Being Richard Kelly

May 7th, 2006 by Hennessy

Southland Tales director-writer Richard Kelly’s passport has been stuck “under review” for the past several days in Washington, D.C., because, I’m told, there’s a guy named James Kelly on the government’s terrorist watch list. The Donnie Darko director’s full name is James Richard Kelly, hence the confusion. But c’mon…one guy may have done something criminal and the other’s a friggin’ cult director, for Chrissake. It’s only a couple of weeks before the festival begins and the situation, says Kelly, has not only failed to improve but is “getting out of control .” So he’s now seeking help from Senator Diane Feinstein’s staff, who are in contact with State Department logjammers. To prove he’s not a terrorist, Kelly’s mother “is having to submit my Junior High School Yearbook, among other things,” he said today. I suspect he’s only half-joking when he says, “I might not make it to Cannes after all, and I might be stuck watching it on E!” Southland Tales is partly about police-state measures that the U.S. government imposes after a second 9/11-type disaster, and given this, says Kelly, “The paranoid conspiracy freak inside me is starting to think this has something to do with the film.”

Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoniette and Richard Linklater’s Fast Food Nation are the only other American films in the competition. Not even Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain made it in and so this obstacle really has to be killing Richard Kelly.
Gotta give it up for our ever watchful patriots fighting the “War On Terror”, way to stop those terrorists.
We can’t let them win!