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Did you ever see that ’80s Twilight Zone episode where a financially strapped couple is given a box and told if they press the button on it, they’ll receive a lot of money but someone far, far away will die? Thirty minutes later, did you think “wow, I’d like to see this expanded into a movie by the guy who directed Southland Tales, with a soundtrack by the Arcade Fire?” Neither did Win Butler, who sounds a little annoyed about the recent press his band’s received about allegedly working with Richard Kelly, the unwelcome bastard child of David Lynch and George Lucas, on the score for The Box.
From the Arcade Fire’s website, which could use a little less slow-ass animation of birds laying eggs:
Hi everyone. Just to let you all know that (Internet-based fact checking aside) Arcade Fire is NOT doing the soundtrack to any film. We are all off for the summer, writing songs, reading books and keeping our plants alive. Regine, Owen Pallet [violinist Final Fantasy] and I may do an instrumental piece or two for Richard Kelly’s new movie…we met at a show this year and hit if off, but we are not planning on doing any major work for a while, and this would not constitute a soundtrack or a release.”
Translation: We were all “dude, you did Donnie Darko!” when we met, and then we netflixed Southland Tales and, well…no reason to interrupt summer vacation for this.
Arcade Fire [via The Playlist]
Mess with the Arcade Fire and you’ll get Arcade Burned.
I can’t believe there’s going to be a Donnie Darko sequel without any input from Richard Kelly. How awful is this going to be?
@NeverEnough: Actually it might be an improvement.
@NeverEnough: Did you see Southland Tales?
Someone’s ADD medication doesn’t work anymore.
@loudersoft: I did. Visually, it was a striking movie (especially the bit where Justin Timberlake lip-synchs to The Killers) but, Christ, the pplot was an unholy mess.
@Ned Raggett: Think so? Did you like Donnie Darko? I loved it and the film’s music was PERFECT.
@NeverEnough: The original theatrical version of DD was perfect, but have you seen the director’s cut? The music Kelly originally wanted to use was not nearly as strong. And thank god for editors…
Southland Tales was really strange and schizo, but on balance I enjoyed it. I mean the Rock, c’mon, that’s weird. And the Justin Timberlake lip-synch WAS awesome.
@mhale0: Yeah, I saw both versions and almost had a stroke when they replaced “The Killing Moon” with “Never Tear Us Apart”. The Bunnymen song was absolutely perfect for the opening scene. Bah!
Sidenote: my husband went to high school with Richard Kelly in Richmond, Va. He swears that he must have ripped off the script because Kelly was a dumb jock with douchey tendencies. Evidently, he ran for senior class president and used the word “omnipotent” in his speech but pronounced it “omni-potent” like it was 2 separate words.
@NeverEnough: Okay, that speech story makes me so happy.
“I’m a pimp, and pimps don’t commit suicide.”
(Sorry)
@NeverEnough: I wouldn’t be surprised if that background description of Kelly is accurate. He was in a frat at USC. Even after he made “Donnie Darko”, he regularly hung out a Q’s in Brentwood, which may be the frattiest bar on the West Side of LA. And, in a coincidence that could only happen in LA, was also the bar that the screenwriter of The Hitcher, Eric Red, drove his SUV into, taking out the front of the bar, and killing a couple people in the process.
@Audif Jackson Winters III: [www.laweekly.com]
@Audif Jackson Winters III: I have his high school year books and need to scan the photos of Richard Kelly. It pains me that someone so evidently dick-ish is a Bunnymen fan.
Southland Tales is one of my favorite movies of 2007. I was so reluctant to see it because of all the backlash before it was even released. BUT, I enjoyed it immensely, and i’ve watched it about 4 times. It has plenty of things wrong, but I look at the ambition of the project as something rad, not bad.
Southland Tales=Repo Man for this decade.
@loudersoft: @MayhemintheHood: My favorite movie of 07 by a fucking mile. I own it and have seen it at least 7 times. Also, the plot doesn’t make sense until you start to think of it as quantum theory rendered as a film (also, once you realize who everyone is, it gets a lot easier to follow). There are several stories going on at the same time (think Pynchon) and they all are kind of nuts in that they overlap and weave in and out of each other. I don’t care how fratty Richard Kelley is, he made a challenging, interesting film that fucking makes my spine esplode at the end.
Also, I kind of ripped him off for the first part of this cartoon I made:
+ Watch video
@NeverEnough: Isn’t Chris Martin from Coldplay a Bunnymen fan? Not that he’s dickish or anything, just dull as dishwater.
@magic1: *frowns* Yeah, he is. You’d think that some of the Bunnymen coolness would have rubbed off on him…
@RaptorAvatar: I actually like the movie, I was commenting more on how disjointed it is.
I read a review after seeing it that called it “a mess, but it’s a beautiful mess.” I think that description is both appropriate and warranted, don’t you.
While the story is involving, I often found myself going, “Is this brilliant or awful?” Like Donnie Darko, I laughed at a lot of inappropriate places in the film. After consideration, I really like it even though the story is too all-over-the-place for the average movie goer. It comes across like a comic book brought to life which, after all, is exactly what it is.
Who cares if Kelly was “fratty”? Who says you have to dress and act like an “artiste” in order to be creative? I think this makes me like Kelly even more