Today I finally watched Southland Tales, a sci-fi-ish sort of film written and directed by Richard Kelly and starring too many cool actors to mention (though I'm definitely going to try), and I actually really liked it, even though I can't say I've understood all of it, or even just most of it. Set in the highly futuristic future year 2008 it tells the story of an alternate reality in which a nuclear attack on Texas has started a third world war. As a result, a new surveillance authority called USIDnet was created, which allows the government to monitor everything its citizens say and do and post online using cameras and fingerprint identification devices. It's not all bad though, because it does mean that whenever you go to the bathroom there's a good chance that someone out there is watching you rather intently, which brings up all sorts of exciting and sexy possibilities. This in turn results in the creation of an underground group known as the Neo-Marxist movement that other than having a pretty awful fashion sense also has some pretty crazy and hilarious ways of defying the people in charge, like rigging the next elections using the many severed thumbs they've been collecting for a while now. There's also a pretty big energy crisis, now that America is at war with the people who sit on most of the world's fuel sources, but a creepy European scientist played by the adorable Wallace Shawn seems to have the solution: a gigantic construction operated by the power of the ocean that can transmit energy to virtually any device without the use of any silly wires. Oh, and, the end of the world is also coming pretty soon, and probably quite loudly so. The Rock plays an action movie star who has lost his memory in the desert or something, so now he can't remember that he's married to Mandy Moore. His current girlfriend is some sort of porn star, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, who is trying to branch her career out to pretty much anything a slutty blonde can do these days, from recording albums ("teen horniness in not a crime!") and hosting a talk show (that deals with such important issues as teleportation, why she wouldn't do anal and, of course, teen horniness) to selling her own fragrance and co-writing a screenplay about the end of the world. Seann William Scott plays a rather disturbed individual with mirror delay issues who is sent by the Neo-Marxists to pose for some reason as his twin brother, who is a cop that's being held captive by Cheri Oteri (as a comedian who thinks that loud equals funny, a role that probably wasn't too big a stretch for her) and Amy Poehler (as some sort of rapping poet, which is like a regular poet, only slightly more annoying). Miranda Richardson fakes a rather charming southern accent as the evil head of USIDnet who also happens to be Mandy Moore's mom and therefore The Rock's mother-in-law, and she looks pretty awesome surrounded by all those fancy surveillance displays. I definitely wouldn't mind having her watch me go number 2, even though she's in her fifties. Justin Timberlake is not too awful as some kind of ex-soldier and ex-actor with pretty attractive facial scarring who shoots people and deals drugs and narrates movies by Richard Kelly. Let's see, who else? The hilarious Jon Lovitz plays a white haired racist cop, the moderately amusing John Larroquette plays a republican or something, Christopher Lambert plays an arms dealer who operates out of an ice cream truck, Kevin Smith plays a guy with a bushy grey beard, and the creepy and sexy Bai Ling plays a creepy, sexy chick. Everybody is working with everybody and everybody's working against each other and just as promised everything ends with a big bang that in no way sounds like a whimper. I didn't really like Donnie Darko and I kinda liked The Box, but those two are like kids' movies compared to this film. The story doesn't make too much sense, but if you were looking for a coherent and structured plot then you're probably watching the wrong movie. There's an astounding amount of cool stuff in here, from crazy musical numbers to rifts in the very fabric of space and time, enough to keep any fan of weird shit fully satisfied. The only thing this movie could have used was a boob or two, and the complete lack of nudity seems pretty odd when you consider the utter adult nature of it. Oh well. It's a pretty huge miracle that someone has actually payed for this movie to be made, and for obvious reasons it was in fact a miserable failure at the box office, but I'm really glad I got to watch it somehow. Now I just need to get my hands on a copy of Cock Chuggers 2, as it's supposed to be even better than the first one!
My thought exactly
I still can't get those broads out of my mind, the ones who went to The Men Who Stare at Goats just because they wanted to see 'the new George Clooney movie'. That's like the most retarded thing in the world, and something that only people of the female persuasion are capable of. I mean, you'd never see a group of guys go to some crappy romantic comedy just because there's some hot actress in the lead role, now would you? Of course not. What they'd do is, they would wait until a screener copy of the movie was available online, then download the parts of it where the hot chick is wearing a bikini or something and have some pleasant pantsless time in front of them, each in the privacy of his own home. That's the only way to deal with having lusty feelings for movie people that makes any sense, and if you'd rather pay to see a movie that doesn't interest you at all instead then you must be some sort of girl.
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