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Southland Tales (2006)
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Overview
Tagline:
Have A Nice Apocalypse morePlot:
Southland Tales is an ensemble piece set in the futuristic landscape of Los Angeles on July 4, 2008... more | full synopsis (warning! may contain spoilers)Awards:
2 nominations moreNewsDesk:
(11 articles)
Release date set for Richard Kelly’s ‘The Box’ (From screeninglog. 27 June 2008, 5:40 AM, PDT)
The Box Moves Dates Again (From Dread Central. 25 June 2008, 12:59 AM, PDT)
User Comments:
I normally recommend this film to nobody. moreCast
(Cast overview, first billed only)| Carlos Amezcua | ... | Himself | |
| Curtis Armstrong | ... | Dr. Soberin Exx | |
| Robert Benz | ... | Bergie Taverner | |
| Todd Berger | ... | Bing Zinneman | |
| Joe Campana | ... | Brandt Huntington | |
| Chris Andrew Ciulla | ... | UPU 4 Officer (as Chris Ciulla) | |
| Rebekah Del Rio | ... | Herself | |
| Aaron Dillar | ... | Jimmy Hermosa | |
| Nora Dunn | ... | Cyndi Pinziki | |
| Shari Dunn | ... | Reporter | |
| Michele Durrett | ... | Starla Von Luft | |
| Jon Falcone | ... | Soldier Falcon | |
| Leila Feinstein | ... | Herself | |
| Jaret Gardiner | ... | Shane Laverne | |
| Janeane Garofalo | ... | General Teena MacArthur |
Additional Details
MPAA:
Rated R for language, violence, sexual material and some drug content.Parents Guide:
View content advisory for parentsRuntime:
145 min | Argentina:160 min | France:160 min (Cannes Film Festival)Language:
EnglishColour:
ColourAspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1 moreCertification:
Australia:MA | Germany:16 | USA:R | Ireland:16 | UK:15 | Finland:K-15 | Argentina:16 | South Korea:15MOVIEmeter: 
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
The film makes various literary references: T.S. Eliot (The Hollow Men), Philip K. Dick (Flow my Tears the Policeman Said) and Robert Frost (Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening). moreGoofs:
Factual errors: The Electro-Magnetic Pulse from the nuke would have wiped the camcorder. moreMovie Connections:
Referenced in "Saturday Night Live: Shia LaBeouf/My Morning Jacket (#33.11)" (2008) moreSoundtrack:
Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, op. 125, Second Movement 'Molto Vivace' moreFAQ
What is 'Operation Dream Theory'?What does the Latin inscription "oderint dum metuant" on the UPU cars mean?
Why is 'Kiss Me Deadly' featured numerous times in the film?
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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.