Al's Birthday Review: Donnie Darko (Director's Cut)

It's Al's birthday again! The tradition continues this year as I look at another film at his request - though this year, he was feeling relatively kind (even after Dimension High School - kind of a shock).

So: Donnie Darko (the director's cut version). The reason? It's from the same guy who did Southland Tales, which I absolutely loathed (so much so I did not one but two posts on it), so he wanted to see if another - somewhat better respected - film by the same person would come off better.

Short version: Yup.

Longer version...well, here goes.

Donnie Darko is the tale of teenaged Donnie, a troubled boy who hears voices and frequently finds himself waking up from slumber far from his house at places like cliffside roads or golf courses. Highly intelligent but confused and fearful, he struggles to fit in and understand the world around him, and to relate to family, teachers, and classmates. After one of his apparent sleepwalking episodes saves his life when an airplane engine mysteriously crashes through his bedroom where he otherwise would've been sleeping, he starts experiencing ever stranger visions, and investigates the words of Frank, a man in a creepy rabbit costume, who has told him the world will end in 28 days. This leads him to finally form some connections, but also to begin to understand a theory of time travel that suggests the apocalyptic prophecy might be true.

Donnie Darko lays a lot on the shoulders of Jake Gyllenhaal, playing the title character, and he knocks it out of the park. His Donnie is unsettling and erratic, confused and chaotic, but also sympathetic - a very difficult balance but one that Gyllenhaal manages exceptionally well. It's a very complex role and he captures the equal parts brilliance and confusion at the heart of the character - his search for answers and lack of understanding of his own identity, but also his certainty in rejecting answers he finds false. The film depends on developing an investment in Donnie's story and a willingness to follow it to its conclusion. The story can seem to jump around or experience somewhat jarring shifts, but Gyllenhaal keeps our attention quite well.

The supporting cast...no one does a bad job acting, but I'm not sure that all of them come off the way the film intended, necessarily. In particular there's an English teacher that I think I was supposed to like a lot more than I did - she seems downright mean at times in scenes that I think were supposed to come off as funny. Just a personal reaction, I guess. Other characters sometimes seem to change in characterization a bit from time to time, particularly Donnie's parents, who vary between warm acceptance of their son and almost a fear of him in ways that don't entirely seem natural. In some scenes I really liked them, in others I felt like they were robots. Not sure if that was intended or just some awkward acting or direction there. Most of the students in the film seemed to be totally awful people, particularly the two guys Donnie hangs out with most, who are just absolutely horrible and insulting to other people for no reason whatsoever. But there's a lot of good character work, too. Patrick Swayze as an overenthusiastic motivational speaker (with some secrets) puts on a great performance, and Donnie's girlfriend Gretchen helped a lot with bringing me into the story emotionally and providing both support and contrast to Donnie's viewpoint. Donnie's therapist, too, brings a lot of interesting discussion to the plot and I ended up liking her attempts to help Donnie figure out who he was and what he believed (with one exception). Overall, it's a good cast, just uneven at times.

I think the film carries a little bloat, honestly - there are some scenes that just don't feel necessary, mostly ones that happen with other characters without Donnie present and that don't relate to Donnie's storyline itself. There are points where we start following, say, the English teacher or Donnie's mom and don't really learn anything necessary, or that couldn't have been conveyed in a way more directly linked to our main character. It throws the film off a bit and breaks up its style - it relies a lot on Donnie's particular quirks and his unique viewpoint, so when we suddenly see things from another character's point of view, it's hard to quite know what to think. We suddenly move from the realm of the uncertain to that of the certain, and oddly, that doesn't work as well for the film.

Some of the film's attempts at humor or characterization didn't thrill me. There's a lot of, as I mentioned above, people just plain being awful to other people for no apparent reason, which doesn't really do a lot to make you want to see the world saved. There's a lot of references made for the sake of making references - you know the kind I mean - and one spectacularly unnecessary scene in the therapists' office that I could've done without mixed in with a bunch of better and much more interesting ones that I thought were great. The film is good but I think could've used a bit of a trim or a second look at things occasionally.

From a technical perspective, there's nothing to complain about. The film is shot well, very clear, and makes great use of lighting to set the mood and change perceptions when needed. Effects are handled well and aren't overdone - the film resists the urge to go for particularly massive sequences even when it has an excuse, and has an understated sort of tone to it that does just enough to get its point across. Yes, some of it looks a bit dated now, but not in any serious way - a benefit of it not pushing hard on an effects angle to begin with.

I'll be honest, this is still a pretty opaque film, just not near as much as Southland Tales. But it shows a real willingness to heavily explore its version of time travel and time theory, and in ways where things do start to "click" by the film's end. It lays out concepts and then eventually demonstrates how they are fulfilled. I felt, at the end of the story, that I at least had a theory as to what was happening and why things were happening, and a general understanding of the plot, the ending, and what it all meant. I don't know for sure that my concept absolutely matches the intended concept - maybe it does, maybe it doesn't - but I felt like I had grasped the film overall. Much better than I can say for several other films Al's given me! And it was genuinely interesting, which is also a change of pace.

And heck, it's a film that actually makes pretty good use of title cards - it sets them up as chapter headers from a book on time travel Donnie is given, and relates information that is actually important to the plot rather than just being self-important.

Also, dance numbers! Okay, just one or two.

The time concepts used in the story are pretty fascinating, and they're presented interestingly - Donnie and his perceptions feel unreliable, so we're never quite sure if what's being presented is real or in his imagination. Is Frank real, or some kind of voice in his head? Is he both? Donnie's actions are so erratic and he's so unable to explain himself that it can seem like things might not actually be happening - he might just be crazy. But if he isn't, if the strange events really are happening, then what does it mean for his world?

The theory presented, too, works well and is used nicely by the film. Much of what else I have to say may qualify as spoilers, so if you haven't seen this yet and don't want them, there's your warning.

The theory used here is basically a variant of the many worlds theory, where a "tangent" universe is created when something causes a change. In this concept, however, the tangent universe is inherently unstable and will come to a dramatic end that, if I was interpreting properly, would kill off the prime universe as well. A "living receiver" (i.e. "chosen one") is tasked with restoring the timeline to normal, and "manipulated dead" (i.e. "time ghosts") serve as his guide. In this case, the receiver is Donnie and the dead is Frank (as well as possibly some other characters, though that's less clear).

The film effectively uses its mythos and builds nicely to its ending, which ties together a lot of loose ends and shows how the theory works together well. Effectively, with minimal spoilers, Donnie's actions establish the very thing that will save him, allowing him to play his role in the film's ending. The film, I think, could still have been a little clearer with what Donnie actually does do in the end - it would be easy, if you missed one line earlier in the film, to mistake what happens as an accident and Donnie as a passive observer, or to mistake which precise action he takes that's "necessary" (which I think I did at first). Don't want to go into more detail than that as this one's quite good and I'd rather you watch it and form your own opinions, but there you go.

Look - Donnie Darko does have some flaws, and this director's cut at least could probably have used a little trim here and a little tweak there, but by and large, it's a very good film. A good lead, an interesting concept, and some fascinating work with theory combine to make one of the better films I've watched recently. I feel like it still has some revelations or some deeper understanding I could reach, but I don't feel confused - I feel like it was more than clear enough for me but still deep enough to be interesting and have more to explore. Something to delve into again but that didn't leave me wanting, if that makes any sense.

What the heck happened with Southland Tales, right?

So yes - I really liked Donnie Darko, flaws aside, and this is one case where I'm pretty grateful Al picked a film for me. It's an interesting story and - while I can only comment on this version - is told well, in a way that kept me going and searching for what was going to happen and how things would all come together. There are ways it could be stronger, but nothing crippling to the film. It's a strange tale, but worth the time. So - thanks, Al. Maybe I'll take back that lump of coal I got you for your present.

Lost in Translation?: Donnie Darko

I haven't ever really talked much about Donnie Darko.



I still won't yet, but here's a crazy cover from Japan that I 'spruced up a bit'...

Good stuff.

It does make the menace feel like much more of a Horror one than...whatever the actual Story is supposed to be about.

I kid, I kid- it's still no Izo.

For those wondering, here's the untouched Poster I found originally...

Still good, but it needed a bit more 'oomph' to me.  There you go.

Little Richard: The Box

Sorry, Richard.  I have nothing against Richard Kelly, but, well, he seems to be a one-film wonder.  That one film is, obviously, Donnie Darko.  What has followed that film has been, well, not good.  It took years to get his next 'magnum opus' made.  That film: Southland Tales.  It was supposedly designed as a 9-Part tale involving 6 comics and three films.  Pretty big, huh?  He got 2 comics and one film.  Not so big, it seems.  More importantly, the final product released didn't do well, leading to some serious confidence issues with the studio.  What happened next?  Well, much like M. Night Shyamalan, he was given a 'safe' project.  In M. Night's case, it was The Last Airbender.  In Kelly's case, it was an adaptation of a story called 'Button, Button' by the late Richard Matheson.  Sorry, Mr. Matheson.  In the same year, we also get S. Darko, an embarrassing 'sequel' with only one returning Cast Member.  Could this be worse?  Well, it's not good.  It has some good elements and probably is a good story.  If you could take the good parts on their own, it would be an easy recommendation.  As it is, it's got a lot of problems.  To see some of them, read on...

A mysterious man drops a box off at a house owned by 'Cyclops' and one of 'Charlie's Angels.'  The box is a casing for a button that may/may not do something weird.

Just to note: The Box is an odd title for this film.  Why not The Button?  Is it any more silly than The Box?

Cameron Diaz is a Teacher with a messed-up foot, while James Marsden in a NASA Scientist who fails to qualify as an Astronaut.  It's here we see one of the film's problems...

The reveal of Diaz's foot would have more impact if we actually knew her, as opposed to having it occur in the first ten minutes.  With as much time as they dick around in the Second Act, they had to rush this part?

The box's owner (Frank Langella) arrives on cue.  Him and his partial-face explain that if they push the button, someone they don't know will die and they will get $1 Million (do your own Dr. Evil voice as you read this).

Will they push the button?  Will they not push the button?  They do.

I suppose that this is a Spoiler, but would there really be a movie if they didn't?

It's here that things fall apart.

You see, not content to just make the film a 'Morality Play' and have them live with the possible consequences of their 'greed,' the film turns into a bizarre, conspiracy tale.  This...is what you wanted your movie to be?  Look- you're hurting Brita!

So yeah, it's a tale of conspiracies and tests for humanity.  This is all so...ugh.

Save me from this pretentious bullshit, Santa!  It's only September, but get off your ass...please.

Government conspiracies!  NSA misdeeds!  People meeting at night in front of Warehouses!

This is what you get from The Box.  Were you expecting a character study in Greed vs. Morality?  Screw that noise!

I won't SPOIL the Ending, but I will say that it's similar enough to the 1980's Twilight Zone version, only over-complicated and silly like Kelly seems to do to everything.

Seriously, read Matheson's original story (or at least a summary).  THAT is a good Twist Ending.  This...has many problems.  The End.

Everything about this shows what could have been.  Seriously, how hard is this?  Just for comparison: the 1980's Version of the tale.  Done in the 1-Hour Format, the Episode runs around 44 minutes long.  The WHOLE thing is built around the Button and whether or not to press it.  Aside from the changed Ending (which this one uses somewhat anyhow), that's how you do it!  Instead, Matheson constructed an elaborate and silly reasoning for the Button itself.  This ruins what the focus of the story should be entirely.  On top of that, it's full of either holes or just plain confusing things.  You get Water Doors, mysteriously-caused ailments and all sorts of convenient things.  So much of this is not based on chance and what choices you make- it's rigged in favor of the house.  Other than literally forcing you to push the Button, the people/forces behind it just plain cheat.  The whole thing is just rigged in their favor and it really takes a bite out of the 'moral choices' behind the whole thing.  Speaking of bad things, did we need a sub-plot involving Diaz's foot and a mold being made for it.  Furthermore, did her disfigurement add anything to the story?  Hell, did Langella's?  In summary, there's a great story- Button, Button- buried in this convoluted mess.  Even a replacement Donnie Darko couldn't help this one.

Next up, a quirky film that's been sitting on my shelf for two weeks.  Will this Troma release by Philippe Mora be worth it?  Stay tuned...

*Bob* Has More To Say About: Southland Tales

EDITOR'S NOTE: Bob has a lot to say about 'Southland Tales,' but doing it this way makes for a simpler read. Here is the remainder of his angry rant/review.

Now, in (hopefully) brief, here’s my discussion of what is wrong with this movie:

1. It can’t figure out how to properly present a point.
a. Argument 1: Patriot Act = Bad. The movie does show that the USIDent involves the invasion of privacy (at one point even showing that they have cameras in bathrooms), but shoots itself in the foot by demonstrating, repeatedly, that USIDent and the over-controlling military save lives. Military snipers save both Boxer and Krysta when they’re being threatened by violently unbalanced people, and the only cop who is (to my recollection, and I am not going back through this to check) shown to kill unarmed targets is Bart, who is pretty clearly portrayed as rogue. And, of course, we have to look at the opposition, the Neo-Marxists: they kidnap people, brainwash people with amnesia (“Ronald”) into helping them (that’s the only idea for what happened that I can come up with), and also cut off fingers to rig fingerprint-based voting machines. Kind of hard to feel sympathy for characters who do things like that.
b. Argument 2: Gas = Bad and Alternative Energy = Good. The main “villain” of the film is Westphalen, who has made the most amazing alternative energy device ever. I think that kind of says everything I need to say, doesn’t it? Now, it’s possible I misread the film’s point, but it was pretty heavy-handed with those points on narration, so I kind of doubt it…it is just that the story doesn’t match up with the point it is trying to make.

2. The film is overly based on trying to make those points in the first place. There isn’t much of an actual plot here, honestly, for a 2-and-a-half hour film. Honestly, all the social commentary really overwhelms the plot. I recall watching V for Vendetta and getting more than a little annoyed at all the commentary points in that movie where the plot just kind of stopped to let the film have its say about the Bush administration despite being set in England (and to be clear, I actually rather liked V for Vendetta in a lot of ways), but that had nothing on Southland Tales.

3. It pauses far too frequently for overly elaborate transitions, and just generally has a ton of filler. There are several subplots and scenes that really don’t matter to the overall film and could easily have been cut without losing anything—in particular, a lot of the character stuff with the Neo-Marxists who are going to die at the 50-minute mark anyway, and the Krysta-and-the-video subplot. But even without going into that…the film loves to throw neato-keen transitions at you where it spends quite a while lingering on a screen with multiple TVs that are adding nothing of consequence to the plot other than throwing Martin Kefauver’s name at you again and again so…I guess so that someone, somewhere, can celebrate the fact that they somehow figured out that because his name was being shown since the beginning of the film he’d blow up the airship. And then there’s the music video sequence with Pilot, who sings the Killers’ “All These Things that I’ve Done” except when he’s pausing to drink beer while the singer’s part is still being sung by someone in what I guess is supposed to be some kind of commentary about something vitally important that the film can’t be bothered to explain (and by the way, that’s a dream sequence for “Ronald” after he takes some drugs).

4. It introduces what were clearly intended to be major film elements far too late. There are a few suggestions early on that some kind of time weirdness is going on (such as “Ronald” having a delay in his reflection in the mirror), but the point is almost completely dropped until the end of the film. Ideally, a few more hints might have been put in…for instance, Boxer could have found out that he was taken by Roland, and then discovered being driven out in the desert, and then maybe had some time clone bullshit flashback, etc. Also, the film’s ending phrase is “He is a pimp. And pimps don’t commit suicide.” This phrase, apparently an important enough quote (and really…that’s your ending line?) to end the movie and be the takeaway line, is first introduced about 4/5ths of the way through the film (1 hour and 54 minutes in). Oh, and also, I still don’t understand why it was even said, since Boxer says it in relation to the fact that original Boxer is dead…I guess maybe in some way the guys telling him this are trying to get him to think he killed Boxer #1, and he’s denying it, but it could be clearer. It’s repetition at the end of the film makes no real sense either, considering that by shaking hands and basically probably destroying the world, Roland and “Ronald” are committing suicide.

5. Insufficient or illogical explanations. The most notable one is probably the reason Boxer was sent through the time rift when monkey testing was an utter failure. The Baron wanted to send a movie star through, because…um. Anyway, Boxer’s political connections in addition to his movie star status made him perfect, because…um. And Boxer, an action movie star, understands the situation and what will happen to the world based on quantum mechanics (and even wrote a screenplay based on this understanding, perfectly predicting the eventual end of the world) because…well, the movie really doesn’t say, but I gather it’s because he went through the time rift. Look, I’m willing to accept crazy stuff for a film (I watch a lot of anime and play a lot of JRPGs), but you have to give me a little something to enable me to buy that you’ve at least come up with a decent—if very fake—explanation! 

6. Inexplicable constant use of the “do it or I’ll kill myself” ploy. There’s three scenes that easily come to mind: Crazy Lady with Boxer on the beach, Boxer trying to get the evacuation going, and Roland and “Ronald” in the flying ice cream truck. That kind of ruins the dramatic moment, especially when the first use of it I can recall is one involving a lady wanting to have sex, not the end of the world.

7. Overall pretentiousness. Honestly, this movie is just aggressively arrogant and intentionally overcomplicated at times. From the unnecessary musical numbers to the cute little hints that aren’t really hints to the constant quotations and Biblical references, the film is constantly throwing little things around to show how smart it is. It’s kind of like that guy who goes to meetings and talks about complex economics or particle physics or something to show off his intelligence, but when you actually ask him to explain any of it, he just says “you wouldn’t understand” and condescendingly pats you on the shoulder. It even has one of those endings that makes you guess what happened…and while I do feel that such a thing can be used to great effect, in this film, it just caps off the annoyance of the night. If you’re going to waste two and a half hours of my life with pretentious crap, at least give me a clear ending. Show me the world blowing up or something so I can take clear solace in the idea that all of these annoying characters are now undoubtedly dead and will never bother me again.

8. Meaninglessness. The actions of almost all the characters in the movie are utterly pointless. Only the actions of Martin (who is, again, introduced very late), Roland, and “Ronald” matter in the least, and honestly you can kind of cross Martin off too since if the world blows up it really doesn’t matter that he shot an airship about 45 seconds before that. But basically all of the Boxer stuff is pointless because he and every character involved in his plot die in the airship crash. And the Boxer stuff is the majority of the film.

9. Length: I know, I’ve already said stuff about this, but the film drags on and so will I. This film is just amazingly long, and it really hits you hard at some points. It is an act of sheer willpower to make it through the whole thing. Again, I just have to emphasize that basic introduction takes a full 9 minutes or so, we don’t meet the second main character until over 15 minutes in, and the story doesn’t really get going with the two plots until 50 minutes in. As a further emphasis, the ending sequence—the airship—starts at the 1 hour and 44 minute mark. Yes…the film was “clearly starting to wrap up” 40 minutes before it actually did so. I don’t have a problem with long films. I do have a problem with long films that do not need to be long and in fact seem to be teasing me about that fact.

*Bob* Reviews: Southland Tales

Hey, everyone. I'm Bob, and this is my yearly descent into horror and insanity. Once again I've made the mistake of allowing Al to get another year older, so here I am, reviewing Southland Tales. This time, Al specifically asked me to review the film, since with my love of pretentious bullshit…er…intricate, psychological, thinking-man’s entertainment…I’d stand the best chance at being able to figure the film out. So I get to blame him doubly for this one this time. EDITOR'S NOTE: Whatever.

*

There are three things about Southland Tales that were actually quite good. First off, the introduction is actually pretty neat. It’s done as though it were a home video being taken by a couple kids at a neighborhood or family party, and it feels pretty legitimate. I wouldn’t honestly be surprised if I were told that the director just found a family willing to turn in a tape of their party, and then had some of them film a couple extra “planned” scenes, but I’m sure it probably was all scripted. Just, honestly, it was nicely done. Second, the camerawork, lighting, and overall cinematography of the film…all very good. Most shots are just fine, and there are some very beautiful shots with just the perfect use of lights to get a very dramatic mood. Third…the acting is mostly quite good. Almost everyone involved gives a nice performance, though there are a few oddities here and there- a few SNL cast members who ham it up a bit too much at times and are at odds with the mood, and Wallace Shawn as Baron Von Westphalen goes too over the top with the role at times making it hard to take him seriously. Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson gives a particularly good performance, excepting a few parts where he seems to have been told to act as strangely as possible, and he’s playing an unusual part for him-an action star who is actually nervous and meek. Honestly, the problems this film has have nothing to do with the filming or the acting, and that’s an unusual thing in my experience.

*

As usual, there will be SPOILERS here, so for those of you who don’t want them, here’s my quick opinion: Southland Tales is a bad film, due largely to its habit of sending mixed messages and being too busy being artsy or intentionally over-complicated to have much of a plot. It is unfortunately not a particularly interesting bad film, so I don’t really recommend it even to those of you who seek out terrible cinema. That said, it isn’t as horrible as Narcosys, so…there’s that, I guess?

The film opens with a little home video sequence set in Texas, where we soon learn there was a nuclear attack. A narrator (Justin Timberlake as “Pilot”) and a CG/video sequence of news reports and…basically advanced Powerpoint slides…then bring us up to speed…and up to speed…and up to speed. The movie has to pause to do that a lot, featuring a ton of direct exposition (which breaks up the film’s flow). So here’s the basics: after nuclear attacks in Texas, America revived the draft lottery, and “World War III” began. Mind, World War III is apparently between America and Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, and North Korea, so considering that one of the primary rules of being a World War is that you basically have to cover most of the World, I’d say it kind of fails. Because the USA was fighting so much in the Middle East, oil became restricted, so alternative fuel projects are now very important. Additionally, the Patriot Act was expanded as the Republicans took control of the government (complete with a wonderful image of two elephants humping-thanks, movie). Checkpoints were even set up between states. And now, liberal rebels are appearing, such as the Neo-Marxists. And as the final setup, we have the 2008 election being decided by the votes of California (the “Southland” is part of California)…and an actor- Boxer Santaros (The Rock)- who is married to the daughter of one of the Republican candidates, has gone missing, only to be found 3 days later with amnesia. This opening sequence also uses a number of comic book panels to tell the backstory of Pilot, one of the soldiers from the war. Pilot was apparently a victim of friendly fire in the form of a grenade. We meet Pilot soon afterwards…he likes to read from Revelations while seated on his beachside giant sniper turret. We get the first of many “This is the way the world ends” quotes (3x), followed by “not with a whimper, but a bang,” which will be repeated frequently. We go in an odd transition to multiple TV screens with a bunch of people jabbering at us about nothing really comprehensible. In addition, we see our first of many text references to Martin Kefauver, a character who won’t show up until very near the end of the film. EDITOR'S NOTE: What?

More scene-setting follows (we’re now 7 minutes in and basically nothing has actually happened yet). USIDent was created (thanks to the Republicans) to control cyberspace, empowered by the Patriot Act. (Not that I have any problem with this, but USIDent sure employs a lot of midgets.) USIDent is opened by Senator Bobby Frost, who likes to quote Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” A lot. Especially when it doesn’t make sense to do so, like how he quotes “…and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference” when opening USIDent, something which apparently had the support of the majority of the nation. Oh, well.

Boxer, having returned from the desert where he was left, is now living with “Krysta Now,” (Sarah Michelle Gellar) with whom he has written a screenplay called “The Power.” 9 minutes, by the way, and mostly all narration and scene-setting. Krysta is a porn star.

*

Now we meet Baron Von Westphalen, who has an alternative energy scheme that’s actually kind of neat: an energy emitter powered by the ocean sends out waves of power to vehicles, homes, etc. This is called Fluid Karma. Now, keep in mind the film has been waving the “gas is evil” flag already and will continue to do so, and really seemed to want us to believe in alternative energy. Now, you won’t find out until later in the film, but Westphalen is very evil. So…is alternative energy bad, too? What is the movie trying to say?

Okay. So…scene set. From here, the movie basically follows two major plots (and a hell of a lot of minor ones): Boxer Santaros, and Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott)…oh, what’s that? I haven’t mentioned Roland yet? That’s because we’re 15 minutes in and the movie hasn’t seen fit to do so either, despite him being half the focus of the movie- gah! Here are the basics (and yes, this is the basics): “Ronald” is in the care of the Neo-Marxists at first, engaged in a plot to imitate his “twin brother” Roland, who was captured by the Neo-Marxists (he’s apparently okay with this). This is part of an overly elaborate plan to make the Republicans look bad by making Boxer Santaros look bad, because saying something bad about the husband of the daughter of the Senator who is running certainly says a lot about the Senator himself. The idea is this: Ronald will pretend to be a horrible racist power-mad cop, and take Boxer on a ride-along so Boxer can study how to be a police officer for his film. Ronald will “shoot” two people having a domestic dispute (actually two of the Neo-Marxists), after making a few racist comments to Boxer on Boxer’s camera while riding with him. The plan goes to pot when Ronald and Boxer meet a real power-mad rogue cop, Bart Bookman (Jon Lovitz), who really shoots the two Neo-Marxists for no particular reason. Boxer does get this on film and Bart also films Boxer, so the overall concept is still intact. All of that takes a full 50 minutes for the film to get through. Yep, when most films would be halfway through or more, this finally finishes up its basic introduction. From here, Boxer and Ronald split up, and so I’ll do a very shortened recap of their stories:

Ronald: Ronald rejoins his Neo-Marxist buddies. Ronald starts trying to find his “twin brother,” who is trying to find him- after being set free by a Neo-Marxist just before USIDent raids their hideout and kills everyone there- and eventually runs into Martin Kefauver, a young man who just got drafted and who is trying to commit suicide because of it. Ronald convinces Martin not to do it, and the two drive off together. Later, they give up on going wherever they were going and rip an ATM out of the wall at a bank with their SUV, because Ronald’s magic twin vision or something reveals that they’re going to need it. Meanwhile Roland is captured by a weapons nut (Christopher Lambert- just because). In an extraordinary happenstance, ATM meets Weapon Guy’s ice cream truck- when the SUV ice cream truck happen to drive past each other- and Roland is freed. However, he’s freed in the middle of the riots, and both “brothers” are shot. Then they shake hands...

Boxer: After running the hell away from the shooting, Boxer is contacted by a lady at USIDent who was entranced by a copy of his screenplay she found out on the Interwebz, and now believes she is a scientist character in the screenplay. She calls him by his character’s name (Jericho Kane…which is actually a cooler name than Boxer Santaros) and gives him some guidance. She gets him in touch with someone who works for Bobby Frost, so the Republicans can finally…

…find him. Sorry, wait, what? Okay. So Westphalen shows off a car commercial involving two SUVs humping. What confuses me is why these things even have exhaust pipes, since they’re supposedly powered by hydroelectric quantum teleporbullshit (HEQTBS), but anyway, one exhaust pipe is the xxxxx and the other is the xxxxxx and I damn near gave up right there, but let’s move on.

So Boxer ends up at Frost’s house and meets his wife, and then his porn star girlfriend Krysta comes in and (quite reasonably) girlfriend and wife hate each other extremely. The movie kind of suggests the wife is being overly-mean, but no offense, the girlfriend is an idiot, a porn star, and an admitted slut, so…whatever. Anyway, Westphalen is apparently funding the Neo-Marxists, as the wife found out somehow and Westphalen knows that the wife is having a baby with someone other than Boxer. Krysta runs off, and Boxer decides to leave too, and despite spending the entire movie so far looking for him, Frost and co. just kind of let him walk right out the door, take a car, and go away after Westphalen’s assistant quotes something to him. Boxer ends up following USIDent Crazy Lady’s directions and meeting her on a beach, where she gives him some last info and then wants to suck his dick, leading to Pilot shooting her as she threatens to commit suicide and then threatens Boxer with the gun. Boxer runs again, but runs into Krysta’s friend that he was staying with, only he’s actually with the Baron...so he takes Boxer hostage again. Boxer is taken to his wife, and apparently spoke while he was asleep, apparently he now knows the world is going to end in 3 days...except that was 3 days ago so it all ends tonight. His wife agrees to help him now and they go on to the Baron’s giant HEQTBS airship. Krysta, after finding and mailing the Boxer-at-the-crime-scene video to the Neo-Marxists because she thinks it is a sex tape of her and Boxer and that this can get back at the wife or something, and being chased by Bart the evil cop and one of the Neo-Marxists who was secretly working with him, is now working on the airship as a dancer, because…um…the Baron wants it for some reason. On the airship, Boxer finds out the truth, and it’s a doozy…there are two Boxers, because he was kidnapped and driven through a portal in time & this created some quantum bullshit clones. Boxer #1 was killed by a car bomb, and Boxer #2 was wandering around. The reason for the experiment was apparently to find out what would happen if two time copies of a person met and touched. Boxer, suddenly aware of advanced quantum mechanics, notes that the universe would end. It turns out that the cop who kidnapped him, Roland Taverner, was also time-cloned, but both copies survived. Boxer goes back to the airship’s launch party, where he then claims that they need to evacuate.

The Ending: Roland and “Ronald” get in the ice cream truck and shake hands, while Martin gets a rocket launcher from Lambert’s collection. The ice cream truck starts to fly. Back at the airship party, Krysta and friends come out on stage, and Boxer gives up on evacuating for a few minutes to go have a dance number. Boxer’s wife comes on stage, then, and then she dances with Krysta, and the two evidently decide to stop hating each other and whisper prophetically, “He’s going to die, and there’s nothing we can do about it.” Then Boxer fires a pistol and yells about evacuating, and the Baron yells about destroying capitalism and dethroning God, and then Martin decides to fire the rocket launcher at the airship and blows it up, killing almost every major character in the movie since they all were there for some reason or another. The two Rolands forgive each other for the friendly fire incident in Iraq (where Pilot was hurt), and then the screen fades to white, which from all indications basically means the world just blew up. 

I’m sure that there’s a lot more I could say about Southland Tales, and believe me when I say there are even more stupid and nutty things about this film than I’ve had the time or inclination to discuss here, but I’ve already taken up so much page space that I’ve probably driven half of you away forever, so before I lose the rest of Al’s audience, let me make one last note. I did not hate Southland Tales as much as I hated Narcosys, but that is largely because the acting (not the script, but the acting) was better, the cinematography was nice, and it didn’t show me full frontal male nudity. I did, however, hate it more than Ninja Vengeance, and Ninja Vengeance was horrible. So that should say something.

Al…Happy Birthday. Expect revenge.