Product Details

• Actors: Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Carlos Amezcua, Curtis Armstrong
• Directors: Richard Kelly
• Writers: Richard Kelly
• Producers: Bill Johnson, Bo Hyde, Dara Weintraub, Ernst-August Schnieder, Jim Seibel
• Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
• Subtitles for the Hearing Impaired: English
• Region: Region 1 encoding (US and Canada only)
  PLEASE NOTE: Some Region 1 DVDs may contain Regional Coding Enhancement (RCE). Some, but not all, of our international customers have had problems playing these enhanced discs on what are called "region-free" DVD players. For more information on RCE, click .
• Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: March 18, 2008
• Run Time: 145 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (176 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0011VIO3W
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,337 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• Learn more about "Southland Tales" on IMDb

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Well, filmmakers should aim high, they say. And Richard Kelly shot the moon on his highly-anticipated follow-up to cult sensation Donnie Darko, which expands the apocalyptic mood of that movie and blows it up tenfold. Set during the election season of 2008, Southland Tales proposes a series of apparently linked events: the reappearance of a vanished movie star (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), now an amnesiac; the bizarre doubling of a policeman (Seann William Scott in two roles); the development of an energy source from ocean waves; and the presence of an Iraq War veteran (Justin Timberlake) who seems to be watching everything, and narrating some of it. Not that the narration helps; even with voice-over (reportedly added after the film's disastrous debut at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival), Southland Tales doesn't come close to making sense, let alone at the minimum level of dangling a carrot to lead the audience along (even Mulholland Drive had a semblance of murder mystery to be solved, or not). The cast is loaded with Saturday Night Live cut-ups, but only Jon Lovitz connects, and in other roles people like Sarah Michelle Gellar, Christopher Lambert, Bai Ling, and John Larroquette are utterly mystifying, by no fault of their own. In some of the musical sequences Kelly gets in stride, but it's easy to create drama in a three-minute music video, and harder to do over two and a half hours. Some top critics rushed to champion the movie, as though flying in the face of philistinism, so feel free to try out this incoherent pastiche for yourself. --Robert Horton

Product Description

Southland Tales is an ensemble piece set in the futuristic landscape of Los Angeles as it stands on the brink of social, economic and environmental disaster. Boxer Santaros is an action star who's stricken with amnesia. His life intertwines with Krysta Now, an adult film star developing her own reality television project, and David Clark, a Hermosa Beach police officer who holds the key to a vast conspiracy.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

129 of 150 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Fast Paced 'What If' version of a Los Angeles Based Apocalypse! March 23, 2008

By Grady Harp HALL OF FAMETOP 50 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:DVD

SOUTHLAND TALES is, quite simply, bizarre. It resembles a futuristic comic book whose dismembered pages have been flung about the room, defying understanding of a plot, while providing some strange moments of entertainment mixed with metaphor and farce. If this grab bag concept of a film doesn't appeal, then skip this film. But for the adventuresome viewer this is a funny lollipop of a movie.

July 4, 2005 and an atomic bomb explodes during the usual follies of the holiday. What happens from that point to the effects on contemporary Los Angeles is an amalgam of American responses to current events of potential annihilation of the country and the appearance of a lot of strange characters whose minds are either tethered by amnesia or by corrupted views of reality, or who are simply out of sync with what is happening. The cast for this bit of acidic and sour fluff that resembles disconnected fragments of the fertile imagination of writer director Richard Kelly ('Donnie Darko') includes a fine Dwayne Johnson (excellent here!), Seann William Scott, Nora Dunn, Miranda Richardson, Jon Lovitz, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, John Larroquette, Christopher Lambert and many others. Just don't try to make sense of it and sit back and watch the crazy antics of a cast having fun with one view of the apocalypse. It is entertaining...Grady Harp, March 08

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars the Anti-"Magnolia" November 6, 2008

By Robert S.

Format:Blu-ray|Amazon Verified Purchase

No Aimee Mann songs, no tear jerker scenes. It's LA, and it's the end of the world. Huge cast. Epic set-up. Huge budget. Did terrible at the box office, and even now has a growing army of fans. 10 years from now, it'll probably be shown regularly at college campuses at midnight, with people showing up dressed as different characters from the film, and shouting the lines at the screen.

It's like that. If you don't like it after 15 minutes, don't bother. If dark satire about how vain and screwed up American culture is annoys you, don't bother. If wild free form interpretation of scripture bothers you, don't bother. But if you watch it and something gets under your skin, watch it again. Watch it 7 times. It gets clearer and clearer what it's about the more you see it, because it's just too dense to get in one sitting. I didn't really 'like' it the first time I saw it, but I was intrigued by the different layers of subtext, just enough to watch it again. Then I started to really laugh at the jokes...

What's it about? It's a pop culture free poem about Los Angeles, mostly, and the post 9/11 ultra-right mentality. It's very much about the Revelation of St. John, and the 2 main characters would seem at different points to be Jesus or John. And it's a hardcore black comedy.
It's the Anti-"Magnolia", really. It's a bunch of vain, disparate characters intersecting in a way that brings about the end of the world.

If that's your cup of tea, jump in. ;) But don't be fooled by the fact that this film appears to be a thrown together impromptu mess, it's not. It's deeply layered, and carefully put together.. it's just hard to see it on one casual viewing.

The Blu ray transfer is lovely, though you will notice a little grain in some of the composite effects near the end (smoking buildings, etc).

A nice bonus to this release is the inclusion of the 'Southland Tales Prequel Saga' on the disc. You can read the whole graphic novel frame by frame, and it does add some important background material, especially about the mysterious 'FluidKarma'.. where it comes from, what it does, and why Fallujah was such a mess.

This addition makes this disc a real bargain for fans of this film!

65 of 82 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars strange yet fascinating November 19, 2007

By Margaux Paschke TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Theatrical Release

This movie cannot be summarized or explained easily so I will provide my impressions of this strangely fascinating movie. First off, it's a long movie (over 2 hours) and the first 15 mins. confused me until I just let go of any normal movie expectations and sat back to enjoy the freak show that is Southland Tales. There is no way this film is going to appeal to the masses and if odd movies appeal to you, then you better run out to see it at the handful of theaters playing it or wait for the dvd release. I know I can't wait for the dvd release (please let there be commentary) for repeated viewings. This movie was so crammed full of insight, digs and jokes that I couldn't catch every single thing. This mind blowing version of what the USA might be like in the very near future is crazy but addictive. I found the scene where someone questions after a commercial, "Did I just see two cars f**k?" "Yes, but that was the European version" to be very telling. The smarmy salesman easily tosses aside any moral questions. Are Americans being sold swamp land by Corporations? Some might even question if the viewer is being sold a load of crap dressed up as fine art. I think not. The aggressive subtext was a nice touch too. Be prepared for very crude dialogue - I found it amusing but it might not appeal to others. The against-type casting was a stroke of brilliance (Sarah Michele "Buffy" Gellar as a porn star and Mandy Moore as a I can't say without giving things away). Obscure references were a treat such as the Baron's "Dune" overtones and Kevin Smith (not easily recognizable) evokes the Wizard of Oz. I loved the light handed social commentary. This film never came off as preachy but made it's point of view on serious issues nonetheless (it's not for the war in Iraq for starters): they used a heavy technology vibe to get some points across (there are many scenes with several computer screens on view with running commentary underneath each screen); the national anthem was being sung in Spanish to start and then continued in English; the energy crisis resolution was pure sci-fi; and the Revelations from the Bible, as read by Timberlake, were played out by the characters (Revelation that apocalypse will be brought on by a pregnant woman (Moore) surrounded by a dragon (tattoo on Mei Ling's back) and two beasts (you get the point). A lot of attention was given to the minute detail of this movie and that dedication showed. The "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" subplot was amusing and only one example of what this movie was all about to me - a joke, and it invited us all to enjoy it with them. At IDent, all the employees wore these see-through plastic jackets that meant what? They looked out-of-place and silly. Soon, the same exact question was sarcastically being asked by an onscreen actor. Another example is when Kysta Now (porn star) attempts to sell her screen play (who doesn't in LA? apparently not even a looming doomsday can stop Hollywood) with such typical blondness ("apparently, the future is much more futuristic then scientists thought") that one actor cannot keep a straight face. Everyone else is nodding along but this one actor cannot stop laughing to himself. It all seems to be a joke and some of the actors got it and some didn't. It's almost as if two sets of scripts were handed out on this film, one set said it was a dark comedy and the other set said this was a serious film about the future of America. Fans of the director's earlier work (Donnie Darko) will not be disappointed. This movie stands out as a film with edge that many viewers will not fully comprehend (myself included) but can certainly appreciate. Well worth watching on the big screen to help with the enormity of the what is going on in this film but waiting for the dvd with cribnotes might help.