Southland Tales - From April 2008

Southalnd Tales – April 2008

Review originally published in SBU’s The Statesman

(Updated and additional notes are further below.)

"In the time I have taken off to concentrate on class projects, my friends and I have discovered a movie that is not like any other recent release. Southland Tales is the latest film from Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly. The film is a doomsday sci-fi narrative that takes place in Los Angeles, and stars a collective of actors and actresses who would not otherwise be working together if not for its bizarre and amusing script. The cinematography alone is worth a second screening.

Boxer Santaros, played by Dwayne Johnson, is a famous actor married to the California senator's daughter, played by Mandy Moore. But because of amnesia he is staying with porn star actress and "social commentator" show host, Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Krysta and Boxer have written a screenplay of how the world ends and soon enough their film becomes reality.

Roland Taverner, played by Sean William Scott, has been hired by a Marxist radical group to impersonate his racist LAPD officer twin bother to bring down the government. The senator's wife, played by Miranda Richardson, has complete control over the new international Internet surveillance program, US-IDENT, and prefers to dress in leather boots and high collared capes. Garish scientist Baron von Westphalen has invented an energy source called Fluid Karma, which will save the world from oil, but has alternative plans to take over the world. Past and present SNL actors Jon Lovitz, Amy Poehler, and Cheri Oteri, as well as MadTV's Will Sasso, play other supporting characters. The film's narrator is none other than Justin Timberlake, who has returned from Iraq with a reconstructed face and trigger-happy finger. These are the players of the apocalypse.

Just when you think the story is slowing down, there is a surprise that brings the action right back. The absurdities of what happens, the characters' peculiarities, the dialogue, and smooth camerawork create a film that is entertaining, polished, interesting, and different. It has so many quotable lines and unforgettable moments. Even thought just over two hours long, it is not a slow paced or drawn-out narration. Every moment matters.  

Updates from 2021:

Thirteen years later, I can't remember this movie much. To be honest, I wasn't sober while watching it at a house party. 

But re-reading this, I am (still) sincerely impressed with how this cast exists in the same movie, especially at the time of their careers. The improv comedians, not just that they combined SNL and MadTV cast members but also Jon Lovitz' bleached hair! And looking at the Imdb.com cast page, there's also the veterans Wallace Shawn, Janeane Garofalo, Curtis Armstrong, and Nora Dunn. Although Dwayne Johnson had starred in some movies before this like in The Scorpion King (2002, plus The Mummy Returns cameo in 2001), Southland Tales was the first that took his physique and humor seriously instead of just a Rock-like character. Sean William Scott also took this as an opportunity to play duel roles of sweet vs. sour, instead of his American Pie's (iconic) Stiffler and similar roles. (If you want to see his real range, watch him in Courtney Cox' directorial debut Just Before I Go (2014)). 

While Sarah Michelle Gellar spent six years as the beloved Buffy Summers fighting demons and dealing with the supernatural, Mandy Moore's career was based in being the iteration of 'girl-next-door', sometimes with a mean-girl slant. Never before and not yet since Southland Tales has she been in the middle of an apocalypse plot. 

Richard Kelly's short list of films stand-out because there were very few directors working in the 2000s' (and since) realm of original sci-fi. Donnie Darko, Southland Tales, and The Box are a trifecta of auteurism. Perhaps it was my liking them that led to my appreciation for the French filmmaker Gaspar Noe (who did Enter The Void, Climax, etc.). Both appreciate a story with dynamic flexibility especially through their cinematography and editing choices. They take risks to express their visions. Audiences are either turned-off or turned-on by them. But they pave the way for more mainstream similarities like Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky, and even Alex Garland.

*Oh, I completely forgot: it's super violent, Moby did the soundtrack, there's a psychedelic sequence of Justin Timberlake lip-syncing to The Killers' "All These Things That I've Done" that may have (and this is a long-shot thought) influenced Joe Anderson's character singing The Beatles' "Happiness is a Warm Gun" sequence.