Destination Films
2006
R
“You know, there’d be a lot less violence in the world if everyone just got a little more cardio.”
I’m in a bit of a pickle, here. See, I have this policy of, if I’ve watched a movie, any movie, with very few acceptations I will eventually review it. It might take a while, but sooner or later a review will make it onto this blog. Blame my particular form of CDO (it’s like OCD, only the letters are in alphabetical order AS THEY’RE SUPPOSED TO BE), but I have an obligation to review Southland Tales. And…well, let me explain.
Southland Tales is a movie by one Richard Kelly, who previous to this made a little movie I love called Donnie Darko. If you haven’t seen Donnie Darko, stop reading this and go at least rent and watch Donnie Darko. There’s no reason to watch the needless sequel, S. Darko; just watch Donnie Darko. I can wait.
Done? Good. Now you’ll understand why, when I heard of him being behind Southland Tales, I wanted to check it out. Then I started reading things, saying Southland Tales being something of a convoluted mess, that what this amounted to was two-and-a-half hours of “What The HECK Did I Just Watch?!?” not seen since Richard Lynch started making films. Problem was, calling a movie weird and a mind-bomb only serves to encourage me to watch it. And heaven help me, I did watch Southland Tales. Every single minute of it. Pausing only once to go potty and microwave more junk food.
Can you tell I’m stalling? Very well, then. Let me see if I can make this as coherent and painless as possible:
In an alternate timeline, parts of Texas are nuked by terrorists, misleading the viewer to think this is a feel good movie. This leads the conservative far-right to seize control of the country, moving their seat of power to the southern part of California (nicknamed the “Southland”), because apparently the concept of “irony” is lost on them. Meanwhile, a senator is looking for The Rock, because he disappeared and happens to be his daughter’s husband. Only, The Rock has amnesia and is shacking up with Buffy The Vampire Slayer, who is a former porn star trying to break into the lucrative multi-media empire biz with a talk show, music, and also a script she’s writing with The Rock. Meanwhile, a Marxist revolutionary group hires Steve Stifler to pose as a racist cop and fake kill a couple of poets to stage their death as…something. Only a blond and serious Jon Lovitz shows up and kills them for realsies. Then the “inconceivable!”guy from The Princess Bride shows up with the psychic from Poltergeist and a scary Asian lady with a new power source and a really creepy presence. Then Stifler has a doppelgänger, only it’s not a doppelgänger only a time-displaced himself, who’s captured by The Highlander, who takes him across town in his ice cream truck, then there’s a crash, the two Stiflers meet, time gets all wibbly wobbly, timey wimey, and everything ends with a blimp blowing up and the ice crème truck floating away into the air.
And I didn’t even get to the part where the whole thing is narrated by a former N’Sync member, complete with a full-on lip synced performance of “All These Things That I’ve Done” by The Killers in the middle of the film, for no apparent reason, other than his character was tripping out. Yeah, you see now why my brain is still throbbing after watching this, even though it’s been a good three months since the end credits rolled?
In the end, I have no idea whether Southland Tales is a good movie or a bad movie. It’s definitely not a “meh” movie, as I’ve been chewing on this thing since watching it all that time ago. So in a way, it’s got that going for it. It is stylishly shot, I dug the soundtrack, and there’s a certain charm to the weirdness. I do like weird trippy pieces of art, even if it’s just for art’s sake. Problem is, there were times where I never thought this movie was going to end, and there were more than one time where I was scratching my head, and bringing up the internet to at least help explain things for me. Yeah, doing research on something while watching it just to keep yourself in the plot is never a good sign, there.
I’ve read that Richard Kelly stated that he was striving to make something that was a “strange hybrid of the sensibilities of Andy Warhol and Philip K. Dick.” Mission accomplished, sir. Southland Tales was indeed really weird, had a strong sense of paranoia, and felt like it went on forever. I do think everyone should watch Southland Tales at least once, at least so I don’t have to feel so alone with my confusion and growing insanity for having watched this, alone and in the dark.