James L. Brooks directs Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd and Jack Nicholson in this romantic comedy where a softball player and a suit facing Federal investigation meet for a series on non-dates.
This film gets a kicking as it somehow cost $120 million dollars… but really it is so cartoonish that the characters don’t interact as much as their speech bubbles work as airbags for any chance of connection. The wealth on display is distasteful, the waste of talent difficult to tally… only Owen Wilson lands laughs or any affection. And he’s essentially playing Jack’s astronaut character from Terms of Endearment. Janusz Kamiński at least makes sure Reese Witherspoon looks as smooth as a showroom bathroom.
Stanley Donen directs Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse and Nanette Fabray in this musical where a failing song and dance star sees his Broadway comeback taken over by pretentious cast members.
Martin Scorsese’s favourite musical. Which might have set expectations a little too high. It is bitty and smug… with not quite enough showstopping numbers. Three or four of the breakouts though are zippy and flamboyant though. The broad acting is delightful.
Richard Stanley directs Chelsea Fields, Robert Burke and Zakes Mokae in this road movie horror where a demonic hitch-hiker stalks the desert highways of an unstable Namibia.
My first awareness of Dust Devil was a small, underwhelming review hidden away in Empire. It starred The Last Boy Scout’s Chelsea Fields (who I fancied) and looked like a Mad Max style thriller. So I was in! What you get is an existential terror train. Happy to hit the brakes and idle between stations to explore political unrest, racial discord, a failing marriage, an apartheid tragedy and a serial killer who likes to fuck then destroy his prey. It is an alluringly strange film that only gives us subliminal glimpses of its shocking make-up effects. Chris Cunningham was involved in those… so expect nastiness beyond your imagination if you dare hit the pause button. It works as a laid back adventure. It works as an erotic thriller. It is probably a few character scenes shy of being a great movie. The various subplots feel undercooked. The mythology behind Burke’s predator is murky. But then this film was infamously butchered on release. Who knows if the original cut had the drama to match the atmosphere and brutality? As it stands this is an evocative curio from the VHS years.
Bryan Forbes directs Katharine Ross, Paula Prentiss and Peter Masterson in this psychological horror where a housewife begins to suspect the men of her new community of swapping their ladies for automatons.
Dull and dreary for an hour and 15 minutes. Rosemary’s Baby got away with a similar trick where we watch the victim of a diabolical fantasy conspiracy slowly realise her own situation. Forbes is no Polanski. He cannot make the outlandish betrayal unsettling or creepy until the final shot. It is a long way to go to get there. The marketing hook is also the final reel twist. Why do these films make us sit through the preamble to a concept that is spoiled for us on the poster?!
Mia Hansen-Løve directs Isabelle Huppert, André Marcon and Roman Kolinka in this French drama about a Parisian philosophy academic whose life goes through a sequence of major disruptions.
A sturdy and intellectual bit of soap that showcases the unwaveringly excellent Huppert in fine fettle.
Sam Mendes directs Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening and Thora Birch in this Oscar winning comedy about a suburban mid-life crisis that takes triumphant and tragic turns.
“Ah, look atall the lonely people!” The awards darling for the crazy, marvellous year where Hollywood lost the plot and gave the keys to the kingdom to bunch of indie mavericks and disruptive outsiders. Being John Malkovich. Three Kings. Fight Club. Magnolia. Election. The Virgin Suicides. Office Space. Election. Dogma. Go. The Green Mile. Ride With the Devil. South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut. Somehow all greenlit by major studios or bankrolled and distributed by their boutique arms. While stalwart auteurs Kubrick, Stone, Allen, Lucas and Burton produced declining work, a new breed made challenging, well funded cinema that filled the multiplexes. December ‘99 / January ‘00 you couldn’t find a screen in London or Edinburgh showing mass market, formulaic product. So when American Beauty (a directorial debut, satirically combative, formally acerbic, preternaturally crafted) swept the board, the adulation dried up and a backlash soon formed.
Why has the tarnish emerged on this fine film over the last two decades? Even I, on a revisit a decade ago, was less impressed. Its top ranking in a Premiere article about the most overrated “classics” did not help. The fact it feels formally conservative now compared to still groundbreaking peers Being John Malkovich or Fight Club. The generational shift in sexual and representation politics – these days the rebellion and desires of a middle class, middle aged white man feel like the least essential or vital voice in the room. The unexciting eventual careers of the stand-out teen performers… after this Hollywood was there for Birch, Wes Bentley and Mena Suvari’s taking. Bad choices and Hollywood politics smothered their prospects making you question the obvious promise on display here. Mendes’ follow-up projects all proved too automatically respectable and prestigious… only the recent 1917 has arrived as mould breaking and visually eager as his debut. The fact that Alan Ball’s scabrous and hilarious way with dialogue and characters now no longer feels revolutionary after Six Feet Under and imitators worked the once fresh formula into redundancy.
…And then there’s the fall of Kevin Spacey. Coming off the back of a series of surprise villain stand-outs, this confirmed him as one of THE greatest actors. His current reputation pulls at his Lester Burnham awkwardly. Reshaping the wonderful performance. The sad sack letch who abandons the lie of his married life to lust after young women and attract closet gay men these days rubs uncomfortably with the real life accusations of predatory behaviour and his own unsurprising “coming out” as an ineffective defence.
Even if the new light in which you review his powerhouse lead here is disregardable, it still is a powerhouse. He slam dunks every line, eviscerates every victory. I’m the same age as Lester Burnham now and, while I live a very different lifestyle with far less paedophilic fantasies, I can appreciate his waking up, lashing out and short sighted triumphs. The moments where Spacey rejects a surprising advance from a neighbour or finally catches on that his hard-on for his daughter’s bratty friend is just goddamn awful are delivered with a tender humanity, at odds but somehow still truthful to the sophisticated comedy that houses them. If you cannot get over the star’s personal life then Thora Birch, Chris Cooper and Annette Bening all knock their jaded humans out of the park too.
Then there is Thomas Newman’s conspiratorial, jaunty yet mournful score. Conrad Hall’s dead centre, magisterially clean cinematography. Mendes understands the eroticism of the everyday. A cheerleading show turns Fosse striptease, a hand reaching for a beer becomes a tactile loop of fulfilled seduction. A balding, hairy, paunchy man working out shirtless in his window has all the reality shattering allure of an indecent proposal. Mendes and Ball take their lightning-in-a-bottle cast to create a horny prosecution of middle class values that has the same wit and impact and damning emptiness as the finest work of Billy Wilder, Mike Nichols or Robert Altman. This is still a classic, the iconic rose petals and carrier bag prove far hardier than current tastes and shifting fashions. I fully expect American Beauty to be reappraised over the coming years and return to pantheon of indisputably great movies.
David Lynch directs Kyle MacLachlan, Francesca Annis and Kenneth MacMillan in this epic sci-fi adaptation of Frank Herbert’s bestselling series about feuding planets desperate to control a mining colony.
45 minutes of exposition that moves from various immaculately designed and populated sets. Who cares if it is gobbledygook? The family names and intergalactic terminology having the impenetrability of a Dutch engine manual. Then we get half an hour of set pieces… a mining rig is rescued from a giant worm, a imperial coup takes place. Have we settled down? Ramped things up? Now the plot is moving too fast. Events, years, relationships are vacuumed out. A foetus we saw expelled moments earlier is already a wise old toddler (diddy Alicia Witt), spouting prophecies and committing acts of ultra violence while most of the established ensemble lurk about, dormant, in the wings. What at first was stately and wordy, is now rushing past us like a flick book missing chapters. There’s a cast of arthouse stalwarts and Lynch mainstays. There are strange moments like a pug’s prominence in a battle and Sting emerging from a steam pod that sate our cheesy camp desires. There are sojourns into mystical interplanetary SFX that feel more at home in – and make more sense after you’ve seen the trippy episodes of – Twin Peaks: The Return, 35 years later. The vaginal grasshopper of a Guild Navigator “folds space” and you expect Bob in a bubble to float out. MacLachlan is lost in his first role but Annis, Virginia Madsen and Sean Young all look resplendent as his incestuous love interests. The movie becomes vital whenever the horrific Harkonnens take centre stage. Kenneth MacMillan’s grotesque Baron (riddled with pulsating boils, floating about like a carrier bag) holds the eye and steadies the ship… anchoring a messy, overreaching attempt to make an adult Star Wars… Take out the silly nomenclature and you essentially have a gothy, ornate A New Hope… gore has replaced adventure, preciousness has overwhelmed fluid storytelling. A decent editor or a less ambitious screenwriter might hack apart all that is dodgy here into a coherent blockbuster. I don’t see an unnavigable story. It all reduces down to fallen prince leads rebellion for his crown. Sadly here, it is hard to see the sand for the desert. The action figures misguidedly tied in with the release look awesome to play with. I can forgive over-reaching sci-fi a lot of missteps if the licensed toys are cool. This is a very random $40 million attempt to muck around with an once in lifetime playset.
Is anyone’s favourite director Steven Soderbergh? Probably not, in spite of the fact he has had as many box office successes and critically acclaimed works as any 21st century auteur you’d care to mention. His filmography lurches from prestigious classics, stylish franchise films, throwaway genre pieces and even more disposable experiments. His works can be divided up into four catergories: crime capers, biographies, big issue ensembles and indie character studies… but not neatly… there are overlaps. He’s often his own cinematographer and he supports new talent. He unexpectedly casts non-actors in lead roles and he quietly championed international talents Guillermo Del Toro, Christopher Nolan and Ole Bornedal in their first major Hollywood projects. He frequently announces his retirement from cinema then releases three or four projects in quick succession. He made the best Elmore Leonard adaptation with Out of Sight… undeniably one of the finest movies of the 1990s. I had an unplanned mini season, a little sniff around the less loved borders of his oeuvre, over the last week.
sex, lies and videotape (1989)
Steven Soderbergh directs James Spader, Andie MacDowell and Laura San Giacomo in this indie drama about a cheated-on housewife and an impotent young drifter who become drawn to each others’ honesty.
The debut that rewrote the rule book of indie cinema and was heralded a modern classic. One that now no longer feels like it is part of the movie conversation. Haven’t watched this since I was a kid. I was pretty bored by it then, couldn’t see what the fuss is about. As an adult, now far older than the small set of characters we observe, I was still pretty bored. It is an impressive debut in that Soderbergh casually avoids genre or cliche… opens up a stagey premise, has excellently framed patient camerawork and manages to get compelling performances from the normally unpalatable MacDowell and Peter Gallagher. You wonder if they have been cast due in part to their cold, wooden qualities?
Spader and especially Laura San Giacomo are excellent however. Spader (a Soderbergh avatar) has a fetish for filming women making masturbatory interviews about their desires and experiences. This future-echoes Soderbergh’s consistent concerns of intimacy as a transaction and embracing emerging film replacements. I guess there is a nice feminist message in that the man who cares about women’s needs, voices and thoughts over his own ends up adjacent to the girl… and the sisters don’t implode their struggling relationship over the husband who has fucked them both. Yet the dialogue is quite theatrical and the happy romantic comedy ending feels like a betrayal of the unjudgmental freefall we’ve been pushed into for the bulk of the film. There is a sinister, callous air about the film that never really comes to a fulfilling head. And for a film about SEX, it is very prudish. The top piece of IMDB trivia is a telling treat. “The film was playing in Berlin’s largest movie theaters when the Berlin Wall fell. A lot of East Germans crossing over to West Berlin went to see it, expecting Western-style porn.” Oh dear…
6
Schizopolis (1996)
Steven Soderbergh directs himself, Betsy Brantley and David Jensen in this experimental film where a horny Soderbergh look-a-like finds himself involved in a Scientology-esque cult, meanwhile his dentist twin brother is fucking about also.
sex, lies and videotape rewrote the rulebook for a little four year period. A Sundance darling, that was part of a well publicised Miramax bidding war (the first of many for the Weinsteins), that went on to be a multiplex, videoshop and international success. The youngest direct to win the Palme D’Or (without Jacques Cousteau co-directing) and Oscar nominated, Soderbergh had the world at his feet. And he went on to make five unmarketable, unprofitable and increasingly unloved projects. Hollywood were hoping for the next Spike Lee or Scorsese… and in terms of craft and prolific output they got that… but the projects were cold and underwhelming. By the time he released a noir remake of Criss Cross (the underrated Underneath), Soderbergh was an afterthought… garnering little press attention unless it was a negative review punctuated with the question “What happened?” We all had Tarantino by the mid 90s. Cooler, easier to sell, easier to qualify and making bigger and bigger releases we could all embrace after Sundance calling card mimicked Soderbergh’s trailblazing debut’s trajectory. Wunderkind Needed : Vacancy Filled.
I always wondered how Soderbergh raised the $1.2 million and name cast for sex, lies and videotape. Schizopolis feels more like a debut, a calling card, the resourcefulness of a unknown. Non-linear, bleak and silly; it is a love letter to Richard Lester, Monty Python and possibly The Kids In The Hall. Soderbergh plays a pair of brothers – neither of whom can communicate with women, wank a lot and barely thread the pearls that are a series of skits together. The energy almost wins you over, excusing a 1 in 5 hit rate of successful sketches. Maybe Soderbergh made it more as his last film. Hollywood beckoned and he started playing the game bringing his elliptical storytelling style and vivid sense of everyday colour to slick blockbusters and star vehicles for the 15 years that followed. He occasionally dabbles in freewheeling nonsense films like this still… almost to keep his hand in… and you can read Schizopolis’ unchecked influence into the works of David O’Russell, Charlie Kaufman, Spike Jonze and Mike Judge.
6
The Girlfriend Experience (2009)
Steven Soderbergh directs Sasha Grey, Chris Santos and Glenn Kenny in this indie drama where a high class call girl tries to boost her standing.
Sasha Grey was probably the biggest pornstar to emerge in the late 00’s. Her unusually striking prettiness, natural body and enthusiastic willingness in a glut of scenes made her “a name” even among circles who didn’t consume hardcore media. She came across in the obligatory short précis scenes before choreographed fucking began as a self aware, overly confident person, always slightly combative of the accepted cliched personas she was cast in by the adult industry. Strange then than in her mainstream lead debut, playing a glamorous sex worker, she does very little in terms of nudity or erotic action (it is a very talky piece that any up-and-coming star could have played with zero controversy) and that personality that seemed so exotic in porn, feels subdued and dull in cinema. She still looks great, yet not movie star flawless, but all the attitude and humanity has disappeared. Here she proves a vacant, monotone presence… and I don’t think that’s intentional.
It makes you wonder whether the in-the-moment, one take only performance needs of porn are so un-syncable with the requirements of mainstream scripted screen acting? Whether other current stand-out adult personalities like Penny Pax, Ana Foxx or Abella Danger could make the breakout from Xvideos to Netflix remains to be seen. Nobody away from the likes of Brazzers and Tushy seem to be exploiting their obvious acting chops. So far, it is only the slightly more bimbo-y Jenna Jameson or Sunny Leone or notorious Traci Lords who have significantly “crossed over”.
The experiment behind The Girlfriend Experience was to cast a non-traditional actor in a lead role that suited them. Soderbergh would have more success next try with MMA star Gina Carano in low key action flick Haywire. The movie itself is handsome to look at, presenting another Soderbergian essay on sex as commerce. Everything here is a service. A personal trainer must put hustling subscription packages ahead of encouraging his client. A user review service for escorts, run out of a mattress store back room by an odious parasite, blackmails young entrepreneurs for positive write-ups. It is a pretty damning statement on wealth, finance and the emerging gig economy… while only occasionally giving us a glimpse of the product we have paid for. Grey in, culturally acceptable, nude situations. Apart from the Soderbergh faithful, the target audience for this surely was Sasha Grey “enthusiasts” who want to watch her in a way where their browsing footprint doesn’t get them fired from work or in trouble with the missus. And I’d say its fair comment that as classy whacking material The Girlfriend Experience fails. She spends more time shopping. Listing her outfits and consumerism like Patrick Bateman… but without Brett Easton Ellis’ satirical relish in exposing how shallow these lifestyles are.
4
Contagion (2011)
Steven Soderbergh directs Matt Damon, Marion Cotillard and Jude Law in this apocalyptic thriller where humanity battles a deadly virus in the face of uncooperative government agencies and exploitative pundits of the new media age.
R numbers. Dwindling supply chain. Departmental incompetence. Frontline deaths. Fake news. Face masks. Hand gels. Rushed vaccines. Second only to Traffic, this is Soderbergh operating in his most impressive wheelhouse. The global issues ensemble piece. He arranges a mosaic of characters and subplots and slots them all together into a satisfying drama and rattling rollercoaster. “Peter Andrew”’s glacial yet immaculate framing, the time slaloming editing and a persuasive score by Cliff Martinez make Contagion a terrifying, multi-layered take on what would happen in a global outbreak.
Of course, we’ve just gone through this very scenario in 2020. What felt like subdued, strangely corporate science fiction 9 years ago… now compares pretty accurately with our everyday life. Sure, the streets aren’t rubbish strewn wastelands and consumer society hasn’t fallen apart but that is mainly due to our governments realising abandoning their populations to survivalist chaos would make the economies they rely on to exploit unresuscitable. The UK is going through Brexit to become the world’s deregulated banking conduit. If the virus caused mass unemployment and social instability then our credit rating would sink and conglomerates wouldn’t use us as their trustworthy international banking hub. Far be it from me, a lefty, to celebrate trickle down economics but the surprising Tory backed relief packages and furlough schemes of the last 9 months probably wouldn’t have happened in Thatcher’s Britain where the poor were seen as an exploitable, disposable inconvenience. The one thing this blockbuster doesn’t predict is the pragmatic self preservation of society in the face of death and destruction. 2020’s Coronavirus was an averted apocalypse of quiet and boredom rather than government secrecy and military curfews.
Yet a little hyperbole aside, it is an eyeopener just how much Soderbergh’s speculative juggernaut gets bang on. You only guess things this assuredly with loads of advance research. Scientific voices were clearly listened to. Worst case scenarios noted and adapted with glee. The first casualty comes as an abrupt early shock… suddenly a cute kid is dead too and an A-Lister’s scalp is being peeled in front of their lifeless face. Quick, wounding succession sets the stakes. No one is safe. The racing after infected on public transport and chaos in supermarkets becomes believable. Human error, greed and mistrust come into play. Unheroic characters redeem themselves, other selfless warriors bite the bullet with little fanfare. It is a chilling ghost house ride featuring a career best turn from Jude Law. Will we all be wearing barcoded vaccination bracelets this time next year? I reckon so… A fantasy that has held up so sturdily in the face of reality isn’t one to doubt easily.
8
The Laundromat (2019)
Steven Soderbergh directs Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas in this dramatisation of the machinations behind the Panama Papers scandal; where the global elite were caught legally but immorally evading taxes that you and I have to pay.
There’s some initial pleasures in Oldman and Banderas camping it up and talking to us directly about how Mossack and Fonesca abuse a system of shell companies, tax shelters and credit systems to preserve the richest’s wealth. But garish opulence and silly accents aside, this is heavy handed and way too scattershot. The only moments that rings true is when the naughty corrupt accountants remind us the filmmakers are just the type of millionaires to use such a scheme. Colourful but inaccessible and glib.
Steve McQueen directs Shaun Parkes, Letitia Wright and Malachi Kirby in this courtroom drama following the fallout after the racist harassment of a Ladbroke Grove restaurant from the police.
After the lacklustre Trial of The Chicago 7, here is a similar political period piece with something to say rather than distractingly pithy dialogue. McQueen’s best film so far; whether he holds on a crying face or a disturbed saucepan you know the wider context, the personal wound or the societal tragedy. Is this television? Television for me is a glimpse into a life or a sequential episode. This is a visual wallop of storytelling, with a defined start, character growth and a thudding conclusion. This is cinema. The scope is there. The impact is there. We just need to get used to such work missing the big screen for now. For now…
Adrian Lyne directs Mickey Rourke, Kim Basinger and Margaret Whitton in this erotic drama where a young divorced art dealer enters into a S&M relationship with a handsome but cagey yuppie.
A strange product of its time. Essentially a string of music videos featuring the same stars in increasingly kinky fantasias. Like Lyne’s Flashdance, only with the epic striptease dance sequences replaced with blindfolded food play or alley chases to new hits. I’d like to say that sentence makes more sense in the context of the film but it all is pretty haphazard. 9 1⁄2 Weeks looks and sounds wonderful but it is a film with problems. Basinger’s good girl turned living doll is pretty wet – daintily spineless and unfixed. The black faces seem included explicitly as set dressing, voiceless / storyless extras included to authenticate the urban environment… and nothing else. This happens a lot in 1980s cinema but 9 1⁄2 Weeks is the most blatant offender. The memoir source material is allegedly a far darker prospect of eventual abuse and kidnapping. This only flirts with that pathway but by not going down there, Lyne leaves the conclusion feeling pretty redundant. Still if you’ve come for gloss, and that’s why we watched it, a treat for the senses.
Bobby Carroll's Movie Diary 