Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more

 

Southland Tales (2006)

Director: Richard Kelly

5

Critics' rating

Average user rating
No reviews

Synopsis

Richard Kelly follows up Donnie Darko with this post-apocalyptic freak-out.

Movie review

From Time Out Chicago

Call it Richard Kelly’s big-bang theory. In the writer-director’s incredible follow-up to Donnie Darko, bang is both how the world ends in his inversion of the last line of T.S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” and how it comes together in stupidity: “Once you get on the bang bus, you never get off,” declares a playmate of porn star–chat host Krysta Now (Gellar). A doomsday scenario that takes on Iraq, the endless war on terror, the idiocies of political movements and the aggressive vacancy of pop culture, Southland Tales is one of the smartest, funniest, most audacious—and most mournful—films of the year.

A movie bursting with so many ideas is rare enough; rarer still is one that displays a director’s sheer love for his performers. As with Gellar, Mandy Moore (playing a Republican senator’s daughter), Seann William Scott (as a soldier traumatized by a friendly-fire incident in Fallujah and his twin), The Rock (an amnesiac action star married to Moore’s character) and Justin Timberlake (another vet) serve as semaphores for American trash culture while simultaneously exploding their celebrity personae. Kelly’s ardor also extends to other films: Clips from Kiss Me Deadly, another L.A.-set apocalypto, pop up, but Mulholland Drive is Southland’s clearest touchstone. “I’ve had this recurring dream,” Scott’s scarred fighter ruefully utters. Like Lynch, Kelly knows that musical numbers express a surfeit of feeling, evident not only when Rebekah del Rio sings “The Star-Spangled Banner,” but when Timberlake lip-synchs to the Killers. Ideas and emotions share equal weight in Southland Tales. You can’t get more bang for your buck than that.

Author: Melissa Anderson 2007-11-14 22:17:22

Time Out Chicago Issue 142: November 15–21, 2007


  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields





Features

Do overs!

Do overs!

After Race to Witch Mountain, what should Disney remake next?

Gray's anatomy

James Gray wants to push buttons—again.

The next big thing?

Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.

Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema

So you think you can dance, comrade?

Puppet master

Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.

Socratic method

Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.

Wander woman

Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.

Oscars

Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.