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The bad film that most desperately needs the Arrow treatment!

Comment from rogerebert.com wrote:Utter nonsense, loosely cobbled together apparently while the director and editor were in the midst of an ether binge. And yet, post election, somehow this film makes sense. Not in any artistic way. Just a commentary on how bewildering and belligerent this country currently making itself out to be.

So weird. So bloated. So unnecessary. Merica.

Has anybody here seen this film post-election? On average, it doesn't sound that good, but when considering our current political state it might take on a new relevancy? Maybe like Idiocracy?

I loved Kelly's Donnie Darko but these movies seem pretty different...

swo17 wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 6:20 pm The bad film that most desperately needs the Arrow treatment!

Bad doesn't seem right. Maybe excitening incoherent? Gen X id? Blue screen train crash? Something to capture how it can both be summarized as Kevin Smith: Vietnam Vet and Justin Timberlake will make you cry to the Killers?

I could be wrong, but this got a fair amount of critical defense when it was initially released. I've never seen this film, but I get late-Bush era PTSD thinking about this movie.

All I meant by "bad" was Arrow Video material

This film will always be a piece of shit no matter who is president

To date, this is the only movie in which I am likely to see Dwayne Johnson... I just remember feeling trapped in the movie theater, but I still have the graphic novels that were passed at Film Forum.

Johnson has the charisma and movie star quality to be good in a good movie, but I suspect he has no interest in doing so

I kind of love this film, for as shaggy and overstuffed with half-baked ideas as it is (As well as known-name actors, performance styles, locations, set design: everything. Clashing excessive wastefulness kind of feels like the main trait of the film. Religion reduced to soundbites and pop culture elevated to eco-mystical status), and would certainly stand by my comments earlier in the thread about it making a great double bill with Wim Wenders' The End of Violence as both being L.A.-set paranoid visions of surveillance culture and societal stratification! (Though despite the music video performance to All These Things That I've Done in the middle of Southland Tales, The End of Violence has the better soundtrack!)

Throw in Lost Highway (and its soundtrack) too and I think you'd have a great Scala-style triple bill on your hands!

domino harvey wrote: Fri Oct 19, 2018 8:32 pm Johnson has the charisma and movie star quality to be good in a good movie, but I suspect he has no interest in doing so

It's me talking so have your pound of salt, but he has been in a few good movies. Most are mediocre of course and there's been a dire amount of bad ones particularly early in his career. Still, stuff like Pain and Gain or Hercules are good movies that use him well. Little supporting roles in stuff like The Other Guys is also great. Plus I know some like Moana (though Johnson's song unquestionably is the highlight of the film)

I saw Hercules while waiting for jury duty earlier this year. I was glad it quickly abandoned trying to follow any recognizable Greek mythology and just told a "sequel" story instead, because then at least it wouldn't drive me crazy with inaccuracies. It ended up being the perfect stuck in a waiting room movie: not particularly good, but watchable and a decent way to pass an hour and a half. I put my headphones in when the courthouse followed that up with Hitch, though!

Please tell me this will be the Cannes cut or another restored by Kelly. Count me as one of the few but proud ardent devotees.

I actually thought the Jumanji sequel was pretty good and Johnson was perfect in it.

I also have a soft spot for Central Intelligence.

Spoiler

There's a scene where Johnson's charactrr confronts his high school bully, played by Jason Bateman, and it's pretty heart wrenching.

As one of those critics who mounted a defense of it back in the day, I couldn't be more thrilled (seriously--I have more citations on its Wikipedia page than for anything else I ever wrote). Richard Kelly has been trying since forever to get a different cut out there, but hasn't been able to afford it. I doubt this changes anything, but I'll be anxious to see if there's anything else they can put in the package. In the meantime, I'm going to go back to hoping that someone one day greenlights one of Kelly's projects again.

I love this film and I absolutely LOVE that Arrow has seen fit to release it. The only thing that could be better is if they presented the Cannes version, the theatrical cut, and whatever else Kelly would want to do with another revision, and put it out under the Arrow Academy banner.

cdnchris wrote: Sat Oct 20, 2018 1:36 am I actually thought the Jumanji sequel was pretty good and Johnson was perfect in it.

I also have a soft spot for Central Intelligence.

Spoiler

There's a scene where Johnson's charactrr confronts his high school bully, played by Jason Bateman, and it's pretty heart wrenching.

Above anything, I still prefer Pain & Gain, which not only feels like a quite intelligent Bay movie, but also a marvelous front for Johnson.

As per Richard Kelly on Twitter: "We have completed 4K restorations of both the theatrical and Cannes versions. The 158 minute Cannes cut is rough with many unfinished visual effects. It *will* be released for posterity... but my focus has been on preparing the epic Version 3.0 of #SouthlandTales. #SouthlandNow"

THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS

In 2001, writer/director Richard Kelly achieved cult status with Donnie Darko, an assured debut feature exploring deep existential questions through the lens of 80s nostalgia. Five years later, he followed up with a more ambitious and even more beguiling sophomore effort, in which forces of totalitarianism and anarchism collide against the backdrop of a post-apocalyptic, near-future world – the beguiling and baffling Southland Tales.

Los Angeles, 2008. As the city stands on the brink of social, economic and environmental chaos, the fates of an eclectic set of characters – including an amnesia-stricken action star (Dwayne Johnson, the Fast & Furious series), an adult film star developing her own reality TV project (Sarah Michelle Gellar, Cruel Intentions) and a police officer whose identity has split in two (Seann William Scott, TV’s Lethal Weapon) – intertwine with each other and with the whole of humanity.

A darkly comic futuristic epic that speaks as presciently to our turbulent times as it did to the American socio-political climate in 2006, Southland Tales receives a fresh – and timely – lease of life with this new, director-approved restoration.

2-DISC LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS

• New 2K restoration by Arrow Films, approved by director Richard Kelly and director of photography Steven Poster
• High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentations of both versions of the film: the 145-minute theatrical cut and the 160-minute “Cannes cut”, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006
• Original lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and PCM 2.0 stereo soundtracks
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Audio commentary on the theatrical cut by Richard Kelly
• It’s a Madcap World: The Making of an Unfinished Film, a new in-depth retrospective documentary on the film, featuring contributions by Richard Kelly and members of the original crew
• USIDent TV: Surveilling the Southland, an archival featurette on the making of the film, featuring interviews with the cast and crew
• This is the Way the World Ends, an archival animated short set in the Southland Tales universe
• Theatrical trailer
• Image gallery
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Jacey
  Limited edition collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Peter Tonguette and Simon Ward

What about 3.0? Did Covid knock it off the table?

It's cool getting the Cannes cut but disappointing the graphic novel isn't included, especially since it appears to be OOP

swo17 wrote: Sun Oct 25, 2020 6:25 am It's cool getting the Cannes cut but disappointing the graphic novel isn't included, especially since it appears to be OOP

It's still available from the publisher https://www.graphittidesigns.com/shop/S ... A-TPB.html

Oh cool, I was just going off of Amazon

But I agree that Arrow should've included it, at least with the limited edition. Or maybe even on the discs, like it was on the original Sony blu-ray. So I'll be keeping the old release along with ordering the new LE.

I hereby petition Arrow to recall their release and re-release the disc with this video as an introduction.