Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/07/03/southland-tales-is-the-per.html
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It’s one hell of a confusing clusterfuck of a movie, but strangely appealing.
I remember watching it with friends (we were drinking, which did not make the movie any more, or less, understandable) and saying that the only thing missing was a musical number. Which happened just a few minutes later!
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Ahead of its time.
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It’s a favorite of mine because it remains wildly ambitious as well as an example of trying to cram a whole lot of story into an inadequate running time with less than stellar results.
Also, as the Vice link points out, the incongruous Justin Timberlake lip syncing scene remains one of the most jarring musical asides I’ve seen on film.
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Seems like my kind of weird. I wonder how I missed it?
Would you say it’s worth getting/watching before the “Ultimate Cut” is released – assuming it ever is? Reading the article about his plans didn’t fill me with confidence it will ever happen. I can’t imagine it’s easy to turn a movie that flopped at the box office into a “six-chapter saga” of movies. I’d be thankful if he could just get the prequel graphic novel rereleased so it wouldn’t cost almost $90. Maybe release a set where the book came with the movie?
One of my favorite movies. Definitely requires multiple viewings – I think I saw it three times over a weekend, the first time(s) I saw it.
So prescient in some ways, it’s a bit unnerving.
It would be great if a Director’s Cut came out someday, but even as-is, it’s worth checking out. The first time I went to Venice Beach, had lunch at The Sidewalk Cafe, and stopped by Small World Books, was a wonderful Southland Tales fanboy geek fantasy, that’s for sure!
A movie that includes Wallace Shawn, Jon Lovitz, and Cheri Oteri!? How have I not heard of this before?
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Watch it. It is weird. There is nothing bad about this movie. It is a masterpiece. Listen not to the heathen naysayers, for they are wrong.
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No way man. The movie is hot mess and basically incoherent. (Joking a little bit)
That said, it’s wonderful and almost mesmerizing because it’s SO BAD and SO GOOD at the same time it’s like Schrödinger made a movie that existed in two states simultaneously.
I purchased the DVD when it came out and have had this guilty pleasure hidden away in my library for years. I wouldn’t bother showing it to anyone incapable of a little “freethinking”. It’s a surprise to me to hear it has garnered a cult status, because the few people I have shown it to didn’t “get it”. There’s allot to “not get”.
Thankfully, I can now feel a little vindicated in my appreciation for this train wreck of a movie
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How would you say it compares to Sucker Punch? As I recall, a number of people felt that was all over the place and confusing as well. And it wasn’t well received.
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I haven’t seen that one, sorry
If it’s anything like ‘Sucker Punch’, that’s all I need to know; hard fucking pass.
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I have no idea if it is or not. That’s the first movie that comes to my mind when I hear someone call another movie a “hot mess”.
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Well, there’s hot mess and then there is hot misogynist mess! Sucker Punch is for sure the latter.
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I can assure you, thankfuly it is not at all like this - in my personal opinion- pseudo"feminist" steaming pile of shit namend hack snyders suckerpunch. zero. zilch.
its weird, its different, its interesting, its sometimes (very) painful/cringy and I still cant stand that religious touch it has. but it has its place in my heart.
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And a blimp (owned by the Wallace Shawn character) named the Jenny von Westphalen (Marx’s daughter). And Sarah Michelle-Gellar as a socially conscious porn star named Krysta Now. It’s a weird movie, but oddly more prophetic as the years go by.
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I caught it on late-night tv one night, sat through it mesmerized. Spent some time after that confused that I’d never heard of it before.
I bought the DVD online, years after I’d stopped purchasing physical media, just because I thought the movie was an artifact worth owning.
It’s wacky. If you want to compare it with something, I’d say “Strange Days” / “Fifth Element” / “Repo Man”. Aspirationally, at least.
I don’t see any “Sucker Punch” parallels at all, beyond being pretty glossy for its time.
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I’ve been singing the praises of this since first seeing it soon after it was released on video. It definitely appeals to a particular taste though, PKD and Vonnegut fans are likely to appreciate. I picked up the graphic novel and don’t really think it adds that much beyond the meta-media concept, (which to be fair is really cool and probably prophetic like many aspects of the work). The main thing about this - and perhaps why it didn’t land well in it’s time - is that in a way it’s an analysis of the deep weirdening in the American socio-political landscape that was occurring in the Bush years. (I think at the the time there was a still lot of denial, a faint hope that things would go back to “normal”) - it’s a lot hard to avoid acknowledging how that normal was always illusory now, and this film is a bit of a fever vision of steps down that road.
Richard Kelly is absolutely one of the visionary filmmakers of our time imho - I hope he gets to realize more ofthese strange visions. The Box is another relatively understated but extremely ambitious fable of sorts that is well worth taking in, (and is also possibly more relevant to our current reality than ever).
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This movie is utter garbage and you are a bad friend for inflicting it on your pal.
I NEVER stop a film, but this one rubbed me the wrong way in the first ten minutes, but I persevered saying “How long can it be?”. Too long. Far, far, far too long.
No.
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After Donnie Darko, I had great expectations for this film… but I spent much of Southland Tales feeling like I was lost, and missing some crucial-but-obscure element that would tie it together and make it a more comprehensible narrative. IIRC, it was an interesting spectacle, but hard to understand.
>shrug< Maybe I need to watch it again, but it’s not high on my priority list.
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