Is ‘Southland Tales’ misunderstood prophecy? A conversation with Richard Kelly

Richard Kelly’s “Southland Tales” is infamous both for its immense ambition and its disastrous reception. With a cast that includes Dwayne Johnson, Justin Timberlake, Mandy Moore, Amy Poehler, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Seann William Scott, the film is a sprawling saga of crime, identity, and conspiracy in Los Angeles that touches on government surveillance, armed resistance, corporate intrusion and celebrity culture — told with equal parts anger, humor, disillusionment and apocalyptic rapture.

The version of the film that first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 will have its first-ever screening in the city in which it is set when the notorious Cannes Cut of the movie — some 20 minutes longer than the 2007 theatrical version — plays at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Thursday.

Host Mark Olsen (@IndieFocus) sat down with Kelly (@JRichardKelly) to talk about the different versions of the film, his new hopes for its future and what it meant to him then — and means to him now.

But first, the end of “Game of Thrones.” Fans have been grumbling about the show’s pacing and character development since the start of this final season, but it reached a crescendo after last week’s penultimate episode. While it’s always hard to say goodbye to a good friend, the show has come to represent something larger, and now seems to parallel the tumult in our own culture and our own national politics. Olsen talks with @LorraineAli.