Southland Tales [2006]

1. Justin Timberlake’s porkchop sideburns.
2. Boxer’s nervous habit of tapping his fingertips together.
3. Wallace Shawn’s combover/painted face combo.

I wish I could be more witty in dissecting this movie. This movie is a mess. But it’s a gargantuan, flamboyant mess. Somehow it combines all the worst elements of David Lynch’s Dune with the last half of The Magic Christian and, dare I say it, Judge Dredd and The Apple. This description makes it sound a lot better than it is. It’s pretty much an utter failure as a movie, yet it’s completely bizarre wrongheadedness ensures that it’s never dull. Instead it has a hundred interesting ideas, all of which are shallow and go nowhere. This will go down as one of the most unique cinematic disasters of the early 21st century. It should have stayed a graphic novel (or perhaps just a treatment).