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The
dregs of >> Full Frontal is utter crapola by MATTHEW HAYS
Full Frontal takes on a new dimension. Apparently buoyed by a new confidence brought on by all that Academy adulation, Soderbergh has set out to make a small, intimate film on DV, à la Mike Figgis. Since Leaving Las Vegas, that director has made two DV films, shot in a highly improvisatory style with a bunch of his buddies. You probably haven’t heard of either of them: Time Code and Hotel. The reason you haven’t heard of them is because they tanked at the box office. I actually thought Time Code had some intriguing bits, but Hotel got what it deserved. It was mostly a drawn-out, self indulgent, unbearable actor’s exercise, in which various thespians get to go off on some absurd riff. Full Frontal joins that film in a sub-genre I hope disappears soon. Don’t get me wrong, there have been some exceptional films done on DV-Chuck and Buck and Bamboozled among them-but trying, largely unscripted movies like Full Frontal leave something to be desired. Catherine
Keener, normally such a pleasing actor, chews up copious scenery as
a woman having a nervous breakdown. David Duchovny plays a man who offers
his above-the-belt masseuse $500 to give him a hand job. David Hyde
Pierce falls apart when his dog slips into a coma after devouring a
bunch of hash brownies. The actors look like they’re having fun;
too bad Soderbergh forgot about the rest of us. Sadly, he becomes an unwitting personification of the film as a whole: pompous, pretentious, shallow and far, far less interesting than he thinks he is. : Full Frontal opens Friday, Aug. 2 >> Movie Listings |
Steven
Soderbergh is such a bizarre director-and with such a bipolar oeuvre.
They rank from the sublime (sex, lies, and videotape, King of the Hill)
to commercial rot (Erin Brokovich).