Southland Tales

[teflon]

OK, where to start... objectivity I suppose.
Southland Tales is the new film by Richard Kelly, writer and director who also did Donnie Darko and Domino. It stars Buffy and Stiffler and The Rock and Justin Timberlake, it also has some really well known actors in minor roles. Part sci-fi apocalypse tale, part political satire, part musical etc etc.
Sounds good right? Well I thought so. And then I watched it.

I kind of wondered why such a big budget movie got such a limited release in cinemas, it came out here on the 7th of December but hardly made it into many city multiplexes. But it turns out it was for good reason.

Southland Tales is deliberately abstruse to the point where it makes David Lynch look like bland formulaic narrative. In fact I think it might appeal to Lynch fans, but most people are going to walk away from this film wishing they had never even bothered. In my opinion it is one of the worst films ever made, hyperbole perhaps but considering the cast and the supposed credentials of the writer/director it is utterly appalling. Boring, slow, impossible to follow, unlikeable characters with an underlying creepiness that can only emanate from nutcase Christian right-wing Americans, I really was shocked by how bad it was and cannot understand why so many famous people decided to be in it.

Some famous actor (The Rock) is married to a politician's daughter and ends up being involved in a quantum physics experiment which has something to do with perpetual motion, but destroys the fabric of space-time, slowing down the rotation of the earth which strangely means poor people all shoot each other. It also makes doppelgangers of The Rock and his mate Stiffler who ends up destroying the universe by meeting the other him.
This plot is interspersed with weird women who are communists who seem to support Syria and Iran in a war against themselves. And a porno videotape blackmail conspiracy.

There is lots of swearing and some hellishly misogynist takes on airhead california girl culture, and the ending is enough to make even someone who believes in psychics and horoscopes smell a rat.
It's awful.

[Audiothor]

Sounds like one to avoid.

Did you really say 'part musical' ? How can they work a musical into THAT plot?

It's bound to become a cult classic.

BTW I think that is a really well written review, teflon, well done.