Southland Tales
Easily the best science fiction movie this decade. Many tried: the Wachowski's, Aronofsky, Linklater, Assayas, but this is the ONE. Of course the 'confusing, misdirected mess' or whatever most thought the film was, is far from it. Writer/Director Richard Kelly isn't doing anything more radical than Kubrick did with Dr. Strangelove. In fact the first 15 minutes is like a hyper mix of Kubrick, Michael Mann and Buffy! The basic problem 'critics' and even the core 'audience' had with the film was a simple matter of aesthetics. Basically Kelly has taken the last 20-odd years of modern comic/graphic novel story telling, and dumped it steaming and hot onto the lap of Hollywood and cineaste intelligentsia. Kelly's intricate plot takes the airiness of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and slices and dices it with the Ninja blade of anime surrealist hyper-modern story telling. Sheeit, there are healthy doses of the LSD-fried LA sci-fi of Phil K Dick, KW Jeter and Tim Powers, but fuck that shit, the cocksucking film 'critics' wouldn't have read that dope shit (let em read Jonathan Lethem for all I care, and they still won't get it!)!!!! In a nutshell, it was all too fast, and to into it's own rhythms to worry about what the 'others' thought (Jodorowsky comics anyone?) Kelly has a made a subversive modern American satire. No wonder the thing would flop in today's 'market. It's basically Repo Man shotgunned into a PS2, via the weird pulsations of todays 'post-Christian-Corporated-everything' world. Also throw in the Craig Baldwin hyper-linked info-steria, and you've got a modern cinematic version of agit-prop angina(don't have a heart-attack y'all)! I mean I still haven't seen it in 'perfect cinefillic conditions', rather corporate screener 'blech', but alas that shows how far this film has been tooches trennered !!! Let the global warming sun shine down(and out of my arse!)! (I'll get my 36+)
