Anyone else interested in this? I'm not a particular fan of Richard Kelly (never seen Southland Tales, liked Donnie Darko well enough when it first came out but haven't felt much of an urge to revisit it), but things that I've read about it have piqued my interest.

The Box Director Richard Kelly on His Obsession With Ominous Strangers

http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2009/...y-interview.php

I'll be very pleased if this movie manages to fit into the tradition of the better Richard Matheson-based film/tv adaptations like Duel, Legend of Hell House (I'd still like to see a good "Hard R" adaptation of the novel Hell House) or Matheson's Twilight Zone episodes. (I still think someone could make a terrific horror movie based on the short story "Being"). Of course, the source story for this film, "Button, Button" is only about 4-5 pages long, so there's probably not much Matheson here beyond the basic premise, but based on what I've read, it sounds like this movie might capture the feel of Matheson's short story work.

If early reviews are anything to go on, this might be one that really polarizes critics:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10009151-box/

I found this comment to be kind of odd:

"The pic reveals the hazards of taking Twilight Zone material too far and too seriously."

Uh, what's wrong with taking Twilight Zone material seriously? Just because it's silly to take SF/Horror/Fantasy seriously?

I'm game. I'm more or less on your side about Kelly. But I dig Matheson, dig the premise, and the trailer scared the hell out of me. Plus, Creepy Horror Movie Langella might just close the deal for me, even if he only has a couple scenes.

I'll be checking this out this weekend. Having read the short and watching the TZ episode I pretty much know what I'm in for. And thanks to the commercials I already have an idea on what the ending might be. I've enjoyed Kelly's other works enough to give it a shot.

Really? Which part? Not being dicklopodlous, just wasn't moved by the trailer at all. Still seeing it, if partially (primarily?) because it was shot digitally, with heavy '70s-style lens diffusion, and I've access to the best DLP presentation outside of 4k at my disposal.

I wanna see what it looks like.

POTENTIAL SPOILERS??

What can I say? Creepy staring people freak me the f--- out. Especially when they are right outside your window. Which is why Kill, Baby...Kill! and the climax to The Others always work for me every viewing.

Ah. Kay, gotcha.

Yes, please!

The good news is that Richard Kelly is taking a Richard Matheson story (which I remember being spooked by when it was adapted for a 1980s TWILIGHT ZONE episode) and giving it the DONNIE DARKO treatment. Unfortunately, that's also the bad news. I hear tell that Kelly has taken this story and really DARKOed it up complete with water tentacles.

My fear is that Kelly is starting to use his whole tangent universe/philosophy of time travel thing as a crutch to fill out any script he's trying to write. SOUTHLAND TALES apparently started life as a simple Hollywood satire and look what happened there. I'm not entirely complaining, of course, since I'm a fan of both of his previous films, but I'm curious to see how long he can keep this up for. I'm also curious to see if he can do a story without these trappings and in all honesty, the atrocious DOMINO shows that maybe he should stick with the time traveling water tentacles.

It could also be said that Kelly is developing a signature style like our mutual hero, David Lynch. One could argue that Lynch also fell back on the tangent universe, dream logic thing more than a couple of times and Kelly is trying his own (way more prosaic and literal) version of that.

I also wring my hands over Kelly, because he and I are peers in terms of age and I see him trying something that I've been wanting to try myself (and have caught myself doing while writing two similar stories in different genres). Needless to say, I want to see if he can pull this off, but much as I love SOUTHLAND TALES, it would be absurd to acknowledge that film as anything other than a creative meltdown.

Ah, who am I kidding? I'm tickled that THE BOX is the third coming of DONNIE DARKO and Richard Kelly's obsessions. Plus, it has a score courtesy of ARCADE FIRE so there's always that.

Will he somehow manage to force his formula on Richard Matheson and pull it all together? Well, if he takes another cue from David Lynch, he may not try and what we'll be left with is a hopefully compelling and haunting nightmare mess that defies us to get on its trippy wavelength.

If you do intend seeing this, I suggest staying away from any articles on it. For whatever reason, dingbat Cameron Diaz revealed the film's twist at ComicCon and it seems every other article I've seen since has decided to repeat it.

She IS a dingbat, isn't she?

I fell in love with DONNIE DARKO, which I reviewed for Scarlet, but I prefer the theatrical cut, without the transitional text material.

Then you don't want to see Takashi Shimizu's "Rinne" (Reincarnation.) There's a shot of ghostly folks staring out of a wooded area that I found incredibly creepy.

BOO!

I haven't watched it in a while, but doesn't Peeping Tom have a shot kind of like this too? I can't find it on Google Images.

There ya go. One of the core reasons I love Bava's horror films: creepy staring dead people.

As for Peeping Tom, you're thinking of the scene when Boehm peeks in on Massey's birthday party... and then everyone turns and sees him. Which plays into another of my freaky cinema faves: the object of voyeurism who somehow turns and sees the voyeur, no matter how impossible or supernatural the circumstances. See: Rear Window, Cocoon, Fright Night, etc.

Anyway, if anyone has seen The Box, please chime in with thoughts. I have some birthday gift certificate bucks and I might blow 6 of 'em on an AMC AM matinee this weekend.

Roger Ebert just Tweeted: "It wasn't screened in timely fashion for critics, but "The Box" is surprisingly good."

I was told that the first draft of SOUTHLAND TALES was brilliant and "could have won an Academy Award" and was about a brewing race-war in Los Angeles and that it bore little resemblance to the final script/film.

I'm still trying to figure out what the final film is about, although there are long sections of it that I absolutely love.

Vincent

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d...VIEWS/911069998

I've gone on record as quite the SOUTHLAND TALES lover myself:

http://z8.invisionfree.com/MHVF/index.php?...topic=8826&st=0

Although, I would probably modify that in retrospect. I love it for long stretches and find the short pockets in between those stretches to range from baffling to obnoxious (the scene in which The Rock is aggressively coerced into accepting oral sex on the beach is so awful that it makes me doubt my sanity for liking this movie).

I've also heard that the original script was coherent to the point of being genuinely good and functional. I know that his script for HOLES is available through his fan site and I'm sort of hoping that his original SOUTHLAND TALES script makes its way onto the internets one of these days.

Outstanding! Richard Kelly has grown one step closer to Lynchood. He's still trying too hard, but THE BOX is his most focused and mature film yet. Of course, being only his third, it certainly should be.

THE BOX has its flaws, but Kelly has gotten so good at what he does, that I suspect he's a few films shy of a true masterpiece. And when he finally delivers one, THE BOX will seem that much more genuinely unique and awesome in retrospect.

Of course, I think that it's unique and awesome now, but I'm quite certain that I'll remain in the minority with that opinion.

Oh, and not for nothing, but Cameron Diaz has never been better. Her performance gets more impressive the more I think about it. It's sort of neat watching her age into a new Michele Pfeiffer. Pity she never put on the cat suit.

I saw this last night. It may be a little while before I can really write anything coherent about it, but I would recommend it to readers of this board. It's the first movie with a wide theatrical release that I've seen in a while that I wanted to see again almost immediately afterward. In fact, I would say that it probably requires a second viewing. I'm looking forward to hearing what other people think about it. Some really interesting analysis of Inglourious Basterds appeared pretty quickly after that movie came out; I have a feeling that something similar is going to happen with this movie.

The Box might be somewhat of a hard sell to mainstream audiences (while the credits rolled, I overheard someone complaining that it was "gay," which always seems to happen whenever I see anything even the least bit challenging or non-mainstream at the local googolplex), but I can definitely see this becoming a future cult movie.

BTW, even though the movie diverges a lot from the short story "Button, Button," I thought I would warn anyone who wants to go into this movie as "unspoiled" as possible want to avoid it until after they see the movie. The story doesn't directly spoil anything in the movie, but I would say that it does have one or two hints about where the movie goes.

Based on Friday's estimates no one's opening THE BOX, but it sounds interesting.

Analysis.

Hmmmm. Okay, I saw this last night. Although there's lots to recommend, I don't think I can stand by this flick. I ultimately did not care about these characters or their dilemma one little bit. The diner scene in Drag Me To Hell explored more about these ethical issues than Kelly does through this whole film. Kelly seems more interested in piling up lots of weird details about his sci-fi concepts. And like in Donnie Darko, he's not really into showing it all coherently adding up. Even though I get the feeling Warners tried to wrangle explanations out of him, what with the twelve or fifteen scenes of Langella (who is very good) standing in front of his Aqua-Fresh Tunnel Of Doom and delivering exposition voice-overs. There's lots of scary and surreal stuff that kept me glued for a while, but it didn't last.

However, both the musical score and the actress playing the babysitter were gorgeous beyond words.

That's Gillian Jacobs from NBC's COMMUNITY, which is pretty good in its own right. And yes, she is very hot.

I liked the film, although like Kelly's other works, there is just so much left out there I'm not sure what to make of some of it. I enjoyed it though I feel like I need to see it again. I can't imagine its going to make a lot of money. The crowd I saw it with wasn't impressed.

The wonderfully Bernard Herrmann-esque score by the group Arcade Fire is going to be released... eventually, according to this article.

But you can listen to some of the score at this link, an off-shoot to the film's main site, where they have three montages of not-really-spoilerish footage .

I finally opened THE BOX today. Well, production wise, it's outstanding, as the 70's era has been reproduced pretty much perfect. Diaz and Marsden are both decent in their roles and Langella is great, as usual. And I definitely agree, regarding the score.

I do want to see this again, but three films into Kelly's career and I swear that he just enjoys being obscure about things. I was good until the last third, when needed explanations never came. I think I wanted something better then what was given, as it sounded very random and just mean. Still, there are images and scenes that stick in one's head for a while, so I'm willing to give it another look when it hits home video.

Has anyone written a "cheat sheet" for The Box similar to this one for Southland Tales (which I finally caught up to yesterday and found both fascinating and maddening in equal measure)?

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/20...tales_analysis/

The Box isn't nearly as messy as Kelly's previous film, but there was still quite a bit that I wasn't quite clear on. I think the difference here is that I have a sense that a second viewing of The Box might actually make things a little clearer, which I can't say about Southland Tales.

BTW, anyone else think Kelly really should have found some way to use Zelda Rubinstein in The Box rather than in Southland Tales? (I will say that her compellingly weird screen presence is one aspect of the latter film that makes me wish that I liked it more; how the hell is it that David Lynch has never cast her in anything?)