Montreal orchestral rockers the Arcade Fire are generally pretty picky about who they work with, the amount of press they give, what shows they play, etc. (or at least they’re now in the position to be that picky). So what the fuck is up with the news that they’re going to be scoring Richard Kelly’s new movie “The Box”???
Ok, “Donnie Darko,” was great (s0me might go as far to call it a classic, those are words we don’t throw around easily), but hello? Did the Arcader’s miss “Southland Tales“, aka one of this decade’s most godawful films??
Not only does it appear that Kelly found the script for “The Box” in the bottom of a cracker jack box (or lifted from an episode of “The Twilight Zone”), he’s basically admitted the film is going to be a vehemently commercial project aimed at restoring studio faith in his work ever since “Southland Tales” tanked – he’s well aware he dodged a bullet when Hollywood allowed him to make another film afterwards.
Wait, how did this all come about? A Pitchfork reader tipped the site off to the fact that producer/engineer Markus Dravs spilled the beans about the band’s involvement on his website (surely waaay before the AF and or Kelly would like everyone to know).
… having finished Coldplay’s forthcoming album Viva LaVida – now off to Canada to work with Arcade Fire on a soundtrack for the forthcoming Richard Kelly film.
The premise is absurd: a couple find a box containing a button. If they push it, they will receive $1 million. The rub? Someone they don’t know will die. Ooooh, scary! (see it’s typical “Twilight Zone” B-movie, bad sci-fi episode of the week).
Now we’re not one of those Arcade Fire disciples who think they should be above this (hello, the aggressively mediocre Neon Bible), but for guys who come from the staunchly artistique Montreal scene, to be matched up with Richard Kelly, a one hit wonder hack? It seems almost absurd. We expect a tiny bit more from you guys (the film stars Cameron Diaz for christ’s sake, she was just in an Ashton Kutcher movie!)
Kelly told USA Today a few months back that he was ready to commercial with this new project. “With ‘The Box,’ I hope to make a more mainstream popcorn film.” And to be fair, if you wanted to continue making films after creating the laughable monstrosity that was “Southland Tales,” you’d want to go commercial too.
Maybe Win Butler has some sort of irony-affinity like a handful of ‘Southland’ devotees have? (like Melissa Anderson at TimeOut, a decent film critic who forfeited all cinematic goodwill for the rest of her career by championing the film beyond all acceptable and logical notions of good taste).
Oh yeah, Kelly would like you to know that he has nothing to do with “The Donnie Darko” sequel and disavowed any association to the film. “I haven’t read this script. I have absolutely no involvement with this production, nor will I ever be involved. I have no control over the rights from our original film.”
In this same post, Kelly hinted at the Arcade Fire’s involvement, but of course his engineer has outed the plan. “We’re starting to work with a very famous band who is honoring us with being the first fillmmakers they’ve ever scored a film with.”
Yeah, great choice of first project guys. Good luck with that. To be slightly fair, Kelly does have decent taste in music (albeit somewhat dated). Though nothing could save “Southland Tales,” we suppose it might have been slightly worse had it not had a few semi-enjoyable moments with late ’90s alt-rock Blur, The Pixies and Radiohead (and some laughable ones with Jane’s Addiction and The Killers).