Southland Tales

Southland Tales (2007) is Richard Kelly's science fiction satire you can watch online on iFILM. The setting is Los Angeles on July 4, 2008, a few years after nuclear strikes: the country runs on total surveillance, the economy is buckling, and a new energy source is starting to bend the rules of physics.

Stuck in the middle is Boxer Santaros, an amnesiac action star played by Dwayne Johnson. He keeps catching flashes of the future while co-writing an apocalyptic screenplay with adult film actress Krysta Now, played by Sarah Michelle Gellar, who is busy launching her own reality show. The third corner is a Hermosa Beach cop, played by Seann William Scott, who holds the key to a conspiracy wrapped around the whole city. The threads converge, doubles multiply, and telling reality from hallucination becomes nearly impossible.

Kelly, who made Donnie Darko, assembled a wildly mismatched cast: Justin Timberlake as a scarred veteran narrator, plus Mandy Moore, Miranda Richardson, Wallace Shawn, Bai Ling and a heavily made-up Kevin Smith. Booed at Cannes, then recut, the film later grew a devoted following as one of the strangest Hollywood swings of the decade. It won't click for everyone, but the people it hooks tend to come back. Watch Southland Tales (2007) online on iFILM.