2. Southland Tales - Richard Kelly
Frank the Bunny - that's what everyone remembers from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly. Frank has become an iconic image from an iconic cult film. Darko was Kelly's first feature-length film which was a hit with the indie and Hot Topic crowd. The film over time developed quite the dedicated following that was clamoring for a follow-up. Not long after Darko's video release rumblings could be heard of Southland Tales and Kelly himself had a finished script. Then 9/11 happened and everything changed. He changed the story of the film into a science fiction musical that reached for comedic absurdities of the likes of Brazil and Dr. Strangelove. The resulting film wasn't released until 2006 and had all the signs of the sophomore slumps. Southland Tales was a bloated mess of a film that made Magnolia feel tight and focused. The plot of Southland tales involves America in the midst of World War III in which a paranoid fascist government has all of its citizens under its spying microscope. It also involves 'Fluid Karma', which is an infinite source of energy developed to combat a global fuel shortage. Much like Magnolia the film tells the story of several characters whom ultimately intersect with the main storyline. The main issue here is that there are too many ideas tossed together into one cauldron. You have porn stars, terrorists, politicians, Singing Justin Timberlake, scientists and soldiers melded together in an overwrought Sci-Fi opera. None of the actors seem to know what the hell is going on and give nothing but the most cartoonish performances the world has ever seen. The entire film feels like an inside joke Kelly is playing on the audience. This is a another pretentious self-indulgent mess of film. Like many others on this list it trys too hard to impress. Somewhere hidden deep inside of Southland Tales is a good film. If only Richard Kelly could have learned to self edit and re-write instead of believing that every idea he had was pure gold. I do feel he did learn this lesson quite brutally at the 2006 Cannes film festival where the reception was less than kind. Did I mention Justin Timberlake musical numbers?