Intro
Full Frontal (2002)
Full Frontal is a very weird movie. It's one of those movies where Soderbergh is clearly experimenting with the process of filmmaking. As such, I don't like it! He shoots most of the movie on videotape and by god does it look awful.
Another one of the warning signs with Full Frontal is that it's a comedy, and Soderbergh is not especially good at making comedies. Having humor in his movie sure. But making a movie that can be called a comedy? Not so much.
Unlike his other experimental movies, this one actually features name actors. Ton of them in fact. Julia Roberts plays a reporter who interviews Blair Underwood, who is a famous actor. And in the middle of this interview at one point, cut is yelled, Julia Roberts takes off her wig, and is a famous actress not named Julia Roberts. So Blair and Julia are operating in a fictional movie where most of what we see is that movie, but they're actually acting.
Confused? I'll make things more confusing for you. In whatever universe the movie operates in, Blair is an actor who acts alongside Brad Pitt being directed by David Fincher. So she's interviewing him behind the scenes of a movie, and then the movie stops, and lets us know that both Julia Roberts and Blair Underwood are acting in a different movie we see the behind the scenes of.
There's also Linda, played by Mary McCormack, who has never dated someone for longer three months and is looking for love. There's Catherine Keener, who's married to David Hyde Pierce, and they are clearly on their way to a divorce, as Keener cheats on Pierce's character, who knows it. Pierce rambles on aimlessly to many different women in this movie.
There's Enrico Colotani, who plays a playwright, and he directs Nicky Katt, who plays Hitler in some sort of comical take on Hitler that is never really funny. And then there's David Duchovny, who plays a guy who invites everyone to a party, which kind of ends up going nowhere. The movie sets up the party as if it's going be this big endgame, but the plot deflates.
So what you have here is seemingly pointless script where the movie tries its hand at satire and I get the feeling you almost have to be in the movie business to understand that wavelength. Like imagine The Player, but incomprehensibly aimless. The Player had a plot for all its winking nods to Hollywood few of the people watching understand. This doesn't.
And then you have Soderbergh filming most of it on grainy videotape for some reason. I imagine he has a reason for it, I just don't understand it. Even when I've disagreed with the method for how he shoots, I understand the intention. This one? I don't. Basically nothing in this movie works, except that every actor is a professional and does their job. But good actors can only do so much with an empty script and ugly visuals.
1/4 stars
Showing posts with label Julia Roberts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Julia Roberts. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 29, 2020
Monday, June 22, 2020
Soderbergh Marathon: Part 13
Intro
Traffic (2000)
Steven Soderbergh has made movies just about every year from 1989 until 2019, with the exception of a short break from 2014 to 2017, and even with that break he's made 30 movies. Not all 30 of his movies are considered good movie, in fact quite a bit of them are not, but he has made his fair share of critically acclaimed movies and audience favorite movies.
Somehow, in that long career, the Academy Awards decided to shove all their acclaim on him in basically one year. Erin Brokovich, a movie I didn't particularly like, was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Traffic was also nominated for five awards, which also included Best Picture and Best Director. Traffic won three awards, Erin Brokovich only won one for Julia Roberts' performance.
Erin Brokovich did not deserve all the acclaim, but Traffic absolutely did. This is the only Oscar he's got for Best Directing and he directed the shit out of this movie. There are three disparate, mostly unconnected stories attempting to encompass the entirety of the impact of the drug trade through those three stories. You have the rich dealers, the drug users, and the incompetent attempts to win a drug war.
It is one of the few long Soderbergh movies - it clocks in at 147 minutes - but actually it's about as short as it can be. Soderbergh seems to have essentially the same mindset as I do - he does not want to make long movies, but given the scope of Traffic, it's inevitable it will run a little longer. I admire the fact that it's only 147 minutes actually because you could very easily make this longer and the movie would suffer for it.
One of the most obvious directing choices he makes is that he puts a different color scheme for each story. This was Soderbergh's way of making the audience instantly aware of which story they're following, and it's highly effective. Even if you're not aware of what he's doing, your brain can pick up on that stuff subconsciously, which makes the movie feel less confusing than it could be.
The cast is of course great, because no great movie has a bad cast. I'm a little surprise Benicio del Tor won for Best Supporting Actor, not because he's not good, but just because it's not really that flashy? Like I get why Roberts won, the Academy loves performances like hers, but he's not like obviously doing a better job than the rest of the cast? He did have to learn a new accent for the part and I like him in just about every movie I've seen him in, so no complaints he got his dues at some point.
This is just a big cast with lots of names who are normally good in their parts. You have Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, who are married in real life but oddly I don't think they shared one scene together in this movie. Kind of funny. Don Cheadle, saddled with a stereotype in Out of Sight and a bad accent in the Ocean's movies, finally gets a part that does him justice here. His partner, Luis Guzman, pretty much plays the same part he always does and I dare you to dislike that part. Topher Grace was hired to play Topher Grace. I would name more, but there are a shit ton of well-known actors in this movie, at least known to me.
Traffic was one of the few Soderbergh movies I had seen before, and I don't think I fully appreciated it the first time so I'm glad I got to rewatch it. If any of his movies were to be critically acclaimed, I understand why it was the one and it's well-deserved acclaim.
4/4 stars
Traffic (2000)
Steven Soderbergh has made movies just about every year from 1989 until 2019, with the exception of a short break from 2014 to 2017, and even with that break he's made 30 movies. Not all 30 of his movies are considered good movie, in fact quite a bit of them are not, but he has made his fair share of critically acclaimed movies and audience favorite movies.
Somehow, in that long career, the Academy Awards decided to shove all their acclaim on him in basically one year. Erin Brokovich, a movie I didn't particularly like, was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director. Traffic was also nominated for five awards, which also included Best Picture and Best Director. Traffic won three awards, Erin Brokovich only won one for Julia Roberts' performance.
Erin Brokovich did not deserve all the acclaim, but Traffic absolutely did. This is the only Oscar he's got for Best Directing and he directed the shit out of this movie. There are three disparate, mostly unconnected stories attempting to encompass the entirety of the impact of the drug trade through those three stories. You have the rich dealers, the drug users, and the incompetent attempts to win a drug war.
It is one of the few long Soderbergh movies - it clocks in at 147 minutes - but actually it's about as short as it can be. Soderbergh seems to have essentially the same mindset as I do - he does not want to make long movies, but given the scope of Traffic, it's inevitable it will run a little longer. I admire the fact that it's only 147 minutes actually because you could very easily make this longer and the movie would suffer for it.
One of the most obvious directing choices he makes is that he puts a different color scheme for each story. This was Soderbergh's way of making the audience instantly aware of which story they're following, and it's highly effective. Even if you're not aware of what he's doing, your brain can pick up on that stuff subconsciously, which makes the movie feel less confusing than it could be.
The cast is of course great, because no great movie has a bad cast. I'm a little surprise Benicio del Tor won for Best Supporting Actor, not because he's not good, but just because it's not really that flashy? Like I get why Roberts won, the Academy loves performances like hers, but he's not like obviously doing a better job than the rest of the cast? He did have to learn a new accent for the part and I like him in just about every movie I've seen him in, so no complaints he got his dues at some point.
This is just a big cast with lots of names who are normally good in their parts. You have Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, who are married in real life but oddly I don't think they shared one scene together in this movie. Kind of funny. Don Cheadle, saddled with a stereotype in Out of Sight and a bad accent in the Ocean's movies, finally gets a part that does him justice here. His partner, Luis Guzman, pretty much plays the same part he always does and I dare you to dislike that part. Topher Grace was hired to play Topher Grace. I would name more, but there are a shit ton of well-known actors in this movie, at least known to me.
Traffic was one of the few Soderbergh movies I had seen before, and I don't think I fully appreciated it the first time so I'm glad I got to rewatch it. If any of his movies were to be critically acclaimed, I understand why it was the one and it's well-deserved acclaim.
4/4 stars
Thursday, June 18, 2020
Soderbergh Marathon: Part 12
Intro
Ocean's Twelve
I had seen Ocean's Twelve before and remember not liking it, so my expectations were not terribly high watching this. As an added bonus, I remembered essentially none of it either. Now, I don't like to go into a film thinking I won't like it, but if the film is remotely competent or even good, this is an ideal way to watch a movie in my opinion. An okay movie will be a happy surprise.
This was an okay movie. It's a weird movie and I think it's disliked because it doesn't really follow the parameters of what a heist movie is. This doesn't have the fun plans of the first and third entries of the franchise. Like with most heist movies, you'll have a target to steal and most of the movie will be comprising the team, developing the plans, and executing the heist. Doesn't exactly work that way in this movie.
On the one hand, I respect the attempt to not repeat the first movie. This is a vastly different movie than the first movie. On the other hand, this is pure popcorn entertainment and you're not really giving the audience what they want with how this movie is structured. I'm not saying you need to follow the formula exactly, but this is just a very oddly structured movie to be honest.
It's just not as fun of a movie, except for the meta moments, which sure straddle the line between being dumb and actually funny. I still can't decide if I like Julia Roberts pretending to be Julia Roberts even though the subterfuge is basically the highlight of the movie. Like the very act of acknowledging this is a movie threatens to trample our ability to get engaged in the movie.
Reportedly, they did this because Julia Roberts was pregnant, and I guess they didn't want the character Tess to be pregnant, so that's how they worked that into the script. It's certainly one way to deal with a pregnancy.
The movie has Brad Pitt's character just so happen to be formerly sleeping with the head detective in charge of catching them and she just so happens to have an ultra famous secretive dad for a thief. Between that and the meta moments, this just kind of breaks down for me. It's entertaining to a point, although the thieves constantly getting caught is not what we want to see.
Anyway, my thoughts on the movie are disjointed and confusing because that's kind of how this movie is, just trying to look cool and get you to ignore all the things that don't make sense. Which is true of all three movies, but it's never been more true than it is for Ocean's Twelve, which is why it's the worst of the three in my opinion.
2/4 stars
Ocean's Twelve
I had seen Ocean's Twelve before and remember not liking it, so my expectations were not terribly high watching this. As an added bonus, I remembered essentially none of it either. Now, I don't like to go into a film thinking I won't like it, but if the film is remotely competent or even good, this is an ideal way to watch a movie in my opinion. An okay movie will be a happy surprise.
This was an okay movie. It's a weird movie and I think it's disliked because it doesn't really follow the parameters of what a heist movie is. This doesn't have the fun plans of the first and third entries of the franchise. Like with most heist movies, you'll have a target to steal and most of the movie will be comprising the team, developing the plans, and executing the heist. Doesn't exactly work that way in this movie.
On the one hand, I respect the attempt to not repeat the first movie. This is a vastly different movie than the first movie. On the other hand, this is pure popcorn entertainment and you're not really giving the audience what they want with how this movie is structured. I'm not saying you need to follow the formula exactly, but this is just a very oddly structured movie to be honest.
It's just not as fun of a movie, except for the meta moments, which sure straddle the line between being dumb and actually funny. I still can't decide if I like Julia Roberts pretending to be Julia Roberts even though the subterfuge is basically the highlight of the movie. Like the very act of acknowledging this is a movie threatens to trample our ability to get engaged in the movie.
Reportedly, they did this because Julia Roberts was pregnant, and I guess they didn't want the character Tess to be pregnant, so that's how they worked that into the script. It's certainly one way to deal with a pregnancy.
The movie has Brad Pitt's character just so happen to be formerly sleeping with the head detective in charge of catching them and she just so happens to have an ultra famous secretive dad for a thief. Between that and the meta moments, this just kind of breaks down for me. It's entertaining to a point, although the thieves constantly getting caught is not what we want to see.
Anyway, my thoughts on the movie are disjointed and confusing because that's kind of how this movie is, just trying to look cool and get you to ignore all the things that don't make sense. Which is true of all three movies, but it's never been more true than it is for Ocean's Twelve, which is why it's the worst of the three in my opinion.
2/4 stars
Monday, June 15, 2020
Soderbergh Marathon: Part 11
Intro
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
This is not a fair film for me to grade. I have seen this movie many, many times. Sometimes, when I have trouble sleeping, I'll put on a movie I love and the comfort of watching it somehow allows me to fall asleep faster than otherwise. Ocean's Eleven has been that movie in the past for me. (There's been a few though the only other one to immediately come to mind is Pulp Fiction). It's a very fun movie that I wish I could watch for the first time again.
But alas, here I am, watching it with a more critical eye, doing exactly the thing I'd be content with never doing. It's still a movie I would stop and watch if I ever found it channel surfing. (Although oddly enough, that's never happened to me even though this seems like it should be an overplayed movie). So critical me has not ruined the movie for me thankfully.
It did however make me think I was probably wrong with calling this movie obviously worse than Out of Sight. I don't think I said that in so many words, but it's definitely implied in my review of Out of Sight. Trying to look at this movie from a more objective point of view, I'm not entirely sure it is better anymore. I unfortunately watched Out of Sight four years ago, so I don't remember that movie well enough to compare the two.
There's a couple flaws that I noticed upon a rewatch. The first and biggest is Tess as a character, and by that I mean she's not a character. It's not clear why she's with Terry Benedict for starters. The movie is so focused on making Benedict a villain, it forget to give any compelling reason whatsoever why anyone would choose to date him and the reasons that one can come up would make Tess a very shallow character, which I do not think is the movie's intention.
When she chooses to be with Danny, they didn't really do any work to make it seem like that'd be something to do. Leave Benedict? Oh sure, they provided enough reasons well before the deciding blow, but leaving one boyfriend does not mean you need to instantly be with an ex-boyfriend. You are allowed to be single.
Secondly, and this may somewhat be a function of what type of movie this is, but hiding Danny being in on the plan to join Matt Damon's character was dumb. Not to hide it from us, but to hide it from Damon. There's no reason why he shouldn't know that he's being joined in the theft. I know a good heist movie has to have a sleight of hand towards its audience, but it doesn't need to fool the characters themselves too.
The rest of the flaws are basically nitpicks. Or least not stuff I necessarily noticed the first 10 times I watched the movie. So the suspension of disbelief required to believe they could pull off this heist was essentially effective for me. Yeah if you study the movie, you'll notice some things I won't mention, but I don't think most people really thought about the plot holes the first or second times they watched it.
Which goes back to it being unfair to review this film objectively for me. As I watched this several times when I was quite a bit younger, I was more easily fooled presumably by the movie's tricks, whereas I have no idea if I would have noticed the plot holes my first time watching now. Nonetheless, you have to expect plot holes for heist films. It just comes with the territory.
Ocean's Eleven is just about the peak of popcorn blockbuster for me. Which may be confusing because I'm not giving it a perfect score, but I doubt anyone who watches this will come out of it unhappy. Everyone has a good time watching this, and I believe that's ultimately what Soderbergh was trying to do, not make "high art."
3/4 stars
Ocean's Eleven (2001)
This is not a fair film for me to grade. I have seen this movie many, many times. Sometimes, when I have trouble sleeping, I'll put on a movie I love and the comfort of watching it somehow allows me to fall asleep faster than otherwise. Ocean's Eleven has been that movie in the past for me. (There's been a few though the only other one to immediately come to mind is Pulp Fiction). It's a very fun movie that I wish I could watch for the first time again.
But alas, here I am, watching it with a more critical eye, doing exactly the thing I'd be content with never doing. It's still a movie I would stop and watch if I ever found it channel surfing. (Although oddly enough, that's never happened to me even though this seems like it should be an overplayed movie). So critical me has not ruined the movie for me thankfully.
It did however make me think I was probably wrong with calling this movie obviously worse than Out of Sight. I don't think I said that in so many words, but it's definitely implied in my review of Out of Sight. Trying to look at this movie from a more objective point of view, I'm not entirely sure it is better anymore. I unfortunately watched Out of Sight four years ago, so I don't remember that movie well enough to compare the two.
There's a couple flaws that I noticed upon a rewatch. The first and biggest is Tess as a character, and by that I mean she's not a character. It's not clear why she's with Terry Benedict for starters. The movie is so focused on making Benedict a villain, it forget to give any compelling reason whatsoever why anyone would choose to date him and the reasons that one can come up would make Tess a very shallow character, which I do not think is the movie's intention.
When she chooses to be with Danny, they didn't really do any work to make it seem like that'd be something to do. Leave Benedict? Oh sure, they provided enough reasons well before the deciding blow, but leaving one boyfriend does not mean you need to instantly be with an ex-boyfriend. You are allowed to be single.
Secondly, and this may somewhat be a function of what type of movie this is, but hiding Danny being in on the plan to join Matt Damon's character was dumb. Not to hide it from us, but to hide it from Damon. There's no reason why he shouldn't know that he's being joined in the theft. I know a good heist movie has to have a sleight of hand towards its audience, but it doesn't need to fool the characters themselves too.
The rest of the flaws are basically nitpicks. Or least not stuff I necessarily noticed the first 10 times I watched the movie. So the suspension of disbelief required to believe they could pull off this heist was essentially effective for me. Yeah if you study the movie, you'll notice some things I won't mention, but I don't think most people really thought about the plot holes the first or second times they watched it.
Which goes back to it being unfair to review this film objectively for me. As I watched this several times when I was quite a bit younger, I was more easily fooled presumably by the movie's tricks, whereas I have no idea if I would have noticed the plot holes my first time watching now. Nonetheless, you have to expect plot holes for heist films. It just comes with the territory.
Ocean's Eleven is just about the peak of popcorn blockbuster for me. Which may be confusing because I'm not giving it a perfect score, but I doubt anyone who watches this will come out of it unhappy. Everyone has a good time watching this, and I believe that's ultimately what Soderbergh was trying to do, not make "high art."
3/4 stars
Monday, June 8, 2020
Soderbergh: Part 9
Intro
Erin Brokovich (2000)
By my count, Steven Soderbergh has made six movies that I would call a box office hit, although it's possible I'm missing a movie or two seeing as he made 30 movies and I'm not fact checking this. I have now seen all but Magic Mike. Three of the movies are the Ocean movies, where the intention is to make a fun heist movie and nothing more. Out of Sight is trying to be a fun crime comedy and while I haven't seen Magic Mike yet, that movie is I assume trying to be a fun stripper movie.
Erin Brokovich, while not exactly unfun, seems to break the mold of a typical Soderbergh box office hit. He's clearly trying to make good movies that are also fun, but these are movies that don't pretend they are anything more than what they are. They are fun escapism movies and Soderbergh knows that.
This movie on the other hand, I'm actually surprised this ended up making as much money as it did. I think aside from the Ocean movies, this is his next most successful movie at the box office. And it's... fine?
Here's where my expectations have possibly been unfairly set by Soderbergh himself, but I'm now on movie #10 and the previous nine have all felt like Soderbergh trying to make a different type of movie. With Erin Brokovich, we have the Oscar bait movie.
That's probably unfair, but this reeks of Oscar bait to me. I do like some Oscar bait movies, and I think if I had no idea Soderbergh directed this, I'd probably like it more, but I kind of thought he wouldn't make one of these movies.
I think I would have liked this movie more if Erin Brokovich wasn't played by Julia Roberts. I'm not saying her performance is bad, but her showy performance is why this seems like an Oscar bait movie to me. Get Julia an Oscar! It worked of course. But I never felt like I was watching anybody but Julia Roberts trying to win an Oscar.
It doesn't really help that this is a story that's been told before. Another unfair thing going against this movie from my perspective - before I wrote this, but after I saw the movie, I watched Dark Waters. They are basically the same story, but Dark Waters is told better and is a better movie. This is a good reminder that sometimes the context of you watching a movie can really impact what you think of the movie and the context for me watching Erin Brokovich did it no favors.
I would love to get responses to this to tell me I'm being unfair, but this just straight up seem like a movie designed to get Julia Roberts an Oscar and I was always aware of that when watching. I honestly do wish I liked this more, but this is the first huge disappointment for me, which granted it was one of the few movies I had expectations for too.
2/4 stars
Erin Brokovich (2000)
By my count, Steven Soderbergh has made six movies that I would call a box office hit, although it's possible I'm missing a movie or two seeing as he made 30 movies and I'm not fact checking this. I have now seen all but Magic Mike. Three of the movies are the Ocean movies, where the intention is to make a fun heist movie and nothing more. Out of Sight is trying to be a fun crime comedy and while I haven't seen Magic Mike yet, that movie is I assume trying to be a fun stripper movie.
Erin Brokovich, while not exactly unfun, seems to break the mold of a typical Soderbergh box office hit. He's clearly trying to make good movies that are also fun, but these are movies that don't pretend they are anything more than what they are. They are fun escapism movies and Soderbergh knows that.
This movie on the other hand, I'm actually surprised this ended up making as much money as it did. I think aside from the Ocean movies, this is his next most successful movie at the box office. And it's... fine?
Here's where my expectations have possibly been unfairly set by Soderbergh himself, but I'm now on movie #10 and the previous nine have all felt like Soderbergh trying to make a different type of movie. With Erin Brokovich, we have the Oscar bait movie.
That's probably unfair, but this reeks of Oscar bait to me. I do like some Oscar bait movies, and I think if I had no idea Soderbergh directed this, I'd probably like it more, but I kind of thought he wouldn't make one of these movies.
I think I would have liked this movie more if Erin Brokovich wasn't played by Julia Roberts. I'm not saying her performance is bad, but her showy performance is why this seems like an Oscar bait movie to me. Get Julia an Oscar! It worked of course. But I never felt like I was watching anybody but Julia Roberts trying to win an Oscar.
It doesn't really help that this is a story that's been told before. Another unfair thing going against this movie from my perspective - before I wrote this, but after I saw the movie, I watched Dark Waters. They are basically the same story, but Dark Waters is told better and is a better movie. This is a good reminder that sometimes the context of you watching a movie can really impact what you think of the movie and the context for me watching Erin Brokovich did it no favors.
I would love to get responses to this to tell me I'm being unfair, but this just straight up seem like a movie designed to get Julia Roberts an Oscar and I was always aware of that when watching. I honestly do wish I liked this more, but this is the first huge disappointment for me, which granted it was one of the few movies I had expectations for too.
2/4 stars
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