6. Southland Tales
Remember Donnie Darko? That dark, interesting film from the early naughties starring Jake Gyllenhall. Southland Tales is what writer-director Richard Kelly followed up with. Donnie Darko was a surprise independent hit and as a result fans and critics alike were looking forward to Kelly's next effort. That effort was Southland Tales which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 to a disastrous reception. Kelly's reputation fell in an instant. The cast was a hideous mismatch of The Rock, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stifler from American Pie and Justin Timberlake. Donnie Darko is unhinged and disturbing, which is what led fans of the film to believe Southland Tales was going to be another extraordinarily gripping tale. Instead, it's a completely incomprehensible, bizarre (but not in a good way), overlong, tedious mess that is very easy to hate. Nothing in it works on any level. It's not funny, it's not dramatic, it's not clever and it certainly didn't need Justin Timberlake singing The Killers in it. It's an explicit disaster of the highest order and that's not something to say smugly considering how great Donnie Darko is. Roger Ebert said it was the worst film at Cannes since The Brown Bunny, which is brutal condemnation indeed.