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

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

that's because he's driving the original herbie.

is that a euphemism

pass the herbie from the left hand side

Off to join Bill Watterson or something.

Passive aggressive notes

this reminded me how much i enjoyed getting away with it.

seeing the byline reminded me how much i don't enjoy dan kois

well yes that article is a list of glib thoughts and anecdotes. but the book is good!

yeah it's a good book. i didn't read the article. tbh im not even sure if i've ever read anything by dan kois except the one where he says foreign movies are for posers, which i power-skimmed.

poser.

schizopolis is ~10x better than it has any right to be

Kent Jones does a fine takedown of Kois in the new Film Comment

is there a soderbergh poll?