Review of Southland Tales (2007) by Bill M — 18 Nov 2012

Infuckingsane!!! southland tales is one of the most huge, ambitious, messy and compleatly audacious films ive ever seen, you never know whats coming at u next. Its pretty much about everything thats wrong with america and even the world and it is quite frankly a masterpiece.

I think Richard Kelly somehow captures the sheer mess of the times we live in, in this movie, it's an angry and mournful yet very funny film about America itself, the obsession with celebrity, pop culture, the mindless celebration of mediocrity, the war on terror, the fuel and energy crisis, reality tv, religion, the coming of the new messiah, the end of the world and "teen horniness".

In many ways this film has too much to say, and it crams it all in often times almost incomprehensibly, but this is one of the things I love so much about this mad satire of the times, it's huge, imperfect overreaching ambition, it's remarkable in just the sheer amount of ideas it has and wants to get across, the way it truly captures America now, the anger at it's dumbed down ignorance, the merry, trashy pop obsessed dance into oblivion as the world quite noticeably is coming to an end around us.

It's also filled with mesmerizing moments, the stand out of which is a scarfaced Justin Timberlake miming to "the Killers, All these Things That I've Done" in a hallucinogenic musical number.

Also everything about this film is part of the big joke that Kelly somehow managed to realize, down to the casting of Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Timberlake, Sean William Scott (Superb in duel roles) Buffy herself, Sarah Michel Gellar (Lovely and hilarious) as a pornstar turned social guru and marketing machine, and half the cats of Saturday Night Live, weather his cast are in on the joke that they're in many ways playing at their own expense is debatable, but I think everything is purposeful about this unvarnished, untamed vision Kelly was trying to film.

Id compare this to Dr Strangelove, or an American "Brazil", it's an amazing, imperfect film whose impact wont be felt for some time. Discover it, watch it and make up your own mind on this polarizing and thrillingly divisive political and satirical film that manages to cram in time travel, an apocalyptic beach party, musical numbers, two Sean William Scott's, porn stars, and b-movies, and with an election year here, what better time to revisit one of the best films of the decade.

A flawed, crazed, magnificent masterwork.