MAGIC MIKE, the male stripper movie starring channing tatum, matthew mcconaughey, dir. Steven Soderbergh

except for the good german i can't think of a film where soderbergh uses the kind of expressive depth of field that anderson relies on. and anderson still relies a lot on wide-angle lenses (although i think they were less in evidence in moonrise kingdom) which soderbergh def does not. just note all the very long-lens work in magic mike.

to be pretentious i think most of anderson's films starting w/ rushmore est. a kind of internal dialectic b/t the sort of depth of field/wide angle stuff associated w/ welles (and also to a great extent, scorsese and bogdanovich, both big influences on anderson) and (in smaller doses) the longer-lens, hazier, more freewheeling (zooms etc) photography closely associated with other new hollywood stuff anderson loves (think ashby, altman, much of the graduate, etc....)

i think anderson is probably the smartest director working in terms of knowingly and expressively utilizing past styles. see e.g. the rough handheld work used to cover the max fischer players staging of "serpico" in rushmore. or the weird sloooowww zooms in darjeeling limited.

soderbergh's aesthetic has always seemed less eclectic, and a little too stuck on notions of "realism" as the motivation for different forms of camerawork (or perhpas more charitably, he tends to work within a range of period and contemporary styles that signify "realism"). i think he's a fascinating filmmaker but because he's so whip-smart in interviews he maybe gets more credit than he deserves for the sharpness of his style....

a problem is that by default digital cameras don't have as much latitude as 35mm, so if you aren't careful to balance the range of light intensity in a shot, you end up with either some parts of the frame incredibly blown out or parts that are really dim. that eastwood film on hoover tried to use this as a positive by making it a basic part of its almost-monochromatic "prestige" look, but i thought that film was incredibly ugly.

j. edgar was shot on film, and used the expensive silver retaining process that WB indulges clint with on all his movies. i agree it was really ugly

really? well then they intentionally went for that blown-out look that comes more naturally to digital. and yeah it really did look like shit, it seems like a not-uncommon look for prestigious historical pictures nowadays though?--although clint went over the top with it.

it's like he decided to remove all the color from color film, but then also eliminated the full greyscale range, so it just ended up looking a 23rd generation print or something.

hmmmm I don't know anything about this stuff, really

i don't either but i am interested in the discussion. also i agree that j.edgar is one of the ugliest films i've ever seen.

Fight Club seems like the first major Piss Filter movie I can recall, but it worked great there

what about o brother where art thou?

could be, I saw that once on video and was just overwhelmed by the cement-truck humor (last film in the God I Hate the Coen Bros cycle)

i tend to be a little autistic about style btw, some poor cinematography decisions or imprecise editing can almost ruin a decent film for me.

e.g. the only reason l'argent isn't my favorite bresson film is b/c of two cuts in the 3rd act

much more basic things come first for me, such as DiCaprio is playing Hoover; OK, not entering theater.

i must have missed that part of l'argent

what about o brother where art thou?

i watched this again last year and was really distracted by all the digital color gradin (?) in it, the look of that film has not aged well imho

Loved this. Far more subtle and naturalistic than I expected and the final scene is a peach. Reminded me a bit of the end of The Apartment.

I also loved how Mike has non-stop slick patter when he's presenting himself to the world, ie in the club and the meeting with the bank, and borderline incoherent when he's talking about emotions. I couldn't imagine what was in the script at those points because he was just fumbling from one half-sentence to another, and in the scene where he realises Olivia Munn has a fiance he's pretty much dumbstruck. It won me over on both the character and the theme of selling yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwPR0q5es0A

Directed by
Gregory Jacobs

Produced by
Reid Carolin
Gregory Jacobs
Channing Tatum
Nick Wechsler

Written by
Reid Carolin
Channing Tatum

Starring
Channing Tatum
Matt Bomer
Joe Manganiello
Kevin Nash
Adam Rodriguez
Gabriel Iglesias
Andie Macdowell
Amber Heard
Jada Pinkett Smith
Jane McNeill
Max Webster
Elizabeth Banks
Donald Glover
Michael Strahan

Cinematography
Steven Soderbergh

Edited by
Steven Soderbergh

cast is lmao

goole this isn't quite fit for the MRA thread but i feel it shld be on your radar

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11395576/Men-are-now-objectified-more-than-women.html

"regular people" essentially took no notice of the arty touches in MM, so they'll show up for this.

Written by
Reid Carolin
Channing Tatum

you can look but you still cannot touch

wait a sec Matthew McConaughey isn't in it? why bother making this then!?!?

http://redcarpetroxy.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/magicmikexxl_huge-five-things-you-need-to-know-about-magic-mike-the-sequel.jpg

I can play this part any way you want!

wait a sec Matthew McConaughey isn't in it? why bother making this then!?!?

Because he has an Oscar now, and wants $$$$$$.

*searches cast list for Cody Horn & sighs in relievf*

Pettyfer isn't in this either.

Strange that I hadn't noticed.

They could've cast either of these chicks over Cody Horn and they would've been like Maria Falconetti in comparison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqrjN8peOiE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCDXwOzG7fE

lol what a h8r

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az5qOjhsang

So this is a Soderbergh movie without his name on it as director, right?

Yes, it's his Poltergeist.

why would you assume that?

Because it ends with rotting corpses erupting from the earth.

bcz he's "formally" "retired" from feature directing, but is cinematographer and editor on this, when he doesn't even usually credit himself as editor on his own stuff, seems likely that he was at least somewhat more involved than the credits allow

nb the credited director is not Shock G from Digital Underground, but has been Soderbergh's AD for over two decades

nb the credited director is not Shock G from Digital Underground

welp the likelihood of me seeing this movie drops back to nil

haha

soderbergh did shoot and edit many of his own features, he just did so under different names

bcz he's "formally" "retired" from feature directing, but is cinematographer and editor on this, when he doesn't even usually credit himself as editor on his own stuff, seems likely that he was at least somewhat more involved than the credits allow

― back once again with the panel behaviour (sic), Thursday, June 25, 2015 10:24 AM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well, soderbergh himself sez he didn't direct it, i'd take him at his word until we get evidence to the contrary, no?

he just did so under different names

hence me saying "credit himself"

I'm not saying he did ghost-direct it, just why people* might suspect that he did

(nb Spielberg didn't actually ghost Poltergeist and was only on set as producer a few days or occasionally iirc? for me knowing he shot & cut MM XXL made it more than enough of a Soderbergh film to want to see it after all, preferably in a cinema full of women)

ignore asterisk

there's a lot of evidence spielberg did in fact direct or co-direct most of poltergeist

enjoyed the hell out of XXL! Can't believe they lost McC and might've made a better movie.

a little better than the first I'd say, Manganiello the MVP this time imo

XXL is definitely much better than the first, and the first was good