(I saw Southland Tales and Revolver recently)

Revolver shares a strong kinship with Southland Tales. Both are made by so-called "cult directors" and both directors appeared to have lost their touch after rocking the world with their respective debuts. One could argue that Richard Kelly produced an accidental masterpiece with Donnie Darko, and that after Snatch, Guy Ritchie left his talent/good sense somewhere inside of Madonna, but as for an answer, I don't have one and I think both filmmakers have a couple more movies in them before the shark-jump point can be determined.

Revolver and Southland Tales have a high-brow concept at their foundation. In Revolver, it isn't explicitly revealed until the closing credits. In Southland Tales... well, it isn't EVER explicitly revealed and you have to pour over interviews and bible verses to get any answers. But the ideas themselves are cool and interesting enough to almost make you forget about the numerous flaws in both films.

See, there's where the frustration comes in; that ALMOST. A flaw is still a flaw. There's no getting around it, and there's no pretending that they didn't happen. Both foundations are solid but the building don't make it far up past ground zero. Ain't no families gonna be shielded from the rain in these houses. Still, what beautiful floor plans! My God, what went wrong here?

Let me digress for a moment. Here is an appreciation for the 40th anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey:

[link]

I'll quote the important part here in case the link above doesn't work, because I still don't know how this internet shit works.

Kubrick: "... The whole idea that a movie should be seen only once is an extension of our traditional conception of the film as an ephemeral entertainment rather than as a visual work of art. We don't believe that we should hear a great piece of music only once, or see a great painting once, or even read a great book just once. But the film has until recent years been exempted from the category of art—a situation I'm glad is finally changing."

That filled me with pride when I first read it, but my response nowadays would be: "Guess what, Stan: it hasn't, and they still aren't." You see how smart the guy was back then and the fact hits you like a brick in the face: Stanley Kubrick was a fucking genius and it's a crying fucking shame that he wasn't immortal.

And it's a shame that he ever had the courage to be hopeful about the movie industry (let's not forget, this was the same industry that buried Orson Welles without a second thought). If you think film wasn't art back then, it sure ain't now. In an age where A Scanner Darkly makes shit at the box office, Transformers makes more money than Jesus, and even David Lynch suffers from creative blue balls, I'm surprised that filmmakers try at all anymore. I mean, why be coy about it? Let's point a camera at a pair of naked tits and have shit explode in the background. We'll all be rich.

Big ideas aren't championed the way they used to be. You have to dress it up and make it look stupid in order to get anything quicker than a straight-to-DVD release two years after a premiere at some obscure film festival. Why? Because audiences have gotten so used to the pampering and the pandering that as soon as a movie no longer feels like a movie, they get angry. And they place the blame squarely on the big ideas cluttering up the frame.

Revolver and Southland Tales are at least 6.5/10-good BECAUSE of the big ideas, not in spite of them. Everything in me wants to put them on higher pedastals. But guess what? They can't go there.

Here is why they fail:


Southland Tales

1) Bad Acting - Cheri Oteri, Wood Harris, Wallace Shawn, and to a smaller extent, Amy Poehler, get the award for ruining every single scene that they are in. In what is the most unexpected thing to happen ever, Seann William Scott, Jon Lovitz, and Justin Timberlake outshine them all, but not enough to force them out of the film since practically every fucking word of the screenplay is so goddamn important to understanding what is going on.

2) "Humor" - In fact, the only moments that aren't vitally important to the story are these moments of painfully unfunny levity. Cheri Oteri beats up Christopher Lambert and someone gets a tazer to the balls. Both scenes suck, I hate them. Especially the tazer to the balls thing. Nothing undermines the reality of the film like that fucking scene. UGH

3) Fluid Karma Hallucinations? Where? - My favorite aspect of the script gets the least amount of screen time, and worse, it gets put to a shitty Killers song. There are plenty of other songs that could have been used with the word 'soldier' in the lyrics. A war-faring theme would have done fine. Fuck, somebody send Richard Kelly some Decemberists albums this second, maybe he still has time to reshoot the scene with When the War Came.

4) Important Characters Introduced 30 Minutes Before the End - This actually could have easily been fixed with some better editing. Introduce Pilot and Martin early on and fuck the audience if they don't recognize Martin an hour later. It'll give a stronger illusion that he was there the entire time.

5) Unimportant Shit EVERYWHERE - A lot of the plot seems to hinge on these specific instances coming together and causing the climax. Kelly also appears to have thrown in a bunch of unnecessary shit to confuse us. I say, we're already confused and I'd rather not listen to those two fat bitches giggle. We get it, you hate the government, now die.

The big thing: it's an intelligent work of art disguised as a bad fucking movie. But I can't fully admire the art if the bad fucking movie is in the way, can I?


Revolver

1) Bad Acting - This isn't new with Ritchie. Even Snatch, which I love, has scenes of cringe-worthy acting. Here, though, it feels slightly more criminal. I remember Swept Away having better performances than this film. Ray Liotta, I love you, but those words sound all kinds of wrong coming out of your mouth. And you're the weakest of the bunch! Did Uwe Boll ruin you or something?

2) Psychology - In a paradoxical fashion, this aspect permeates every edge and yet its execution is pretty half-assed. Shit gets animated at one point for no reason, footage repeats endlessly, and even Macha gets an inner monologue. And for a climax that could have used more 'oomph,' it's extremely sad that the frenetic inner struggle is so worn out when it finally spirals outward.

3) Cinematography/Directing - I hate the piss-yellow look and I'm perplexed by the choices in camera angles. Did you leave your ability to direct inside of Madonna as well, Ritchie? Why the fuck are you shooting this scene from so far away?

4) Sorter Steals the Show - I'm not entirely heartless. The coolest assassin ever shoots the fuck out of people and is probably the deepest supporting character in the film. In fact, I think most of my favorite scenes have him in them... hmm...

5) Loose Ends - What happened to the villain? What happened to these guys? Are these two okay? Did everything work out for Macha? Fuck you, the movie's over, you don't get to know.

The big thing: outside of the concept, it's thin. If you know what you're getting into, you can guess where it's all going within the first fifteen minutes. And I'm sorry, a lot of the gangster action simply isn't interesting.


Bottom line, the artists are still the ones who answer for their art. They are the ones who succeed or fail, and either they can defend it or excuse themselves for fucking up. They can learn from it. Revolver and Southland Tales are almost masterpieces, but the sad thing is, they are also almost pieces of shit.
But in the way that they are almost masterpieces, it makes the failure not matter so much.


Did I just spend three hours typing this? Jesus Christ, I need to go to bed.