8. Southland Tales (2006)
When it came time for young writer/director Richard Kelly to follow-up his magnificent debut Donnie Darko, he opted for a different approach: he wasn't going to make the same movie or ride on the coattails of his previous successes. He was going to craft something different, something epic... something so bad that it kind of destroyed his career. If you haven't seen Southland Tales yet, though, don't avoid it - as an exercise is pure, unadulterated ego, it's fascinating. As something to sit down and watch as a means of entertainment, though... well, not so much. Southland Tales is one of the most bizarre follow-up projects ever conceived. With all that pressure on him in the wake of Donnie Darko, you can kind of understand how Kelly ended up making a movie so insanely ambitious, but you also wonder how anybody let him carry through with his plans: it's such a bizarre mess. The director puts everything into his movie about a futuristic Los Angeles on the brink of chaos, and I mean everything - giant gun turrets, neo-Marxists, offbeat musical numbers. What's worse, it's no fun: a yawn-inducing 144 minute slog.