Southland Tales

In this surreal deep-dive, Bury Our Bones With Cinema host Ryan Etherington is joined by long time collaborator and film fan Simon Keet to unpack the sprawling, divisive, and utterly hypnotic enigma that is Richard Kelly’s 2006 sci-fi satire Southland Tales. A film that was booed at Cannes and buried on release, yet has since risen from the cinematic dead to become a cult classic, Southland Tales is the perfect specimen for the kind of cultural resurrection this podcast thrives on. With its apocalyptic Los Angeles setting, time rifts, neo-Marxists, and a porn star prophet (played by Sarah Michelle Gellar), Kelly’s post-Donnie Darko fever dream is a chaotic mirror held up to post-9/11 America. Ryan and Simon dissect the film’s satirical politics, the casting of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and its prophetic lens on media manipulation and societal collapse. Along the way, they wrestle with questions of artistic ambition, narrative coherence, and whether a film this broken can still be beautiful. Whether you’re a long-time defender of Southland Tales or a curious newcomer, this episode promises a passionate, cerebral ride through one of the most ambitious failures in 21st-century American cinema. Expect film theory, political commentary, and a fair dose of existential dread, all wrapped up in a tribute to the strange, the misunderstood, and the forgotten corners of the silver screen. You can send any questions about this episode and any general movie questions to [email protected] and we will try to answer yours questions on the pod! 🎥 #SouthlandTales #CultCinema #RichardKelly #FilmPodcast #MovieAnalysis #DwayneJohnson #SciFiSatire #CinemaPodcast #PodcastRecommendation #CinephileContent #Post9/11Cinema #PodcastWithPurpose #FilmCriticism #AlternativeCinema