User reviews

You can get a pretty good idea of Southland Tales from a quick description of its characters. Dwayne Johnson plays Boxer Santaros, a movie star in Richard Kelly's all-too-near dystopian future. But it's not that straightforward. Johnson plays The Rock playing Boxer Santaros, while Boxer is playing the role of a character he's researching, one Jericho Kane. Sarah Michelle Gellar plays an ageing porn-star with a business portfolio that includes energy drinks. And Sean William Scott? Well, he plays a cop's amnesiac twin brother, as part of a neo-Marxist scheme to overthrow the government. Or does he? And you thought Donnie Darko was confusing. Welcome to Southland...

The year is 2008. Justin Timberlake - did I forget to mention him? He plays a drugged-up Iraq war veteran with a huge scar on his face. Who sits in a huge chair with a huge rifle, guarding "Fluid Karma", an ultra-valuable perpetual motion wave machine that is the new form of power since oil has become rare and therefore massively expensive. Politics, anyone? Anyway, JT (who might be telepathic) narrates over an introduction comprised of graphic novel slides and MTV-meets-FOX news bulletins that guides us from our present to the "present" of Kelly's 2008 Southland. The passage of time has not been kind to the US; a nuke has gone off in Texas, and the country has become a police state. The most "recent" clip reveals that Boxer (played by Dwayne Johnson playing The Rock) has disappeared without a trace, which is where the movie begins. Or does it? By this stage, you just might have gotten the impression that Southland Tales is a bit of a mess. And you'd be right. Kelly's attempt at a politically-charged all-encompassing comment on the world that can also appeal to the youth of today does ultimately fall flat, but that's not to say it's without its merits. The satire's often sharp, and the way the movie skips from genre-to-genre (dystopian conspiracy to Scooby Doo farce to musical to action movie) works surprisingly well without jarring too much. The music, while not perfect (I'm pretty sure Black Rebel Motorcycle Club won't have the kind of comeback that allows them to host LA's 4th of July weekend party next year...) creates some of the movie's more memorable moments, such as JT's Killers dance number and the captivating three-way dance toward the end.

The deliberately exaggerated performances are, for the most part, very good, with Johnson capturing the action man (playing an action man - going through a crisis - playing an action man) role very well. The way he switches from the kind of guy who pours beer over himself as a form of refreshment to jittery neurotic mess is both funny and engaging, allowing you to see a little of the man beneath the steely facade.

Unfortunately, this is as close as you'll get to the characters. While the overplaying is amusing, it excludes you on an emotional level. Donnie Darko worked so well because it drew you in, but Southland seems to deliberately keep you at arm's length lest you miss out on some of Kelly's political messages. For all its mystery, intrigue, and action, it feels a bit soulless, and goes out with a whimper as opposed to the bang it so desires.

Southland Tales is an ambitious film, but a messy one, and while it may not work on the kind of level it's aspiring to, in a movie climate where so many films play it safe, at least Kelly tries. Very flawed, but entertaining nonetheless.

Now, this film has some definite problems, but it receives a 10 in my book for the director's insistence on trying something different. This film certainly doesn't offer a story that fits the A,B,C, plot mold of standard Hollywood pictures and it lacks slightly in characterization, but makes up for it with idea's, experimental style, and a "european" view of the current climate of the United States of America (now matter what your politics).

As an American viewer currently in France, I'm astounded that there are not more critics praising this feature. I understand the casting choices are odd, but after hearing Richard Kelly speak of the film as a "puzzle" it seems to make more and more sense as I replay the anarchic gonzo like images in my head.

This film is not about the characters, but the situation in which the characters inhabit. It's an experience. I mean do any of us actually "care" about David Bowman in 2001? Yes, the oddities in the film grow astoundingly quirky (bowel movement thermonuclear baby) but see this film simply to experience something new and to insure more films that don't fit the mold are made. I mean that's why we see Jarmusch pictures, right?

This film has one of the most offbeat ideas I've ever come across.They are so unique in a way that they make Donnie Darko look cheap.But it has the same problems like any other film with outstanding ideas.It lacks a definite focus.

I got a chance to get a look at the film at the Cannes festival where it was premiering to a bunch of critics who pretty much didn't like it.And there's no surprise to that.Although,you have to admire Kelly's attempt on something way out of anyones imagination.The film is given a very different approach and it will go down in history as the most offbeat/outstanding failures.He has it all,a mind blowing story,that we hardly get, watching the film the first time, great characters,excellent writing,sets,music,cinematography and perhaps a decent directing.

Kelly surpasses any one's expectation when you go into details about this film.But he leaves a chilling disappointment when you actually watch the entire film ,which is longer than it needs to be.He misses his audience from the very beginning.It seems like he is lost in a cloud of ideas and never gave a hard thought on how to put them on screen,and most importantly ,how will people interpret those issues he is trying to depict.

The story,I don't know how to put it,is kind of out of my reach.It requires repeated viewing to fully understand the plot,but if you do get it, it could turn out to be a cult classic.The sad thing is that I didn't quite get it.Okay,here goes....The film is set in the year 2008,about the downfall of the American society,the economy,and major environmental disaster which is taking place.The whole world is at the brink of destruction,war ,poverty and all those issues are getting more and more serious,and in between these events, a number of Characters are having problems of their own.A Boxer is an action star who seems to be amnesiac and somehow he meets this porn star Krysta ,who is starting her own reality show.David Clark ,who is a police officer with a secret to a conspiracy within the government.And all their stories intervene and chaos begins and confusion reigns.

Trust me ,I didn't get what was going on the first 30 minutes,then it kind of made sense and I knew what Kelly's intentions were.He was trying his ass out to bring us something new but loses everything and never achieves what he could achieve.

I would say this film had massive expectations from audiences ,me personally.Donnie Darko was a film unlike anything I've seen before and it was unique in a number of ways.Here he tried but fails miserably,and in total embarrassment.Kelly somehow may have been affected by the failure of Domino ,which he wrote.But I have to say, you guys should check this film out.For his first film's sake.I mean there is a lot to watch here,the sets are highly creative and a splendid Cinematography in aid.There are some wonderful comic moments and a number of interesting dramatic and exciting moments,even when ideas were floating all over the film.The films main problem is that it doesn't decide what to do.How to present it's story,it's full of confusion and hardly will there be a positive reaction to Kelly's execution.I really found the film somewhat frustrating at time and also somewhat astonishing.It had its moments but it never tries to be the next big thing.For one thing,the characters were underdeveloped,and I had no idea what Kelly was trying to prove.There are hardly any explanations,but I believe if you watch it several times,there is a great chance that you might actually get it.And then you can call it classic.

Performances are okay.The Rock underplays his part,Gellar is fine as a porn star turned reality TV host.And as usual Sean Willaim Scott ain't funny.And the rest of the cast is quite comme si comme sa!

Overall,a film that should join "I heart Huckabees",or "Life Aquatic" as being different and unique on the surface but from the inside it's all shallow and bland.And yes utterly confusing.An interesting disappointment ,I guess.

OR,

Maybe because it was only half complete and everything was jumbled,and mismashed.That's why I didn't get it.Or maybe something else.

...after you have landed an indie hit? If you had a gazillion of incoherent opinions about the world and your homeland? If you are mad, confused and overwhelmed about/by the politics and the society? If you have watched too many movies and wanted to integrate your influences all over the place at any sacrifice? If you wanna sell your -in the core- interesting, exciting, weird but overall half-baked ideas that were maybe influenced by some bizarre dreams you had or just popped into your mind after you had too much LSD? Well, you might go and shoot something like Southland Tales. Of course everyone has his own opinion and no one should judge artistic devices and expression since it's entirely subjective and there are no rules to it. So arguing over tastes and opinions is really senseless. But having read many reviews mentioning "real genius" and "a masterpiece", I would like to respectfully disagree. To me it felt like a missed shot at achieving something big, something which was supposed to be an avant-garde and unprecedented work so it would become a cult movie. And when it got horribly out of control, all you can do is trying to patch the whole thing up and sell it so that the intented result was exactly this: "a profound sci-fi satire, an artistic mindfuck".

Too many wildy combinated ingredients doesn't make the soup taste any better. Intention and execution are really two different pairs of shoes.

It is not difficult to see why this film was initially panned: it's messy, bizarre, and borderline-incoherent at times. But it's also brilliant. It is, in fact, quite possibly the apotheosis of "postmodern" cinema: quantum physics and esoteric Philip K. Dick references exist alongside washed-up SNL alumni .

It is hilarious, odd, thought-provoking, prophetic, and eminently re-watchable. I have seen it at least 20 times myself. For my money, it is superior to Kelly's fantastic film debut Donnie Darko, and indeed one of the most interesting movies of the new century.

Will you like it? It is quite possible that you won't. But I can guarantee this much: you've never seen anything quite like it before, and it's likely that you won't see anything quite like it ever again.

This is the way the world ends. Not with a whimper, but with a bang.

This is a film about all of the seemingly random events that lead up to the end of the world. And it's also a comedy.

That says it all right there, doesn't it?

When this film ended, I ran to tell every one I could find about it. The odd thing I found about it was that I ended nearly every one of these conversations with the following:

"It was amazing, but don't see it. You won't like it."

It's strange to hope that a film I feel so passionately about should not be seen by the very people I want to discuss it with. However, that's exactly the way I feel here. This film is not for everybody; in fact, there are only a precious few out of all of the people who see it that will even tolerate its existence. But you know what? That really isn't important.

Art is subjective, and no matter how many times I bother to explain a difficult concept to somebody who hated this film, I realize that it will never work long before the conversation ends. The problem is that these difficult concepts are actually very simplistic: Richard Kelly had Dwayne Johnson spoof the stereotypical, apocalyptic action-hero throughout the film. This included over-dramatic readings of his lines, delayed reactions and odd vocal dynamics.

What? You say that it wasn't intentional, and that it was just Johnson's poor acting skills?

This is where the small-minded fail to grasp the most simplistic of concepts. The great analytical film student will analyze a crooked frame and declare the brilliance of its intent; they will say that this intentional error supports the themes of the piece. So why does the same not go for Southland Tales?

Each one of these already-marked actors has broken out of their shells for this movie. The fact that everybody stereotypes them attests to Kelly's genius in assigning them the roles; however, it also proves how unfortunately small-minded today's modern audience has become.

Was this film a mess? Absolutely, in every sense of the word. But was it a coherent mess? That's the real question, and I think that I can safely say that it is. This film is nowhere near as difficult to understand as anybody would have you believe. The concepts are straightforward and are practically dictated to you by the narrator; this becomes essential to the understanding of the story, as there is just way too much going on to take in on your own. However, instead of hindering the film, it makes these seemingly unrelated scenes string together into a true tapestry that is worth exploring.

So, you know what? I'm going to go against my own advice and advise anybody and everybody who reads this review to go out and see this film. If you don't like it, don't come back to this website whining about it, because nobody here has the tolerance to explain things to you that you will never understand. No amount of discussion of cinematography, lighting or the fantastically haunting score by Moby is going to change the mind of an already jaded viewer.

But maybe, just maybe, you will like it. You'll get a chance to experience something you're likely to rarely, if never, experience again. Because as all of us who enjoyed the film know:

It had to be this way.

I don't know why so many people hate this movie. I saw the finished cut at Fantastic Fest and I thought it was really good. Really really confusing, but good nonetheless. Definitely for a more intellectual crowd. Definitely warrants multiple viewings. But still really good.

Way different than Donnie Darko but similar at the same time. The acting is amazing. the production design is amazing the cinematography is amazing. the main drawback is that the story is really confusing,mainly due to the fact that there are way too many characters. but even with those problems, the movie is really really good.

I liked this enough to tell you in the first sentence that it would have been a candidate for one of only two 4-star ratings I give per year.

If you are an average viewer, you will be put off by the apparent narrative incoherence, the seeming lack of center and the childish nature of some of the devices. That's all fair enough. But let me point you to two things that make it for me.

The first is that it is inherently cinematic. It makes about as much sense when the sound is turned off. Indeed I watched the whole thing through this way once and it actually makes more sense. There's lots of cinematic nesting: movies about movies; videos, narratives and disguises within. There's lots of causality denoted visually. You will find scores of quotes from other films, many more than those "parody" teen movies. And you'll discover many of your favorite intelligent but not famous actors.

That would be enough for me, but there's something else. In fact, though the story is confusing, deliberately made so through how it unfolds, it does make complete sense. It makes as much sense as, say, "The Matrix." I wish it didn't, but there you are. But its the way the story slips about that is pretty wonderful. You see, a narrative works by the way the pieces connect.

Usually we don't have to work because the way the pieces connect is the way they happen in real life: the causal flow of the narrative telling is the same as in the story. But the detective story, and modern noir changed that and now we have a variety of causal connections that can glue the bits together. Even these you don't normally notice unless the writer — as here — makes the shifts between bits cover a greater distance than usual.

Pay attention to this. Greenaway uses reference to number sequence. Barney uses progress through the sexual encounter, clever that. Lynch provides these discontinuities by having characters shift selves — a technique of discovery. Joyce — who in a way is the gold standard because he reified this sort of art through cognitive plumbing connection — depends on notational congruence. All these are exciting as getout in the hands of their masters.

But this is different, more rooted in noir, in cinema. These elements are connected in ways that only read in film.

Here's what I mean: film has evolved a set of notions we call noir. These capture two worlds; the world of the story where the laws of the universe seem to be deliberately arranged by strange occurrences, "mistakes" and coincidences to play havoc with key characters. Then there is the (usually implied) second world where those laws are manipulated and we the viewers sit. In almost all noir films, this effect only occurs in the long form, meaning that it is apparent when seem over the whole story.

Now look here. For all intents, there is no long form here, just a sequence of medium- sized events, each of which contain rather than follow the previous ones. This form was pioneered (I believe) by Altman. The narrative glue of the whole is how the segments slip against one another. We have "Magnolia" that plays with this concept as well, this slipperage. Its the connection that conveys the world. Its subtle and homeopathically powerful as a result.

Now this. Its another step forward in that the connection between elements involves changes in the way the world works. Each shift is not just between story segments that don't make sense, they don't make sense BECAUSE of the nature of the transitions. Many of these transitions involve a change in the laws of the universe. Its as if you were playing chess as a chesspiece, and the rules of the game changed according to the patterns of the pieces on the board. The whole thing would make sense afterward when seem as a whole, but the chessmen will be baffled.

What this does is build an ordinary noir with the two worlds: story, and gods. But it cleverly puts the viewer on the chessboard as someone at the mercy of the rules. Its no accident that the inspiration is Philip K Dick (who invented this sort of reverse introspection), that the key magical plot device is the magically named "fluid karma," and that the mascot is Bai Ling, who was our Béatrice Dalle surrogate for a while.

I want to give this a four, but I do think that the two others from this year are more important.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

"Southland Tales," the latest film by "Donnie Darko"'s Richard Kelly, is like the movie equivalent of one of those whistles that only dogs can hear; it is pitched so far out of ordinary human range that most viewers will be left scratching their heads, wondering where the hell the joke is and why they just don't get it.

The movie, made in 2006 and released in 2007, takes place in Los Angeles in the not-too-distant future (July 2008), three years after a series of nuclear explosions have all but obliterated Texas and placed the rest of the country on a state of high terror alert. As in most post-apocalyptic scenarios, the threat to national security opens the door for a right wing cabal to take over the government and begin violating the privacy rights of its citizens. For counterbalance, there is also a group of loony neo-Marxists bent on wresting control from the aforementioned Fascists. The movie features Dwayne Johnson (aka The Rock) as a conservative movie star and future son-in-law to a Republican vice-Presidential candidate who becomes a pawn in the life-or-death match between the two clashing ideologies - the outcome of which might well spell the demise of the human race as we know it.

Despite the seriousness and topicality of the subject matter, "Southland Tales" is basically played for laughs, turning the end of the world into an absurd, over-the-top, dystopic farce that thinks it's being hip and knowing about life in a post-9/11/Homeland Security/ Patriot Act world, but which is actually only cheesy, smart-alecky and incoherent. For a satire to work it must have discipline as well as the kind of tethering to the real world that one finds in movies like "Dr. Strangelove" or "Network." Here, the film establishes no familiar reference point upon which to build any kind of compelling drama. As a result, we quickly lose interest and focus, while the enterprise itself spins ever increasingly out of the filmmaker's control.

Janeane Garofalo, Sarah Michelle Gellar, John Larroquette, Jon Lovitz, Mandy Moore, Amy Poehler, Miranda Richardson, Seann William Scott, Wallace Shawn and Justin Timberlake are just some of the actors who might want to seriously consider getting this piece of cinematic excrescence expunged from their resumes.

The greatest offense wrought by this eclectic and unholy mixture of sophomoric satire, comic book realism, grunge chic and apocalyptic paranoia is that it runs for an interminable two hours and twenty-four minutes, making this hands-down the most unendurable and unwatchable movie travesty of the past several years.

The real failure of this film isn't that it's overcomplicated in terms of plot. It is definitely overloaded with plots and subplots, characters, and various allusions to the arts. Its downfall is that it uses its central theme of media criticism as an excuse not to present its ideas coherently -- it critiques an incoherent form in an incoherent way. Pot Kettle Black.

The primary thing that keeps the film from succeeding as a whole is its constant shifts in tone. While the filmmakers might argue that they are aping/satirizing the way we get information through the media, it makes for a rotten experience at the cinema. Some scenes are sketch comedy, some are ponderous (in a good sense), there is a bit of action and bit of fun with setting of the film. Without a truly riveting lead character or other weighted focus point it falls apart -- really by the conclusion of the film it's just white noise.

The casting is meant to be part of the media critique, but it's works against the film to keep thinking, 'hey -- that's the guy from Revenge of the Nerds and Moonlighting again', and keeps you distracted from the plot and characters' relationship to the plot. When thinking of this aspect of the film AFTER viewing it's a straightforward idea -- hey the filmmakers are saying that the government is using entertainment to keep us from following the real news, man! But during the actual experience of watching the film, the casting starts one thinking of Mars Attacks or dare I say it, Cannonball Run......

The lighting was very flat, which I assume again is part of the 'fast food media' critique - but ugly is still ugly. Especially considering Donnie Darko I was expecting something worth looking at visually. There are some big IDEAS presented visually, but they are not visually interesting in a formal sense. There has to be SOMETHING for the audience to hang its hat on beyond an idea. Cinema is a sensate experience, not merely an intellectual one.

I look forward to reading about this someday in Scott Tobias's "My Year Of Flops - Redux" on the Onion AV Club....

This movie, maybe more than any other I've seen, is a commitment. If you think that 144 minutes is a lot to commit to a movie, the running time is only the tip of the iceberg.

In the DVD cut of the movie, a lot of things are obscured: what the big picture is, why characters are motivated to do certain things, why multiple identities are a recurring theme, why certain characters/actions are necessary.

What is in the DVD cut is an extensively detailed alternate world. Unfortunately, to make the actions in that alternate world make sense, you basically have to either watch the movie multiple times, or at least know what you're dealing with.

There are at least 4 layers to everything that's going on: 1) political/social commentary on contemporary American society and the apocalyptic undercurrent therein; 2) sarcastic/caustic pop culture references (Philip K. Dick is a big one, but also subtle things... for instance, the Rock was Sean William Scott's protector in "The Rundown" and plays a similar role here); 3) a self-consciousness or self-referentialism: actors cast against type, some similar themes to Donnie Darko, actions that play out in the film are largely based off of the AWFUL screenplay written by one of the characters (as seen in the graphic novel prequels); 4) the actual plot of the movie, which has deep ties to the Book of Revelation, and makes much more sense if the graphic novels are read first.

These layers are pretty consummately intertwined. This is part of what makes this movie to be compelling enough to make me want to put in the necessary effort. Its imagery was provocative, and because Richard Kelly has created such a densely layered world for himself, putting in the time actually is incredibly rewarding.

It should also be said that this film, like Blade Runner or There Will Be Blood, does not let its plot set specifications on its scope, or what it's about. If you hone in on what the director thinks its scope/purpose is, it's much easier to appreciate.

I'm not sure exactly how to rate this movie, since as a stand alone movie it is a failure, but if you take the time to get inside Kelly's mind, it's worthwhile. So. My advice? View it as an investment or don't view it at all. Don't throw it on for an evening's entertainment. If you do, you might be entertained, but you'll probably be confused and angry.

Southland Tales is not a futuristic apocalypse. In fact, it takes place in the past: 2008. It is a cautionary tale of what could very possibly happen in our country. At first i was skeptical about this movie as it stars many celebrities that I usually dislike, but the players played their roles adequately and I was able to suspend my disbelief and enjoy being entertained. Southland Tales is also an action film, which is a genre that I don't usually enjoy. The only reason I saw this film was because Richard Kelley directed it and I enjoyed Donnie Darko (especially the director's cut). All in all, this film was entertaining, but not great. It definitely beats Transformers and movies like that that have been coming out in the last year or so. However, it's no Donnie Darko and if you're coming into it looking for a film of Darko caliber you'll be disappointed.

This movie is an underrated masterpiece that gets better at every reviewing. Yes, the performances are indeed pretty awful, but perfect for the film's purpose. True, the plot is almost impossible to follow, but this has a specific purpose too, and adds to the comedy of the whole experience. And finally, yes, the political message is garbled and insincere, but that is what makes Southland Tales a postmodern triumph. This movie flies in the face of "rational" political discussion, a concept which is more fantastical than the apocalyptic setting of the film itself. Our current political climate is basically reality television, a fact Southland Tales predicted and then exposed through its near-incomprehensible bombarding of information and commercialised images. Anyone who rejects this film is simply in denial.

The film has a tough script to crack but if one watches a short commentary by Kelly and others that is part of extra features on the DVD it all makes much more sense. In short they attacked post-9/11 measures on security, lack of quality in politicians, the war in Iraq and all the extreme political movements, be it ultra-right conservatism or liberals and Marxism. All that washed in a sci-fi soup that revolves around Kelly's obvious fascination: time warps, the 4th dimension and black holes. It is one of the basic principles of the quantum physics that when a particle collides with its exact anti-particle the world around will collapse. The problem I have with Kelly is that he touches such weighty philosophical themes but does not go deeper, it seems very superficial, we do not know why, do not know how and what for. Why is the Taverner character supposed to be a "messiah"?? Why at the end of the scenes in the mega zeppelin, when Dwayne spreads his arms out as if being crucified, there is a red print of Jesus appearing on the back of his shirt?? What happens in the skies - there is a 3 second shot of something major happening there, but what?? Why Taverner's hands beam light?? What is the meaning of the scenes on the beach, when the crazy fan demands that the hero allow her perform a sexual act on her?? Who is the character played by Christopher Lambert?? In short: WTF, Kelly??? Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed at least 3 scenes in this film, excellently written, directed and shot, all 3 the "musical" ones: when Timberlake sings I've got soul but i'm not a soldier, with a superb dance routine, that amazing long long shot inside the mega zeppelin with the amazing song, and then the best ever rendering of the US national anthem. I watched the 3 scenes several times and they are awesome. But the rest?.. Hmm. I give it an additional point for ambition and strangeness in a good way, because too many films are formulaic and simplistic these days. I deduct a point for Kelly trying to bite off more he can chew.

Ever wonder what WOOD happen if Ed Wood was given the task of directing a movie about the apocalypse AND he had to direct it as though he had the multiple directing personalities of David Fincher (fight club) and David Lynch? Well, no, most people don't wonder that. But that is what watching Southland Tales is like. In fact, it's as hard to watch as it is to turn away, simply because I could not imagine what was going through director Richard Kelly's mind when he wrote and directed this bizarre and awfully acted and executed, uh, movie? In horror movies you keep watching so you can scream, "don't go in the closet!", in this movie I kept watching so I could chuckle, "what the hell???"

When I watched it I was reminded of other movies like "Salton Sea" and "Death Sentence". That is, big budget Hollywood movies that think they've figured out the current formula that has made some indie movies into cult classics and directors like Quentin Tarantino and his fan boy posse of directors in cult classic icons. The most obvious ingredient of the formula? Cameos and odd roles for obscure or larger than life or forgotten actors. For an elaborate example; Justin Timberlake plays an Iraq war veteran who was also a victim of friendly fire, he owns an arcade called "friendly fire", he's a 50 cal. machine gunner who watches over Venice beach California, oh yea, he is also the entire movie's narrator who recites versus of the book of revelations and other clues about the movie's plot (which don't help in the confusion). Furthermore, the Highlander series' Christopher Lambert plays death that comes riding on a pale horse, and in this case, the pale horse he rides is a white ice cream truck from which he sells high powered arms. Let's see, Mandy Moore and John Larroquette play puppets of the anti-Christ who is played by Wallace Shawn (you'd know him if you saw him). Michelle Buffy Geller plays the modern day renascence porn-star and awkwardly socially conscious reality TV show host, while her counterpart is played by "The Rock"- who is at the center of the events that lead up to the end days. More actors include the cast of Mad TV as the antagonists, only a brief cameo by SNL TV's Janeane Garofalo (whose character is in the movie for 2 seconds, but given a character name), the lady who once said, "This House is Clean", in the movie Poltergeist the guy who played "Booger" in "Revenge of the Nerds", and many many more.

The Plot? I dunno? I thought it was stupid and overly complex- it tried to be clever and ended up being (for an honest lack of a better description) retarded. The main plot is about how The Rock (who plays an actor in the movie) and the Porn-Star write a script together about how the world ends. And like in the movie "The Pelican Brief" and "Stranger than Fiction" the script IS actually a prophetic document of how the world ends and how the characters react in the movie. And as the characters describe what their script is about, things in the script are actually unfolding in the so-called reality of this movie. Meanwhile, there are subplots within this movie that are intertwined or supposedly suppose to meet the main plot at a crossroads- no doubt at was to be the climax of the movie. However, it all gets confusing and becomes nothing more than a bunch of non-sense and senselessness when each story begins to arrive together. You will say a lot, "I don't get it", "That makes no sense", or "how did that happen, when that other thing happened before", while watching this movie.

However, it's is such a magical train wreck of story writing, character building and acting- The Rock seems possessed by the acting abilities of William Shatner while the rest of the cast seems uncomfortable with the dialog and how to animate themselves during their lines- that the movie becomes really really entertaining. The sudden and bizarre breakdown into a musical staring Justin Timberlake really grinds in the absurdness of the film. The poor choice in CG (Computer Graphic) fonts for chapter titles and the poor timing and choice of popular indie songs laminate over the glossiness of what was probably suppose to be a big box office grosser. Richard Kelly has already succeeded as an indie cult film director with Donnie Darko, but I think Southland Tales- by accident rather than intelligent design- will be considered his masterpiece... and one of those movies kids of future generations will go see at the weekend midnight movie and laugh and laugh.