CURIOUS...

I liked Donnie Darko. It's not one of my all-time favorites or anything like that, but it's a heady brew. But I liked Southland Tales even more, even if it was hardly perfect. It's a big fat mess to be perfectly honest. But it was also extremely ambitious, very entertaining, very surreal, and loopy as all hell. And those last 30 minutes are just ridiculously fun to watch. Over-stuffed and super self-indulgent, Southland Tales is the ultimate "nobody told the director No!" movie. As such, some of it works, some of it doesn't, and you're left with a schizoid vision. Richard Kelly's newest thriller, The Box, looks like his most accessible movie to date. I still hold firm in the belief that Kelly's screenplay for Tony Scott's underrated masterwork Domino is piece of genius writing. I mean that. I think The Box could be neat (I don't know the twists so no spoilers please...) but I don't want Kelly to succumb to the studio system the way it seems he might be. But if he does, all I ask is that he keeps his edge.