| Southland Tales | |
|---|---|
| File:Southland tales.jpg Promotional poster for Southland Tales | |
| Directed by | Richard Kelly |
| Written by | Richard Kelly |
| Produced by | Sean McKittrick Bo Hyde Kendall Morgan |
| Starring | The Rock Seann William Scott Sarah Michelle Gellar |
| Music by | Moby |
| Distributed by | Samuel Goldwyn Films (domestic-theatrical), Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (domestic-DVD), Universal Pictures (most foreign territories), Wild Bunch (France, Benelux, Spain and Switzerland) |
Release date | November 9th 2007 (USA) |
Running time | 137 mins. |
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$15 million |
Southland Tales is a 2007 science fiction/drama film, written and directed by Richard Kelly. Set in the near future, the film is a portrait of Los Angeles and a comment on the military-industrial news-tainment complex. The film features an ensemble cast including Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Seann William Scott and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Kelly's friend and fellow film director Kevin Smith, who has a cult following of his own, is also part of the ensemble cast. Original music for the film will be provided by Moby.
When Sony purchased the film, Kelly had to edit the running-time from 160 minutes to 137 minutes and has also gotten the greenlight for the additional round(s) of visual effects, which should take roughly 12-15 weeks to finish. Variety (magazine) has reported that Southland Tales will be distributed theatrically by Samuel Goldwyn Films.
A Richard Kelly fan site recently reported a release date of November 9th 2007, saying post-production should be finished by September.
Plot
El Paso and Abilene, Texas have fallen victim to twin nuclear attacks on July 4th, 2005 - a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions which sent America into war. The Patriot Act has been upgraded to a new agency known as USIdent, which keeps constant tabs on citizens - even to the extent of censoring the internet and using fingerprints in order to access computers and bank accounts. In order to be able to respond to a newfound fuel scarcity, the German company Treer designs a generator of inexhaustible energy which is propelled by ocean currents. Unbeknownst to them, the generators alter the currents and cause the Earth to to spiral out of control through space, ripping holes in the fabric of space and time.
In Los Angeles, a city on the brink of chaos, we follow the criss-crossed destinies of Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson), an action film actor stricken with amnesia; Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), ex-porn star in the midst of reconverting; and twin brothers Roland and Ronald Taverner (both played by Seann William Scott), whose destinies - on one evening - become intertwined with that of all mankind.
Production
Filming for Southland Tales began on August 15, 2005, with a budget of around US$15-17 million.
Kelly has stated that the film's biggest influences are Kiss Me Deadly, Pulp Fiction, Brazil and Dr. Strangelove. He also calls it a "strange hybrid of the sensibilities of Andy Warhol and Philip K. Dick".[1]
After Sony's purchase of the film, the film was cut down and re-edited by Kelly.[2] According to his December 5, 2006 entry on his MySpace blog, the final cut runs 137 mins, a full 27 minutes shorter than the "work-in-progress" version shown at the Cannes Film Festival.[3]
Cast
Lovitz, Garofalo, Oteri, Dunn, and Poehler are all current or former cast members on Saturday Night Live. Sasso was one of the more visible cast members on SNL's Fox rival MADtv. The sketch comedy troupe The Mechanicals also make an appearance.
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| The Rock | Boxer Santaros/Jericho Cane |
| Seann William Scott | Roland / Ronald Taverner |
| Sarah Michelle Gellar | Krysta Now/ Krysta Kapowski |
| Curtis Armstrong | Doctor Soberin Exx |
| Ling Bai | Serpentine |
| Rebekah Del Rio | Vanessa Vera Cruz |
| Nora Dunn | Cindy Pinziki |
| Janeane Garofalo | General Teena MacArthur |
| Beth Grant | Dr. Inga Von Westphalen/Marion Card |
| Wood Harris | Dion Element |
| Christopher Lambert | Walter Mung |
| John Larroquette | Vaughn Smallhouse |
| Jon Lovitz | Bart Bookman |
| Abbey McBride | Sheena Gee |
| Mandy Moore | Madeline Frost-Santaros |
| Cheri Oteri | Zora Carmichaels |
| Holmes Osborne | Senator Bobby Frost |
| Amy Poehler | Dream |
| Lou Taylor Pucci | Martin Kefauver |
| Miranda Richardson | Nana Mae Van Adler-Frost |
| Zelda Rubinstein | Dr. Katarina Kuntzler |
| Will Sasso | Fortunio Balducci |
| Wallace Shawn | Baron Von Westphalen |
| Sab Shimono | Hideo Takehashi |
| Kevin Smith | Simon Theory |
| Justin Timberlake | Private Pilot Abilene |
| Todd Berger | Bing Zinneman |
| Joe Campana | Brandt Huntington |
| Jill Ritchie | Shoshana Kapowski/Shoshana Cox |
| Lisa K. Wyatt | Teri Riley |
Promotional details
Southland Tales is divided into six parts. A series of three graphic novels have told the first three parts of the story; the film will tell the final three parts.
Graphic novels
The graphic novels were illustrated by Brett Weldele. The first part, Two Roads Diverge, was released on May 25 and introduces Boxer Santaros, Krysta Now, and Fortunio Balducci, as well as the state of the nation in the alternate universe in which the film takes place. Part two was released in mid November and introduced Ronald/Roland Taverner as well as introducing USI-Dent, the Treer Corporation and the Neo-Marxists while furthering the journey of Boxer, Krysta and Fortuino. Part three of the graphic novel series was released in mid-February and further established the goings on of the Southland Tales universe by introducing the origin of Justin Timberlake's character as well as further elaborating on the origin and effects of Fluid Karma. The Mechanicals also sets up the first major event of the film.
The titles of the graphic novels are:
- Part One: Two Roads Diverge (May 25, 2006, ISBN 093621175X)
- Part Two: Fingerprints (September 15, 2006, ISBN 0936211768)
- Part Three: The Mechanicals (January 31, 2007, ISBN 0936211776)
They have been collected together into one single volume:
- Southland Tales: The Prequel Saga (360 pages, Graphitti Designs)
The film
The titles of the parts in the movie are:
- Part Four: Temptation Waits
- Part Five: Memory Gospel
- Part Six: Wave Of Mutilation
It has been noted that the titles for the parts of the film are also song titles. "Memory Gospel" is the name of a Moby song from the B-side album Play: The B Sides; "Wave of Mutilation" is a song by the Pixies that originally appeared on their second LP Doolittle; and "Temptation Waits" is the name of a Garbage track from their second album Version 2.0.
Websites
In a similar style to Donnie Darko, the official website, located at www.southlandtales.com, is an interactive Macromedia Flash animation, blending eerie sounds and visuals with puzzles. The taglines for the film include "Warning: you are entering a ___domain of chaos," "The internet is the future" and "The future is just like you imagined." After an apparently brief downtime, the website is now back up.
Sites have also been created for Gellar's Krysta Now character, as well as for the Treer Corporation at www.Treer-products.com and a yet to be started website for USI-Dent, both of which are set to be part of the movie's universe.
Cannes Film Festival
Along with two other American filmmakers (Sofia Coppola with Marie-Antoinette and Richard Linklater with Fast Food Nation), Kelly's follow-up to Donnie Darko was in competition for the coveted Palme d'Or during 2006.
Critical reaction to the movie in its original, longer form was mostly negative. Many American critics responded unfavorably to the film's long running time and sprawling nature. Salon.com critic Andrew O'Hehir, for example, called the Cannes cut "about the biggest, ugliest mess I've ever seen."[4] Jason Solomons in The Observer said that "Southland Tales was so bad it made me wonder if [Kelly] had ever met a human being" and that ten minutes of the "sprawling, plotless, post-apocalyptic farrago" gave him the "sinking feeling that this may be one of the worst films ever presented in [Cannes] competition."[5] A handful of the American and European critics, however, were far more positive.[6] Village Voice critic J. Hoberman, for example, called Southland Tales "a visionary film about the end of times" comparable in recent American film only to David Lynch's acclaimed Mulholland Dr.[7]
Trivia
- The name of the film refers to the Southland, a name used by locals to refer to Southern California, and more specifically, Greater Los Angeles.
- Even though the movie and graphic novels reveal El Paso and Abilene were destroyed by twin nuclear attacks on July 4th, 2005. The comic mini-series Remains also involves a story that included Nuclear holocaust that takes place almost a month before the diverging events on Southland Tales -- mainly it occurs on June 3rd, 2005. Unlike Southland Tales, the series involves zombie holocaust with few human survivors instead.
References
- ^ Etherington, Daniel (2006). "Southland Tales preview". Channel 4. Retrieved 2005-09-16.
- ^ Bell, Mark (2006-09-12). "How The World Ends: Conversation with Richard Kelly". Filmthreat.com. Retrieved 2006-09-18.
- ^ Kelly, Richard (2006-12-05). "Picture Lock". MySpace. Retrieved 2006-12-12.
- ^ O'Hehir, Andrew (2006-05-22). "Beyond the Multiplex: Cannes". Salon.com. Retrieved 2006-07-10.
- ^ Solomons, Jason (2006-05-28). "Get set for Palme Sunday". The Observer. Retrieved 2006-07-10.
- ^ Links to many post-Cannes reviews, including multiple positive reviews by American, French, Spanish, Polish, and other reviewers.
- ^ Hoberman, J. (2006-05-23). "Code Unknown". Village Voice. Retrieved 2006-07-10.
External links
Official promotional websites
- Southland Tales official website
- "USIDent" website
- "Boxer Santaros" website
- "Krysta Now" website
- "Treer Products" website
Others
- Southland Tales at IMDb
- Production notes
- News about re-editing of the film
- Associated Press interview with Kelly about his goals for the film