Holy fuck is this an amazingly terrible movie. I honestly couldn't say much more than the booing audiences and professional reviewers when it came out. Even trying to watch it at twice the speed the "plot" drags unbearably. I don't know what's going on, I don't want to know, it's not going to go anywhere, and I'm writing this with 20 (45) minutes left because I need something to do in between the long nothing shots meandering about the room or driving around. Just wow. This is what you study when you're terrified of making a terrible movie. When something you write or shoot gives you the sickening dread that this conjures, throw it away and start over. If you think "I'm just too deep and complicated, BUT I HAVE TO TRY!" Chug half a bottle of Nyquil, go to sleep, and try to dream of all the other ways to express yourself that don't ride on the thought that it should manifest in movie form. I wonder if I have a secret desire to hurt or punish myself for something in watching this at the mere suggestion from an unstable person that, "It has a particular relevance in our current political climate." Yes, 9/11 was a shit show, the aftermath a compounding disaster, and let no future scavenger or historian believe Trump is anything but a sign of an End Times-adjacent saga, but holy shit, you're allowed to take a breath and beat and try to talk about it in a way anyone but you might understand. This hurts. Notice how I've refrained from spending millions of dollars and turning the camera on myself to let you know my pain.

Saw this one many years ago and really didn't care much for it. Watching it again, now the 'Cannes Cut', I absolutely... hated it. A bit of a shame since I love Donnie Darko (the director's cut especially) and where that one managed to blend social commentary with end-of-the world science fiction pretty well, this one did not. In fact, it was a real mess. However the biggest issue, beyond being downright boring at times, where I liked the characters in Donnie Darko, here I really couldn't care less.

I would compare Richard Kelly to someone like M. Night Shyamalan, but least he had a couple solid films after The Sixth Sense to hang his hat on, Kelley's films following Donnie Darko (including his third film, The Box), were just nonsensical pretentious messes. **1.5/5**

People will look back at Southland Tales after Trump and say Richard Kelly predicted the entire decade, and them some. Those who don't get the film just have low IQ's and can't see the brilliance of it. [spoiler]A hitman with amnesia, a reality television president, the bs conspiracies and angry vets while Tech Companies create an elite political class existing off human capital a midst a climate apocalypse (followed by a nuclear one); welcome to 2020. [/spoiler]

But this was made in '06. Right it was, and it belongs in the canon of "Idiocracy", almost serves as a prequel. [spoiler]You've got all the elements of the sh-tstorm we're in from Q-Anon to Reality Television presidents to traumatized Iraqi vets on a mission to Facebook dictatorships and mysterious foreign interference's communicated through bizarre corrupt Homeland Security type organizations. [/spoiler]

This movie is about the overall dumbing down of America before the apocalypse but after what we thought in 2006 a post-911 world would bring us to -- Dwayne Johnson, The Rock, represent this playing a hitman with amnesia throughout the story. A guy who doesn't remember what he's fighting for. People just use the word "Freedom" to justify their neurotic sadism and greed throughout the film. Justin Timberlake, an Iraqi vet, who predicts Jaoquim Pheonixs' Joker performance, plays an insane militia vet in his self-cutting musical numbers. It's a cinematic masterpeice and Timberlakes greatest paradoxical performance.

Warning : The "conservative media" is a central character in itself this film [spoiler] and if you don't understand how FOX news is hate speech propaganda you will, right off the bat, not understand the premise of the movie from scene 1. Instead of seeing how each character is either being manipulated by the media or is making the media that manipulates others you will just see moving pictures you wont understand. Unfortunatley, this is because your brain doesn't understand that media is created and since Kelly doesn't spell out to the inept audience what each characters motivation is, you would have to think that out. Which for 42% of Americans is very difficult to do. If you actually believe one single solitary ounce of Q-Anon or InfoWars BS you won't see the cutting humor of this film. I feel sad for you because you are stuck in a rabbit-hole by people who watched this movie in 2006 and created their little BS cultspracies. This movie teaches you how to mess with people and how politcal sides are all horseplay. Only culture-makers understand what this film is saying because Richard Kelly, the director, thought his Donnie Darko audience was smarter. Followers of conservative media who actually see the world through FOX news absurdity are numb to the profound absurdity of SouthLand Tales -- because it's talking about you easily reactionary freaks who see the world like Dwayne's character -- paranoid, amnesiac and scare sh*tless of terrorists. Meanwhile, he's the central terrorist. It's a genius judgement of domestic militant Americans today. [/spoiler]

The people who don't see this movie as a prophecy, [spoiler]including a great performance by Kathy Griffith as this muscle bound feminist liberal ripping political heads (something she ACTUALLY did in 2016 much to her professional shigrin), are blind to prophetic cinema. Then again, the word Republican/Conservative are now synonymous with Corporate Environmental and Human Right annihilation, Cult Racism, White Supremacy, Sadism and greed -- so anything against that is considered anti-fascist. Don't get me wrong, If there ever was an Antifa Manifesto that American Nazi's couldn't interpret because of their traumatic FOX induced brain injuries, this movie is it. I doubt they even understood that sentence. [/spoiler]My only contention is if this was a prequel to Mike Judges' classic comedy"Idiocracy", where the future of American is beyond stupid, I wonder what film could END the trilogy.

Southland Tales is about the fall of America by paranoia, media manipulators and toxic masculinity (even in women), who carry out the apocalypse dictated to them by elite's, literally in a bubble. I won't give away the ending...but hint, hint [spoiler] -- look outside your window.[/spoiler]

This is a movie that when I am ranting about other films is the "Ten" in the "on a scale of One to Ten..."
Example: On a scale of One to Southland Tales, how frustratingly painful was this movie?"
I watched this movie over a decade ago and I still feel the poison of it in my veins to this day. I guess if you are going for memorable, that is one way to go about it. I have spent too much time in my life (including writing this) thinking about, researching and even ranting about this film. What I have found prevalent by the positive reviewers is that
1- (bad excuse) It was bad editing
2- (deflection and projection) You are not smart enough to understand this film
3- (more recently) It is a prophecy, telling the future in the Trump Era
The way I see it,
1- No amount of film that was cut out of this movie could patch the huge plot holes that are gaping through this mess.
2- My imagination should never have to fill in the blanks of bad writing and make up a plot for them to make this film work. That is the job of the writers and the director. This is the rhetoric of those that also think that the movie Inception was a profound work of cinematic genius. (Spoiler: [spoiler] It wasn't! [/spoiler] )
3- I couldn't give two steaming piles of Southland Tales about your personal politics, they still wouldn't make this movie bearable even if they dead-on had Donald Trump play the role of POTUS in the film.
The casting was very confusing. Nearly all of the actors involved are amazingly entertaining (in other films and media). In this movie however, they are misused and wasted. They could have spent 1/10 of the casting budget and still had the same result when it comes to execution.
The only way to sway my opinion is if somehow, 20 years from now, it is discovered that those responsible for this film systematically crafted this project to infect a small percentage of human brains. Like a virus that stores itself in the darkest corners of the mind to make people rant about it. Thus causing others, unfortunate enough to have to listen to that rant, to be curious enough to watch it for themselves to see if it could possibly be that horrible. (Spoiler: [spoiler] It is! [/spoiler] )