Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		2.5

Southland Tales Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Sir Terrence November 14, 2008

Have you ever watched a movie that was so bad you wondered how it ever made it to the big screen? This is how I felt after watching Southland Tales. This movie is so utterly bizarre, mind bending, contrived, fractured and almost too cultish for its own good. I wondered how Director Richard Kelly could have gone so wrong after turning out “Donnie Darko (2001)”, arguably his best work to date, but not a hit by any measure. “Southland Tales” is incoherent and glued together by a narrative that is so thin on plot and character development, it is not even funny. I didn’t know whether to take this seriously, or completely dismiss it as an infernally bad joke.

With a budget of $15 million dollars, Southland Tales was a box office disaster clearing just $367,524.00(yes, just shy of three hundred and seventy thousand dollars!!). The filming of Southland Tales was slated for August of 2005 in Los Angeles. A rough cut of the film was sent to the organizers of the Cannes Film Festival, and surprisingly it was accepted. They liked it so much (what were they thinking?) they recommended that it be entered into competition for the Palme d’Or. Kelly was so delighted he stopped editing the film and was unable to complete all of the visual effects before its screening. It premièred at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 2006 at a length of 160 minutes. To say it was widely panned as a disaster at the festival was an understatement. The film was finally cut down to 144 minutes(still too long), and with money obtained from Sony who picked up rights to the film, he added 90 new visual effects shots, and tightened up the movie a bit. While an improvement, the film was so bad that it seemed nothing could help it.

On July 4, 2005 El Paso and Abilene, Texas is bomb by twin nuclear blast, a devastating catastrophe of epic proportion which has spun America into World War III. Civil liberties are once again under pressure from the Patriot Act, which has extended authority to a new agency known as US-IDent, which watches American citizens like big brother. The internet is censured, and finger prints are required to use computers and access bank accounts. The country is thrown into energy crises as global warfare wages out of control. A German company Treer designs a generator whose power is inexhaustible, and is powered by the ocean currents. This generator is named “Fluid Karma”. Unknown to the designers Fluid Karma alters currents, and causes the Earth to slow its rotation tearing holes in space and time.

Actor Boxer Santaros (Dwayne Johnson) has been missing for days, and was found in the desert with partial amnesia. He is married to Madeline (Mandy Moore) the daughter of President Elect Bobby Frost (Holmes Osborne). Returning from the desert, Santaros begins an affair with porn actress and reality TV host Krista now (Sara Michelle Gellar). Boxer is doing research for a character in a screenplay he has written, and is teamed up with Office Roland Taverner (Sean William Scott), who by the way also has a twin brother Ronald. In one evening we watch Santaros, Krista Now, and twin brothers Roland and Ronald Taverner lives become intertwined with the lives of all humanity.

Southland Tales Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sony brings Southland Tales to Bluray in a 1080p/AVC encoding in a 2:40:1 aspect ratio which looks pretty good, but not spectacular. First, the print master appears in great shape with only a hint of specks found in darker portions of the picture. The encode is fairly sharp and clean, with well managed fine grain that really only shows itself during darker scenes. I saw some traces of edge enhancement, but you really have to look for it, it's not that obvious. Colors are vivid and vibrant in some scenes, and subdued in others. Black levels are consistent, deep and inky, with no signs of crushing to be found. Contrast seems a touch hot giving images a slight dream like look, but makes whites seem bleached and over blown. Detail and fine detail is only average, with an emphasis toward the foreground, leaving the background slightly out of focus much of the time. This is not digital video, so you get a softer film like presentation that is not bad, but not the best I have seen on Bluray.

Southland Tales Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The soundtrack is presented in Dolby TrueHD, and from the looks of the bit meter looks to be a 24/48 kHz encoding that is quite frankly stunning in its subtlety, and use of the 360 degree sound field surrounding the listener. This is not a soundtrack that hits you over the head with explosions and gunfire. What you get here is a finely crafted soundtrack full of little details, and a sense of transparency that causes you to forget you are listening to speakers, and brings the sound right into the room. The film score by Moby is very well recorded, with vocals that are completely unbound from the center speaker. Surround usage is persistent and consistent throughout the entire movie, constantly filling my room with spacious ambience or effects. Effects' panning is precise, fluid, and moves smoothly from speaker to speaker with absolutely no holes in the sound field. You will quickly find out how well your speakers are voice matched. The use of the side and rear walls for phantom effects placement is stunning. If I was teaching sound in the classroom, this is one of those sound tracks I would require my students to study closely. I am going to give this soundtrack a perfect five, not because it is loud and bombastic, but because it is well crafted, so well crafted that I forgot I was watching a really bad movie.

Southland Tales Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Sony brings a healthy amount of extra material, and a few new bonus features over the DVD version of this title. Here is what is included on disc:

Commentary by writer and director Richard Kelly is a solo act that is quite frankly un-engaging, a bit dry and tedious, not to mention prone to over examination of the film.

The Complete Prequel Graphic Novel Series which is a cool new supplement, well drawn and well written graphic novels that precede Southland tales. The bad part is the panels are hard to read, even on a 65" RPTV.

Featurette USIdent TV: Surveilling the Southland (40 minutes) is a making of featurette detailing the production of the film, and featuring interviews with cast and crew.

"This is the Way the World Ends" is an animated short that takes place in an alternate universe of the film. While a nice inclusion, it adds nothing to the film itself.

Also included are a series of trailers from Sony films.

This disc is BD live enabled which lets you connect to Sony's website to download trailers and more.

Southland Tales Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I am going to be perfectly honest here, this movie made no sense at all to me. While I enjoyed more of it the second go around, it was still a confusing mess to me. While some of the problem is poor editing, the script and cast of characters meanders all over the map, and is very difficult to follow as there is just too many people and too many side stories. If you are a fan of this movie, definitely upgrade to Bluray. If you are not a fan, but are curious, rent, but I would definitely NOT recommend buying sight unseen.