Southland Tales

[LonghornSurgeon]

Has anyone seen it? I thought the complexity was interesting. Granted some of the performances weren't that great.... the story itself if you could piece it together worked for me. Opinions?

 

[WhiteH2O Horn]

Man, I wanted to like this movie in a big way. I was intrigued by the plot when I first heard about it several years ago, long before any of the roles were cast. I'm not a huge fan of Donnie Darko, but I was pretty impressed by Richard Kelly's first feature film as a writer/director, especially since the guy was only 25 when he made that film.

After becoming interested to see how Mr. Kelly would develop/mature as a filmmaker, and having been involved in filmmaking myself when I was younger, I understood the incredible scope of what he was attempting with Southland Tales. If he pulled it off, it could be a truly original masterpiece, but if he didn't make it work, it could be an epic bomb.

As the script went through several revisions and the huge ensemble cast was finally assembled, I knew that this was definitely going to be a very polarizing film whether or not it even worked. First off, it was meant to be something of a puzzle. It was designed to not be linear storytelling and was going to challenge the audience to draw their own conclusions about some of the storylines that were not resolved. Kelly's decision to cast people like Sarah "Buffy" Michelle Gellar, Seann "Stifler" William Scott, Dewayne "The Rock" Johnson, Cheri Oteri, Jon Lovitz, Curtis "Booger" Armstrong, Justin Timberlake, John Laroquette, Kevin Smith, and Mandy Moore (and a host of others) against type was going to immediately turn off many people who will only associate the aforementioned players with their stereotypes and generally perceived lack of talent. Lastly, this movie was attempting to be epic in its targets to satirize: the political right, the extreme political left, the culture of celebrity worship, the potential paranoia/ramifications of the Patriot Act following a nuclear terrorist attack on U.S. soil, and the search for alternative energy solutions. Trying to make a dark comedy/sci-fi epic satire about the end of the world was really swinging for the fences.

Needless to say, I read the pre-quel graphic novels, not having read a comic book since I was a kid. I followed the production/release of the film closely, even attending the "sneak" preview at The Alamo during Fantastic Fest. After seeing the film several times in the theater after the theatrical release, I bought the DVD the day it was released.

After all this obsession, I'm still not sure how I feel about this movie. Some parts are brilliant, some parts are crap. Unlike many people, I actually like the cast. Although I don't care for his style of music, I think that Justin Timberlake is legitimately talented and will do good things as an actor. Because I understand that the film is going for a noir/comic book fell, I don't mind the over the top acting in some scenes. The thing that doesn't work for me is a lot of the dialogue. Some of the key phrases in the film are used too much, or at the wrong time. Kelly did great dialogue in Darko, so I was surprised that a lot of it fell flat for me in this film. There were also many things I liked about this film, but I don't think it worked the way Kelly hoped it would. It's an interesting, confusing, and highly original mess. Many people will absolutely hate this movie, but I could see it finding an audience out there.

 

[LonghornSurgeon]

I agree it can be confusing at times. The reason the movie rang for me was the involvement of Revelations in the narration. Timberlake did a decent job. Dwayne Johnson at times was good but at other times he was so stilted I couldn't understand if it was the character or his poor acting skills. It took me various viewings to piece together the story line completely and I was paying close attention to most everything the first time through. I guess that's what drew me to this movie was it's complexity paralleling the scriptures. For what it's worth I thought Sean William Scott did an ok performance.