Yeah they picked the wrong lead for sure. I like that actor but he can't carry a film like that. I think Jupiter Ascending would be a good choice. Never watched the full thing but have been meaning to.

I watched Southland Tales the other morning. Quite the, uhhh, film. Yeah. I watched a little of the making of and I think it's telling that he wrote the bulk of this when Donnie Darko wasn't being picked up by any studio after bombing at Sundance (gotta love when the biz peeps are wrong). There's so many elements pulled straight from DD and plopped into Southland. The time tunnels, the eye trauma, the religious philosophising. Except in this it doesn't have the restraint that the original cut of DD has so it's just all hanging out there.

I'm just imagining the look on the studio execs faces after they watched this. Surely it was full Producers. Or maybe they thought it would be another DD and 'the kids' would love it.

It's definitely perfect as one of those curio movies. I actually thought it was genuinely funny at times. I thought Sarah Michelle Gellar and Sean William Scott were both pretty great. Gellar is the star of the whole thing. I thought it was interesting to see The Rock before he got acting and screen charisma lessons, he's terrible in a way that is completely opposite to his current best movie efforts. I liked that Eli Roth got shot on the toilet. I liked the Moby score. I liked that there was so many recognisable faces saying absolute nonsense throughout.

I also thought it was interesting to see how many filmmaking snafus there were. Shots where a group of army coffins or a crowd doesn't extend properly out of the frame so the scale gets ruined. That you can see the car rig on the edge of the car in a few shots. That the boom mic drops into frame in that long shot in the party near the end. The use of images from the graphic novel throughout even though the art for that is fairly rudimentary. Just real amateur stuff.

It's this kind of bad movie that really stands the test of time. Something that is trying to be earnest but just failing in every attempt.

I watched Waterworld quite a lot as a kid but haven't seen it for a while now. I reckon it'll all come back to me pretty quick once we start it.


Even though I just watched it I could also recommend Congo just for the wild accents.

Ready for Waterworld. Couldn't quite stretch to the Virtual Boy game tho

Reckon I'll get in on this one.

A reminder that this is happening on Sunday. I think we’re probably gonna go with Cloud Atlas for next month (June) as it seems slightly more in line with the vibe and David Mitchell is touring to support the anniversary edition of the book at the moment, if people fancy reading it before.

I might be there in Sunday but im 199% in for Cloud Atlas

The Mariner's trimaran boat is IMO one of the all time best film vehicles. So many badass mechanisms and doohickeys on it. It's the best character too.

In readiness for this evening:
* We are watching the Theatrical Cut.
* Start the film at 7pm on the dot.
* There aren’t any menu animations on the recent Arrow 4K/Blu-ray but I noticed it took my player a couple of seconds to start the 4K playback so if you’re watching on that format and are bothering to clockwatch at 7, maybe start it a couple of seconds early.
* If you’re watching a DVD, you may slightly de-sync with us during the film due to the nature of that format.

The booklet in the fancy Arrow version mentions the Virtual Boy game!

Stop shining the sun into children’s eyes through a mirror Kevin Costner.

This might be the first film I’ve ever seen that actually has too much money on the screen.

Kevin Costner just tried to drown a small girl.

Kevin Costner just prostituted a woman and very strongly considered prostituting a child for two sheets of paper.

Moot_Geeza wrote:

Last time I watched I was surprised quite how far they pushed the antihero thing for a blockbuster type (early on anyway, it doesn't take him long to switch lanes).

Kevin Costner unprostituted the woman and is now teaching the child to swim.

There was a brief crowd shot with blatant cardboard cutouts in the background.

Credits rolling. I thought it was alright. I feel like they probably over-invested in it for a first instalment? All it needed was the action sequences with the boats, the bits with the massive ocean-bound sets were a bit unnecessary.

Weird to think in some parallel universe not so far away this ended up being a massive franchise that’s still running.