Southland Tales

Grade: B (though I have a hunch it could improve with age)

In 2001 young writer/director Richard Kelly came out of nowhere with Donnie Darko, a film that deservedly earned a hardcore cult following. Fans waited five years for his follow-up, Southland Tales, only to hear that audiences and press members seriously hated it when it premiered at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. A year and a half has passed, and the film has finally made it to theaters with approximately 20 minutes of footage cut from the Cannes version. If the Portland, OR market is any indication Southland will have a theatrical longevity akin to one of Lindsay Lohan's sobriety sprees. It opened on Nov. 16, and as of Nov. 30 it won't be playing anywhere in town - which is saying a lot considering that we have a ton of second run screens.

I just had to see what this cinematic abortion was all about, especially since a few distinguished national critics (Manohla Dargis of The New York Times and Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly, for instance) put some positive spin on it. Like David Lynch's Inland Empire last year, it's a very hard film to put into words. All I know is that I saw a lot of inspired and playful filmmaking, and that a lot of it makes absolutely no sense.

The year is 2008, a few years after a nuclear apocalypse wiped out Texas. In Southern California an action movie star (The Rock), a porn actress (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and a law enforcement dude with dual identity issues (Seann William Scott) bump elbows with neo-Marxist terrorists and other baddies. Early on I abandoned my attempt to follow the plot and enjoyed the deliriously anarchichal tone and the hilarious supporting performances from Wallace Shawn, Miranda Richardson and Saturday Night Live alums Cheri Oteri, Jon Lovitz and Amy Poehler.

The last twenty minutes are a total mess, but even when Kelly wrapped things up with an idiotic line about pimps and their aversion to commiting suicide I still felt quite a buzz.