Far more futuristic than they originally predicted.

Around last Christmas I heard about this new movie, Southland Tales, that Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) was making. An IMDB check showed the date of the movie as 2006, but I could find no information about an actual release. So I figured that it was lost in production somewhere and forgot about it. Boy was I wrong.

The trailer came out about a month ago and after first seeing it I was confused, amazed, and kind of disturbed all at the same time. I really wasn't sure if I would ever want to see it. But after watching it some more I have to said that I'm pretty excited to see it. The story takes place in the near future after America has been hit by a nuclear attack. This leads the government to beef up the patriot act so that it can basically follow anyone it wants. The rest of the story I'm no so sure of. Supposedly there's also something about creating power generators that run on the ocean's tide, which in turn screws up the ocean currents, disrupts Earth's orbit, which of course creates a rift in the space-time continuum. Of course. And I thought Donnie Darko was strange (yet awesome). But the craziest part of this movie might be the cast, which includes: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Mandy Moore, Justin Timberlake, John Lovitz, Amy Poehler, Cheri Oteri, and Kevin Smith, just to name a few. That is easily the most random cast I can possibly think of.

With corny dialogue, over dramatic acting, and the Rock's Mr. Burn's like finger tapping it looks like Kelly is making a satire. A satire of what? No idea. That's a lot to judge from just a trailer, but it's just my initial impression of it. I can't imagine where he came up with a plot like this. But then again Kelly supposedly did write an adaptation of Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, which never got made. If Kelly's a Vonnegut fan that explains a lot. A story this weird could have come right out of one of his novels. Even Donnie Darko was Vonnegutish, especially due to the fact that nothing at all was explained in the movie. I know I should stop comparing Southland Tales to Donnie Darko, but how could you not? There is no other movie that fits into this category of science fiction. It's almost as if it was meant just to create meaning through a mood rather than letting you in on what was happening. But no matter what I will be awaiting the release of Southland Tales.