CON: Southland Tales

SOUTHLAND
TALES PANEL:

Participants:

Writer/director
Richard Kelly
Producer Sean McKittrick
The Mechanicals

Despite lacing into SOUTHLAND
TALES when I saw it screened at the Cannes Film Festival earlier
this year (you can read my reivew HERE),
I was still looking quite forward to Richard Kelly’s panel about his
upcoming film, if only to hear what he had to say about it all.
Funnily enough, as I approached the front of the stage, I noticed
Richard himself standing up against the wall, not too far from me.
Seemingly approachable, I figured that I’d go over and introduce
myself, as I’d never actually met him before.

Me
(extending my hand): “Hey Richard, I’m from JoBlo.com”.
Kelly (extending his hand back): “Oh yeah, cool, cool.”

Phew!
That didn’t go all that bad.

I
told him that I had seen his film at Cannes, and asked what the
status of the film was right now. He replied, “What you saw in
Cannes was a ‘work in progress’. I’m working on it right now, and
once it’s done, I’ll release it the way that I want it to be.”
He seemed pretty content about the whole deal, and I didn’t want to
hog his time, so I asked for a quick picture (which he was gracious
enough to allow) and scooted back into my seat.

An asshole and an ambitious filmmaker

As
for the panel itself, to be honest with you…it was actually pretty
disappointing, especially at first. It started 30 minutes late
because they couldn’t get a clip of the film to work (Uhhhhm, how
about you just go on stage and talk first, in that case?), and then
once he got on stage, he didn’t really talk much about SOUTHLAND,
and instead, brought out about 8 members of a “comedy
troupe” called “The Mechanicals”, who all have small
parts in the film (and I mean real small!).

He
seemed to want to deflect the panel over to them (“Some of the
most fearless comedians I’ve ever encountered.”), or he simply
wasn’t comfortable speaking himself, but I’m pretty sure every
single person in that audience was there to hear Richard Kelly
discuss SOUTHLAND TALES, and not to watch some unknown comedy troupe
attempt to crack wise.

Oh,
by the way, during the 30-minute wait, Richard stayed near the front
of the stage and continued to talk with fans and take pictures with
them the whole time. As much as I think his Cannes cut of SOUTHLAND
sucked major ball, I will say that the man seemed like a pretty
classy dude in real life, and was a LOT better looking (a rich man’s
Nick Lachey) and (seemingly) more well-adjusted than you might
think. Here’s a small video of him with some fans.

When
the clip was finally shown, it was the scene in which Justin
Timberlake’s character is walking around an arcade of sorts,
lip-synching to The Killers’ “All These Things That I’ve Done”
(I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier!), as scantily clad nurses
dance and jiggle around him. He’s also drinking beer and looking at
the camera with a deep eye (he also pours the beer all over himself
at one point…you go, girl!). The scene is actually one of the only
“cool scenes” in the entire film (I even went out of my
way to mention it in my review), but it honestly doesn’t represent
the film in any sort of real way. It’s basically a 3-minute music
video, while the rest of the movie isn’t really musical. I’m not
sure why he chose to show this clip of all clips, but there it was.

“K-Fed’s an asshole…I said it”

But
even though the panel started slow with the emphasis on the comedy
group and all, things got back to business when the Q&A began,
and fans started to ask more pointed questions, which did lead to
some interesting facts, many of which I’ve listed below.

• Kelly
  said that as difficult as it was for him to get DONNIE DARKO off
  the ground so many years ago, it was “three times as
  difficult” to get SOUTHLAND TALES going, particularly
  because it’s so unconventional.

• Along
  with the comedy group called The Mechanicals, many of which
  originate from the Groundlings, Kelly purposely cast many
  comedians in his film, because he wanted to paint it like pop
  art, with it being the end of the world and all. Several present
  and past “Saturday Night Live” cast members are also
  in the movie.

• Kelly
  said that the film was inspired by the T.S. Ellliot poem
  “The Hollow Men”, about the end of the world.

• Despite
  rumors to the contrary, both Kelly and McKittrick insisted that
  the film’s budget was under $20M (via the $40-60M that were
  reported), which is why they were given more freedom to do what
  they wanted.

• Kelly
  envisioned the entire SOUTHLAND TALES project as a multimedia
  project of sorts, with the first 3 “chapters” being
  published as graphic novels, while the film includes the final 3
  “chapters”. He didn’t say that one was required to
  read the graphic novels in order to understand the film, but
  having seen the movie, I can only imagine that it would help, as
  the film as I saw it in Cannes, was as incoherent a film as I’ve
  ever seen.

• Kelly
  said that he is a procrastinator by nature (even in college,
  he’d always wait till the last minute to finish his papers), but
  that they are presently putting the finishing touches on the 3rd
  graphic novel. The artist for the series is Brett Weldele. The
  first graphic novel, entitled “Two Roads Diverge”, has
  already been released, the second graphic novel entitled
  “Fingerprints” will be released in about 4-5 weeks,
  and the third novel entitled “The Mechanicals” would
  be released about 5-6 weeks after that. You should be able to
  find them in most comic book stores, or click on the covers
  below to check ’em out on Amazon.com right now.

• SOUTHLAND
  TALES is set in the year 2008, after 2 nuclear bombs have gone
  off in Texas. Kelly tried to explain some of the film’s plotline
  to the audience at this point, but to be honest with you, it was
  pretty long-winded and complex, much like the film. There’s
  stuff in there about a new drug called “Karma”,
  alternate fuels, the latest war in Iraq, an underground
  movement, neo-conservatives, neo-Marxists, porn actresses, movie
  stars, time-travel and a whole bunch more. He seemed to lose the
  audience a little as he went on about it. I LOVE the fact that
  Kelly is ambitious and obviously doesn’t like to follow the
  norm, but everything he tossed into this film could be covered
  in 3 separate films better. I think he honestly just overshot
  his reach here. Hopefully I’m wrong and the new “cut”
  of the film kicks ass though.

• Some
  other major influences on Kelly and SOUTHLAND include Mickey
  Spillane, Raymond Chandler (specifically “Kiss Me
  Deadly”) and obviously Philip K. Dick.

• When
  someone asked Kelly what “genre” SOUTHLAND belonged
  to, he said that it was very hard to say and that he didn’t envy
  a video-store clerk who would be required to place the film in a
  specific section, but if he had to say, he would say
  SCIENCE-FICTION first, then COMEDY/SATIRE and finally, MUSICAL
  (which I personally don’t “get”, because in the cut
  that I saw in Cannes, there were only 2 musical sing-a-long
  scenes). Ultimately though, he said the film was a mix of many
  different genres.

I’d hit it

• Another
  reason that Kelly said that he wrote such a political project
  was because he wanted to engage younger viewers to discuss some
  of the many serious issues happening in the world today.
  Admirable, to be sure.

• The
  score in the film is by Moby, and not by Trent Reznor, as had
  been rumored in some parts.

• The
  DONNIE DARKO questions started as well, including the
  possibility of a comic book based on the film, or maybe even
  some graphic novels? Kelly tried to be diplomatic in his
  response, but ultimately said something along the lines of,
  “I’ve moved on with my life.” He said that he just
  wanted to keep moving forward and that he is already
  started to put the beginning touches on his next film (more on
  that below).

• In
  terms of where they’re at with SOUTHLAND TALES right now, Kelly
  re-iterated what he had told me earlier which was that the cut
  shown in Cannes was a “work in progress” (we were
  never told this while we were in Cannes, but let’s just “go
  with it” for now), and that they had basically run out of
  time and money at the time, so they just showed it that way.
  They are presently working with Sony Pictures, who purchased the
  rights to distribute the film in North America, and said that
  “We’re still finding the film now”, after which, Sony
  will look at it and decide when to release it. The bottom line
  for now is that nobody still knows when the film will be
  released. Kelly added that the cut that will ultimately be
  released will be “the film that I always wanted to
  make.”

I’d hit that too

• Someone
  got up to ask Kelly what influences his bizarre and often
  unconventional stories, and Kelly joked: “Mental
  illness.” He then said that it was basically the things
  that go through most people’s minds like “fear, anxiety and
  depression.”

• When
  asked about his admiration of auteur Stanley Kubrick, Kelly
  gushed and said that he believed him to be the “greatest
  filmmaker who ever lived.” and commended his commitment and
  vision in all of his movies. He said that he also greatly
  admired the man’s supreme attention to detail and how he managed
  to never compromise his work or see it corrupted. “He was a
  pure artist.” Kelly then added, “I hope that I can
  continue to make the films that I want to make. I’d like to
  release at least 10 of these before I keel over.” Kelly
  also named 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY as one of his favorite movies
  of all-time, and said that the narrator in BARRY LYNDON
  influenced his own narrator in SOUTHLAND TALES.

• When
  writer/director Kevin Smith was brought up (Smith recorded a
  commentary track with Kelly for DONNIE DARKO’s DVD), Kelly said
  that Smith actually had a part in SOUTHLAND as a character named
  Simon Theory, a veteran of the first war in Iraq. He said that
  Smith would be unrecognizable to many, as he is playing a
  55-year old man, and had to endure 6 hours of prosthetics/make-up
  (not to mention the fact that he had to shave his trade-mark
  beard). He praised Smith’s work in the film, and also said that
  Smith himself put up the money to finance his SOUTHLAND graphic
  novels, and that he was, simply, “A great human being to
  whom I owe a lot.”

The man, the myth, the beard

• Someone
  brought up the ultra-weirdo fan who flipped out on Kelly at the
  Comic Con a couple of years earlier (see our coverage of that
  panel HERE),
  and Kelly confirmed that the man was apparently just an
  “actor” who his buddies had hired to play that prank
  on him. Kelly took it all in stride, included the bit on the
  DARKO DVD, and even gave the guy a part in SOUTHLAND. The
  actor’s name is Darryl Donaldson.

• When
  asked about future projects, Kelly said that he had been offered
  many “mainstream” projects and that he’d actually love
  to do them. He mentioned that he’d be interested in doing a
  “comic book movie”, and even went as far as to say
  that he’d love to do “one movie a year from now on.”
  He said that if one of his own “personal movies”
  wasn’t coming together, he’d be more than willing to make other
  movies in the meantime, action, romantic comedy, whatever. When
  asked if he would do a studio film, he replied, “I’d do a
  studio job, absolutely!”. He then said that he would like
  still have a little “science-fiction” in all of his
  movies, even if he were to do a romantic comedy.

• To
  that end, Kelly announced that his next project would be a film
  called THE BOX, about which you can read more HERE.

• When
  asked about which he preferred, writing or directing, Kelly was
  specific in his response and said that even though he enjoys
  writing and it “pays the bills”, he ultimately thought
  that it was a very “lonely” process, and that he much
  preferred directing, as he gets to talk with people that way,
  and collaborate, etc…

Now
while I certainly don’t want to put words in Kelly’s mouth, he
ultimately sounded a little tired of both DARKO and SOUTHLAND, and
really just wanted to move on and start banging out some other
films. It felt like the two experiences had really been rough on the
guy, and he just wanted to experience a couple of “easier”
projects. This is just MY OPINION though, he didn’t say anything to
confirm this…it’s just the “feel” that I got. Then
again, I was hungover.