Southland Tales

Nuclear attacks in Texas on July 4, 2005 set off WW3. "Southland Tales" chronicles a web of lives in California during the lead-up to the 2008 presidential election as they navigate increased security, terrorist threats, a feeling of despair, and general turmoil throughout the world. It's like "Twin Peaks" meets "Strange Days," set in a world not too unlike that in "Robocop" (except without any robocops). The satire and social commentary don't hit as hard as they should and it's often too derivative and obvious, but there are moments of insight and unexpected serenity and its heart is in the right place. Towards the end, the plot goes places I think few will comprehend (I don't include myself in that category).

If you make it through the movie, you'll see a winning effort by Dwayne Johnson, The Rock. I like him. I do. But I must confess, of his movies, I've only liked "The Rundown." The rest of the casting is way out there: Christopher Lambert as an arms dealer, Jon Lovitz as a bad cop, Wally Shawn as a visionary scientist, Bai Ling as who the hell knows, a political stoolie played by the guy who Kitty, George Bluth's secretary, hooked up with from "Night Court" (not Harry Anderson or Bull), JT as an Iraq war vet/narrator, Cheri Oteri and Amy Poehler as Neo-Marxist activists, Mandy Moore as The Rock's wife, and Sarah Michelle Gellar as an airhead porn star whose Britney Spears aspirations lead her to sing "Teen Horniness is Not a Crime."