I finally got around to seeing Southland Tales and Oh My God what a train wreck of a movie. The only way to explain what happens in the movie is to say that Richard Kelly must have been on drugs when he made it.

Southland Tales is split up in to three chapters (not including the comic books) and if you must see it, the best way to watch it is one chapter at a time with very long gaps in between (days, weeks even). Otherwise your brain will explode from all the tedious bizarre silliness.

And Sara Michelle Gellar is definitely the best thing in it, even if you are not a Buffy fan.

Zoic_Fan | May 02, 07:16 CET

A great movie that makes no sense because...what makes sense now? Krysta Now!

magnus carnage | May 02, 07:24 CET

What? No Melbourne love? Disappointing.

reidca | May 02, 07:40 CET

well it wouldn't be the "only screening in Australia" if it was in Melbourne too ;)

buffiness | May 02, 07:42 CET

Oh WHY couldn't they have timed this a little better? If they'd held it on the previous Friday or Saturday, they could have enticed the Firefly Con crowd to go.
I sadly, can't justify another (6 hour round) trip to Sydney in that week. And definitely not on a school night.

But have fun and let us know how it goes!

missb | May 02, 07:52 CET

Well, I don't know about anyone else but usually after a day at a convention, all I want to do is head home to sleep (and moan about how I've spent too much - again!).
I was supposed to be going to a gig on the Saturday night but now that the con is on that day there's no way I'll be going - I'll be far too tired.
And Southland Tales requires you to be mostly awake to try and work out what the heck is going on!

buffiness | May 02, 08:25 CET

I'm going to watching it on DVD tonight for the first time. God help me.

Simon | May 02, 10:20 CET

Having recently bought the DVD I was able to watch the film for a fourth time, which probably gives a good indication of my opinion of it. In fact, I think I liked it more on this fourth viewing, having started to really tie together a lot of the strands in the film.

It is, as Zoic_Fan suggests, a train wreck of a film, a big over-ambitious pretentious mess. However, its ambition is not without merit and, I think, it is not the disaster it is often claimed to be. It is very long and there are some stretches that veer dangerously close to tedium, but I can think of very little I would be happy to see removed from it.

It is very much a love it or hate it thing, I suspect, but from the point of view of a SMG fan, I think it’s a much better film than ‘Suburban Girl’, a film I struggle to find too much to commend about it.

alien lanes | May 02, 12:00 CET

I'm going to watching it on DVD tonight for the first time. God help me.

"He" could bring the popcorn.

Saje | May 02, 13:06 CET

We just watched it a couple of nights ago, and it's still in the DVD player while we make time to watch the rest of the sort of "making of" feature. We spent a lot of the movie laughing, but not necessarily the way the filmmakers would have wanted. And yet, we sort of liked it. Our favorite part was Dwayne Johnson's finger-tapping.

Still, if I get most of what I understand about a movie from articles I've read after I've watched it, I guess I've missed something. A lot of somethings.

Kirochka | May 02, 16:37 CET

It was no Donnie Darko.

zeitgeist | May 02, 17:42 CET

Zeitgeist, you're right, no Donnie Darko, but there's a lot going on and some of it works -- and in this case, less wouldn't be more. It's one of those movies you can't fight, just have to roll with. I saw it a second time and liked it more and I think it will age well. SMG is good, but her role needed a sharper edge. In an interview somewhere she said that her challenge was to play the material straight and not camp it up.

Simon, let us know what you think in the morning.

doghouse | May 02, 18:55 CET

Oh, I didn't hate it, its just that after I watched Donnie Darko I sat there amazed for a while.

zeitgeist | May 02, 19:40 CET

I've seen it twice so far and I'll say I like it. Do I understand all of it; no way in hell, lol. The political/social commentary was interesting but the rest of it, I don't even think I'll ever get it. But then again, I didn't get Donnie Darko either. SMG was funny. She is one of the better parts of the movie, although I wish there was more of Krysta.

maje | May 02, 19:53 CET

I didn't realise how long Southland tales was on for and set about watching it at like 10pm. Yep I turned it off after two hours. It made no sense, it really tested my Buffy love- I even had to watched season 2 of BTVS to forgive SMG.

shesmyeverything | May 02, 20:24 CET

I loved it, I hated it. It was a mixed bag. Loved SMP's (Prinze, now, I believe...?) performance--especially "Teen Horniness is not a Crime". So excellent.

Buffy the Slayer Layer | May 02, 21:08 CET

It reminded me of Paul Theroux's Ozone and the tv show Wild Palms. Largely incomprensible but glorious.

Simon | May 03, 01:04 CET

So much potential squandered.

Still... rocket launcher!

Scotto | May 03, 03:35 CET

It's a bizarre mess of a film with some parts which work really well and some parts which are just terrible, and it just doesn't hang together. In the end, I had to list this as one of the worst films of last year, although I felt a bit bad about doing so. But overall, I would say it's worth seeing, for anyone who is so inclined.

As zeitgeist says, it's certainly no Donnie Darko.

Kiddo | May 03, 03:43 CET

mark, Netflix definitely lied about the length - the envelope it was in said it was an hour and forty minutes long, whereas it was more like almost two and a half - we were zonked the next day at work...

Kirochka | May 03, 20:33 CET

I was actually surprised how entertained I was by Southland Tales. I went into it thinking it was going to be horrendous and came out loving the movie (well maybe not love but I enjoyed it). Most of it I didn't understand but I still liked it. The only reason I even showed any interest in the movie was because of SMG and I have to say I loved her part. I agree with the posters above that there should've been more Krysta.

holypotatoes | May 03, 23:55 CET

I just can not get through it. Have it right here but I start thinking about cleaning the bathroom and so on. Its going back to blockbusters tomorrow because after five days of picking at it bits at a time till I can not take it anymore...well.

Tina | May 05, 10:41 CET