(Display Name not set)November 2007 Archives

“It’s a comedic spin on the apocalypse, as it should occur in the great city of Los Angeles.” So says writer-director Richard Kelly (of "Donnie Darko" fame) about his latest film, "Southland Tales."

But viewer beware! “Comedic” implies laughter and “apocalypse” implies a connection to the last book of the New Testament, neither of which this film provides. The end of the world need not be Biblically-based, of course, but the film was inspired by Kelly’s obsession with all things apocalyptic including the Book of Revelations (his frequent use of the plural a common mistake) and his discovery of the fact that 59% of fundamentalist Americans think we are already living in the end times.

The problem with this movie is that it just doesn’t make any sense. Period. "Southland Tales" is to coherent storytelling as the Taliban is to "Up with People." I actually scribbled in my notes: “Give me something to hang my hat on!” It never happened.

In this futuristic vision of a 2008 Los Angeles, the Feds have seized control of the internet after terrorists managed to detonate a nuclear bomb in an unsuspecting Texas town; a German scientist and his team who have harnessed much-needed energy from the waves of the Pacific run around in laughable B-movie sci-fi costumes; a group of neo-Marxists plot and kidnap and cuss a lot...and then it all gets a little fuzzy.

This post is from playwright and screenwriter Keith Bunin, author of the plays "The Busy World is Hushed" and "The Credeaux Canvas."

For the past week I’ve been on strike for the first time in my life. I’m a writer, so I usually spend all of my time all alone in my apartment in Brooklyn, hunched over my computer. But these days I get up in the morning and take a subway into Manhattan so I can stand on a picket line in the chilly November weather.

I hate that I’m on strike for a lot of reasons. First of all, writing isn’t just a job for me—it’s a huge part of my identity. The truth is, I’d write every day whether or not I got paid for it. I feel deeply fortunate that I’ve been able to support myself doing something I love. In that light, it’s hard to summon the necessary righteous ingratitude. As a general principle, however, I do believe that the writer of any creative work should receive a fair percentage of the profits from it. I'm better at advocating for my fellow writers than I am for myself.