10% great/90% steaming pile.
It’s a sprawling, sci-fi, social satire with references a plenty and a cast of actors not known for their acting plus Wallace Shawn, Miranda Richardson (playing Gary Oldman in 5th Element) and the women of SNL.
I’m going out on a limb here and saying that Richard Kelly has no idea what he’s doing and people should stop giving him money. The Box was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen in my life (I like Richard Matheson and have spent many painful hours watching adaptations of his writing). Where The Box insisted on referencing No Exit every 15 minutes, Southland Tales uses The Wasteland. There it is on the poster. To quote Mad Men: We get it, you’re educated.
With the exception of Donnie Darko, which is super fun, Richard Kelly’s movies are more interesting to read about than they are to watch. Film Comment and fancy people like J. Hoberman and Amy Taubin have written many thoughtful thoughts about his work and I can understand why but they could probably say just as much about Megan Amram’s audition tape for Glee. Here, I’ll try to write something that could work for either: A commentary on the vapidity of mass consumption entertainment expressed in the irreverent way we’ve come to think and communicate also gender … stuff?
Hoberman is quoted on wikipedia as saying that Southland Tales is a visionary film about the end of times comparable in recent American film only to David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive. What? The only similarity I can find between the two is that Rebekah Del Rio appears on stage singing in the time and dimension shifting climaxes of both films.
I watched the entire 2.5 hours.
