Southland Tales (2006) on Netflix
R20062h 25mComedyMysterySci-Fi
In 2008 Los Angeles, action star Boxer Santaros wakes with amnesia. Krysta Now, an adult film performer, plans a reality show, and officer Roland Taverner is held by a neo-Marxist underground.
- Netflix2.8/5
- IMDb5.3/1042,528 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes40%
Trailer
Plot summary
Three years after nuclear attacks destroy El Paso and Abilene in Texas, the United States is on a war footing. The government has reinstated the draft and set up US-IDENT, a mass surveillance agency, and Los Angeles prepares for its July 4 celebration. Action star Boxer Santaros wakes with amnesia, forgetting his marriage to Madeline Frost, the daughter of a senator, and starts an affair with Krysta Now, a former adult film performer developing a reality project. Officer Roland Taverner of Hermosa Beach is held by a neo-Marxist underground that plots against the government. In a time of fuel crisis, the German firm Treer prepares to launch Fluid Karma, a generator driven by ocean currents.
Cast
- Robert Benzas Tab Taverner
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Southland Tales (2006)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Richard Kelly wrote the first version shortly before the September 11 attacks, a story about blackmail, a porn star and two cops that he said was mostly making fun of Hollywood. He rewrote it afterwards into science fiction about civil liberties and homeland security.
- Kelly posted a rough cut on DVD to the 2006 Cannes Film Festival assuming it would be turned down. The organisers put it into competition for the Palme d'Or, so he stopped editing and screened a 160-minute version with its visual effects unfinished.
- Universal had optioned the American rights, but after the Cannes screening they went to Sony, and Kelly bought the money to finish his visual effects by agreeing to cut the film's length down.
- In the recut Kelly protected one scene above all: Justin Timberlake's musical number built on The Killers' "All These Things That I've Done", which he called the heart and soul of the film. He re-recorded all of Timberlake's voice-over, added 90 new effects shots and cut 20 to 25 minutes.
- What reaches the screen is only the last three parts of a nine-part story. Kelly planned the first six as six 100-page graphic novels published over six months before the film, with a website tying them together.
- The six planned graphic novels were cut to three, illustrated by Brett Weldele, and Kelly wrote them while he was making the film, which he said was very difficult and pushed him to the edge of his own sanity.
- Kelly cast deliberately against reputation, picking actors he felt had been pigeonholed so he could show their undiscovered talents, and he met Rick Moranis about playing Vaughn Smallhouse.
