It’s the bi-monthly New York Times piece where the Gray Lady tells the tale of the artist whose unseen work has been languishing for years (think Fiona Apple’s Extraordinary Machine; Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Hoxtrot) – usually due to some corporate, studio-mingling malfeasance – but it is now set to finally see release (against all odds of course).
It’s a familiar tale and this time their subject is Richard Kelly – the precociously talented writer/director who at 25 directed the cult hit “Donnie Darko”- and his near-futuristic apocalyptic sci-fi flick, “Southland Tales.”
The long and short of the story is this: Kelly finished the film in early 2006 and an almost three hour cut was met with derision, boos and scorn at Cannes that year. Dispirited, but not completely dejected, Kelly went back to the drawing board to retool the film and Sony actually bought it even after all the negative reception. Slightly different in this tale: Sony did little to curb this film from coming out aside from waiting a shitload of a long time to finally release it (it hits theaters in November 14).“It’s about the end of Western civilization as we know it. That’s why it needed to be an epic. That’s why it took so long,” Kelly told the paper.
According to the Times piece, only 20 minutes was taken from the film, the major casualty being a subplot with Janeane Garafalo who no longer appears in the film at the studio’s behest. Justin Timberlake’s narration was also re-recorded. “I misdirected Justin,” Kelly told the Times. “It was a little too sarcastic. When we did it again, I had him watch ‘Apocalypse Now,’ so he ended up doing it very deadpan, very dry,” [like Martin Sheen’s narration in that film].
Ok, so the Times doesn’t blame the suits or claim Kelly has some major injustice done to him, but what they conveniently forgot to add in this piece (and we guess that’s because it’s not a review), is that the film is terrible. We mean, utterly dreadful (see our capsule review here).
The “Southland Tales” begins during the 2008 presidential campaign in a parallel-reality America. The country is reeling from a 2005 nuclear attack in Texas and apparently heading for an even bigger catastrophe. There’s biblical and apocalyptic portentousness (pretentiousness too?) everywhere, but there’s one thing that the director admits that tells you all you need to know about this mess of sci-fi, the end-is-nigh, political, futuristic satire: “I bought ‘The Book of Revelation for Dummies,’ Kelly said of trying to research and give the film some jesus-like grandeur.
And yes, having seen it, we can tell you the studio did not cut this film up and transform it into some slick, commercial enterprise. It’s still weird and totally confusing. “It’s a challenge,” said Meyer Gottlieb diplomatically, president of Samuel Goldwyn Films, which is releasing it in partnership with Sony. “But that’s one of the things I like about it.”
There’s also a garish pop-culture absurdity washed in the film (the film stars the Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake and has smaller roles for SNL-B actors and director Kevin Smith). “American pop culture is certainly embedded in the DNA of this film. I wanted to utilize not just the talent of the actors but their pop value,” he said, comparing the idea to how Warhol “took the image of celebrity and corrupted it.”
And yes, there are pop-culture elements and pop song moments in the film. Gellar sings the Britney Spears-like satire number “Teen Horniness Is Not a Crime” (co-written by Kelly and evidently going to be put out as a legit single) and Justin Timberlake appears in a strange dream sequence that basically turns into a strange lipsynching video for the Killers song “All These Things That I’ve Done” (which has tons of war allusions and Timberlake’s character is an Iraq war veteran. But none of these moments can save the film, and truthfully just add to its awfulness (the soundtrack is decent, but again, it’s not saving anyone).
“Southland Tales” is chapters IV, V and VI of a grand and epic vision. However, It’s telling that to fully understand this bloated and frivolous chronicle you need to read three graphic novels that have already been made to figure it all out.
Trailer: “Southland Tales”
