Lessons Learned From Southland Tales
Jan. 29th, 2009 06:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficI try to keep an open mind about flops. I like ambitious failures and I'm willing to forgive a lot. I enjoyed Spider-Man 3. Unironically! So, why did I hate this? Well, let me share with you future auteurs the facts of life.
First off, I know some of the more geeky filmmakers like cult classics such as Buckaroo Banzai and such. Perfectly natural. However, you must remember that cult classics are failures. People set out to make good movies, failed, and their failures were entertaining in their badness. It's like that time you got a june bug down your pants and danced around like Chris Kattan on speed. What's funny is that it was unplanned and unfiltered. If you had deliberately dropped that june bug down your pants, you would've been Tom Green, and no one wants to be Tom Green. Not even Tom Green.
In short, setting out to make a cult classic in the first place is fucking retarded.
Now, onto my brazen rip-off of the 'Things I Learned' section.
1. After In Bruges (in which Peter Dinklage hilariously shot down the trope of a midget presence being surreal and dream-like by asking the protagonists if they've ever dreamed about midgets), midgets can no longer be considered 'trippy'. This movie has a midget in a SWAT team and midget surveillance state techies. I notice there are no good guy midgets. Why must you hate, Richard Kelly?
2. There are some actors who can make any narration sound portentous and significant. James Earl Jones. Ron Perlman. Optimus Prime. Justin Timberlake is not one of them.
3. If you're casting someone who will both have to play against themselves as their own identical twin and will end up the next messiah, don't cast Seann William Scott.
4. Going to war after a nuclear bomb is detonated on American soil is something only a war-mongering neocon would do.
5. If you populate a movie with characters the audience has no reason to care about, don't be surprised when every single one of the plot twists elicits a reaction of "so what?"
6. It is possible for a movie's plot twists to elicit a reaction of 100% "so what?"
7. If 70% of your cast is comedians or can at least do comedy, you should probably only only have them do dramatic acting, because the audience can take Jon Lovitz completely seriously as a psychotic cop.
8. Republican actors are a ripe target for satire. After all, who hasn't at one point or another wished that someone would take a shot at all those big-name conservative actors, always supporting President Bush?
9. "What if that thing that happened to Ron Silver in Timecop happened, only instead of melting, they started to fly?" is totally a good basis for a movie.
10. Just because you can remake Strange Days, doesn't mean that you should.
11. A facial scar does not make Justin Timberlake a good actor any more than chin fuzz makes Leonardo Dicaprio look like an embittened, world-weary veteran.
12. It is possible for a movie to give you a newfound appreciation of Grant Morrison's bullshit.
13. Ten minutes before the end of your movie is too late to introduce a one-liner into the public consciousness.
14. The weighting of public safety against personal liberties can be solved by tasering someone in the balls. Also, it's okay to settle an intellectual dispute with violence if you're right. (Also, anti-war activists oppose the War in Iraq on feminist grounds.)
15. If your movie is long enough, you don't have to write an ending, because the audience will be so glad the movie is over that they won't care if the climax is someone shooting a bazooka for no reason at a Mega-Zeppelin from a floating ice cream truck and no, it's not as cool as it sounds.
16. If you've been drafted and are afraid you'll die in a war, it makes total sense to commit suicide.
17. No one on the street will recognize an amnesiac Hollywood star.
18. If your plot makes no sense, it's absolutely fine to have the narrator explain everything in lieu of the plot, you know, making sense.
19. There is no number 19.
20. It's completely fair to expect your audience to have to read three graphic novels to understand your movie. After all, you're the director. You outrank them.
ETA: HAAAAAAATE!
First off, I know some of the more geeky filmmakers like cult classics such as Buckaroo Banzai and such. Perfectly natural. However, you must remember that cult classics are failures. People set out to make good movies, failed, and their failures were entertaining in their badness. It's like that time you got a june bug down your pants and danced around like Chris Kattan on speed. What's funny is that it was unplanned and unfiltered. If you had deliberately dropped that june bug down your pants, you would've been Tom Green, and no one wants to be Tom Green. Not even Tom Green.
In short, setting out to make a cult classic in the first place is fucking retarded.
Now, onto my brazen rip-off of the 'Things I Learned' section.
1. After In Bruges (in which Peter Dinklage hilariously shot down the trope of a midget presence being surreal and dream-like by asking the protagonists if they've ever dreamed about midgets), midgets can no longer be considered 'trippy'. This movie has a midget in a SWAT team and midget surveillance state techies. I notice there are no good guy midgets. Why must you hate, Richard Kelly?
2. There are some actors who can make any narration sound portentous and significant. James Earl Jones. Ron Perlman. Optimus Prime. Justin Timberlake is not one of them.
3. If you're casting someone who will both have to play against themselves as their own identical twin and will end up the next messiah, don't cast Seann William Scott.
4. Going to war after a nuclear bomb is detonated on American soil is something only a war-mongering neocon would do.
5. If you populate a movie with characters the audience has no reason to care about, don't be surprised when every single one of the plot twists elicits a reaction of "so what?"
6. It is possible for a movie's plot twists to elicit a reaction of 100% "so what?"
7. If 70% of your cast is comedians or can at least do comedy, you should probably only only have them do dramatic acting, because the audience can take Jon Lovitz completely seriously as a psychotic cop.
8. Republican actors are a ripe target for satire. After all, who hasn't at one point or another wished that someone would take a shot at all those big-name conservative actors, always supporting President Bush?
9. "What if that thing that happened to Ron Silver in Timecop happened, only instead of melting, they started to fly?" is totally a good basis for a movie.
10. Just because you can remake Strange Days, doesn't mean that you should.
11. A facial scar does not make Justin Timberlake a good actor any more than chin fuzz makes Leonardo Dicaprio look like an embittened, world-weary veteran.
12. It is possible for a movie to give you a newfound appreciation of Grant Morrison's bullshit.
13. Ten minutes before the end of your movie is too late to introduce a one-liner into the public consciousness.
14. The weighting of public safety against personal liberties can be solved by tasering someone in the balls. Also, it's okay to settle an intellectual dispute with violence if you're right. (Also, anti-war activists oppose the War in Iraq on feminist grounds.)
15. If your movie is long enough, you don't have to write an ending, because the audience will be so glad the movie is over that they won't care if the climax is someone shooting a bazooka for no reason at a Mega-Zeppelin from a floating ice cream truck and no, it's not as cool as it sounds.
16. If you've been drafted and are afraid you'll die in a war, it makes total sense to commit suicide.
17. No one on the street will recognize an amnesiac Hollywood star.
18. If your plot makes no sense, it's absolutely fine to have the narrator explain everything in lieu of the plot, you know, making sense.
19. There is no number 19.
20. It's completely fair to expect your audience to have to read three graphic novels to understand your movie. After all, you're the director. You outrank them.
ETA: HAAAAAAATE!
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 03:18 am (UTC)I fear Richard Kelly's future is quickly going the way of M. Night Shyamalan. Except, you know, at least Shyamalan has created movies that actually made money.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 03:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 03:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-30 03:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-31 11:00 pm (UTC)