Issue 50: Sydney Brown's Sixty Seconds
By Sydney Brown

The Tale of a Film Called Southland Tales

Seven years ago, a man named Richard Kelly wrote and directed a film called Donnie Darko, which was released in theaters and seen by practically nobody. Six months later, the film was released to DVD and became the ultimate cult film: a film that grossed $700,000 yet has been seen by practically everybody.

With that power Kelly was given the funds to make his second film, the film that this column is about: Southland Tales. Before we get into the review, a brief history:

Also seven years ago, David Lynch released what was widely considered one of the more confusing epics of this decade: Mulholland Dr. This was a brilliant film that required multiple viewings to understand just what the hell was going on. Kelly was clearly taking notes.

In 2006, Kelly opened Southland Tales to the Cannes Film Festival. The film was universally panned and called the worst film to ever be released at Cannes, receiving the lowest possible scores. Twenty minutes of the film were cut and, like Donnie Darko, was released in theaters and seen by practically nobody. Now the film has been released to DVD.

This is a movie unlike any I have ever seen before. It’s one I cannot possibly give a glowing review, nor can I flat-out trash it. Southland Tales is a fantastic mess.

In the year 2005, two major Texas towns were wiped off the face of the Earth by nukes. The US is under total government control, and in the year 2008, the world ends. The film covers the last three days in what is basically an interpretation of Revelations.

The first major problem is the plot which is impossible to follow, because all the information you need is basically muttered to you in the first ten minutes, and if you don’t flat-out memorize it, you’re screwed. Major plot points flash up on the screen in FOX News-like graphics which, much like in real life, tend to be ignored.

Then there’s the wacko cast, with The Rock playing a Schwarzenegger-like, action star-politician who also happens to have amnesia which causes him to turn into a scared ten year-old every five minutes. Then you have Stifler from American Pie who for all intents and purposes plays the Messiah, no less than FOUR cast members of Saturday Night Live, (highlighted by Jon Lovitz as a macho badass), the long absent John Laroquette, the freakin’ original Highlander, Justin Timberlake, (in maybe the best acting he’s ever done), and the anti-Christ, played by the always evil Wallace Shawn…….

Yes, the anti-Christ is played by the short bald guy from The Princess Bride. You see, when he was evil in Bride, it was funny: how can you take him seriously? Somehow we are asked to do so here.

And the other major problem is the absolutely insane dialogue that the cast is asked to spew out, especially The Rock, who utters some of the most laugh-out loud stuff you’ll hear in a major motion picture.

So why bother, you may ask? For all that is wrong with Southland Tales, there is a lot working for it: an amazing soundtrack for one, as well as a great set design and mood, the movie does FEEL like the end times. Couple that with some extremely interesting ideas and scenes, (the mirror that’s on a time delay, the actress drinking a can of herself, the balls to stop a film dead in its tracks for a musical number which ends up being the most memorable part of the film….)

The inherent problem with the movie is that it is nearly impossible to understand the film the first time, and because it is such a confusing mess, there is little reason for most of the viewing public to watch it a second time. But yet, certain scenes stayed with me. Certain ideas, certain characters.

I’ll take a terrific failure over a boring movie anytime. Southland Tales is confusing, laughable, weird, stupid, pretentious, yet sometimes brilliant.

But if you never figured out Mulholland Dr. don’t bother.

Issue 50: Various and Sundry
By Clancy Lass

My Top Five, NC Style

The movie High Fidelity starring John Cusack and Jack Black has been frequently playing on daytime television in the recent past. I have caught it a few times, jarring how much I love that movie back into my brain, the Top Five lists especially. Since the movie debuted, I often send out five questions to my friends on Fridays, asking various things, but I realized today I had not sent the query in a while asking their all-time Top Five: your list of celebrities. In reviewing my own choices, I realized just how incredibly nerdy my preferences are, and wondered why I can’t have the normal Matthew McConaughey-hay-hay and Brad Pitt on mine. It would be so much easier than having to answer the automatic response of “Who?” for almost all of them. Both Billy Crystal and Philip Seymour Hoffman have recently been removed from the list for “out of sight, out of mind reasons,” Billy especially. I will still have mad love for them, along with Kevin Spacey, who dwelled in the Number One spot for probably close to ten years. My current list is as follows…

NUMBER FIVE - RICHARD Blaise
He’s one of those people flamboyant enough to be called just by their last name. He sports a faux-hawk and pink Crocs, rocks the Molecular Gastronomy style of cooking, and knows what to do with a blow torch. And yeah, he’s straight. Owner and designer of Trail-Blaise restaurant in Atlanta, GA, Top Chef Season 4 contestant Blaise is a welcome, tunky-nerd addition to my Top Five. He is hilarious, competitive, extremely interesting and let’s face it…a man who cooks is always a plus. I think you can win this bitch. Rock out a few more wins!

NUMBER FOUR - JEMAINE Clement
He describes his look as an “Ogre who works in a library.” I don’t have a problem with that. He is hilarious, a fantastic writer, (both screen and song), can sing and is just really strangely enticing to look at. Plus, funny will always trump sexy. It just will. I don’t care who you are. It just will.

NUMBER THREE - JOHN Linnell
The soulful eyes, inventive lyrics and penetrating voice make him an irresistible nerd welcomed to my list about three years ago. There is something to be said if you are in a room full of people watching him sing, and you feel like you are the only person there, nearly in tears because his songs are so personal. So adorably nerd-sexy.

NUMBER TWO - DAVID Wain
For several reasons, I love him. First, he is one-third of Stella. Second, he directed Wet Hot American Summer. Third, he is hot. Fourth, he recently wrote and starred in his own YouTube series called Wainy Days, which is hilarious. Fifth, one of the funniest segments of Best Week Ever was his feature on how annoying David Blain the magician was when he did his stint in the bubble thing, and started a protest outside of it saying “Quit trying to out-Blain David Wain!” Sixth, when I get my email notices on Stella, WHAS and The State, it’s often him who writes them, and he’ll write you back. Seventh, his web site is hilarious. And he’s just hot.

NUMBER ONE - MICHAEL Emerson
It was a gestational crush. I’d been a fan of his for a while because of Lost and had even seen him on Broadway in The Iceman Cometh during the Kevin Spacey days, but never had a crush on him. Then I got pregnant. And I had those hormone-induced pregnancy dreams of jungle love on Lost’s freaky-deaky island with him, and afterward he would sit on a fallen tree and tell me what was missing from the book I have been trying to write for the past year. Then I had to find everything he was in and watch it. And I had more dreams where he would be my muse, guiding my writing. He usually plays a murderer. Very well. Even Entertainment Weekly had him do his own list of top five horror movies he loves and what scary is to him because he’s creepy. And I love him. I got all the way to Waikiki this past January, where he lives during filming, but due to the Q-bert signs Writer’s Strike, he was back in New York and I was unable to stare at him. So he’s going on 55, his hair is getting sparse and he’s married. Does it really matter? He has a liquid voice, an exceptional vocabulary, is into Shakespeare and the Greeks, and taught for years. I love him.

Issue 50: Don't Bother Me, I'm Thinking
By The Rambler

Chapter 1 - The World (And the Way It Works)

There are cities that seem like they come right out of a noir film, with guys in them who seem perfectly-suited to be the schmuck detective to receive the unusual call from the damsels in distress that turn out to be a big tease into a case that could cost the poor guy his life. You know the cities, with the steam that rises out of every possible crack and crevice, the shadows that mask all of the dark goings-on. They’re the ones that are serenaded by cat screeches and saxophone songs from smoky, crowded jazz halls. The drunks stumble through the lonely streets, tripping on their own feet and falling against the door of an old Cadillac. Sure, there are streetwalkers, but most are classy, if you can say that about those that people call whores. This is my city, that place of the lonely dog barking and the back door to a restaurant slamming after the trash has been tossed in the alley. Sadly, I’m that schmuck who gets tangled in it all. I’m not waiting for the dame, I’m not waiting for the check. The money is regular in my profession, and dependable, for the most part, but hardly rewarding. I’m the schmuck who believes in something a little different than the way the world works, and that way collars me in white under black.

You guessed it; I’m a minister.

Not the usual ones who get a little congregation in a white steepled church in a farm town. Not the ones in suits and ties on television flinging spit and dripping spirit-filled sweat onto the next person needing healed. I’m not even the metropolitan pastor trying to keep up with the sweep of the trends from suburban sprawl to recentering in downtown, otherwise known as regentrification. And yes, I’m a fan of big words for fun. No, the reason the checks are dependable is because they are sent from the central office of my employing denomination, which is unimportant. The reason it’s hardly rewarding is because being the pastor of a ‘mission’ as they call it, isn’t a prized profession. Sure, some launch from this area, but I haven’t had the opportunity, nor do I really want it. The night life is what I see on the way home, as I go to my wife, in our little two bedroom apartment. And the nightlife is what keeps me up with phone-calls of the drugged out, drunk, abused, and abandoned. I get to sleep-in most mornings, because my congregation depends on nightlife and on the morning cup of coffee around noon.

I guess I started rambling without actually introducing myself. I’m Michael. Michael Logan O’Shanisey. Yes, I’m Irish. Catholic or protestant, take your pick, I like them both. I’ve been called Mick, Michael, Mikey, Mike, Logan, Shawn, O’Shan, Shawney, Father, and the rest go downhill, so take your pick, I’m not too concerned. Most of the parishioners either know me as Father, Pops, Pastor, again, take your pick. I’ll go ahead and introduce the Misses: She’s a pretty little girl, with ashy blonde hair, and a pretty medium build. She smiles like the best, and her honesty cuts like a knife. Genevieve Marie, but most call her Gene. Her brown eyes cut like diamond. That’s the gist of my place here.

But why did I even start like this? Well, I’ll tell ya. It’s to get you acquainted with the scenery before you get involved in the story. As I keep talking, you’ll get to know more characters, trust me.

Now, guess I should tell you the way the world works. You see, there’s times I get caught in my office twirling and weaving thoughts about the way the world should work. Yeah, it’s what people in my profession do, getting caught in ideas like peace, love, justice, and righteousness - you know, the way the world should be. Key word there is should. But there is something different about the way the world is. In my thought, the world works out of a kind of wisdom. That’ll be a recurring theme, get used to it.

Definition of wisdom: the way in which the structures of nature, science, and all of life are put together in order for the world to work a certain way. For every way that the world works, there is a different kind of wisdom behind it. The drug addicts, drunks, and nightwalkers all have a wisdom behind construing the world in their addiction. The pushers and peddlers may be close, but trust me, their wisdom is different. Your grandfather or grandmother show you their wisdom in the good old days, and your kids show it in their talk of fairness. Everything has a wisdom. That’s the way the world works. The question is, which is best? Ponder that as I keep going.

So I’m caught in my office, weaving my thoughts and studies when the old speaker on my desk crackles with the voice of Loraine, the receptionist calls me. Yes, we have the cool old speakers seen in the vintage movies with the security door buzz as the call sound. This call was about some stranger coming to see me. His name was Peter. That’s all I knew at the beginning, and all you’ll know about his name for now.

“Father, There’s a man out here to meet with you,” came her coffee-enthused voice through the intercom crackle.

“Not on the schedule. Did you tell him I was in study?”

“He says it’s urgent. Life or death. Should I send him in?”

“Yes,” I heave. “Send him in.”

My door squeaked on the old hinges, painted enough to have a nice, rubber looking coat. The glass on my door leaves the outline and colors of the man fuzzy. Everything is a bit nineteen-forty about my building. So the old hinges squeak, followed by the heavy footsteps of this Peter guy. He steps in, heaving a sigh and dabbing sweat from his brow. His head is bald, his eyes blue and beady, and his face round. He’s the teddy bear guy with the bat in his left hand, hugging and loving the family, but smashing the jaw of the guy who owes the boss some money. That guy. His shirt is wet around the collar and pits, and unbuttoned once to let his neck have some room. This guy comes from a world structured by a wisdom. I’ve got to figure that out. It’s my job.

Issue 50: Tournament of Villainy
By Rascal Stallion

Green Goblin vs Loki

Name: Norman Osborne aka Green Goblin		Name: Loki Laufeyjarson
Occupation: Industrialist	vs.	Occupation: Norse God (God status is disputed) of Mischief
Origin: Spider Man comic books		Origin: Norse Mythology

Green Goblin was driving down the street when he spotted Loki enjoying a chicken salad sandwich and some ice tea at a trendy outdoor café. His heart leapt with joy as this was just the opportunity for revenge he’d been looking for since the fiasco at the after-party at last year’s Nickelodeon’s Kid’s Choice Awards.

Goblin felt like he had really been getting somewhere with Hayden Panettiere when Loki totally cock blocked him. The Norse god of mischief got him with the old “how’s your Chlamydia” trick and by the time he recovered Hayden was gone. Loki slipped away and Goblin vowed that day that if he ever saw him again he would make him pay.

The Green Goblin snuck into the kitchen and prepared a tasty hot fudge and anthrax sundae. Then he found the waiter and paid him $100 to deliver it under the guise of being a special treat for such a prestigious patron of the restaurant. Goblin hid behind some other diners and excitedly waited for Loki to become infected. Soon his revenge would be complete.

Unfortunately, that revenge would have to wait. Loki ate half the sundae and then looked Goblin right in the eye. “Don’t you know I’m immune to infection, you pitiful mortal?” He picked up the remainder of the sundae and lobbed it across the patio at him. Goblin dodged the ice-cream but that put him right in the path of the lightning bolt that followed.

The electricity stunned the Goblin and caused a short in his suit. He regained his composure just in time to dodge the second barrage of bolts that followed. Goblin turned and fled, darting this way and that to evade the series of attacks Loki was sending his way.

Goblin darted into the adjacent alley with Loki a few steps behind him in hot pursuit. Loki turned the corner, prepared to launch another series of attacks when he saw something that stopped him cold: The Destroyer Armor. This armor was an enchanted suit forged by Odin himself and possessed near limitless power. There was no question that Loki feared this armor and his nemesis the Green Goblin had just finished donning it.

Empowered by the armor, the tide of the battle turned sharply. Loki realized it was the Goblin’s plan all along to lure him into this alley and he, the trickster, had himself been tricked. Green Goblin began sending blast after blast of heat and electromagnetism at Loki as he retreated. Loki was mostly successful in his evasions but a few shots eventually found their target and he was sent sprawling into the street.

In the moments it took Loki to regain his composure the Green Goblin zeroed in on him and unleashed a disintegration beam from the visor of the armor. The beam struck Loki and squarely accomplished just what its name implies. Loki was immediately turned to a fine dust that was quickly scattered by the gentle breeze of the afternoon.

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