― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 15:27 (twenty-one years ago) link
Pitch Black was great too. I hadn't noticed the connexion befor but that and Kafka have a lot in common. King Of The Hill is grebt.
― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 15:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g.cannon (gcannon), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 15:44 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g.cannon (gcannon), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:29 (twenty-one years ago) link
I suspect Traffic will be unwatchable in a few decades. It's like Stanley Kramer + Alan Pakula.
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:29 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:37 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:38 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Andy K (Andy K), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Yanc3y (ystrickler), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 16:56 (twenty-one years ago) link
He ain't no Terry Gilliam though.
― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 17:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Didn't have the heart to go see _Solaris_, myself.
― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 17:14 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 17:17 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 18:09 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 19:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 19:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Nick A. (Nick A.), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 19:50 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Andy K (Andy K), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 20:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 21:15 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 21:19 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 21:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Leee (Leee), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 21:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Sarah McLUsky (coco), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 21:32 (twenty-one years ago) link
― oops (Oops), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 21:34 (twenty-one years ago) link
Plus, the oldest of 'his last four movies' dates all the way back... to 2000.
― Andy K (Andy K), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 21:39 (twenty-one years ago) link
I've never found much use for the term "hack," as it tends to caricature or obscure the specifics of the creative process. How do we know that Soderbergh doesn't work closely with his screenwriters? That he doesn't feel strongly about the material?
I do agree that the "one for them, one for me" pattern in his filmography is worrisome. I wonder if his films have suffered for his artifical dichotomy between compromise and experiment--"wonder" because I haven't seen the last two.
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 21:43 (twenty-one years ago) link
― robin (robin), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 21:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
― hstencil, Tuesday, 11 March 2003 21:55 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Amateurist (amateurist), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 21:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
― john fail (cenotaph), Tuesday, 11 March 2003 22:09 (twenty-one years ago) link
I *did*. I was a movie critic back then, and I thought it was a hoax. Honestly, the idea that something quite that fake could be sent to Cannes, let alone be the talk of the place, could only be explained by it being a pratical joke. Did anybody listen? Am I still a movie critic? (Is Bush about to bomb Iraq for humanitarian reasons?)
― Nyarlathotep, Tuesday, 11 March 2003 23:33 (twenty-one years ago) link
Which, according to the interview he and Clooney did on the Charlie Rose show, is precisely how they ended up remaking Solaris. To his credit Soderbergh said that he could bring something new to the story, but that it wasn't his project from the get go.
― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 00:09 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Andrew L (Andrew L), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 00:48 (twenty-one years ago) link
it's called THE LIMEY!! (= it isn't even remotely concerned with actual real british people you've met!)
also it's unfinished and oddly-paced in a way quite faithful to the films it's emulating (60s Point Blank-style revenge pictures, not film noir). What's great about soderbergh's genre work is also what i guess can be frustrating about it - its aesthetics are more meticulously "studied" than usual (and it's here where his film-geekiness really kicks in, not in the arty pictures nobody sees), which means you wind up getting his homage to what's good AND bad about the source material
i REALLY didn't get the fuss the "how dare you remake this venerable classic" contingent raised when Ocean's 11 came out - the original is exactly as shallow and silly as the remake is.
― jones (actual), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 00:54 (twenty-one years ago) link
bed for me i think
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 01:10 (twenty-one years ago) link
Solaris was a good waste of 2 hours but once again not something I'm gonna add to the stacks anytime soon.
I have apparently not seen any of his really good stuff. Maybe someday I will fix this.
― Millar (Millar), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 02:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
As a cinematographer (under the nom de cam "Peter Andrews"), however, he is particularly good - those Mexico scenes in Traffic.
The Alan J. Pakula reference is OTM on at least one point - he stole the closing credits for Traffic from All the President's Men.
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 05:05 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Carey (Carey), Wednesday, 12 March 2003 05:22 (twenty-one years ago) link
the way the end-credits appear in both traffic and EB (maybe in his other films too but i either haven't seen them or wasnt paying as much attention) - while the movie is still in process, so you don't have this BLACK SCREEN appear and wrap things up and force you into making some kind of judgement/summation. so we get a kind of a profundity-of-the-everyday quality - the 'final judgement' already happened without us noticing (actually, both end scenes i'm talking about here are very much ABOUT the mundane turned profound - benecio attending the little league game which becomes this beautiful cosmic event with the help of eno and everthing being saturated in mars red and erin's workroom squabble which resolves itself into 2 million dollars)
― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Friday, 12 September 2003 14:38 (twenty years ago) link
sure, some films of his are great, some are okay - and some are crap.but i'd like to hear anyone who's seen schizopolis bad mouth soderbergh. go on, you know you can't.
― dyson (dyson), Friday, 12 September 2003 15:55 (twenty years ago) link
― Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 12 September 2003 18:45 (twenty years ago) link
― jed (jed_e_3), Friday, 12 September 2003 19:24 (twenty years ago) link
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Friday, 12 September 2003 19:30 (twenty years ago) link
― ryan (ryan), Friday, 12 September 2003 19:41 (twenty years ago) link
― s1utsky (slutsky), Friday, 12 September 2003 20:34 (twenty years ago) link
― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Saturday, 13 September 2003 08:18 (twenty years ago) link
George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh don't have much trouble getting the media's attention. The swooning and curiosity that's surrounded their quasi-fictional political show for HBO, "K Street," never fails to mention Clooney's charm, wit and sparkling grin, and to lavish praise on Soderbergh, glossing over self-indulgent flops "Solaris" and "Full Frontal," and ignoring his obvious embrace of his own celebrity despite humble, "Gosh I just hate this stuff" interviews to the contrary. A few signature leading-man looks from Clooney and a little self-deprecation from Soderbergh and these two are sophisticated, talented, swashbuckling guys just crazy enough to try something new, blurring the line between politics and Hollywood (what line?) and breaking down the barriers between reality and fiction (what barriers?).
http://www.salon.com/ent/tv/review/2003/09/15/k_street/index_np.html
― Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 16 September 2003 00:33 (twenty years ago) link
― s1utsky (slutsky), Tuesday, 16 September 2003 01:04 (twenty years ago) link
I think Logan Lucky was to me the movie Glass Onion is to a lot of others.
― The self-titled drags (Eazy), Monday, 26 December 2022 02:48 (one year ago) link
the casting is from heaven, peaking with dwight yoakam as the warden
the standoff with the prisoners where they’re bargaining over game of thrones books that don’t exist yet… cinema
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, 26 December 2022 02:52 (one year ago) link
That scene is Priceless.
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 26 December 2022 03:58 (one year ago) link
Soderbergh had to do several Oceans movies to refine his heist movie skills in order to make Logan Lucky
― mh, Monday, 26 December 2022 15:59 (one year ago) link
same
― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Tuesday, 27 December 2022 13:52 (one year ago) link
Just re-watched Side Effects on HBO Max. Trashy pulp Soderbergh is the best Soderbergh.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Sunday, 1 January 2023 01:48 (one year ago) link
See also the various Three Imaginary Boys vs. Boys Don't Cry polls.
― A Kestrel for a Neve (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 1 January 2023 03:26 (one year ago) link
stamp is bad in the limey (for londoners) for the same reason tom wilkinson is a problem -- despite an otherwise v funny performance -- in michael clayton for uk listeners, which is that the underlying accent (not-cockney for stamp, not-US for wilkinson) pokes noticeably thru
stamp (born stepney to a tugboat stoker! moved to plaistow and went to school there) learnt his trade a london drama school before kitchen sink made it ok (indeed fashionably preferable) for young actors to have any kind of regional accent, and had the cockney totally knocked out of him, so it comes back out of him in his 60s as if voice-coached, and you can hear the posh* at the ends of his lines**
*even tho it's learned posh! **the ends of the lines is where you listen to check if an english actor is actually good at an american accent, they generally do the starts fine
― mark s, Tuesday, 11 April 2023 08:00 (one year ago) link
actually it's not quite the same problem: wilkinson is very animated and basically funny in michael clayton, fake accent notwithstanding; stamp is merely robotic in the limey, the flatness is presumably a performance decision? but it's a bad one
― mark s, Tuesday, 11 April 2023 08:01 (one year ago) link
I can't address your point about his accent, but I found Stamp's flatness of affect rather funny, especially when Wilson allowed himself to feel something for the Americans (e.g. coaxing Eduardo to order a cocktail at Valentine's party). He also uses his body in character well.
― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 11 April 2023 11:53 (one year ago) link
i didn't mean flatness of affect so much as me feeling that the character was actually just a cardboard cut-out on a pole but maybe that's what *you* mean by "uses his body in character" :)
― mark s, Tuesday, 11 April 2023 12:19 (one year ago) link
one helluva cardboard ass when he gets up after those goons rough house him
― the very juice and sperm of kindness. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 11 April 2023 13:05 (one year ago) link
New limited series, Full Circle, is up on HBO now. Knew it was coming but had no idea it was here, as if people needed an HBO break after Succession and The Idol.
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Sunday, 16 July 2023 00:25 (eleven months ago) link
He's got another show coming soon to his website:
https://extension765.com/blogs/soderblog/command-z
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 16 July 2023 00:56 (eleven months ago) link
Wow, had no idea!
― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Sunday, 16 July 2023 02:17 (eleven months ago) link
was previously semi-announced as The Pendulum Project and was being shopped to streamers in January — guessing he ended up with no good offers and figured coattailing off whatever press he can get for Full Circle was the best chance of getting seen
― serving bundt (sic), Sunday, 16 July 2023 09:42 (eleven months ago) link
was startled by either Louis CK or a guy who looks a lot like him in Command Z trailer. I'll be pretty bummed if it turns out to be him.
― waste of compute (One Eye Open), Sunday, 16 July 2023 18:06 (eleven months ago) link
Assuming you mean the guy at 1:30, there's a photo of the same guy a few seconds earlier, and it's clearly not LCK.
― jaymc, Sunday, 16 July 2023 20:34 (eleven months ago) link
Watched the first episode of Full Circle tonight; it's OK. It's a riff on High & Low, for those who don't know.
Definitely not watching that other thing. Haaaaate Michael Cera.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 17 July 2023 02:38 (eleven months ago) link
Watched all of Full Circle, it was ok. But am I an idiot or did the last shot invalidate any bit of sense that the plot had...if the whole idea was that this Guyanese investment property made money that kickstarted Dennis Quaid's hot sauce empire, how does that happen if it never got built? Whatever, man..
― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Friday, 29 December 2023 16:53 (five months ago) link
xps I haven't seen it in a while, but The Limey is probably my favorite Soderbergh film, and I've always liked Stamp in it (and everyone else). I haven't kept up with Soderbergh's work, but aside from The Limey, I don't recall ever revisiting his past work - the ones I'd probably want to see again are Sex, Lies, and Videotape, King of the Hill, Che (maybe my favorite del Toro performance) and The Informant! (maybe my favorite Matt Damon performance). And I still haven't seen The Underneath - I've heard it's supposed to be excellent.
― birdistheword, Friday, 29 December 2023 18:52 (five months ago) link
xp I watched it a couple months ago... I think the whole Guyanese investment was more of a macguffin, it wasn't that it kickstarted his career, just that it was the most prominent skeleton in the family's closet. the mic drop of that as the final scene was just that all this trouble happened for essentially nothing. that underlining the racial commentary of the whole show
― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Friday, 29 December 2023 20:04 (five months ago) link
That makes sense thematically, although there was even that interview scene where Quaid is asked how he got his business going, and he references that they had money from investments that paid off (although his whole deal is being clueless anyway). Maybe the family had enough money to bribe a bunch of shady people in Guyana, lose the money, and still start a huge business but it wasn't really portrayed that way.
― Jordan s/t (Jordan), Friday, 29 December 2023 21:43 (five months ago) link