On May 21, 2006, at the Cannes Film Festival, a movie was screened that was so far ahead of its time no one believed it. It didn’t matter how much the filmmaker tinkered with it in the weeks and months that followed, this slice of futuristic sci-fi just wasn’t going to fly.
$17 million, they say, to make it, and when it finally got a limited theatrical release of just 63 theatres during the cinematic dead zone between Halloween and Thanksgiving in 2007, very few came to see it … under $300,000 in ticket sales.
Gone, forgotten, right? The answer to that would be no.
So what film are we talking about? That would be writer/director Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, which has been given a new 2K film restoration by Arrow Video and will be available as a double-disc Blu-ray release on Jan. 26. MVD Entertainment Group will be providing sales and distribution support.
If you have driven the streets of Los Angeles recently, then you’ve arrived in filmmaker Richard Kelly’s “future” Los Angeles, or as the locals refer to it as “The Southland.” Kelly (of Donnie Darko filmmaking fame) just got there a different way, but there it is, a city in chaos.
Striding through the wreckage is Boxer Santaros (played by WWE superstar, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who was just coming into his own as a film star), who is a famous movie star — of action films, of course — who has no idea who he is (amnesia). Elsewhere in the city we meet Krysta Now (Sarah Michelle Gellar), a porn star, who has visions of becoming a reality-based television star … they will eventually cross paths.
It is a chaotic place and numerous characters come and go, but there are two that are central to the entire future of mankind. Roland Taverner (Seann William Scott) and Ronald Taverner (also played by Seann William Scott ), who are actually the same person, duplicated when one of them crossed through a rift in time created by Treer. Treer os a super-duper tech company that has developed an unlimited power source called “Fluid Karma” (which is actually on a path to destroy the planet if it continues).
It is a chaotic land of LA LA, and Santaros carries with him the secret … he can’t remember what the secret is, but he has it and everyone is out to get him.
Welcome to the future on Jan. 26, 2021 when Arrow Video delivers two versions of Southland Tales on Blu-ray (hence: two discs). There is the 145-minute theatrical cut and the original 160-minute “Cannes-Cut” of the film … Richard Kelly provides commentary on the theatrical cut.
Other bonus goodies are three featurettes — “It’s a Madcap World: The Making of an Unfinished Film,” “USIDent TV: Surveilling the Southland” and “This is the Way the World Ends.”
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