Southland Tales [Blu-ray] starring
Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle
Gellar, Seann William Scott, Carlos
Amezcua, Curtis Armstrong
Aweso- Terrible
Well, filmmakers should aim high, they say. And Richard Kelly shot the
moon on his highly-anticipated follow-up to cult sensation Donnie Darko,
which expands the apocalyptic mood of that movie and blows it up tenfold.
Set during the election season of 2008, Southland Tales proposes a series
of apparently linked events: the reappearance of a vanished movie star
(Dwayne The Rock Johnson), now an amnesiac; the bizarre doubling of a
policeman (Seann William Scott in two roles); the development of an
energy source from ocean waves; and the presence of an Iraq War
veteran (Justin Timberlake) who seems to be watching everything, and
narrating some of it. Not that the narration helps; even with voice-over
(reportedly added after the films disastrous debut at the 2006 Cannes Film
Festival), Southland Tales doesnt come close to making sense, let alone at
the minimum level of dangling a carrot to lead the audience along (even
Mulholland Drive had a semblance of murder mystery to be solved, or n ot).
The cast is loaded with Saturday Night Live cut-ups, but only Jon Lovitz
connects, and in other roles people like Sarah Michelle Gellar, Christopher
Lambert, Bai Ling, and John Larroquette are utterly mystifying, by no fault
of their own. In some of the musical sequences Kelly gets in stride, but its
easy to create drama in a three-minute music video, and harder to do over
two and a half hours. Some top critics rushed to champion the movie, as
though flying in the face of philistinism, so feel free to try out this
incoherent pastiche for yourself. --Robert Horton
I love this movie despite its flaws. My main complaint is that there isn't
enough of it. It definitely needed to be fleshed out and re-edited to make
the story more cohesive but then it would have been a miniseries and not a
movie. I still chortle to myself when I remember Will Sasso snickering at
Porno Buffy's grasp of ... Space stuff. I also liked the shout out to SMP's
Emmy-winning sojourn on a soap opera in the scene at Mandy Moore's
mansion where everyone was gathered in the wood paneled library a nd
accusations and shameful revelations ricocheted around the actors like a
pinball game and Bai Ling looked like she was picking grapes out of
Wallace Shawn's scalp and putting them INTO her MOUTH. It's a shame
this dvd didn't come with extras since thi s movie was obviously intended to
be expanded upon. I'm especially curious about what else Avon
Barksdale contributed to this film that did not make the final edit. I find
Justin Timberlake disturbing but he wasn't odious in this film and he must
have had a bigger backstory since it would be a waste to cast him with his
huge fan base and not exploit his allure. What happened to the movie and
the wealth of ideas and just FUN that came with it?
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