A perfect film to put you to sleep...

[shadowkat]

Weekends have a nasty habit of flying by when you are working during the week, and slugging by when you are not. Proving the fact that our perception of time is directly related to how busy we are and how much we want to accomplish.

Finished watching Southland Tales this morning. Southland Tales is the film by Richard Kelly that was deservingly panned at Cannes a while back. He re-edited it to make it clearer and less politically grating. It was amongst Sarah Michell Geller Prinze's first roles after Buffy. This poor actress has had the worste luck when it comes to movie roles. I give her credit for taking risks. Southland Tales was definitely a risk, and considering the last film Kelly made was Donnie Darko - not necessarily a bad risk. A lot of other good actors pop up in this one - including John Larruquet, Wallace Shawn, and Miranda Richardson - all of whom have very little to do. The best thing in the film is surprisingly enough, Justin Timberlake, which I guess tells everything about this film doesn't it? Timberlake has a sort of catchy rock solo number. It lasts about five minutes and is not worth renting the film for.

I think Kelly meant the film as a sort of hallucinatory and at times satirical take on the current political situation/economic crisis in the US. He critiques such as things as the US ID, the Patriotic ACT, locating alternate sources of fuel, and the Bush administration's invasion of any country it deems as a terrorist threat - which in Kelly's universe starts World War 3.

That part of the film is actually sort of interesting, but like the Timberlake number - it only lasts about five minutes. The film is closer to two-three hours. Felt like 3 and I fast-forwarded, because it was putting me to sleep last night. Took it up again this morning mid-way through.

Has a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo about time travel and the fourth dimension - which makes sense to anyone who has ever read a superhero comic book or pulp science-fiction. And it's not particularly hard to follow. Just rather dull. You don't care about anyone in it. No one resonates. We spend quite a bit of time just following people around while they are walking, chatting aimlessly or just staring at each other. There is a lot of just staring at each other. Not a hell of lot happens though - what does? Could have been done in about twenty minutes. The director apparently likes to linger on a scene...until we've made out every speck of dust on the actor's face or the lack of dust - the air-brush technician must have been well-paid on this one. Everyone looks a bit too perfect. SMGP doesn't have a blemish, Richardson not a wrinkle, and the Rock looks like a Ken Doll.

I'd skip it if I were you. I know a few folks online rather liked it, no clue why - but they did. I didn't hate it, just found it boring. If need something to put you to sleep - rent this movie.

Comments

[embers-log.livejournal.com]

Yeah I think that in both The Grudge, and in Southland Tales, SMG signed on with a new (to Hollywood) up and coming director who she believed was capable of great work... and naturally she hoped that the project she signed on for would BE that great work...
unfortunately both projects took a lot of her time and energy, and neither one of them really managed to do much at all...

Although I do think that some creative people in Hollywood can understand and respect the risks she took. She is definitely not just playing it safe, making boring film... I hope she'll have more luck in the future, it is always a crap shoot.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

I give her a lot of credit - she's diversified a bit. Taken on the role of Ambassador for the CARE organization - in Guatamala - to help the children down there, and in Africa. Spending most of her time at the moment with charity. Her recent Vasline ad - was also motivated by her charitable work (although it benefitted Vaseline more than anyone else) and was risky - one of her few nude scenes. Much smarter than posing for Playboy or Maxim. Instead she did it as a bit of a mystery. And it pulled her back into the public focus.

Her film roles - while less than stellar, due mostly to bad-luck, were at least interesting in theory. I saw The Grudge (bad movie by the way, but an interesting role departure). And doing The Air I Breath, The Return, Addiction (may be called something else now), and Surburban Gal - were also interesting in theory. I haven't seen those.

What this demonstrates is how hard it is to be an actor. Of the people on the Buffy/Angel shows, only three have gotten good and consistent acting jobs - David Boreanze, Michelle Trachenburg and Allyson Hannigan - and I think everyone would agree that they were by no means the most entertaining or stellar of the talent represented.
So much of it has to do with luck. Hannigan and Boreanze - got network deals, which helped, and pursued projects tailor-made to their strengths. Hannigan liked ensemble sex comedies - such as American Pie and Friends. Boreanze liked character driven ensemble or two-man police procedurals - such as Moonlighting, Remington Steel, or Monk...he wanted something that had humor and a mystery - like Angel, but less serialized and less dark. And Trachenburg is young enough to be able to grab guest star roles and teen roles.

The other's have struggled more. I don't feel that sorry for them though - they are getting work. We just aren't enjoying it. Marsters has had numerous paying gigs since Buffy ended - I may not like them all that much, but he's very busy and making more money than I can imagine.
Same goes for Gellar - whose husband recently joined the WWW Wrestling writing team. He's become more of a writer than an actor lately.
And they are doing very well financially.

It's a tough biz. I don't envy them.
When it comes to jobs...professional actor is at the bottom of my wish list.