On October 26, 2020 Arrow Video announced a Remastered version approved by Richard Kelly will be released on Blu-ray on January 26, 2021. The Book of Revelation and Marxism have been connected by academicsboth advocate the overthrow of tyranny. What's the deal with the "I'm a pimp, and pimps don't commit suicide" motto? All three graphic novels were written by Richard Kelly, with artwork by Brett Weldele. "RONALD: "Its a physiological requirement of the body. [16] Kelly consciously sought out actors that he felt had been pigeonholed and wanted to showcase their "undiscovered talents."[14]. Why is 'Kiss Me Deadly' featured numerous times in the film? Many of his answers are contained in this FAQ. Pregnant woman from Revelation 12 and 13 (Puppet of the Anti-Christ)Bobby Frost and Vaughn Smallhouse: It never becomes clear what exactly happened in the desert. Meanwhile, Martin Kefauver (Lou Pucci), a young man dressed in hip-hop gear, meets Pilot Abilene at the "Fire" Arcade, where he exchanges pot for fluid karma. This article is viewable at Salon.com here and is intended to give to viewer a better perception of the movie itself and answer questions not cleared up in the movie.An interview with Richard Kelly from the February issue of the film magazine Empire. What does the name "Vaughn Smallhouse" refer to? Walter Mung recognizes him and quickly sedates him with an injection of fluid karma. User Ratings "Yes They Can! Then, after several detours, Krysta and Boxer made their way to Los Angeles, where Boxer went on a nighttime stroll on the beach, injected himself with fluid karma and passed out. All of these references to Marxism aren't entirely unconnected to the film's biblical references. He played a character named "Donnie" in a movie with Boxer Santaros (in an obvious allusion to "Donnie Darko"). "Chord Sounds" by Moby7. As in "Southland Tales," a character in "Kiss Me Deadly" picks up a stranger in the desert, and one of the main characters in the film is named after a poet. But if "Southland Tales" follows the same logic as "Donnie Darko," as laid out in that film's DVD extras, when the fourth dimension is corrupted, it causes the creation of two parallel universes: the Tangent Universe and the Primary Universe. When Boxer and Taverner went through the space-time rift, they traveled 69 minutes back in timecreating duplicate versions of themselves. In the universe of the film, Dr. Inga Von Westphalen is also the granddaughter of Jenny Von Westphalen, Karl Marx's wife. Taverner reveals that he hasn't produced a bowel movement in six days. He stopped editing the film and was also unable to complete all of the visual effects in time for the screening. Tab wanted Ronald to help the Neo-Marxists destroy US-IDent, so he entrusted Roland and Ronald to Zora Carmichaels, who then drove them to Venice Beach. If this is a parallel with the Book of Revelation, then who's whom? What's up with Baron Von Westphalen (Wallace Shawn)? A closed system that defies the Law would be along the lines of, for example, an electric car which completely recharges itself via the process of driving it around, requiring no external power once it's been turned on. "Tiny Elephants" by Moby12. On the soundtrack, Pilot Abilene says, "Revelation 21: And God wiped away the tears from his eyes so the new Messiah could see into the new Jerusalem, his name was Officer Roland Taverner from Hermosa Beach, California. Edit, We're not entirely sure. Janeane Garofalo appears as General Teena MacArthur. For "Southland Tales," he loosely adapted the plot of the Book of Revelation and set it in an alternate version of the present day. [18], The track "Memory Gospel" was used from time to time by the CBC Radio One program Q in the background of an opening monologue given by host Jian Ghomeshi. [24][25], The soundtrack for Southland Tales was released in stores and online on November 6, 2007. His follow-up is a decidedly post-9/11 story, haunted by the Iraq War. Southland 's heart-pounding and ultimately heart-breaking final hour centered around the hunt for the two meth heads who killed one of the LAPD's own in last week's captivating episode. ", "This is the way the world ends, This is the way the world ends, This is the way the world ends, Not with a whimper, but with a bang.". the Indian chief Boxer encounters in the graphic novels). It's a schizophrenic break. After losing a game of cards, Fortunio needed to make his way back into California, and Krysta offered to set him up with a visa. Ambitious and arresting to the eye -- the gray palette serves the film well -- it's too bad that Southland Tales is also pretentious, chaotic, and tries too hard. For half of Kelly's epic film about the end of the world, characters are quoting T.S. The soundtrack does not feature all the music from the film, probably due to rights/royalties issues. What does the name Fortunio Balducci refer to? Presumably, Tab was afraid that the Baron's people would find out that Roland had survived the trip through the time rift. Krysta Now is as contemporary a creation as if she had been born yesterday a sharp alembic of Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Riley Reid, she is the best thing about Kellys jaded, freaky vision of future Los Angeles by a Miracle Mile. Dick". Ronald and Roland Taverner, furthermore, are not twins, but copies of the same person. This is the way the world ends not with a bang, but with a fascinating near three-hour disaster of a movie, as deranged as Heavens Gate and as distinctively mid-Noughties as a Juicy Couture tracksuit. Their hands begin to glow. As part of his job, Jericho must tattoo a symbol from every world religion onto his body and, when the Messiah reaches maturity, the "winning" religion's symbol will bleed snake blood. For . "[16] Kelly said the film's biggest influences are Kiss Me Deadly, Pulp Fiction, Brazil, and Dr. Strangelove. One theory is that duplicate souls from alternate timelines are not meant to exist together in a single timeline. Pilot Abilene, who has been watching the scene from his gun turret, shoots and kills Starla. The restaurant starts floating into space. Quick and essential guide to domestic and global politics from the New Statesman's politics team. Roland manages to escape, climb onto the roof, and fall into a dumpster. The Tangent Universe is an alternate reality to our own. Both vehicles come to a rest in the middle of a shootout and Walter Mung is killed. The novels were written by Kelly and illustrated by Brett Weldele. The theatrical cut of "Southland Tales" has been extensively reedited -- a subplot has been excised, additional special effects shots have been inserted, a new explanatory sequence opens the movie -- and critics have been considerably kinder to it. Serpentine explains that the world is coming to an end; the rotation of the Earth is slowing at a rate of .000000006 mile per hour every day. If you'd like to skip directly to our question-and-answer section, click here. Shortly after they received their first injection of fluid karma, however, Taverner and Abilene were sent on a mission to Fallujah, and Taverner accidentally injured Abilene with a grenade -- disfiguring him. When Vaughn threatens her, she tells him that she has multiple copies, then Tasers him in the balls. "Southland Tales" opens on July 4, 2005, in Abilene, Texas. Madeline walks in and tells him that he has been speaking in his sleep. The anagram of his name, FREAK MAN VIRTUE is most important, foreshadowing the ultimate destiny of Martin in the film. As part of the deal, the Baron has Serpentine cut off the prime minister's left hand. Serpentine explains that the world is coming to an end; the rotation of the Earth is slowing at a rate of .000000006 miles per hour every day. Two months before Southland Tales was released, he announced the launch of Darko Entertainment.[15]. Suddenly, a bright light appears through windows and a mushroom cloud rises in the distance: Abilene has been nuked. The film features an ensemble cast including Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, and Justin Timberlake. And then you would miss all the jokes and stop enjoying the dance sequences. Southland Tales is a 2006 American dystopian comedy thriller film written and directed by Richard Kelly. Starla Von Luft, the double-crossing USIDent employee, is reading a copy of "The Power" at work. Edit, The idea of not having a bowel movement really doesn't seem to have anything to do with being the messiah; it's more of a sign of human evolution led by the new messiah. He can be reached at @thomasmaxrogers. But despite the reaction, Kelly managed to secure a distribution deal and, on Nov. 14, released a shortened version of the film in U.S. theaters. Before being drafted, Pilot Abilene was also a movie star. The project was named "Serpentine Dream Theory.," which aimed to use the telepathic effect of the drug as an advantage for the soldiers on the battlefield.Two of the solders that participated in the experiment were Roland Taverner and Pilot Abilene. Kelly has claimed on his MySpace blog that he had very little time for the DVD as he was starting shooting on his next feature, The Box. The Taverner twins are revealed to be the same person by the engineers of Treer, duplicated when Roland traveled through a rift in space-time, while Boxer has become the most wanted man in the world despite his political ties and his having the fate of the future, in the form of a prophetic screenplay foretelling the end of the world, in his hands. One copy of Boxer traveled 69 minutes back in time, while the other copy was killed by an explosive charge in the car. It's. One Taverner repeats, "friendly fire," while the other says, "I forgive you." There are hundreds of these mechanical balls buried everywhere in the Southland. According to the "Prequel Saga," "The Power" was written entirely by Krysta Now, who is apparently psychic. In the midst of the action, Ronald is shot in the eye but survives. But, unexpectedly, police officer Bart Buchman (Jon Lovitz) pulls up and shoots both of them for real. They are available together in the one graphic novel as Southland Tales: The Prequel Saga. The name may also reference the actor Fortunio Bonanova who starred as Carmen Trivago in the film Kiss Me Deadly, itself a considerable influence on Southland Tales. The Second Law of Thermodynamics refers to a closed system, wherein entropy will accumulate and efficiency will diminish until the system stops. Edit, No one really knows, it's never implied in the film who was behind it-Richard Kelly did mention he was given an article called "American Hiroshima" which revolved this plan of Al-Qaeda's to buy nuclear weapons off Russian mobsters and smuggle them into Texas over the Mexican border and detonate them in mid-sized cities. So "The Power" is an adaptation of the Book of Revelation, written by a character in a movie called "Southland Tales" that is itself an adaptation of a screenplay based on the Book of Revelation? In the "Southland Tales" universe, when war broke out following the nuclear attacks in Texas, Treer was contracted to build several mega-zeppelins to ferry troops and equipment across the world. As part of his job, Jericho must tattoo a symbol from every world religion onto his body and, when the Messiah reaches maturity, the "winning" religion's symbol will bleed snake blood. Kelly said: "[Southland Tales] will only be a musical in a post-modern sense of the word in that it is a hybrid of several genres. Edit, Richard Kelly stated in his interview with Empire, They're representations of every major religion on Earth. Scientists are saying the futures going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted, Krysta suggests, as if this helped to explain anything. NEXT UP REVOLVER (2005)!Southland Tales competed for. The Baron has built an enormous machine off the coast of California that generates an electromagnetic energy field called fluid karma. What exactly happens at the end of the movie? Eliot's "Hollow Man" ("This is the way the world ends/ Not with a bang but with a whimper") and Robert Frost's "The Two Roads" ("Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-/ I took the one less traveled by"). Southland Tales begins on Independence Day 2005 in an eminently recognizable Bush-era Texas. At their Venice Beach headquarters, we meet the rest of the Neo-Marxists, including Veronica "Dream" Mung (Amy Poehler) and Dion Element (Wood Harris). Southland Tales is streaming now on Mubi, This article appears in the 03 Jun 2020 issue of the New Statesman, We can't breathe. As part of his participation in the Neo-Marxists' plot, Ronald must pretend to be his brother Roland and accompany Boxer during his movie research. Martin has just learned that he's been drafted to go to Iraq and is about to shoot himself in the head. The film also evokes Kurt Vonnegut's sci-fi absurdism, Philip K. Dick's philosophical approach to time travel, and Thomas Pynchon's sprawling narratives. "Broken Hearted Savior" by Big Head Todd & The Monsters10. But they're in there. Several soldiers were selected (Pilot, Roland, Rick [from the graphic novels]) as test subjects and were injected with Fluid Karma before going out into battle. [19] Kelly describes the negative reaction at Cannes as a "very painful experience on a lot of levels" but ultimately felt that the film "was better off because of it". Southland Tales After twin terrorist attacks in Texas, the Republican party grabs the overwhelming majority of Congressional seats in the 2006 midterm elections by stoking public fear and claiming that America is living though the end times. Director Richard Kelly Writer Richard Kelly Stars Dwayne Johnson Sarah Michelle Gellar The original script was written 6 years ago just after Richard and his team returned from Sundance. Then she pulls out her gun and threatens to kill herself unless she can give Boxer a blowjob. That's why Taverner always feels so guilty. [22], Kelly edited the film down to the basic storylines of the characters portrayed by Scott, Gellar, and Johnson. On January 25th Arrow Video released a Blu Ray double pack of Richard Kelly's 2006 film Southland Tales.Disc 1 includes a new 2K restoration of the Theatrical Cut, along with a new retrospective documentary on the legacy and making of the film, while Disc 2 contains the longer, rarely seen Cannes Cut, which screened at that festival back in '06 to a glacial response. They decided to take advantage of her powers. Southland Tales is dizzyingly maximalist, never happy with one set-piece if it can introduce five. In the graphic novels, Krysta says it's Boxer's favourite film. If you replace the Antichrist with the bourgeoisie, and the kingdom of God with a communist utopia, you've got the same basic narrative. etc., although it bears a resemblence to Eastern religious concepts such as Qi and Ki. Fortunio's goons inject Boxer with fluid karma and load him into an ambulance. Kelly has said that this idea was inspired by a real U.S. Army project. "Very soon now, I shall be with you again, bringing the reward to be given to every man according to what he deserves"Revelation 21? What happens in the screenplay? The film features an ensemble cast including Dwayne Johnson, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, and Justin Timberlake. Edit, Most of the footage was a subplot between Kevin Smith's and Janeane Garofalo's characters (Simon Theory and General Teena MacArthur) where they discussed Operation Serpentine Dream Theory. She tells him that he must board the mega-zeppelin and what he is looking for is in the Baron's private chamber. Edit, Several days before the movie starts, on the same houseboat on Lake Mead, Tab Taverner, Ronald/Roland's father, told Ronaldwho has amnesiathat he must kidnap his brother in order to protect him. They are eventually killed by those who are tormented by their prophecies.Revelation 22:5: It's OK to be confused by Richard Kelly's "Southland Tales.". On September 8, 2008, it was announced that it would be one of the five films being released on Blu-ray on November 18, 2008. Amongst the songs not available on the soundtrack but featured in the film are Muse's "Blackout", The Killers' "All These Things That I've Done", and Blur's "Tender". Edit, The Treer company is a German defense contractor that employs Dr. Inga Von Westphalen, a zeppelin designer and the Baron's mother. The other main reference points are T.S. In the hopes of helping you make sense of the movie, we've decided to unravel "Southland Tales" as we've done for "Mulholland Drive," "The Wire" and, of course, "Donnie Darko." Its plot hinges on a barely explained back story involving rifts in the fourth dimension. Why that happens when the Taverners touch, only Richard Kelly knows. Jericho Cane is the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in "End of Days." Again, we're not entirely sure. He then asked her to forecast the last three days on Earth, and she made her prediction in the form of a screenplay: "The Power." Single timeline the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger 's character in `` end of days ''! Refers to a closed system, wherein entropy will accumulate and efficiency will diminish the... A shootout and walter Mung recognizes him and quickly sedates him with an injection of fluid karma,,!, 2007 're representations of every major religion on Earth online on 6... Idea was inspired by a real U.S. Army project Iraq War said that this idea inspired... Up with Baron Von Westphalen is also the granddaughter of Jenny Von Westphalen is also the granddaughter Jenny. Launch of Darko Entertainment. [ 15 ] unexpectedly, police officer Bart Buchman ( Jon Lovitz ) up! But, unexpectedly, police officer Bart Buchman ( Jon Lovitz ) up... The Prequel Saga, '' `` the Power '' was written entirely by Now. Is most important, foreshadowing the ultimate destiny of Martin in the car the roof, Justin. Is shot in the balls `` Prequel Saga cast including Dwayne Johnson, William! Martin in the midst of the body Roland Taverner, furthermore, are twins... A single timeline Johnson, Seann William Scott, Gellar, and Johnson Tales was released he... Must board the mega-zeppelin and what he is looking for is in the one novel... Is an alternate reality to our own says it 's Boxer 's film... Southland Tales: the Prequel Saga, '' `` the Power '' at.... 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