Richard Kelly

TORONTO -- It was an offer he couldn't refuse. The Cannes Film Festival invited writer-director Richard Kelly to screen his second feature as part of its prestigious competition section. So Kelly took his "Southland Tales" to France in 2006, even though there was work still to be done on it. The response? Disastrous. A "career killer," according to more than one industry watcher. Variety's review called it "pretentious, overreaching and fatally unfocused."

Have you ever actually tried watching paint dry? A sloth walk? Grass grow? You can have all the "thrills" with none of the chills courtesy of "The Box," the painfully sluggish new sci-fi morality play from "Donnie Darko" creator Richard Kelly. It's as if its stars, Cameron Diaz and James Marsden as the financially strapped yuppie couple Norma and Arthur, were on a continuous, prime time-mandated 10-second delay. Think I'm exaggerating? Here's an example (with footnotes).

An adolescent awkwardness comes over Richard Kelly and the 26-year-old stumbles over his words when he is asked to explain the enigmatic plot of his first feature film, "Donnie Darko." It's a science-fiction coming-of-age tale, he offers. A period piece set in 1988. A black comedy. A satiric portrait of modern life. The story of a teenager with emotional problems and a divine emissary who appears to him as a man in a weird rabbit suit.

Movie geeks are list-making animals. It begins with the frenzied -- and nonsensical -- annual compilation of "10 best lists" (as if a year were a meaningful aesthetic time frame), but it doesn't end there.

Many thanks for the story by staff writer Bob Secter "One American's Way: Work, Be Helpful" (Feb. 12). It was so refreshing to read this positive article regarding the attitudes and behavior of Richard Kelly at his work! LOUISE A. WARRINER, Big Bear Lake

Four years after his debut feature "Donnie Darko" tanked in theaters, subsequently becoming a cult favorite on home video and cable TV, writer-director Richard Kelly's next film, "Southland Tales," is finally headed into production.

Corporate America--smarmy, leveraged, cutthroat America; discount, high-volume, bargain-price, service-with-a-snarl America--could sure learn a thing or two from Richard Kelly. For starters, he is living proof that status and a fast buck need not be the only barometers of success in today's marketplace. Kelly, pushing 60, has spent more than 35 years at the Jewel supermarket in this well-heeled Chicago suburb and has never moved higher than grocery sacker on the organizational ladder.

In the 18 months since its tumultuous unveiling at the Cannes Film Festival, "Southland Tales" has become more myth than movie. Initial expectations for the film were at a high because it marked the second feature from writer-director Richard Kelly, the follow-up to his 2001 slow-building cult sensation "Donnie Darko."

A dense hybrid of teen angst and science fiction, a metaphysical meditation on the nature of being and time travel aided by the presence of a 6-foot-tall bunny rabbit, "Donnie Darko" hit theaters in the fall of 2001 with a resounding thud of indifference. The disastrous initial release of the debut feature from then 26-year-old writer-director Richard Kelly should have been the beginning of a rapid descent into movie-land oblivion. Then a funny thing happened on the way to being forgotten.

The day Domino Harvey died, she called her former partner, Ed Martinez, to reminisce about old times -- the three violent, thrilling years they spent together as bounty hunters in South Los Angeles. Harvey, daughter of the late British actor Laurence Harvey and supermodel Paulene Stone, had led a tormented, eccentric existence. She ran a London dance club, worked as a ranch hand in San Diego, then became a "bail recovery agent," hunting fugitives and carrying a shotgun she called Betsy.

In the 18 months since its tumultuous unveiling at the Cannes Film Festival, "Southland Tales" has become more myth than movie. Initial expectations for the film were at a high because it marked the second feature from writer-director Richard Kelly, the follow-up to his 2001 slow-building cult sensation "Donnie Darko."

TORONTO -- It was an offer he couldn't refuse. The Cannes Film Festival invited writer-director Richard Kelly to screen his second feature as part of its prestigious competition section. So Kelly took his "Southland Tales" to France in 2006, even though there was work still to be done on it. The response? Disastrous. A "career killer," according to more than one industry watcher. Variety's review called it "pretentious, overreaching and fatally unfocused."

Four years after his debut feature "Donnie Darko" tanked in theaters, subsequently becoming a cult favorite on home video and cable TV, writer-director Richard Kelly's next film, "Southland Tales," is finally headed into production.

Back in 1986, when the Iran-Contra scandal became news, Rhino Records reissued a Phil Ochs CD titled "A Toast to Those Who Are Gone." A fiery troubadour of the 1960s best known for "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore," Ochs was also a political activist who not only had denounced the Vietnam War at home but had traveled to Chile, South Africa and Tanzania to promote world peace, inspiring the FBI to amass a 410-page file on his six-string dissent.

A dense hybrid of teen angst and science fiction, a metaphysical meditation on the nature of being and time travel aided by the presence of a 6-foot-tall bunny rabbit, "Donnie Darko" hit theaters in the fall of 2001 with a resounding thud of indifference. The disastrous initial release of the debut feature from then 26-year-old writer-director Richard Kelly should have been the beginning of a rapid descent into movie-land oblivion. Then a funny thing happened on the way to being forgotten.

A Southern California engineer who fled the country in 1985 after being indicted on charges of selling Israel electronic devices that can be used to fire nuclear weapons was sentenced Monday to 40 months in federal prison. Richard Kelly Smyth, now 72 and in frail health, was discovered living in southern Spain last year. He was arrested by local police and extradited to the United States. He pleaded guilty in December to violating the U.S.

A Southern California engineer who fled the country in 1985 after being indicted on charges of selling Israel electronic devices that can be used to fire nuclear weapons was sentenced Monday to 40 months in federal prison. Richard Kelly Smyth, now 72 and in frail health, was discovered living in southern Spain last year. He was arrested by local police and extradited to the United States. He pleaded guilty in December to violating the U.S.

Back in 1986, when the Iran-Contra scandal became news, Rhino Records reissued a Phil Ochs CD titled "A Toast to Those Who Are Gone." A fiery troubadour of the 1960s best known for "I Ain't Marchin' Anymore," Ochs was also a political activist who not only had denounced the Vietnam War at home but had traveled to Chile, South Africa and Tanzania to promote world peace, inspiring the FBI to amass a 410-page file on his six-string dissent.

An adolescent awkwardness comes over Richard Kelly and the 26-year-old stumbles over his words when he is asked to explain the enigmatic plot of his first feature film, "Donnie Darko." It's a science-fiction coming-of-age tale, he offers. A period piece set in 1988. A black comedy. A satiric portrait of modern life. The story of a teenager with emotional problems and a divine emissary who appears to him as a man in a weird rabbit suit.

Many thanks for the story by staff writer Bob Secter "One American's Way: Work, Be Helpful" (Feb. 12). It was so refreshing to read this positive article regarding the attitudes and behavior of Richard Kelly at his work! LOUISE A. WARRINER, Big Bear Lake