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
Showing posts with label Luis Guzman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Luis Guzman. Show all posts
Monday, June 22, 2020
Wednesday, May 27, 2020
Soderbergh Marathon: Part 6
Intro
The Limey (1999)
I really appreciate that when you sit down and watch a Steven Soderbergh movie, you literally do not know what you're going to get. You also know that whatever you're going to get is well-made and different. I mentioned in my Side Effects post that it was a bad thriller made by people who knew what they were doing. The Limey is a cliché crime drama by people who know what they're doing.
The first immediately noticeable thing about The Limey is the strange editing choices. It will eventually become clear why exactly the movie is edited in that way, but I don't think it's completely successful. It borders on distracting at times. But I have to give him credit for trying something different here, because this is not edited in a way that I've ever seen before. Basically, characters will be having a conversation, and the film will jump to a different scene, jump to a different scene, and go back to the original conversation all in about 10 seconds. Meanwhile, we hear whatever conversation they're having the entire time, throughout all the cuts.
Terence Stamp plays a hard-assed criminal, who is recently released from prison. And Stamp can play hardass like few other old guys can. He's brought to Los Angeles thanks to the death of his daughter, who officially died in a car accident. He doesn't buy it and seeks revenge. He suspects it probably has something to do with Terry Valentine, who is played by Peter Fonda. Valentine is a music producer who is filthy rich and who hangs around all the time with way too young for him girls.
This movie is basically a showcase for Stamp and Fonda, two old pros at the time. And it works. They're both very good. As I said, Stamp is mean mugging the whole time, but he's also sort of funny. The dialogue helps in that respect. Hardly anyone in LA can seem to understand him, because he's from the UK, but also because he seems fond of weird phrases that he has to explain. And Fonda seems like he can play Hollywood sleazeball in his sleep. Other good performances include Luis Guzman and Lesley Ann Warren, who both played friends of the daughter, and try to help "the limey" find out what happened. Amelia Heinle plays Fonda's latest young girlfriend, and at least based on this movie, seems sort of a shame she's wasted on soap operas for the last 20 years.
All in all, it's basically your average crime drama done well, shot in a different way than these movies are usually shot. I'm giving credit to the movie for strange editing with a purpose, but it's distracting enough at times that I'm not giving it my full blown praise. It also has exceptional acting, which certainly seems to be a theme with Soderbergh movies.
3/4 Stars
The Limey (1999)
I really appreciate that when you sit down and watch a Steven Soderbergh movie, you literally do not know what you're going to get. You also know that whatever you're going to get is well-made and different. I mentioned in my Side Effects post that it was a bad thriller made by people who knew what they were doing. The Limey is a cliché crime drama by people who know what they're doing.
The first immediately noticeable thing about The Limey is the strange editing choices. It will eventually become clear why exactly the movie is edited in that way, but I don't think it's completely successful. It borders on distracting at times. But I have to give him credit for trying something different here, because this is not edited in a way that I've ever seen before. Basically, characters will be having a conversation, and the film will jump to a different scene, jump to a different scene, and go back to the original conversation all in about 10 seconds. Meanwhile, we hear whatever conversation they're having the entire time, throughout all the cuts.
Terence Stamp plays a hard-assed criminal, who is recently released from prison. And Stamp can play hardass like few other old guys can. He's brought to Los Angeles thanks to the death of his daughter, who officially died in a car accident. He doesn't buy it and seeks revenge. He suspects it probably has something to do with Terry Valentine, who is played by Peter Fonda. Valentine is a music producer who is filthy rich and who hangs around all the time with way too young for him girls.
This movie is basically a showcase for Stamp and Fonda, two old pros at the time. And it works. They're both very good. As I said, Stamp is mean mugging the whole time, but he's also sort of funny. The dialogue helps in that respect. Hardly anyone in LA can seem to understand him, because he's from the UK, but also because he seems fond of weird phrases that he has to explain. And Fonda seems like he can play Hollywood sleazeball in his sleep. Other good performances include Luis Guzman and Lesley Ann Warren, who both played friends of the daughter, and try to help "the limey" find out what happened. Amelia Heinle plays Fonda's latest young girlfriend, and at least based on this movie, seems sort of a shame she's wasted on soap operas for the last 20 years.
All in all, it's basically your average crime drama done well, shot in a different way than these movies are usually shot. I'm giving credit to the movie for strange editing with a purpose, but it's distracting enough at times that I'm not giving it my full blown praise. It also has exceptional acting, which certainly seems to be a theme with Soderbergh movies.
3/4 Stars
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)