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List Price: $14.94 | | Label: Sony Pictures
Salesrank: 4391
Released: March 18, 2008 |
| Our Price: $5.00 |
| Used Price: $1.33 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Southland Tales is an ensemble piece set in the futuristic landscape of Los Angeles as it stands on the brink of social, economic and environmental disaster. Boxer Santaros is an action star who's stricken with amnesia. His life intertwines with Krysta Now, an adult film star developing her own reality television project, and David Clark, a Hermosa Beach police officer who holds the key to a vast conspiracy.
Description of Southland Tales:
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 film's disastrous debut at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival), Southland Tales doesn't 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 not). 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 it's 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
Southland Tales Reviews:
A real attention grabber 
2009-10-16 - I'd caught parts of this film on cable, but never managed to catch the whole thing. I was intrigued, and just couldn't get it out of my mind. Having finally managed to see the entire film from beginning to end, I can highly recommend it. If you liked Donnie Darko, you will love Southland Tales (especially since the same mastermind is behind both)! A great addition to your collection of films that make you think.
Can we please get "propaganda" included in the rating system? 
2009-09-30 - Seriously.... Can we please get some kind of "Propagana Warning" incorporated into the rating system, please.......
All the other positive ratings are going to result in me trying this thing again, (right now, in fact), but I'm not holding out much hope.
When the opening sequence is talking about "republicans" and features a video shot of an elephant boffing another .... can it really go anywhere but down from there?????
I'll try... but I'm not expecting much...
baaaad 
2009-09-29 - I was excited to see this film. I really enjoy many of the actors but the film is terrible. It's nothing like the preview. It's very long, and very boring. I looked online to see how well it did in the box office because I wondered why I hadn't heard of it. It made approx 350 thousand dollars worldwide. Seriously, look it up.
So bad that it might be good....
2009-09-23 - Have you ever watched a film only to wonder whether it was a avante garde masterpiece or a horribly made ego project? I like to think that I can usually tell the difference but this one had me stumped. It just couldn't be as bad as it seemed. From the reaction of many of the actors it seemed that they were in doubt also. So many of them seemed lost as if they didn't know what the film was about. That's understandable. I've never seemed such a confused, meandering mess- even the excessive voice-over narration (always a bad sign) didn't help unravel it.
So many big (and formerly big) names were associated with this. And they all seemed to be going their own way independent of each other. Since so many of them were Saturday Night Live alums perhaps they were improvising the script as they went along...
I mean, I enjoy unconventional films but this one just seemed to degenerate to an ego-fueled freakshow with everyone doing his own thing with the barest nod to a plot tieing it all together. I know that they were trying to make a political statement here about the war and neoconservatism in general, but it really didn't work. It came across as a street circus embarassement. So many people trying to make "hip" social comments while endulging in shameless self promotion for the next project. Perhaps this truly is the soul of "Southland."
If you want to mine this over-long freakshow (even editing would not have helped) for a few comedic and visual gems then go ahead, but it might be a less painful experience if you get stoned first. Then again, perhaps this thing is so bad that it will eventually become an underground cult craze.
Looking for offbeat?
2009-09-19 - To say this film is not for everyone is the understatement of the century. If you crave "something completely different" though this baby was delivered from Tralfamadore by Dr. Zaphod Beeblebrox. I just sat there going "wow" "wow!" "wow!?!". Take "Dr. Strangelove", Magnolia" and "12 Monkeys" and add the brown acid from Woodstock to get a feel for this movie. WARNING!!! Make sure you are down off the acid before you start watching.
