THE BOX

Richard Kelly's new movie. Probably the worst movie I've seen in the theater in years. There are movies I really hate - like 500 Days of Summer or the Informant - where the philosophy of the movies are skewed and reflective of uninspired or boring filmmakers without an interesting POV. Or movies I really don't like - for instance Where the Wild Things Are - whose elements just don't add up to much at all.

But THE BOX is on a different level of bad. It is incompetent. The screenplay couldn't get through the first round of a competition. If it were an incoming submission, I'd read 15 pages and pass. Richard Kelly made Donnie Darko on accident, the same way Brett Farve beat the 49ers earlier this season on a miracle pass.

Kelly is an embarrassment. It seems like he doesn't actually watch movies or read stories or have any sense of coherency. But I don't actually blame him - it's like blaming a retarded kid for double dribbling in basketball (hat tip, Chris Rock), I blame the producers and actors and studio for putting Kelly in a game and taking our money. I mean - are they kidding me? This is a studio-released movie. If you were associated with The Box and somehow facilitated getting in to theaters, you ought commit hara-kiri with your movie career. It is that bad.

It is so bad, I willfully volunteer to quit the movie business if I'm ever part of a movie as bad as The Box. I preemptively fire myself and will never speak or talk of movies again. A brave person should have stood up at the studio screening and demanded the film be killed immediately before subjecting the public to it's gross incompetency. A braver person would have broken into the studio and burned the negative - a la the Valkyrie plot. It's one thing to pull the wool over our eyes with Where the Wild Thing Are. I understand most of the public is a bunch of morons and maybe, kinda, get fooled by indy music and hipster attitude and somehow sucked into thinking there is meaning where there isn't. I lived in Silver Lake. I watch Bored to Death. I get it. But The Box there isn't even the pretense of fooling the public. It's more just like - we're going to throw steaming shit in your face - bad craft, no story, random science that makes ZERO sense and you're going to pay for it with your time and money. I'm not even going to enjoy myself making this movie. I'm going to bore your socks off, like I'm bored. I'm not even going to be David Lynch weird. I'm going to take a dash of Lynch, a dash of the Twilight Zone, a dash of X-files toss in some scenes a beginning directors class would laugh out of the room, put in a few bumpy dolly shots and music score throughout and see what people say.

In summary - thumbs down.