Southland Tales

Thanks to Justin, my computer lives! Once again man has triumphed over machine. It was a beast of an undertaking but he did it.

Well I gave you a taste, and now here it is in all its glory. My review of Richard Kelly's long-awaited post-"Darko," "Southland Tales."
This was the first preview screening I've been to in awhile and the atmosphere is always good at those. The Varsity wasn't quite full, but there was a good sized crowd. Some were really into it. Others, such as myself, were not. Now for the why.
"Southland Tales" opens on July 4, 2005. As the film has been sitting on the shelf for some time, it feels as though we are seeing the events of the future. On this Independence Day, a nuclear blasts hits Abilene, Texas. Over the next few minutes, Kelly shows us the events of the next three years. USIdent watches our every move (and...movement...eww) as we reach the summer of 2008.
Popular actor Boxer Santaros (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), a man with ties to the Republican's Vice-Presidential candidate has gone missing for several days. Upon arriving back in L.A. with amnesia, no one knows where Boxer is, except for porn star Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar). Together, the two have written a screenplay about the end of the world, and as "Southland Tales" unfolds we see that their script is more accurate than they could have imagined. Meanwhile, a Los Angeles cop (Seann William Scott) has been kidnapped and some neo-Marxists have replaced him with his twin brother (also Scott) to stage a murder on film. This is about as far as I can go in explaining the plot of "Southland Tales" without breaking out a road map that neither you nor I would understand.
Along the way, all manner of nonsensical pretentious things occur, including a scene in which a character dances from one room to another, self-indulgent musical sequences, and Kevin Smith wearing a ZZ Top beard, all while Justin Timberlake narrates. I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention that Kelly seems to think that the mere presence of midgets is somehow comic gold. It's not.
I could forgive a lot of what Kelly does here if this film had the same sense of atmosphere that he delivered with "Donnie Darko" and more importantly if the humor in the film had come off. A few things do land, such as The Rock's nervous fingers and the scene where he and Gellar explain their screenplay to Scott. The three leads (the Rock, Gellar, and Scott) all do quite well. Their performances are all the more impressive when you consider how bad most of Kelly's dialogue is. But unfortunately they can't save the sinking ship, or in this case the megazeppelin and the floating ice cream truck. The supporting cast doesn't do nearly as well. First off, I don't know what Wallace Shawn was doing in this movie ("Inconceivable!") and the neo-Marxist played by Lisa K. Wyatt may be the most annoying character I've seen in a film since Jar Jar Binks. Most of her scenes are with "SNL" vet Nora Dunn (who doesn't do so well herself here). Every word out of Wyatt's mouth is supposed to be funny. Between Kelly's dialogue and her shrill delivery of every line, none of it works.
At 2 hours and 24 minutes, "Southland Tales" is now shorter than when it premiered at Cannes a year and a half ago. Kelly needed to keep cutting. It probably wouldn't have made the movie any better but it would have at least stolen less of my life. Also, I don't need to be beaten over the head by a political message, particularly one that was designed for the sole purpose of making college students cheer. The politics interspersed with infantile attempts at comedy bring "Southland Tales" down even further.
I will say this for the movie (which Craig and Justin also felt). I remained intrigued about where it was all going. From one scene to the next I couldn't predict what was coming. That in itself is not enough to make a movie good, but at least it keeps you awake.
Going in I strongly suspected that I was going to be scratching my head at the end of this movie. I wasn't sure though if it would be because I didn't get it, or because there would be nothing to get. It appears quite clearly to be the latter. Either Kelly really thinks he's smart and actually isn't, or he knows he's not that smart but desperately wants the audience to believe he is. In either case, "Southland Tales" is a jumbled mess of a movie that offers little in the way of entertainment or imagination. It opens in limited release tomorrow. 3/10.