some say we'll see armageddon soon. i certainly hope we will. i could use a vacation from this.

maybe it's because her name sounds like manolo blahniks, the most oft-quoted high-price shoes in chick lit novels modeled after Sex and the City, or maybe it's telling that she can't write grammatically coherent sentences, but manohla dargis is kind of dumb. 

"American cinema is in the grip of a kind of moribund academicism, which helps explain why a fastidiously polished film like “No Country for Old Men” can receive such gushing praise from critics. “Southland Tales” isn’t as smooth and tightly tuned as “No Country,” a film I admire with few reservations. Even so, I would rather watch a young filmmaker like Mr. Kelly reach beyond the obvious, push past his and the audience’s comfort zones, than follow the example of the Coens and elegantly art-direct yet one more murder for your viewing pleasure and mine."

I haven't seen either movie.  But this reminds me of this last summer's English class, when my liking of the short stories we were reading reached an apex in the 1930s, remained alright in the 1940s and 1950s, and then went downhill very fast.  I don't think that what I dislike is experimental, because I actually have a pretty strong stomach for things that get labeled "modern" - modern art, modern dance.  I dislike the stuff that is seen as "the future is now", the cool stuff.  Richard Kelly is nothing if not cool.  Ask any self-labeling "self-aware" high school student.  Well, not that they'd recognize his name, but I bet they'd recognize Donnie Darko.  Is that an experimental movie?  No.  Is that an academic movie?  No.  Is that a genre movie?  No.  What is it then?  Something similar to Garden State.  Produced by a "promising young director" (nobody ever mentions Khrjanovsky, but that's okay...) who is "attuned to the youth and times of today".  Oh, bullshit.  Richard Kelly was a perfect boy, perfect in the sense that he was not only popular (Phi Delta Theta) but intelligent (scholarship to USC), a fan of Kurt Vonnegut (no surprise there) and Holes (once again...).  The well-educated pretty-fly-for-a-white-guy, master of the "indie counter-culture" scene.  The "product of his generation".  Boy, I hate artists like that.  Omigod, he really is Zach Braff, who famously makes movies for every decade he lives.  In their universe they are the center of gravity, these happy little white American boys who really (really) don't bother looking beyond their own earwax and navel fuzz when they create movies that are supposed to define their "generation", whose idea of profound social commentary is criticizing psychiatrists and self-help talk shows.  At least Richard Kelly doesn't act in his own movies and pair himself up with beautiful actresses. 

Because the thing is, Donnie Darko did not push my comfort zone (unless you count introducing a demonic life-size bunny) anywhere.  It could have.  It could have redeemed itself.  But then it decided to fall back into the realm of utter predictability, become a suburban fairytale (that's really all it is) and I ended up wondering what the hell my peers were so excited about.  Jake Gyllenhaal?  Yeah, that had to be it.  Don't tell them that, though.  They'll just tell you "you don't get it yet... watch it a couple more times, then you'll see."  Hold your breath.

If preferring Cormac McCarthy to Kurt Vonnegut makes me a snob, then I'm a snob.  I think that really, I'm just uncool.  I've never been cool and I'm alright with that.  A couple other movies that I think I was supposed to like were Election and Pleasantville.  Yeah, they didn't work either.  But then, I've never been able to identify with my peer group.  Who knows, maybe I'm just "unstuck in time".