Southland TalesPolitics is nothing but a circus, and the news is just tabloids now--a sure sign of the end of days. Southland Tales is a hybrid movie--swirling together everything from black comedy, sci-fi, drama, and political farce--about various people whose fates collide and herald the apocalypse. Amnesiac actor Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson) is co-opted by an ambitious porn star turned celebutante, Krysta Lynn Kapowski (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a.k.a. "Krysta Now", for blackmail material to sabotage the pending election. Meanwhile, Officer Ronald Taverner (Seann William Scott) is roped into a "Neo-Marxist" frame job, while his "twin brother", Private Roland Taverner (also Scott), is forced to remain unconscious. Southland Tales is narrated by Private Pilot Abilene (Justin Timberlake), an Iraq War veteran who quotes passages from the Book of Revelation while surveilling the "Southland" of Los Angeles from his crow's nest, watching the world end through the scope of his anti-materiel rifle.
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Set in the "near future" of 2008, Southland Tales is a dystopian satire that (like many of its kind) has a chilling prescience to it--just see what passes for news these days. It is consistently sardonic in its absurd presentation of government dominance, media superficiality, and the audience who buys into it. This begins in full force following the prologue, depicting the nuclear bombing of a couple of cities in Texas on July 4th, 2005 as archived footage. The attack escalates the presumed powers of the PATRIOT Act to include nigh-limitless government monitoring, federal regulation of the internet, and checkpoints along the borders of each state. Boxer is a high-profile celebrity--a movie star and the son-in-law of the vice presidential candidate, Senator Bobby Frost (Holmes Osborne). Frost's wife, Nana Mae Frost (Miranda Richardson), oversees the federal monitoring program known as USIDent like Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight--from an office covered in television screens. Southland Tales was made in the wake of the September 11th attacks, and waves its subversive, paranoid message like a flag in the air. It is filled with exaggerated speculations about the government's extreme response to a subsequent attack, and--more poignantly--about the psychological impact of a "War on Terror", especially what a loss of security does to people and a nation. There are frequent instances inter-cut into the story of news updates, depicting copious violence, rioting, and more. They call out the media's spurious use of fearmongering tactics post-9/11 to keep viewers too afraid to change the channel, and are complete with a color-coded terror alert along the ticker, and corporate logos on the sidebar including Panasonic, Bud Light, and even Hustler. Military Humvees roll through the streets, and snipers are always positioned on the rooftops in Venice Beach. The conflicts that make up Southland Tales include everything from an energy crisis, war veteran PTSD, violent clashes between political ideologies, and even a scheme to defame a politician with leaked footage involving an adult film actress. Over ten years later, Southland Tales comes across as a latter-day Network, mocking and criticizing a system that is comfortable with treating people like mindless consumers of propaganda. Audiences of Southland Tales may glean nuggets of overt slams at one political party or another, or denigrating a lifestyle or ethos, but this speaks to the film's deliberately superficial moments, and how they can be exploited to trigger people--just like the news and politics do.
Southland Tales is less a political film than a social commentary, and turns its reflective lens back on a nation that slurps up pop culture sludge with a straw, already unwitting slaves of political rhetoric and the constant barrage of media brainwashing. Southland Tales borrows from the works of the prolific writer of philosophical science fiction, Philip K. Dick, notably his novel, "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said"; the title is even referenced by Bart Bookman (Jon Lovitz), an agent of an ideological terrorist named Zora Carmichaels (Cheri Oteri). Like many of Dick's works, Southland Tales depicts a future that is just recognizable enough to be our own, but is distorted in such a way to make the audience constantly speculate what brought us to this dark place. Written and directed by Richard Kelly, the film shares the apocalyptic sensibilities of his earlier film, Donnie Darko, and a predilection for striking set pieces set to pop music. The score for Southland Tales was composed by Richard Melville Hall (better known as Moby), and includes selections by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Pixies; their song, "Wave of Mutilation", is one of the film's chapter titles. Southland Tales is a kind of Orwellian fevered dream by way of MTV, emphasized in a drug-infused hallucination sequence with Justin Timberlake (as Abilene) that is deliberately staged like a music video, where he lip syncs "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers. Even this scene feels like a pop culture satire--Abeline is drenched in blood while he sashays through a troupe of sexy nurses, swigging down a Budweiser.
Southland Tales could be dressed up as a "hyperlink film", but would be more comfortable being called a "soap opera", since it gleefully exploits cheap plot twists for comedic value. Consider when Boxer is reunited with his perpetually contemptuous wife, Madeline Frost Santaros (Mandy Moore) at the Frost mansion. Madeline is a scowling, bleached blonde counterpart to Krysta--the latter of whom is magically introduced into this scene, despite her earlier confession that she was trying to blackmail their family. Madeline tells Boxer--who is still a recovering amnesiac--that she's going to have his baby. With nary a pause to process this, she accuses Baron von Westphalen (Wallace Shawn)--the Mikado-esque Nobel Prize scientist responsible for developing an energy alternative based on quantum entanglement known as "Fluid Karma"--of secretly working for the Neo-Marxists. Not to be outdone, Krysta accuses Madeline of having been impregnated by none other than an intern who just happened to be standing next to her, despite having no way of knowing this. (Even though there are reality-obliterating stakes on the line, Southland Tales finds the time to give ridiculous moments of comedy room to stretch out.) Krysta is the scion of a culture of narcissism and self-obsession; she leverages her sex appeal--and that of her entourage of other bimbos--to launch a consumer empire, marketing everything from a reality show to a line of energy drinks with her face on them. Krysta embraces superficiality like a religion; she is present when Bart and Zora are shot at a bar, and Krysta races back to her banana yellow Ferrari in a pseudo-panic, all without spilling her beer. Whether Boxer ever truly reclaims his memory is debatable, but after he is snatched up by Krysta and a sleazy, track-suit wearing pimp named Fortunio Balducci (Will Sasso), he manages to call upon his inherent ambition to write a screenplay titled "The Power". He envisions his character as an action hero with the ridiculous name of "Jericho Cane", who discovers that the recent surge in crime has to do with an imperceptible fluctuation in the rotation of the earth. Coincidentally, the Baron's alternative energy source is derived from exploiting the tides of the ocean, and his titanic offshore structure is intimated to cause the same kind of event from Boxer's movie idea--little by little the world appears to be reshaping itself to fit his idiotic screenplay. The sardonic metaphor here is that because Boxer is a superstar, his words dictate reality. A public obsessed with celebrities will restructure their perception of the world around what the stars tell them; and a world that lets celebrities tell them what to think and feel is a world on the verge of annihilation indeed.
Recommended for: Fans of a cynical and paranoid satire of society that tackles political manipulation, media saturation, pseudo-ideologies, and celebrity obsession in a sci-fi/comedy/drama genre mashup. Southland Tales is bursting with recognizable actors cast against type in parts great and small--including a surprising amount of "Saturday Night Live" alumni.
Southland Tales is less a political film than a social commentary, and turns its reflective lens back on a nation that slurps up pop culture sludge with a straw, already unwitting slaves of political rhetoric and the constant barrage of media brainwashing. Southland Tales borrows from the works of the prolific writer of philosophical science fiction, Philip K. Dick, notably his novel, "Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said"; the title is even referenced by Bart Bookman (Jon Lovitz), an agent of an ideological terrorist named Zora Carmichaels (Cheri Oteri). Like many of Dick's works, Southland Tales depicts a future that is just recognizable enough to be our own, but is distorted in such a way to make the audience constantly speculate what brought us to this dark place. Written and directed by Richard Kelly, the film shares the apocalyptic sensibilities of his earlier film, Donnie Darko, and a predilection for striking set pieces set to pop music. The score for Southland Tales was composed by Richard Melville Hall (better known as Moby), and includes selections by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Pixies; their song, "Wave of Mutilation", is one of the film's chapter titles. Southland Tales is a kind of Orwellian fevered dream by way of MTV, emphasized in a drug-infused hallucination sequence with Justin Timberlake (as Abilene) that is deliberately staged like a music video, where he lip syncs "All These Things That I've Done" by The Killers. Even this scene feels like a pop culture satire--Abeline is drenched in blood while he sashays through a troupe of sexy nurses, swigging down a Budweiser.
Southland Tales could be dressed up as a "hyperlink film", but would be more comfortable being called a "soap opera", since it gleefully exploits cheap plot twists for comedic value. Consider when Boxer is reunited with his perpetually contemptuous wife, Madeline Frost Santaros (Mandy Moore) at the Frost mansion. Madeline is a scowling, bleached blonde counterpart to Krysta--the latter of whom is magically introduced into this scene, despite her earlier confession that she was trying to blackmail their family. Madeline tells Boxer--who is still a recovering amnesiac--that she's going to have his baby. With nary a pause to process this, she accuses Baron von Westphalen (Wallace Shawn)--the Mikado-esque Nobel Prize scientist responsible for developing an energy alternative based on quantum entanglement known as "Fluid Karma"--of secretly working for the Neo-Marxists. Not to be outdone, Krysta accuses Madeline of having been impregnated by none other than an intern who just happened to be standing next to her, despite having no way of knowing this. (Even though there are reality-obliterating stakes on the line, Southland Tales finds the time to give ridiculous moments of comedy room to stretch out.) Krysta is the scion of a culture of narcissism and self-obsession; she leverages her sex appeal--and that of her entourage of other bimbos--to launch a consumer empire, marketing everything from a reality show to a line of energy drinks with her face on them. Krysta embraces superficiality like a religion; she is present when Bart and Zora are shot at a bar, and Krysta races back to her banana yellow Ferrari in a pseudo-panic, all without spilling her beer. Whether Boxer ever truly reclaims his memory is debatable, but after he is snatched up by Krysta and a sleazy, track-suit wearing pimp named Fortunio Balducci (Will Sasso), he manages to call upon his inherent ambition to write a screenplay titled "The Power". He envisions his character as an action hero with the ridiculous name of "Jericho Cane", who discovers that the recent surge in crime has to do with an imperceptible fluctuation in the rotation of the earth. Coincidentally, the Baron's alternative energy source is derived from exploiting the tides of the ocean, and his titanic offshore structure is intimated to cause the same kind of event from Boxer's movie idea--little by little the world appears to be reshaping itself to fit his idiotic screenplay. The sardonic metaphor here is that because Boxer is a superstar, his words dictate reality. A public obsessed with celebrities will restructure their perception of the world around what the stars tell them; and a world that lets celebrities tell them what to think and feel is a world on the verge of annihilation indeed.
Recommended for: Fans of a cynical and paranoid satire of society that tackles political manipulation, media saturation, pseudo-ideologies, and celebrity obsession in a sci-fi/comedy/drama genre mashup. Southland Tales is bursting with recognizable actors cast against type in parts great and small--including a surprising amount of "Saturday Night Live" alumni.