Voll frontal

You know, for years I have been of the belief that Steven Soderbergh was a great filmmaker, because of Sex, Lies and Videotape, always waiting for his next great film, but it never comes. After watching Schizopolis, Oceans 11, etc., etc., and now finally Full Frontal, I have to say I think he's a fraud. How could anyone with even an ounce of artistic vision cast Julia Roberts all the time? She blows. I think Soderbergh is to indie film what Ringo Starr was to rock and roll. He was in the right place at the right time, but definitely not worthy of the indie-film-god status that seems to be associated with him. I think sans James Spader in SL&VT, we would not know Soderbergh's name today. Sad, really.

Too dreary to work as a satire, too wrapped up in its own cleverness to engage; this is an insubstantial vanity piece that might have been entertaining to make but isn't much fun to watch. I'd have thought that if Soderbergh wanted to show off, he could have come up with something better than this collection of over-scripted (and not particularly original) gimmicks.

It might have worked had we spent more time in the company of the interesting peripheral characters (the theatrical Hitler, Gus the producer) than listening to the self-absorbed droning of the others. Film students will probably love it.

I wish FULL FRONTAL was just better made, that's all. As somebody who in works in Digital Video, it just would of been great to see members of the Hollywood A-list (Soderburgh, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, etc etc) be in a great, crowd pleasing film that was made with the video equipment I use. Instead, we had a confusing film that caters to an art-house crowd, or at least, tries to. Too many times, the camera is operated in a way to say "Hey look, don't pay attention to the story, pay attention to this sun-glare, or bad zoom.)

Director Steven Soderbergh calls Full Frontal the unofficial sequel to Sex Lies and Videotape, his groundbreaking 1989 film. Most everyone else has called it a mess, or useless waste of time. One prominent American critic even suggested this might be the worst film ever by a major director. I can't say I agree with the harsh criticism. While I'm not exactly sure what the movie is about, and vast passages of it simply do not work, I do think it is a film with great passion and energy. Soderbergh has left behind the slickness of Ocean's 11 and Erin Brockovich and made an experimental film that bristles with inventiveness. Not everything works, but there are several nice performances, particularly by David Hyde Pierce and Catherine Keener and I enjoyed watching an A-list director stray from the tried and true and explore rockier ground.

I couldn't track the characters and after 20 minutes I didn't want to track them. I just wanted it to end--what was Soderbergh thinking? At first I thought it was supposed to be amateurish since it was a movie within a movie, but, when it went on and on with horrible lighting and terrible hand-held camera work, it was enough to make one want to run out screaming.