Is the work of Steven Soderbergh the most overrated thing ever?

sex, lies, and videotape is a pretty conventional indie film though -- even for its time! I wouldn't put it in the experimental camp.

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.

All the actors are first-rate in SLV. I could forgive casting agents thinking Andie McDowell had talent.

Maybe it wasn't experimental formally, but it was still, from how I remember it, a much different film than most everything in theaters at the time. (What were the comparable indie films? I remember 1989 as Rain Man and Working Girl and all that.) It felt like an early-70s film to me. Not a good thing for everyone; for me, high praise.

it's funny, I don't remember a single thing about SL&V except for Andie McDowell talking to a video camera.

― garage rock is usually very land-based (Shakey Mo Collier), Monday, March 14, 2011 4:30 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark

haha same - i remember james spader changing into jeans in a gas station bathroom and that's it

The characters drink a lot of iced tea.

Maybe it wasn't experimental formally, but it was still, from how I remember it, a much different film than most everything in theaters at the time. (What were the comparable indie films? I remember 1989 as Rain Man and Working Girl and all that.)

Spike Lee, Nancy Savoca, Jarmusch, etc had all made splashes before SLV. I'm not diluting Soderbergh's triumph: Ameri-indie needed an avatar. And I do like the movie (I own it). But SLV is a first film in the good and not so good sense: it's clever, facile, beholden to ill-considered ideas about sex and women. He was a better filmmaker by the time he made Out of Sight; he learned to trust how an actress like Jennifer Lopez can sip bourbon thoughtfully and say everything about sex without dialogue.

oh god jlo in that movie..............................oof. he could make movies that are nothing but jlo sipping beverages thoughtfully for the rest of his life and i would be happy.

is jennifer lopez supposed to be a good actress? i saw this movie on a flight once where she was having a sperm donor baby

She was great in Anaconda.

jk she was awful. No she's not a good actress.

ill-considered ideas about sex and women

I knew there was something I connected with in that film...Personally, I consider SLV more experimental than Do The Right Thing (which I like). There are aspects of Do the Right Thing that make it very much an audience film; for better or worse, SLV is not that. Clever and facile...well, I don't want to get into an Up in the Air thing all over again; I don't think there's anything especially facile about SLV. (Clever in the pejorative sense, probably, to the extent that it's entire storyline is the kind of thing that only exists in the movies...which is okay, because it's a movie.)

I have a feeling I would like SLV much now.

wouldn't, rather

Do the Right Thing isn't particularly experimental, it's just really really good

Is SLV really that experimental?

No.

Whether J-Lo is a good actress is beside the point, really. Soderbergh used her well, and she delivered.

same for Andie McDowell.

clemenza, you've got a different idea about 'seventies film' than I do. American seventies films were a lot more sensual and crowdpleasing than SLV, which is closer to the spirit of a Rohmer thing.

same for Sasha Grey.

same for Julia Roberts.

Out of Sight is a really well cast movie period.

clemenza, you've got a different idea about 'seventies film' than I do.

We probably do, yes.

When I say SLV is experimental, I don't mean it's Michael Snow or Stan Brakhage or anything like that; I meant in relation to, I don't know, The Accidental Tourist and other acclaimed American films of the day. It does some somewhat unusual stuff with the videotaping scenes. That's all.

ha, not being very crowdpleasing was v much a new hollywood thing, look at the box office for many of the most revered ones

Compared to the Accidental Tourist, the Muppets Take Manhattan was experimental.

Great line, but I'll stand by my point that SLV is not a conventional film.

I'd rather use the term provocative than experimental.

Watched it again recently and it holds up well. Spader 4 lyfe.

haha same - i remember james spader changing into jeans in a gas station bathroom and that's it

― ℳℴℯ　❤＼(◕‿◕✿ (Princess TamTam), Monday, March 14, 2011 8:44 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

what about laura san giacomo's boobs?

I wish...if you've seen some director's cut I'm not aware of, please let me know.

IIRC she doesn't take him out, but does wear a lot of impressive tank tops

we do get to see her booTs however

http://www.celebarazzi.com/content/Thumbnails/L/Laura_San-Giacomo/Laura_San_Giacomo_Sex_Lies_02.jpg

I love the contrast between Spader's acting and his mullet.

Soderbergh talks more about retiring and all.

And the trailer for Haywire (the spy movie with Gina Carano) is out: http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/haywire/

huh, weird. it looks like it was made very cheaply. and it almost looks like a pastiche of a straight-to-video action film.

soderbergh is very smart. he reminds me of hal hartley in how in interviews he comes across as a bit self-regarding and pompous but also as very unsentimental and hard-nosed. and extremely smart and articulate. i actually think they have a lot in common -- both seem to view movies mostly in terms of the possibilities for visual invention. and both see filmmaking as largely a question of problem-solving. that's part of the "hard nosed" bit.

that said i seldom find in soderbergh's films the sort of moment-to-moment inventiveness that i find in the best hartley films (mostly from the early 1990s). too often his visual intelligence seems put in the service of these kind of half-baked "schemes" that are somewhat interesting to contemplate but don't provide a great deal of visceral pleasure.

his statement that he feels bored with mainstream narrative filmmaking should probably be taken at face value--he's bored. but it's hard not to find it a bit hubristic. i mean, lots of great filmmakers never seemed to get bored with narrative filmmaking. it can't be because they were necessarily less intelligent than soderbergh. what he's really admitting here is not the limit of narrative filmmaking but his own limits as a filmmaker. he'd probably own up to that too, but because he doesn't frame it that way he comes across as pretentious.

i was going to say, i can see "pastiche of a straight-to-video action film" being another one of soderbergh's "concepts," much like "erin brokhovich" was very self-consciously him "doing" an inspiring movie-of-the-week thing.

to clarify, maybe: both hartley and soderbergh openly discuss thinking about films in terms of their graphic potential, in terms of the image.

his statement that he feels bored with mainstream narrative filmmaking should probably be taken at face value--he's bored. but it's hard not to find it a bit hubristic. i mean, lots of great filmmakers never seemed to get bored with narrative filmmaking.

i know, right? this is my least favorite thing for a filmmaker to say, i think. it infuriates me. i get bored with YOU, steven soderbergh!

in communist russia... etc.

and Soderberg has proven an expert in narrative filmmaking (sex, lies, and videotape, Erin Brockovich).

i agree, he's made some excellent films -- it's just an odd thing to say that he feels that he's exhausted the format. i believe he's sincere, and probably humble about it too, but it comes across as hubristic just the same.

i think you're allowed to be bored by something that other people didn't get bored by

no

not allowed

it doesnt bother me because i dont think hes saying other people are suckers for being into narrative filmmaking - i think there are infinitely more obnoxious ways he could go about saying that he's bored with directing

also yeah that trailer looks *exactly* like a DTV action movie except with big stars. it's one of the more surreal trailers ive seen in recent memory actually

yeah it seems like a category error

anyway yeah sorry don't know why i went on and on about that quote. he seems like a decent, sincere sort who's only saying that he himself is a bit bored with what he's been up to.

I've been seeing this guy at my lab a lot recently. People are ridiculously deferential to him and he drives a beaten up old VW bug.

So, there you go