Richard Kelly’s re-tooled Southland Tales screened at Harry Knowles’ Fantastic Fest this weekend, and reaction, though still mixed, skewed decidedly more positive than at the film’s infamously disastrous debut at Cannes over a  year ago. “Most of the complaints about the film are accurate to varying degrees,” writes Todd Brown at Twitch. “That said, for those who make it through the initial overload of information and can latch on to Kelly’s vibe, Southland is also a dazzlingly smart, funny, and engaging work, one that fuses political fears with apocalyptic religiosity and techno-dread and wraps it all in a glossy, colorful package.”

But Mike Curtis disagrees: “One wonders if the whole thing were just a huge joke on us the audience, the investors, Hollywood, and everyone else desperately watching to see how he’d follow up on Donnie Darko. A big ‘Psych!’ shout out to all of us - and we stand here confused - was this a joke, a mess, or just a failed multi-layered thingamabob?”

More from Matt Dentler and Fantastic Fest mastermind Harry Knowles, with more surely to come.