Best Of 2007, Filmleaf Members' Lists

[oscar jubis]

Well, I've seen Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, 2007's film maudit par excellence. A movie that made only a quarter million dollars at the box office but has generated reams of commentary at the IMDb message boards. It's a cult movie despised by most critics and audiences and loved fiercely by J. Hoberman, Kent Jones, Amy Taubin, and Nathan Lee, among others. I listed the film as "Not Seen Yet" in my Favorite English-Language Films of 2007. Southland Tales is a brilliant, campy, sprawling and often very funny, sci-fi political satire but it's also sometimes silly and incoherent (but isn't Lynch sometimes silly and incoherent?). It's probably too original and distinctive not to give it at least an "honorable mention". I've decided to watch it again in a couple of weeks and see what happens rather than decide its merits based on a single viewing.