During a three-day heat wave just before a huge 4th of July celebration, an action star stricken with amnesia meets up with a porn star who is developing her own reality TV project, and a po... Read allDuring a three-day heat wave just before a huge 4th of July celebration, an action star stricken with amnesia meets up with a porn star who is developing her own reality TV project, and a policeman who holds the key to a vast conspiracy.During a three-day heat wave just before a huge 4th of July celebration, an action star stricken with amnesia meets up with a porn star who is developing her own reality TV project, and a policeman who holds the key to a vast conspiracy.
- Awards
- 1 win & 3 nominations
Chris Andrew Ciulla
- UPU 4 Officer 3
- (as Chris Ciulla)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaRichard Kelly consciously sought out actors that he felt had been pigeonholed and wanted to showcase their "undiscovered talents."
- GoofsWhen the home video at the start of the film catches a glimpse of the initial bomb blast, we see the flash and hear the boom at the same instant. Anything close enough to a nuclear blast to hear the boom at the same instant as seeing the flash would be instantly disintegrated.
- Quotes
Boxer Santaros: I'm a pimp. And pimps don't commit suicide.
- Crazy creditsAfter the credits, a logo appears of a thumbprint over an American flag with the words: "DON'T TOUCH ME"
- Alternate versionsOriginally running for 160 minutes, Southland Tales premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 to a disastrous reception. Because of this, it was re-edited and shortened in length as part of the distribution deal. Since the shortened version was shown theatrically and released on DVD, the Cannes cut has been shown on Cable TV and DVD releases in Europe. Some of the changes between the theatrical cut and the Cannes cut are as follows:
- Opens the same as theatrical cut, with home video in Abilene, except with music ('Water Pistol' by Moby) and runs longer. Video is also shown in its original aspect ratio, instead of cropped for 2.35:1.
- Doomsday Scenario Interface is not present in the original cut, it was added to provide background information present in the graphic novels. Instead we have narration from Pilot Abilene explaining the present situation and Treer Corporation.
- The meeting between the Baron and Hideo Takehashi takes place much earlier in the film, Pilot explains the Baron dislikes Takehashi.
- The character of General Teena MacArthur is more fleshed out in original cut, she mainly communicates with General Simon Theory and the Baron.
- Many scenes with dialog between main characters have been extended i.e. scenes with Boxer & Roland, Krysta & Cyndi, Boxer & Starla, Cyndi & Vaughn Smallhouse etc.
- Pilot explains that Bart Bookman is an 'angry man' with a willingness to die.
- Some events that take place are better explained in original cut e.g. Boxer ringing Fortunio before meeting him, Serpentine explaining her actions at the end.
- Features additional effects of the blimp not in theatrical version.
- Features music by Moby not present in theatrical version i.e. 'Ceanograph' is heard in scene giving information on the rift, 'Hotel Intro' is heard as characters visit different sections on the blimp.
- SoundtracksIf I Could Be With You (One Hour Tonight)
Written by Henry Creamer and James P. Johnson (as Jimmy Johnson)
Performed by Louis Armstrong
Courtesy of Columbia Records
By Arrangement with Sony BMG Music Entertainment
Featured review
Has elements of social satire but they are lost in such a mess that it is hard to enjoy or engage with even if the base elements show the potential
In 2005 a large part of Texas was wiped out by a nuclear blast. Three years later and America is deep in wars all over the globe and has become a police state with near total control on the populace. California is now the hub of everything but is also HQ of the underground Marxist movement with which the powers are in a constant battle. In the midst of this, action movie star Boxer Santaros becomes sought after when he goes missing and turns up with amnesia; however all he is trying to do is get his film project off the ground with his porn star girlfriend. To help with this he travels with LA cop Roland Taverner unaware that Taverner has been replaced by his twin brother, a Marxist terrorist. Meanwhile a German company prepares to launch a device that will head off the energy crisis, but of course nothing is as it seems.
Southland Tales is the film that everyone lined up to kick and this for me was enough to justify seeing it because I found it hard to believe that the man behind Donnie Darko could make a film as bad as everyone was saying. The truth is that he has not but he is not a million miles away because the good in the film is lost in a mess that makes it so hard to watch, engage with and enjoy that it genuinely is hard to defend. What the film is trying to do is satirise the way the western world is today in 2008 in regards obsession with celebrity, the disposable culture, the wars, the invasion of privacy, the war on terror, the willingness of science to find out whether something is good or bad by trying it and so on. And it does do these things to some degree but the problem is that it does them within such a mess of a film that the value of them is lost. Some have said that the messy, incoherent and frantic film is just another comment on the state of western media and I guess this might be the case but it still doesn't mean that it is a good idea.
I have to mention Donnie Darko because although that was a film that took many viewings and also much reading to get close to what it was about, at least it held out hope to the viewer to get something from it. Here though the film is just incoherent and messy not to the point of me throwing it all in and switching it off but certainly to the point of me leaving it having taking away very little other than bemusement. The film has its defenders and, not to start a fight but I do think that some people love things that the majority hate. For me it is really hard to like and trust me I would like to be here saying that I found lots of value in it. However it doesn't succeed at what it sets out to do and Kelly's ambition does seems to mean that he has just totally lost control of it.
Celebrity is part of his film and so he has a lot of recognisable faces in here, although many of them are pushing against material they don't understand. I think Dwayne Johnson is actually pretty good in the lead. He is not a great actor but he can do "solid" while also taking direction well I never had a problem with him the whole film. Gellar is less engaging as a presence and that is important because for the majority of the cast, presence is important because without the material there is not a huge amount of performance. Ling is stunning as always and this works for what it is; Timberlake works OK; Harris, Armstrong, Lambert, Lovitz, Shawn, Smith and others are all OK finds but not brilliant. Scott had to carry a lot of the film and I'm not sure he was either up to it or did it.
Southland Tales has its moments of creativity, insight and interest but without doubt Kelly lost control of his project and ending up with lots of parts but no whole. The "making of" film on the DVD confirms both his ambition and his failure but to be honest just watching it for yourself will tell you the same. Kelly is still someone I will watch because without a doubt he has creativity but I really hope that he gets someone to work with him who can act as a channelling influence because I'm not sure how many more "Southland Tales" his very young career can stand.
Southland Tales is the film that everyone lined up to kick and this for me was enough to justify seeing it because I found it hard to believe that the man behind Donnie Darko could make a film as bad as everyone was saying. The truth is that he has not but he is not a million miles away because the good in the film is lost in a mess that makes it so hard to watch, engage with and enjoy that it genuinely is hard to defend. What the film is trying to do is satirise the way the western world is today in 2008 in regards obsession with celebrity, the disposable culture, the wars, the invasion of privacy, the war on terror, the willingness of science to find out whether something is good or bad by trying it and so on. And it does do these things to some degree but the problem is that it does them within such a mess of a film that the value of them is lost. Some have said that the messy, incoherent and frantic film is just another comment on the state of western media and I guess this might be the case but it still doesn't mean that it is a good idea.
I have to mention Donnie Darko because although that was a film that took many viewings and also much reading to get close to what it was about, at least it held out hope to the viewer to get something from it. Here though the film is just incoherent and messy not to the point of me throwing it all in and switching it off but certainly to the point of me leaving it having taking away very little other than bemusement. The film has its defenders and, not to start a fight but I do think that some people love things that the majority hate. For me it is really hard to like and trust me I would like to be here saying that I found lots of value in it. However it doesn't succeed at what it sets out to do and Kelly's ambition does seems to mean that he has just totally lost control of it.
Celebrity is part of his film and so he has a lot of recognisable faces in here, although many of them are pushing against material they don't understand. I think Dwayne Johnson is actually pretty good in the lead. He is not a great actor but he can do "solid" while also taking direction well I never had a problem with him the whole film. Gellar is less engaging as a presence and that is important because for the majority of the cast, presence is important because without the material there is not a huge amount of performance. Ling is stunning as always and this works for what it is; Timberlake works OK; Harris, Armstrong, Lambert, Lovitz, Shawn, Smith and others are all OK finds but not brilliant. Scott had to carry a lot of the film and I'm not sure he was either up to it or did it.
Southland Tales has its moments of creativity, insight and interest but without doubt Kelly lost control of his project and ending up with lots of parts but no whole. The "making of" film on the DVD confirms both his ambition and his failure but to be honest just watching it for yourself will tell you the same. Kelly is still someone I will watch because without a doubt he has creativity but I really hope that he gets someone to work with him who can act as a channelling influence because I'm not sure how many more "Southland Tales" his very young career can stand.
helpful•96
- bob the moo
- Jun 15, 2008
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Language
- Also known as
- Ma Cô
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $17,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $275,380
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $117,000
- Nov 18, 2007
- Gross worldwide
- $374,743
- Runtime2 hours 25 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
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