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Southland Tales (2006)

Director: Richard Kelly

Critics' rating

Average user rating

8 reviews

Synopsis

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

Movie review

From Time Out New York

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 permanently damaged by Iraq) 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 David 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

Time Out New York issue 633: November 15–21

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User reviews of this film

iknowyourmother said...

Posted on Mar 20 2008 17:00 i'm so disgusted with the dissenters, who are so inflamed or jealous that they don't get it, that they feel the need to attack and tear down anyone who did. get over yourself people. why are you taking it so damned seriously. we are allowed to like this movie without having to put up with being berrated by the likes of you pretentious movie snobs.
so what if there were so many characters and stories that they were just a blur in your first viewing. watch it again if you so desperately need to tie every end, because it's all there. every character is needed and acts as a chain which leads us into the grande finale!
get your heads out of the old stuffy divine rules of cinema and let these kids experiment with a new thoroughly modern cinematic language.

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Marge said...

Posted on Nov 26 2007 14:11 It's nice to watch an artist polarize his audience--fantastic to watch the squares running in circles while spouting all the movie-crit lingo that Kelly's film puts so deep in the dark. "Southland Tales" is no more (or less) confounding and internally conflicted than the average daily news cycle. Americans have developed a woefully tin ear for satire and Kelly's critics can't tell the difference between a deadpan delivery and a CGI goblin. The latest Will Smith vehicle? Christmas uppers and handwringing Gulf War downers? Each movie on the American screen at the moment is nothing more than an EVENT in Kelly's Tales. See you in the Southland!

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Cynthia said...

Posted on Nov 26 2007 13:11 This is by far the worst 5 out of 6 stars rated movie I have ever seen. It was lost and confusing. Too many things to tackle. As someone who is a huge fan of Donnie Darko and find Time Out generally reliable on movie ratings, I was so disappointed. I could not wait for the movie to end. At least ten people got up before the movie ended and I don't blame them. Ugh. I want that time in my life and my money back.

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Jared said...

Posted on Nov 21 2007 19:53 I thought this movie was brilliant. I've seen it twice now and I continue to think about it constantly. If you didn't get this movie look into the prequel graphic novels. They help and they're good too. Like Donnie Darko, you can't take everything you can away from this movie after only one viewing.

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Mark said...

Posted on Nov 21 2007 17:25 i was on pot in front of the theatre. people interested in the movie might think critics just didn't "get" it, but that would be a terrible mistake. this movie is nonstop awful with a few decent moments. the script could well be one of the worst ever written. for someone who claims to have been inspired by lynch, kelly's direction seems especially pedestrian and ugly.

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kc said...

Posted on Nov 18 2007 03:27 i have never thought a movie was more terrible than this. never. ever. i am honestly thinking of protesting this film, i wasted 2 hours of my life and $10 of my hard earned money.

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Lepointe said...

Posted on Nov 17 2007 06:20 Stunning? Stunning?!!!!! Obviously you were the film student on pot with the thick black glasses behind me in the theatre. Stunning?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Hap said...

Posted on Nov 16 2007 11:39 Reminiscent of Repo Man. Absolutely stunning.

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