This was good. The script was in some places beautiful, and Andre Holland was ideally cast.
― Your sweetie-pie-coo-coo I love ya (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 9 February 2019 04:11 (five years ago) link
I loved Bill Duke in this a lot
― bhad bundy (Simon H.), Saturday, 9 February 2019 04:12 (five years ago) link
The women were terrific.
― Your sweetie-pie-coo-coo I love ya (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 9 February 2019 04:20 (five years ago) link
"prosperity gospel" talk suitably skin-crawling
― bhad bundy (Simon H.), Saturday, 9 February 2019 04:38 (five years ago) link
He always seems consciously invested in honing his own skills even when it means trying new variations that don’t quite work, and notably doing so without just throwing bottomless money at things until they pass a focus group
I don’t know that I’ve read more than a couple interviews and have never noticed a social media presence!
― mh, Saturday, 9 February 2019 04:43 (five years ago) link
https://twitter.com/bitchuation
― bhad bundy (Simon H.), Saturday, 9 February 2019 04:57 (five years ago) link
This is something else.
― Norm’s Superego (silby), Saturday, 9 February 2019 06:49 (five years ago) link
10 tweets in a year is not what I wld call a “constant presence on social media”
― The Very Fugly Caterpillar (sic), Saturday, 9 February 2019 07:31 (five years ago) link
Holland said that Soderbergh showed them Sweet Smell of Success.
I didn't know Zazie Beetz or Sonja Sohn from their TV work, both fine especially the latter.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 9 February 2019 14:13 (five years ago) link
I think you would like Atlanta.
― bhad bundy (Simon H.), Saturday, 9 February 2019 14:14 (five years ago) link
for a while I thought Sonja Sohn was Angela Bassett; her voice has the same timbre.
― Your sweetie-pie-coo-coo I love ya (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 9 February 2019 14:16 (five years ago) link
I think everyone would like Atlanta.
― Josh in Chicago, Saturday, 9 February 2019 14:17 (five years ago) link
I want to see Atlanta! It's taking me over a year to get through Twin Peaks 2.0.
I recognized Harry Edwards as a go-to talking head on race in American sports for decades, but wasn't aware he helped bring about the '68 Olympics protest:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Project_for_Human_Rights
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 9 February 2019 14:20 (five years ago) link
zazie beetz -- how wonderful is it that this is her real name? if philip roth gave a character this name, reviewers would be rolling their eyes. she's lovely btw.
― affects breves telnet (Gummy Gummy), Sunday, 10 February 2019 18:52 (five years ago) link
news I can use
half an hour to go because I was dozing on painkillers the first time and rewatched to catch up, but the tiny bits of basketball are easier to follow than every single other thing about the NBA's contracts and "lockouts" and tactics tbh
and it looks great. the sort-of-flat field is integrated into his approach, with the flexibility of "camera" placement turning that into a somehow bombastic yet intimate visual. Unsane felt more like an experiment, technically, but here he's obviously freestyling wildly with setups and movement and tracking/panning that you can't do with a camera*, yet it's servicing an overall controlled, mannered feel.
*or can do in seconds in situ vs production designing, building, lighting, etc - like the conversation btwn Ray and Sonja Sohn in the bar that's shot from behind the glasses of cherries and twists
remembering I still have** 2/3 of Mosaic left to watch, because a) I loathe watching stories on a phone and b) Sharon Stone went on WTF a few days after I started watching and talked about the ending of this 18-part-plus-other-stuff story, is the work of Steven Soderbergh the most existing thing ever, for a "film director"? Woody Allen has written & directed 47 features in 48 years, plus acting in things and writing other stuff. Studio system and b-movie directors could crack out a couple of features in a year, but very rarely wrote them. (TV directors can turn out 15 hours in a year that shows their style, or more on soaps, but never (?) as writers-directors.)
In Soderbergh's first 24 years as a narrative film director, he made 23 features as director (one of them 4.5 hours long and later released as two), only wrote five of them, but wrote two features with / for other directors, wrote and directed two shorts (one half-hour narrative, one 4-minute artier thing), directed-from-existing-material a feature Spalding Gray doco, directed a feature of a Spalding Gray performance, DPed 16 of his features and one short, edited 11 of the features and both shorts, directed two half-hour stories for television, directed/shot/edited a ten-episode season of TV, and produced half a dozen features for other directors. (Not counting "executive producing.")
In the three years he was "retired" from features, he directed/shot/edited two ten-hour seasons of television, and shot/camera operated/edited one feature (his best film, obv).
In the three years since unretiring, he's directed/shot/edited three features, produced another one, and directed/shot/edited a (let's call it) 18-part, 8-hour branching narrative.
Plus he's going home at night and editing 2001 or his friends' unfinished films for fun! Just adding up by minutes, has anyone else come close? ** oh it turns out the app was decommissioned a few days ago, go fuck yourself HBO
― The Very Fugly Caterpillar (sic), Tuesday, 12 February 2019 22:32 (five years ago) link
easier to follow than every single other thing about
lol that the minute I picked back up again, the NBA stuff immediately became a metaphor for Soderbergh's experiments with and failures in self-distribution
― The Very Fugly Caterpillar (sic), Wednesday, 13 February 2019 18:34 (five years ago) link
Erin Brockovich is very well made, and thank God he hasn't made another like it. It's a Julia Roberts superhero movie; no wonder you poptimists love it. Ed Lachman (dp) and Anne Coates (edit) better than Roberts and Finney.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 13:54 (five years ago) link
High Flying Bird is very well made popular entertainment, and thank God he made it.
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 14:05 (five years ago) link
Labor drama that skips the basketball? Not *that* pop.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 14:07 (five years ago) link
Looooooove High Flying Bird. iPhone populism 4ever!
― Frederik B, Wednesday, 17 April 2019 14:24 (five years ago) link
Zach Lewis on EB:
The most quotable line from the film is a response to Ed’s questioning of her prerogative power: “They’re called boobs, Ed.” This would almost devise a problem for Brockovich, posturing her as the archetype of troubled-past sexual-aggression that weakly traverses the narrative as a feminist conclusion without an argument. Instead, Roberts’s archetype, purportedly funneled from the “golden-hearted hooker” character from Pretty Woman, embodies sassiness as a confident hallmark, using it when necessary and as a subversive atmosphere when not. As the case accelerates, Ed calls in a big-city law team to handle the formalities; Brockovich is furious as she feels that she maintains legitimate ownership of the case and that the people of Hinkley will not respond to formal tactics. Her curvy outfits disrupt their expectations as she vocally lists phone numbers and complicated personal information of various clients from memory, solidifying herself as the case’s paramount authority. While Soderbergh places keen adjustments to a well-known paradigm, the film ultimately becomes lost in a motherly sentimentality, making Brockovich a messiah figure for the residents for the residents of Hinkley sans unconditional love; her emphasized “I just want to be a good mom” monologue in the beginning now appropriated for the cancer and disease-ridden town. It is a nice gesture and a definitive comment on the parent/career dilemma, but it is troublesome to accept given Roberts’s previous performance of a woman whose life has finally been given purpose via her career. Her reconnection with her kids at the end of the film also suffers; they accept her social-ladder-climbing by relating to the sick kids with whom she is actually spending time — no real catharsis, just narrative happy-ending excuse, an emotional deus ex machina.
https://www.popoptiq.com/erin-brockovich-investigates-the-power-of-performance/
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 15:40 (five years ago) link
Traffic is failed agitprop. I was one of those guys fooled for a few weeks into thinking the fun Erin Brockovich was the less 'serious' film.
The question is, how much 'fun' should a film with people dying of cancer via corporate malfeasance at the center be?
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 15:47 (five years ago) link
Erin Brockovich is very well made, and thank God he hasn't made another like it. It's a Julia Roberts superhero movie; no wonder you poptimists love it.
yeah stfu you poptimists
erin brockovich was on c5 last night― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, March 12, 2003 2:05 AM (sixteen years ago)Erin Brockovich is nearly as good except it forgot to have a story.― pete b. (pete b.), Wednesday, March 12, 2003 2:13 AM (sixteen years ago)erin brockovich has too much story!!― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, March 12, 2003 2:19 AM (sixteen years ago)
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, March 12, 2003 2:05 AM (sixteen years ago)
Erin Brockovich is nearly as good except it forgot to have a story.
― pete b. (pete b.), Wednesday, March 12, 2003 2:13 AM (sixteen years ago)
erin brockovich has too much story!!
― mark s (mark s), Wednesday, March 12, 2003 2:19 AM (sixteen years ago)
_Erin Brockovich_ is at best, a TV-movie-of-the-week starring Julia Roberts. Utterly overrated.― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Wednesday, March 12, 2003 4:14 AM (sixteen years ago)
― Matt Maxwell (Matt M.), Wednesday, March 12, 2003 4:14 AM (sixteen years ago)
Erin Brockovich [...] is really weak though and Full Frontal is one of the worst movies I've ever seen.― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, February 16, 2005 7:00 AM (fourteen years ago)
― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Wednesday, February 16, 2005 7:00 AM (fourteen years ago)
― blokes you can't rust (sic), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 18:19 (five years ago) link
the subsequent eleven years of approving posts are all from dedicated superhero movie fan Alfred, so fair enough
― blokes you can't rust (sic), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 18:20 (five years ago) link
he likes certain kinds, see also Hoffman as Tootsie
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 18:31 (five years ago) link
so then EB is as fraught as any well-made Hollywood product
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 18:41 (five years ago) link
also Brockovich has one of THOSE Thomas Newman scores. Does he still get work?
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 18:49 (five years ago) link
I've more of a problem with the script's caricature of a female lawyer. Every one of those scenes is a cringe.
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 18:50 (five years ago) link
Yeah... particularly strange as it was from a female screenwriter. (Check her subsequent credits to confirm that the script is the Achilles heel of this, abetted by Star Syndrome.)
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 17 April 2019 19:55 (five years ago) link
https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/dd56f3c2-1b74-406a-b3f0-b3aeb3bf9042
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 19 April 2019 02:08 (five years ago) link
shoulda gotten Ed Asner
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Friday, 19 April 2019 02:20 (five years ago) link
I've generally like Soderbergh but I forced myself to watch Oceans 11, 12, and 13 on some flights last month and goddamn if those movies don't get progressively worse with every passing minute. By the end of 13 I wanted to beat every one of their smarmy faces to a pulp.
― akm, Friday, 19 April 2019 19:50 (five years ago) link
i only saw O11, which is a decent powdered donut, not a film. Had no interest in the others. Clearly minor works.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Friday, 19 April 2019 19:52 (five years ago) link
i rewatched them last year. 11 >>> 12 >>>>>>>>>>>>> 13.
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 19 April 2019 20:25 (five years ago) link
Logan Lucky is the heist film the Oceans movies were prep work for
― mh, Friday, 19 April 2019 20:42 (five years ago) link
i should watch that. Yeah, caek's assessment is spot on though I'd put maybe more of a gulf between 11 and 12.
― akm, Friday, 19 April 2019 20:44 (five years ago) link
Nah, the Oceans films are delightful, though the first one is far better than the other two. Bad Soderbergh is when he thinks he's an auteur and makes four hour films about revolutionaries.
― Frederik B, Friday, 19 April 2019 21:36 (five years ago) link
upcoming:
Thinking of Gary Oldman's German accent in THE LAUNDROMAT way too much. "Do you VANT to go BACK to BUH-nan-UHS?!?!"— Keith Uhlich (@keithuhlich) September 13, 2019
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Friday, 13 September 2019 19:10 (four years ago) link
Looks familiar, but I'm down for it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuBRcfe4bSo
― ... (Eazy), Wednesday, 18 September 2019 20:22 (four years ago) link
That looks VERY Big Short.
― DJI, Wednesday, 18 September 2019 22:37 (four years ago) link
It's not an iPhone film this time? I just hope it's as greatly filmed as his last two, then I kinda don't care what it's about.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 19 September 2019 13:48 (four years ago) link
Not on iphone:
There are certain things that you can do when you’re shooting with a capture device as small as a phone that you can’t do any other way, and that’s great. But there are also other things that you can’t do that are really frustrating. Because of the fact that it doesn’t really have any mass, that can actually be a problem in some circumstances, particularly car work. The phone is so sensitive to vibration it’s kind of useless in a car context, at least for us. The other thing is, a dolly-based, multiple-destination master is a really tricky thing to do with a phone. You need a camera that you can put on a real dolly head and a real dolly. Those are the kind of things that you have to give up a little bit. And selective focus—with the iPhone, essentially, everything is in focus. So if you’re somebody who likes to create directionality for people’s gaze with focus, that tool is gone. It was nice to be back in a world where I can do that.
The other thing is, a dolly-based, multiple-destination master is a really tricky thing to do with a phone. You need a camera that you can put on a real dolly head and a real dolly. Those are the kind of things that you have to give up a little bit. And selective focus—with the iPhone, essentially, everything is in focus. So if you’re somebody who likes to create directionality for people’s gaze with focus, that tool is gone. It was nice to be back in a world where I can do that.
also:
Filmmaker: What was behind the choice to widen the aspect ratio during that segment and the use of the anamorphic lens?Soderbergh: I wanted there to be a different approach for each story branch. Ellen Martin’s is the most straightforward, camera always on a fixed device and very simple framing. Mossack and Fonseca in Panama when they’re at work is always handheld. The Beverly Hills sequence is The Goodbye Girl meets California Suite, a Herbert Ross from the ’70s thing. For (China), I thought it’s like a Bond film. It feels like a spy thing to me. This is the other great thing about being in the all-digital world now, you can do things like this and it’s not a problem. You can change formats in the middle of your movie. I felt like a different vibe would really help.
Soderbergh: I wanted there to be a different approach for each story branch. Ellen Martin’s is the most straightforward, camera always on a fixed device and very simple framing. Mossack and Fonseca in Panama when they’re at work is always handheld. The Beverly Hills sequence is The Goodbye Girl meets California Suite, a Herbert Ross from the ’70s thing. For (China), I thought it’s like a Bond film. It feels like a spy thing to me. This is the other great thing about being in the all-digital world now, you can do things like this and it’s not a problem. You can change formats in the middle of your movie. I felt like a different vibe would really help.
Also, since making this one, he's finished another film with Meryl Streep, using the first model of a new Red camera that's almost as light as an iPhone, which he intends to carry on with.
― now let's play big lunch take little lunch (sic), Thursday, 19 September 2019 20:59 (four years ago) link
Lol. This new technology has been so good to Soderbergh.
― Frederik B, Thursday, 19 September 2019 21:26 (four years ago) link
speaking of iphone, Apple sent Rian Johnson their new model to play with and he took it outside for an hour or two: https://vimeo.com/361345913
― now let's play big lunch take little lunch (sic), Wednesday, 25 September 2019 20:54 (four years ago) link
looks like he had fun with it
let his longtime cinematography collaborator Steve Yedlin borrow it now imo
― mh, Thursday, 26 September 2019 00:41 (four years ago) link
This is really disappointing. Should have been an iPhone film.
― Frederik B, Friday, 18 October 2019 22:19 (four years ago) link
A disappointment, yes. I wanted to bludgeon Banderas and Oldman with a candlestick.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 18 October 2019 22:22 (four years ago) link
Would use this to teach Brecht’s “distancing technique” that heightens the artifice of character to make larger points about societal constructions.
It was fine on Netflix on a Sunday night, would have been disappointing in the theater. Clunky.
― ... (Eazy), Monday, 21 October 2019 15:48 (four years ago) link
the blah short
― johnny crunch, Monday, 21 October 2019 17:32 (four years ago) link
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/movies/contagion-movie-coronavirus.html
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Tuesday, 10 March 2020 19:06 (four years ago) link