Remember Richard Kelly? Yeah, no one else knows that name either outside of a handful of cine-dorks. He’s the man (boy?) behind the left-field cult hit “Donnie Darko.” Where the hell has he been? [the fucker was 25 when he made ‘Darko’)
Well, he made his ‘Darko’ follow-up, enigmatic sci-fi film “Southland Tales” a long, long time ago. Surely he’s over it (and in fact, he’s moved on to other projects). However, ‘Tales’ is finally getting a belated release this fall and apparently it’s a pretty wacked-out film.
No one, but a handful of people even know what’s up with it. Mandy Moore who has an appearance in the film (alongside people like The Rock and Justin Timberlake, Sean Williams Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar) didn’t even know if she was still in the film until MTV confirmed it to her. “I’m anxious to see it. I think he’s a genius. He’s such a cool guy. And the script was so beyond me I couldn’t even begin to tell you what the movie is about, but I had fun. I played the Rock’s wife. I literally shot for four days” (the film premiered at Cannes in 2006 to dreadful reviews, you can pretty much spoil it for yourself anywhere on the Internet or on wikipedia).
The Actual News Part Begins Here [ed. what the fuck, are we Pitchfork?]
Anyhow, this is a long, circuitous route to tell you that gablurous dance superstah Moby composed the score to the film (which he also surely did ages ago; some of what we assume is his compositions are here and here)
The Mobe-ster is also set to speak at The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference & Festival which is being held March 7-15 in Austin, TX. along with acclaimed documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson (“Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple,” “The Murder of Emmett Till“).
Moby’s talk – creatively called, “A Conversation with Moby” – is set for March 11 and he’ll be discussing his work in films (The ‘Bourne’ franchises, “Heat”), but more importantly he’ll be discussing an interesting new project/concept called, “Moby Gratis” – his new endeavor to offer some of his music, free-of-charge, to independent filmmakers.
Pardon us if we’re completely skeptical of “free,” but Moby did make a shit-ton of money by licensing every (and we mean every) song off his 1999 album Play to anyone and their grandmother that would give him $10 for it and suffice to say he became a very, very rich man and might not really need the dough.
Plus, do you ever remember any random interviews with Moby over the last five years? The old Playlist remembers the day when he reported writing songs in the hundreds for his then-upcoming album (18). Sounds like dude’s got tons of filler just waiting to grease the wheels of your latest indie extravaganza (Mumblecore’ers take note).
But seriously, it’s an intriguing, curiosity-piquing idea at the very least.
Watch The Rock, Sean Williams Scott and Sarah Michelle Gellar in a clip from “Southland Tales.”
