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
Monday, June 8, 2020
Thursday, June 4, 2020
Soderbergh Maraton: Part 8
Intro
Bubble (2005)
Soderbergh is the perfect director for this feature. I want to possibly try my hand at other directors once I'm through with Soderbergh's absurdly high number of films, but I'm afraid that it will just be too much of the same with other directors. Or even the same at all. As of now, Soderbergh has not made a single film that is remotely like the others. Nine films in, all are drastically different.
It doesn't get much more different than Bubble, which seems more like an experiment than an actual movie. The best way to describe this movie is to simply tell you how it's made. Soderbergh went to West Virginia and scouted non-actors to be in this movie. The lead actor was found working in a drive-thru at KFC.
After that, there was a "script" which was just an outline. And the non-actors had to improvise the dialogue on the basis of the outline. The idea, in theory, was to create a naturalistic and realistic feeling movie. It's... sometimes successful at that?
The problem, as far as I see it, is its the worst of both worlds. At times, it does feel realistic, but it's also painfully boring. There's a reason why most of our lives wouldn't make good movies. The entire movie is mostly conversations of things that are just simply not interesting. And when it doesn't feel realistic, it really does feel like you're watching non-actors who are not skilled in improv trying to improv.
Soderbergh planned to film six movies like this and as far as I know this ended up being the only one. So I'd called it a failed experiment. Thankfully, the movie is astonishingly short. Which makes sense. What could be called the plot could be written in one sentence and doesn't happen until 45 minutes into the movie.
Roger Ebert loved this movie and god rest his soul, but I do not agree with him. But if you trust Ebert's opinion, go ahead and search for his review of it, and maybe give it a shot after that. Myself? I can't recommend this movie unfortunately. It's the first true dud for me in this marathon, but at least it's a dud trying something different.
1.5/4 stars
Bubble (2005)
Soderbergh is the perfect director for this feature. I want to possibly try my hand at other directors once I'm through with Soderbergh's absurdly high number of films, but I'm afraid that it will just be too much of the same with other directors. Or even the same at all. As of now, Soderbergh has not made a single film that is remotely like the others. Nine films in, all are drastically different.
It doesn't get much more different than Bubble, which seems more like an experiment than an actual movie. The best way to describe this movie is to simply tell you how it's made. Soderbergh went to West Virginia and scouted non-actors to be in this movie. The lead actor was found working in a drive-thru at KFC.
After that, there was a "script" which was just an outline. And the non-actors had to improvise the dialogue on the basis of the outline. The idea, in theory, was to create a naturalistic and realistic feeling movie. It's... sometimes successful at that?
The problem, as far as I see it, is its the worst of both worlds. At times, it does feel realistic, but it's also painfully boring. There's a reason why most of our lives wouldn't make good movies. The entire movie is mostly conversations of things that are just simply not interesting. And when it doesn't feel realistic, it really does feel like you're watching non-actors who are not skilled in improv trying to improv.
Soderbergh planned to film six movies like this and as far as I know this ended up being the only one. So I'd called it a failed experiment. Thankfully, the movie is astonishingly short. Which makes sense. What could be called the plot could be written in one sentence and doesn't happen until 45 minutes into the movie.
Roger Ebert loved this movie and god rest his soul, but I do not agree with him. But if you trust Ebert's opinion, go ahead and search for his review of it, and maybe give it a shot after that. Myself? I can't recommend this movie unfortunately. It's the first true dud for me in this marathon, but at least it's a dud trying something different.
1.5/4 stars
Monday, June 1, 2020
Soderbergh Marathon: Part 7
Intro
The Good German (2006)
Much like I am, it is very clear that Steven Soderbergh loves film noirs. Much like him, I am sure if I was a director who could do anything I wanted, I would attempt to make a film noir myself, although I would probably go more in the direction of a movie like Brick than Soderbergh's approach. The Good German is Soderbergh's ode to film noirs.
Unfortunately, it's not a great movie. It's a matter of style over substance, which actually I wouldn't think would be a huge issue in a film noir movie. In the best of them, there's substance, but clearly the defining aspect of a film noir is the style. Soderbergh painstakingly and lovingly creates a movie that probably could have been made in the 40s.
Or least he attempts to make it look like it could have been made in the 40s, in the way it looks and the way he shoots the movie. It's black-and-white of course. This is clearly not a movie that gets made without George Clooney starring in it. How many black-and-white film noirs are being made nowadays?
As far as the casting is concerned, George Clooney and Cate Blanchett seem like the could fit right in with as 40s movie stars. Blanchett in particular definitely seems like she would have been a Gene Tierney or Lauren Bacall if she was born in a different time period. Clooney doesn't necessarily fit the style of a film noir hero in the same way that Blanchett does for a femme fatale, but his style of acting would probably work then too.
The same cannot be said for Tobey Maguire, who is just shockingly miscast in this movie. I don't want to put the entire blame for this movie on him being woefully out of place, but it's possible an actor better suited for this role would make this a good movie. That sounds like hyperbole, but he's the narrator for the first third of the movie and it just gets the movie off on the wrong foot.
That's the other thing. The movie, for some reason, changes perspectives and it was not a good decision. There's an intriguing murder mystery that happens that is completely ruined by changing the narrator. You want to know who committed the murder and the movie reveals it in a very unsatisfying way. Just kind of bluntly tells us instead of a discovery.
Ultimately, this movie is worth watching for one thing: how much Soderbergh is able to adhere to looking like a film noir from the 1940s. But that's not a great reason to watch the movie. Just watch a film noir from the 1940s instead.
2/4 stars
The Good German (2006)
Much like I am, it is very clear that Steven Soderbergh loves film noirs. Much like him, I am sure if I was a director who could do anything I wanted, I would attempt to make a film noir myself, although I would probably go more in the direction of a movie like Brick than Soderbergh's approach. The Good German is Soderbergh's ode to film noirs.
Unfortunately, it's not a great movie. It's a matter of style over substance, which actually I wouldn't think would be a huge issue in a film noir movie. In the best of them, there's substance, but clearly the defining aspect of a film noir is the style. Soderbergh painstakingly and lovingly creates a movie that probably could have been made in the 40s.
Or least he attempts to make it look like it could have been made in the 40s, in the way it looks and the way he shoots the movie. It's black-and-white of course. This is clearly not a movie that gets made without George Clooney starring in it. How many black-and-white film noirs are being made nowadays?
As far as the casting is concerned, George Clooney and Cate Blanchett seem like the could fit right in with as 40s movie stars. Blanchett in particular definitely seems like she would have been a Gene Tierney or Lauren Bacall if she was born in a different time period. Clooney doesn't necessarily fit the style of a film noir hero in the same way that Blanchett does for a femme fatale, but his style of acting would probably work then too.
The same cannot be said for Tobey Maguire, who is just shockingly miscast in this movie. I don't want to put the entire blame for this movie on him being woefully out of place, but it's possible an actor better suited for this role would make this a good movie. That sounds like hyperbole, but he's the narrator for the first third of the movie and it just gets the movie off on the wrong foot.
That's the other thing. The movie, for some reason, changes perspectives and it was not a good decision. There's an intriguing murder mystery that happens that is completely ruined by changing the narrator. You want to know who committed the murder and the movie reveals it in a very unsatisfying way. Just kind of bluntly tells us instead of a discovery.
Ultimately, this movie is worth watching for one thing: how much Soderbergh is able to adhere to looking like a film noir from the 1940s. But that's not a great reason to watch the movie. Just watch a film noir from the 1940s instead.
2/4 stars
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
Monday, May 25, 2020
Soderbergh Marathon: Part 5
Intro
King of the Hill (1993)
What an unfortunate title. Four years after this movie was made, the popular sitcom King of the Hill forever made googling this title impossible, unless you also specified the year it was made or the fact that it was a movie. Making matters worse is that the title isn't really essential or descriptive. You can come up with a better title than this. In Steven Soderbergh's defense, King of the Hill was the title of the memoir this movie is based on, and I assume is a reference to a certain neighborhood of St. Louis.
I had never heard of King of the Hill before I began this project. Not many people have, judging by the fact that it made $1.1 million at the box office. And like I said, once the popular sitcom came around, King of the Hill belonged to them. Unless you're a huge Soderbergh fan or doing what I'm doing, I don't know how you'd even come across this movie. And that's a shame. Because this movie is great.
This movie is set in Depression era St. Louis and despite a limited budget, the movie really immerses you in the setting. It looks and feels like the Depression. And it really feels like St. Louis. I especially enjoyed the multiple references to getting or not getting Pepper Martin's autograph, who you probably don't know if you aren't familiar with Cardinals history. I doubt it was filmed here in my hometown, but since it's set in 1933, it's irrelevant that it's not. It's so far removed from modern day, it's not like you'll notice.
King of the Hill features an extremely young cast. The story puts an unusually high burden on the protagonist of the story, who is featured in 100 percent of scenes I believe. The protagonist in this case means 13-year-old Jesse Bradford, playing Aaron. Relying on such a young kid to essentially make or break your movie is risky, but Bradford is quite good in this role. A very young Adrien Brody is a fellow tenant who helps show Aaron the ropes of how to survive. A 16-year-old Amber Benson and 14-year-old Katherine Heigl also have minor parts in the movie. If casting can be determined by successful careers, holy hell did the casting director knock this one out of the park. Bradford was prominently featured in a movie before, but the rest were pretty much unknowns.
Those aren't the only actors though. There's a friendly teacher played by Karen Allen, most known for Raiders of the Lost Ark, but who has a pretty good film career outside of that. And Elizabeth McGovern plays a prickly prostitute from across the hall, who frequents a man known as Mr. Mungo, played by Spalding Gray. I note Gray because I will be seeing him in another Soderbergh movie and Soderbergh also made a documentary on him. He's fine here, but nothing to indicate Soderbergh's fascination with the man.
This movie is not particularly long, but it spends most of its running time kicking the main character down, and it chronicles how that kicking has forced him to use his smarts and his will to survive. It's so far my absolute favorite of the five movies I've watched and I cannot recommend it enough. It's so under the radar that you can watch the movie on Youtube for free. Watch that movie and enjoy.
4 stars
King of the Hill (1993)
What an unfortunate title. Four years after this movie was made, the popular sitcom King of the Hill forever made googling this title impossible, unless you also specified the year it was made or the fact that it was a movie. Making matters worse is that the title isn't really essential or descriptive. You can come up with a better title than this. In Steven Soderbergh's defense, King of the Hill was the title of the memoir this movie is based on, and I assume is a reference to a certain neighborhood of St. Louis.
I had never heard of King of the Hill before I began this project. Not many people have, judging by the fact that it made $1.1 million at the box office. And like I said, once the popular sitcom came around, King of the Hill belonged to them. Unless you're a huge Soderbergh fan or doing what I'm doing, I don't know how you'd even come across this movie. And that's a shame. Because this movie is great.
This movie is set in Depression era St. Louis and despite a limited budget, the movie really immerses you in the setting. It looks and feels like the Depression. And it really feels like St. Louis. I especially enjoyed the multiple references to getting or not getting Pepper Martin's autograph, who you probably don't know if you aren't familiar with Cardinals history. I doubt it was filmed here in my hometown, but since it's set in 1933, it's irrelevant that it's not. It's so far removed from modern day, it's not like you'll notice.
King of the Hill features an extremely young cast. The story puts an unusually high burden on the protagonist of the story, who is featured in 100 percent of scenes I believe. The protagonist in this case means 13-year-old Jesse Bradford, playing Aaron. Relying on such a young kid to essentially make or break your movie is risky, but Bradford is quite good in this role. A very young Adrien Brody is a fellow tenant who helps show Aaron the ropes of how to survive. A 16-year-old Amber Benson and 14-year-old Katherine Heigl also have minor parts in the movie. If casting can be determined by successful careers, holy hell did the casting director knock this one out of the park. Bradford was prominently featured in a movie before, but the rest were pretty much unknowns.
Those aren't the only actors though. There's a friendly teacher played by Karen Allen, most known for Raiders of the Lost Ark, but who has a pretty good film career outside of that. And Elizabeth McGovern plays a prickly prostitute from across the hall, who frequents a man known as Mr. Mungo, played by Spalding Gray. I note Gray because I will be seeing him in another Soderbergh movie and Soderbergh also made a documentary on him. He's fine here, but nothing to indicate Soderbergh's fascination with the man.
This movie is not particularly long, but it spends most of its running time kicking the main character down, and it chronicles how that kicking has forced him to use his smarts and his will to survive. It's so far my absolute favorite of the five movies I've watched and I cannot recommend it enough. It's so under the radar that you can watch the movie on Youtube for free. Watch that movie and enjoy.
4 stars
Tuesday, May 19, 2020
Soderbergh Marathon: Part 4
Intro
The Informant! (2009)
This is a movie I appreciated more than liked. It's a weird movie. It's a weird movie with a purpose though. It's not being weird for weird's sake, it's being weird to delve you into the main character's mental state. Like I completely understand what Steven Soderbergh is going for in this movie and conceptually it works. The buildup of Mark Whitacre going from seemingly innocuous to losing his mind is well done.
And yet. I found it difficult to like this movie. This is a character study on a character with a mental disease and as such, it's singularly focused on that one character. I think some better characterization on the wife would have went a long way, as she's just a doting wife who doesn't really seem to function as a character. It's based on a real person and in fact was based on a book, a book which I don't imagine focuses on the wife all that often. So the wife was real and maybe they tread lightly there since they didn't want to completely make up a new character there.
Matt Damon is excellent in The Informant! and is responsible for much of the movie's tone. Speaking of tone, I think the score also largely sets the tone. In some cases, I think the score was too wacky. From reviews, I've been able to gather it's a throwback score, but it's still really "knock you over the head this is wacky" which got old at times. Sometimes, it worked, sometimes you wish the movie would tone it down.
Anyway, I think I may like this more on second watch, since a large part of the movie, you're just in the dark about what the director is trying to do. For now, I have to grade it on having watched it once though.
2.5/4 stars
Side Effects (2013)
The best way I can describe Side Effects is that it reminds me of a bad thriller movie, except everyone involved in making it is very good at their jobs. The plot in this is just as convoluted and as ludicrous as those bad thriller movies, it's just so well made that it kind of fools you into maintaining the illusion necessary to buy into the plot.
I had seen Side Effects before shortly after it became available on Redbox back in 2013. In fact, it was the very first Soderbergh movie I watched the same year that came out. I watched one more of his movies in the same year (Logan Lucky), but otherwise I've never seen any of his movies even remotely close to when they were released, a fact that will remain true until I watch two of his 2019 movies in this marathon.
Back on target, part of the reason this movie is able to work as well as it is is an A+ cast. Rooney Mara plays a depressed wife to a man played by Channing Tatum, who is getting out of prison for the first time in four years. She seeks treatment from a psychiatrist played by Jude Law. Catherine Zeta-Jones also appears in this movie in an important part.
Ultimately, I enjoyed this more the first time I watched it, which makes sense. I think the convoluted plot is just a little harder to buy the second time around, plus you know what's going to happen, so the tension isn't as high. Although six years ago was a long enough time ago that I didn't remember the specifics, so I was still invested in the story. Kind of a tricky grade for me, so I'll just give you my current grade and what I'm guessing my 2013 grade would have been.
2013 grade: 3 stars
Current: 2.5 stars
The Informant! (2009)
This is a movie I appreciated more than liked. It's a weird movie. It's a weird movie with a purpose though. It's not being weird for weird's sake, it's being weird to delve you into the main character's mental state. Like I completely understand what Steven Soderbergh is going for in this movie and conceptually it works. The buildup of Mark Whitacre going from seemingly innocuous to losing his mind is well done.
And yet. I found it difficult to like this movie. This is a character study on a character with a mental disease and as such, it's singularly focused on that one character. I think some better characterization on the wife would have went a long way, as she's just a doting wife who doesn't really seem to function as a character. It's based on a real person and in fact was based on a book, a book which I don't imagine focuses on the wife all that often. So the wife was real and maybe they tread lightly there since they didn't want to completely make up a new character there.
Matt Damon is excellent in The Informant! and is responsible for much of the movie's tone. Speaking of tone, I think the score also largely sets the tone. In some cases, I think the score was too wacky. From reviews, I've been able to gather it's a throwback score, but it's still really "knock you over the head this is wacky" which got old at times. Sometimes, it worked, sometimes you wish the movie would tone it down.
Anyway, I think I may like this more on second watch, since a large part of the movie, you're just in the dark about what the director is trying to do. For now, I have to grade it on having watched it once though.
2.5/4 stars
Side Effects (2013)
The best way I can describe Side Effects is that it reminds me of a bad thriller movie, except everyone involved in making it is very good at their jobs. The plot in this is just as convoluted and as ludicrous as those bad thriller movies, it's just so well made that it kind of fools you into maintaining the illusion necessary to buy into the plot.
I had seen Side Effects before shortly after it became available on Redbox back in 2013. In fact, it was the very first Soderbergh movie I watched the same year that came out. I watched one more of his movies in the same year (Logan Lucky), but otherwise I've never seen any of his movies even remotely close to when they were released, a fact that will remain true until I watch two of his 2019 movies in this marathon.
Back on target, part of the reason this movie is able to work as well as it is is an A+ cast. Rooney Mara plays a depressed wife to a man played by Channing Tatum, who is getting out of prison for the first time in four years. She seeks treatment from a psychiatrist played by Jude Law. Catherine Zeta-Jones also appears in this movie in an important part.
Ultimately, I enjoyed this more the first time I watched it, which makes sense. I think the convoluted plot is just a little harder to buy the second time around, plus you know what's going to happen, so the tension isn't as high. Although six years ago was a long enough time ago that I didn't remember the specifics, so I was still invested in the story. Kind of a tricky grade for me, so I'll just give you my current grade and what I'm guessing my 2013 grade would have been.
2013 grade: 3 stars
Current: 2.5 stars
Thursday, May 14, 2020
The Soderbergh Experience: Part 3
Intro
Out of Sight (1998)
Once again, I am watching all of Steven Soderbergh movies out of order. This is a practical matter as not all of his movies are currently available to me, but I decided to make the most of it and get creative with how I watched his movies. I have a method for how I'm picking his movies, but it's mostly just random, so no need to explain my choices.
When I watched Out of Sight, two movies immediately came to mind. The first is Get Shorty, the 1995 movie that predates this. The comparison makes more sense when you see who is behind the movie. For starters, both movies are based off an Elmore Leonard novel so both have complicated plots, inept criminals, and one man above the fray with a love interest already in a relationship. Leonard pretty much believes criminals are criminals for a reason and that they will fuck up their plans by their own doing. You see that here.
The screenplay was also written by the same guy, Scott Franks. Franks appears to be a very good writer, with an unorthodox amount of well-reviewed movies in his resume. He does have the good fortune of working with good directors. He's worked with Kenneth Branaugh, Steven Spielberg, and James Mangold in addition to Soderbergh. It's possible his movies are good because of the directors but the directors also picked his screenplays. His lone writing-directing effort appears to be a solid movie so I'm inclined to call him a good writer. The movie was also produced by Danny Devito, who starred in Get Shorty, and Barry Sonnenfield, who directed it. (Both produced Get Shorty too) So it's not exactly a comparison I make that comes out of left field.
The other movie that came to mind was Ocean's Eleven. This movie almost seemed like a warmup to me. Now I'm just going by memory, but it seems to me that Ocean's Eleven is a much more polished bank story than Out of Sight. Here he seems slightly restrained by the tone of Get Shorty. That's not a bad thing. I loved Get Shorty and it mimicked the same tone really well. But it did sort of have the effect that I was watching a lesser Get Shorty and a less fun Ocean's Eleven. The latter is not fair at all since it came after this movie I admit.
Obviously the main culprit behind the Ocean Eleven comparison is Clooney. He plays virtually the same character in both movies. Once again, this seems like more of a warmup to Danny Ocean to me. Clooney had perfected this style by Ocean's Eleven. He's far from bad in Out of Sight though. He goes a long way towards justifying a marshal's decision to essentially forget her duties for him for at least a night. Don Cheadle is also in this movie, but he definitely plays a different character. Here he's kind of a stereotype - he's even got a Tupac style bandana on his head when in prison - and in Ocean's, I don't know he's French or something. I'm really not sure what with the accent he chose to go with for that movie.
The cast is pretty incredible including a surprisingly effective turn by Jennifer Lopez. I say surprising because I didn't think she was all that good of an actress - in fact when I've stumbled on this movie before I turned it off because I didn't imagine it was good mostly because she was in it. I am admittedly not basing this off a large sample of movies I've seen in her, but when you form an impression, it's not always fair. It's also surprising because if you'd describe Karen Sisco as a character to me, Lopez is pretty fucking far from how I'd imagine her. Carlo Gugino, who later played her in a quickly cancelled TV series called Karen Sisco, is more what I would have imagined. (It actually kind of seems like near perfect casting. Too bad it got cancelled so quickly)
Clooney and Cheadle are both as great as they usually are, even if they spur in me images of what I think is a better movie. (Kind of argue to argue Cheadle is better in Ocean's just for that accent, but Clooney is definitely at his best in Ocean's so it's not a comparison that favors this movie). This is just a movie with a bunch of solid performances from people who usually give them. Ving Rhames, Catherine Keener, Dennis Farina, and Steve Zahn all play their parts with their usual talent. I have to confess I didn't recognize Albert Brooks until halfway through the movie which is kind of incredible since it's Albert Brooks! So I'd say he disappeared in the role (that could just be me of course).
I hate to keep giving every movie of Soderbergh's the same grade, but my main complaint of "it's not as good as two other movies I absolutely love" is not really a complaint, so much as an acknowledgement that it's not going to get the perfect grade. Three movies, 3 stars for all of them.
3 stars out of 4
Out of Sight (1998)
Once again, I am watching all of Steven Soderbergh movies out of order. This is a practical matter as not all of his movies are currently available to me, but I decided to make the most of it and get creative with how I watched his movies. I have a method for how I'm picking his movies, but it's mostly just random, so no need to explain my choices.
When I watched Out of Sight, two movies immediately came to mind. The first is Get Shorty, the 1995 movie that predates this. The comparison makes more sense when you see who is behind the movie. For starters, both movies are based off an Elmore Leonard novel so both have complicated plots, inept criminals, and one man above the fray with a love interest already in a relationship. Leonard pretty much believes criminals are criminals for a reason and that they will fuck up their plans by their own doing. You see that here.
The screenplay was also written by the same guy, Scott Franks. Franks appears to be a very good writer, with an unorthodox amount of well-reviewed movies in his resume. He does have the good fortune of working with good directors. He's worked with Kenneth Branaugh, Steven Spielberg, and James Mangold in addition to Soderbergh. It's possible his movies are good because of the directors but the directors also picked his screenplays. His lone writing-directing effort appears to be a solid movie so I'm inclined to call him a good writer. The movie was also produced by Danny Devito, who starred in Get Shorty, and Barry Sonnenfield, who directed it. (Both produced Get Shorty too) So it's not exactly a comparison I make that comes out of left field.
The other movie that came to mind was Ocean's Eleven. This movie almost seemed like a warmup to me. Now I'm just going by memory, but it seems to me that Ocean's Eleven is a much more polished bank story than Out of Sight. Here he seems slightly restrained by the tone of Get Shorty. That's not a bad thing. I loved Get Shorty and it mimicked the same tone really well. But it did sort of have the effect that I was watching a lesser Get Shorty and a less fun Ocean's Eleven. The latter is not fair at all since it came after this movie I admit.
Obviously the main culprit behind the Ocean Eleven comparison is Clooney. He plays virtually the same character in both movies. Once again, this seems like more of a warmup to Danny Ocean to me. Clooney had perfected this style by Ocean's Eleven. He's far from bad in Out of Sight though. He goes a long way towards justifying a marshal's decision to essentially forget her duties for him for at least a night. Don Cheadle is also in this movie, but he definitely plays a different character. Here he's kind of a stereotype - he's even got a Tupac style bandana on his head when in prison - and in Ocean's, I don't know he's French or something. I'm really not sure what with the accent he chose to go with for that movie.
The cast is pretty incredible including a surprisingly effective turn by Jennifer Lopez. I say surprising because I didn't think she was all that good of an actress - in fact when I've stumbled on this movie before I turned it off because I didn't imagine it was good mostly because she was in it. I am admittedly not basing this off a large sample of movies I've seen in her, but when you form an impression, it's not always fair. It's also surprising because if you'd describe Karen Sisco as a character to me, Lopez is pretty fucking far from how I'd imagine her. Carlo Gugino, who later played her in a quickly cancelled TV series called Karen Sisco, is more what I would have imagined. (It actually kind of seems like near perfect casting. Too bad it got cancelled so quickly)
Clooney and Cheadle are both as great as they usually are, even if they spur in me images of what I think is a better movie. (Kind of argue to argue Cheadle is better in Ocean's just for that accent, but Clooney is definitely at his best in Ocean's so it's not a comparison that favors this movie). This is just a movie with a bunch of solid performances from people who usually give them. Ving Rhames, Catherine Keener, Dennis Farina, and Steve Zahn all play their parts with their usual talent. I have to confess I didn't recognize Albert Brooks until halfway through the movie which is kind of incredible since it's Albert Brooks! So I'd say he disappeared in the role (that could just be me of course).
I hate to keep giving every movie of Soderbergh's the same grade, but my main complaint of "it's not as good as two other movies I absolutely love" is not really a complaint, so much as an acknowledgement that it's not going to get the perfect grade. Three movies, 3 stars for all of them.
3 stars out of 4
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