Wednesday, July 7, 2010

What A Theme #1: Southland Tales

Not only it's been few days since America celebrated their own day of independence, it's also couple of years since Richard Kelly's second feature known simply as ''Southland Tales'' tear the fabric of space/time continuum and this movie... in a bad theatrical-edited version is still fucking watchable at times. Why? Let's see...

''The Rundown II: Giving The Torch Back'' (I'm done with Dwayne/Arnie connection for good, by the way.)

Set in an alternate reality where WW III occurred following the nuclear bombing of both El Paso and Abilene, The movie focuses on Boxer Santaros (Dwayne ''I Am The Next Arnie, Bitch'' Johnson), an action star whose mind is empty enough to sleep with an porn star (or in perfect case, an celebrity who is so amnesiac that he fucked Sarah Michelle Gellar). Yeah, we get to SMG herself as Krysta Now, who resigned her position on the adult industry and made an hardly-watchable reality show, an energy drink that could have same flavours as Steven Seagal's Lightning Bolt and an song where Teen Horniness is cool to perverted old man. Meanwhile, We have Seann William Scott as both Roland and Ronald Taverner, twin brothers where one is kidnapped and painfully injured at times while the other posed as the other who is working for neo-marxist group known as... uh, USIDeath. Yeah, they can't figure an better name but to confuse the civilians with US-IDent (I'll get to that in a second).

If Teen Horniness is indeed not a crime, Then I'll be scared to see if Paedophilia is the next option to be legal.

While not giving us further backstory (you better get Southland Tales graphic novel prequels that's still available), The US-IDent (lead by Nana Mae Frost and her husband Bobby, played by Miranda Richardson & Holmes Osbourne) are trying to keep America safe from USIDeath from bringing chaos and destruction. The movie gets into the point of I'm-so-confused territory as Boxer Santaros tries to find answers to WTF is going on and The Taverners are finding each other. However, They came into contact with past SNL cast members like Amy Poehler and Nora Dunn (even Jeneane Garofalo manage to appear in the film but her scenes are cut-out... well except one). There are parts that are fucked up (two CGI cars humping), not necessary (Christopher Lambert getting hurt in one scene) and some-are-okay (Boxer's contact with Treer which has Wallace Shawn, Booger from Revenge of the Nerds and so on). I'm gonna skip all parts including Jon Lovitz (who plays Bart Bookman!) and Will Sasso, who both of them are trying to act so-badass but there's failure involved.

I Just Wished Connor MacLoed had survived Highlander: Endgame and that way, Adrian Paul will be in this movie instead.

The end takes place on July 4, 2008 and it appears it's hello to Apocalypse as Boxer Santaros discovers his reason for being here, Krysta Now still doing nothing and The Taverners reunited only to find out they are both one and the same existing in the same space/time continuum. Yeah, Roland and Ronald are the same person but one is from an alternate future. I'm almost done, anyway. And they saved the universe by doing the same thing as the two characters on Ferngully (holding hands which has the glowing effect) and became new messiah according to Justin Timberlake (he's also in this movie) which means the End.

So the world ended on Independence Day... Didn't Roland Emmerich did something about that once? (This is taken from an concept art)

This movie is the perfect art of confusion and with many well-known stars (I forgot to mention Bai Ling, Mandy Moore and Kevin Smith as an legless Iraqi War vet who has an white hair) and while it has an decent soundtrack (except ''Teen Horniness Is Not A Crime''), this movie should extra timing on production like Apocalypse Now! To say it simply, this movie is not painful like the others and can be watchable but it does still create headaches to us all. I like Richard Kelly for Donnie Darko and I can take The Box but Southland Tales... well, I'm still waiting for that so-called ''Expanded Edition'' he promised us to deliver and maybe this movie will hopefully make sense... or not!

I'm not making any ''Kevin Smith as Santa Claus'' jokes because he still kicks ass, however...

... I wanna make an joke on Justin Timberlake with a scar so send me an email and maybe I'll steal yours instead.

I do have one thing to say – There's an surreal connection to this movie and the cancelled television series Jericho with 1) Boxer Santaros played ''Jericho Cane'' in a never-produced screenplay (I'm not going through ''End Of Days'' reference with another Jericho Cane), 2) Both involves nuclear explosions and 3) Both this movie and the pilot episode of Jericho have The Killers ''All These Things That I've Done'' (one in an BLAM moment with Justin Timberlake miming the song in a weird musical number). Seriously, I'm not sure if Richard Kelly watched that show and re-edit the script that's been done before 9/11 attack.

If this is Justin's attempt to do an duet with The Killers, then it seems to have failed.

It may seem to be the worst Independence Day movie ever but the world is still going so if you excuse me while I'm gonna watch Eraserhead, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive in one setting because at least these movies had some sort of sense. Oh, and you want a detailed and more-funnier review... you know a site called Agony Booth so uh, I will give the link to the first-timers just in case: http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Southland_Tales_2006.aspx

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