom 3 without losing a life. Effects would have been better, too.

comment #33

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

D.Z. - Finally something we can agree on!

Doom should have been far more entertaining...what the hell happened there? They should have just projected someone going through Doom 3 without losing a life. Effects would have been better, too.

comment #34

CitizenKanedforChewingGum says ...

Sorry. Typekey FUBAR.

comment #35

Gordon27 says ...

"This is actually coming from someone who thought there were some good conceptual ideas at the base."

It acheives the kind of failure that other artistic failures should aspire to. It is, in fact, a brilliant work of art, providing that you admire art done in the medium of failure.

No, the truth is, there are some things I love in it -- I would rather watch Amy Poehler and Wood Harris improvise as angry newleyweds for two hours than anything else that happens in this movie -- but it just doesn't work.

I would like to turn the question around; since I think that, for a site full of film-lovers, it is prima facie obvious that 'Southland Tales' is badly directed overall, I would like to ask TVtears if he has any specific examples of choices made by the director which he would say were successful. I honestly was in awe of it, because usually, when you get a movie that's badly directed, things cover up for it, and it tends to just be blandly made. It's rare for a movie to be so aggressively, over-the-top badly directed. It's one thing to go for style over substance, or style-over-substance-as-substance (which, I think, is what he's going for)... but even the style doesn't work!

comment #36

hunterd says ...

Also, I've seen the directors cut (cannes cut) of Southland Tales (it's available quite readily online) and it's just as bad as the theatrical. The scenes are in a completely different order, but it makes NO difference. ST is a movie so profoundly illogical that you can play the scenes in any order and not lose or gain a thing.

comment #37

hunterd says ...

Also, I've seen the directors cut (cannes cut) of Southland Tales (it's available quite readily online) and it's just as bad as the theatrical. The scenes are in a completely different order, but it makes NO difference. ST is a movie so profoundly illogical that you can play the scenes in any order and not lose or gain a thing.

comment #38

hunterd says ...

the film includes the line "They say the road not traveled ends in a stairway to heaven, but that door was closing in only 3 days and Santoro was determined to find it"

I swear, that is a direct quote from the Cannes cut of Southland Tales.

As for things that worked. The scene where the characters are murdered while trying to fake their own death is effective. It foregrounds the artifice in an attractive way.

comment #39

Gordon27 says ...

we're talking about the same scene, albeit different sides of it.

"The scenes are in a completely different order, but it makes NO difference."

That's kind of hilarious. Somehow, this makes the movie sound better than it is, like there could be some interesting artistic purpose in making a movie where the scenes *don't* fit together at all, and there is no flow. It's not that. If that was what he was going for, you still have to learn how to crawl before you learn how to run and fly.

comment #40

BurmaShave says ...

James Marsden needs a better agent. He has like maybe 3 or 4 more bad decisions before he completely misses his A-list window of opportunity.

comment #41

nouvelle_vague says ...

Ok, so after reading this post, I went home and watched Button, Button. It wasn't very good. The acting in it (and maybe it was typical of 80's TV genre acting, but I really dont remember) was awful - WAY overdone - and the story didn't really hold enough tension (very repetitive - "I'm going to push the button!" "No! Don't push the button!") to fill its 25 minute running time, which gives me no hope it can fill 90 minutes.

And its clearly not a "don't be a greedy yuppie" tale. The characters in Button, Button are poor and angry. But Kelly's The Box might be. They look like yuppies in that shot.

comment #42

Gordon27 says ...

I just read the collected stories of Richard Matheson, and Matheson goes out of his way to complain about that "Twilight Zone", because they changed the ending to his story. The thing is, the ending of the episode is much better than the ending of the story; the story ends of a really big gimmick that's basically a cheat, where the episode ends on what is, theoretically, a very chilling moment.

So, the whole time I'm watching the movie, I'll be wondering "Good ending or bad ending?"

comment #43

hunterd says ...

you won't wonder. you'll know right away that it is a bad ending.

comment #44

Gordon27 says ...

In retrospect, I really set you up pretty well for that, huh?

comment #45

KING JONG says ...

This "film" is a horrid mess. Saw it about a year ago on the Warner lot with Kelly in attendance. Wanted to like it. Really wanted to like it but simply couldn't. Believe in Kelly's talents but with dreck like this I'm ready to write him off.

You'd think it would be a straightforward adaptation of Button, Button, but Kelly felt the desire to add a very unneeded and quite forced Sci-fi twist to the proceedings. Aliens teleporting through a swimming pool at a roadside inn? Really?

Diaz is Diaz in 70s garb, missing toes. Langella is Langella obscured under shoddy facial CG "enhancements". Marsden is surprisingly good considering the material he was given to work with.

I'd really LOVE to read the draft Murphy read. Was it the draft Kelly and Eli Roth penned together?

Someone mentioned Kelly's Lynchian attention to detail in regards to his films and that comparison couldn't be any more accurate. This is his Lynch flick. And no wonder Warners continues to push it back on its release schedule.

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