Southland Tales + Revolver (Sony) Two daringly and fatally overambitious movies make video debuts, having gone unreleased theatrically in Canada due to the deadliest of bad buzz. Richard Kelly’s follow-up to Donnie Darko, Southland Tales was done in by boos and bafflement at Cannes in 2006 — it’s been slightly recut since then but is still oversized at 144 minutes. Defenders of Kelly’s political satire about the frenetic last days of humankind see the tenor of our times reflected in its narrative incoherence and post-Patriot Act paranoia. There’s a case to be made for Southland Tales — and any film that unites Bai Ling, Wallace Shawn and John Larroquette in the same cast is never less than watchable — but the exhilaration it initially elicits ends long before the world does.
While there was less love for Guy Ritchie’s hash of a comeback effort — in which Jason Statham faces off in a series of wildly convoluted mind games with a casino boss played by Ray Liotta — Revolver is easier to endure since it’s merely an overbaked shoot-’em-up with philosophical pretensions. It’s interesting to note that both movies hit their peaks when they dispense with their overburdened narratives and turn into music videos (e.g., Justin Timberlake lip-synching to The Killers in Southland Tales, an oddly placid Revolver shootout set to Satie). Their creators do their best to explain their efforts in the extras on both discs but the works only really captivate when they stop making sense.

I Am Legend (Warner) Like 28 Days Later…, the movie it apes so closely, this Will Smith thriller offers an hour of haunting, last-dude-in-town imagery before disintegrating in a crap third act. The two-disc edition includes an alternate cut with an ending that is even more risible than the one in the theatrical version yet steers the movie a little closer to the Richard Matherson novel on which it’s based. EXTRAS: animated shorts.

Also out this week
Battlestar Galactica: Season 3 (Paramount) TV’s most ingenious post-9/11 allegory continues to thrill despite the third season’s patchy stretch. EXTRAS: 15 hours’ worth, including webisodes, featurettes, extended episodes, deleted scenes.

Breakfast With Scot (Mongrel) Toronto’s first and only gay-positive, hockey-related family comedy. EXTRAS: none.

Atonement (Alliance) Keira and James get all windswept in Joe Wright’s adaptation of the Ian McEwan novel, an unusually cerebral sort of romantic epic. EXTRAS: Wright commentary, deleted scenes, making-of
featurettes.

Enchanted (Buena Vista) Amy Adams will win your heart or die trying. EXTRAS: deleted scenes, bloopers, featurettes.

Out March 25
The Kite Runner, Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains and a new straight-to-DVD version of April Fool’s Day — yes, they’re remaking ’80s horror movies that no one even liked then. 

Email us at: LETTERS@EYEWEEKLY.COM or send your questions to EYEWEEKLY.COM
625 Church St, 6th Floor, Toronto M4Y 2G1