"Hmm...yeah...right. OK. I thought that too but I wasn't sure." This was my response upon having Richard Kelly's 2002 cult hit, Donnie Darko, explained (sort of) to me. Even if you were able to figure that time-travel cum teen angst gem out, best of luck to you with Kelly's latest, Southland Tales. Yet again, parallel universes are at the core of the narrative and, according to the sagest of cyber-fans, the whole thing almost kinda makes sense if you read the Revelations chapter of the Bible prior to viewing (apparently, the film is a sort of adaptation of the chapter). Southland is also based on the graphic novel -- when did we stop calling them 'cartoons'?! -- of the same name and chances are you'll be able to make far more sense out of the source material.

So, what's it about? Well...uh. Look, it stars Sarah Michelle Gellar as pornstar Krysta Now (some of her best post-Buffy work) and the curious casting choice of The Rock as amnesiac movie star Boxer Santaros. Seann William Scott -- dude! Stifler! -- purportedly plays the second incarnation of Christ and, shit, I'm not even going to bother explaining that. At its simplest, it's a film railing against both the US Government and Showbiz (there is a very Mulholland Drive feel to some of the scenes). However, at its most complex, who the hell knows what it's about? Suffice to say, there is a hallucinogenic musical interlude from Justin Timberlake (who playes a zany War Vet) that will have smoke pouring out of your ears in bemusement.

It got booed at Cannes in 2005 and was re-released a couple of years later in this format, the Director's Cut, which is some 20 minutes shorter than the initial version. Despite the cuts, this still runs in at 144 minutes and that's just asking WAY too much of an audience when all you've got to offer is psychobabble (no doubt, some will come away from this praising Kelly as a visionary and a genius). To its credit, Southland is an entertaining ride but it's just not a very good or coherent one.