Three very different films… three very different journeys.

The first film is Full Frontal, the newest from director Steven Soderbergh.  I won’t be reviewing the film until Friday, but there is the sound of knives being sharpened by critics who are becoming worthy of a new tag…. hypo-critic-als.  

The bald truth is that America’s critics spend a majority of their time bitching and moaning about commercial cinema being nothing more than an artistic shell covering just another fast-food burger, weekend in and weekend out.  But then, when a filmmaker who has escaped the indie ghetto - the gates of which are amongst the few bits of territory over which we critics have some real control - takes a risk, we are on him like stink on a skunk…. 

Steven Soderbergh has a unique history.  He broke into the consciousness of  the film world with Sex, Lies and Videotape thirteen years ago, not only scoring a commercial hit (for an indie), but becoming the favored son of Steven Spielberg and others in Hollywood.  Soderbergh was clearly not ready for the role.  He flexed his first muscle to make Kafka, a car wreck by most every standard.  His third major release, King of The Hill, stands as a minor masterpiece… but no one came to the theater to see it.  

From 1994-1996, Soderbergh made three financially forgettable films – The Underneath, Gray’s Anatomy and Schizopolis.  But Soderbergh was going through his own very public film school, honing his craft, film by film.  And the direct results of those experiences can be seen in the stunning run of Out of Sight, The Limey, Erin Brockovich and Traffic.  All of that experience came to bear on the bloated, but hugely financially successful Ocean’s Eleven. 

Soderbergh is currently at work on Solaris, a film from the same source material of the interminable Tarkovsky “classic” of the same name.  It’s another big film. 

But between the two logistical monsters, Ocean’s Eleven and Solaris, Soderbergh indulged in a lark.  It is called Full Frontal.  It was budgeted at $2 million and was probably slightly more expensive, with P&A even higher.  But the film is pretty much assured to make a profit on ancillary sales alone. Miramax moved the film from the spring to the summer slot in which Sex. Lies & Videotape premiered thirteen years ago. 

So why is the film enraging so many critics?  The normally sane David Denby loses it in The New Yorker, proclaiming that the film “is perhaps the most naïvely awful movie I've seen from the hand of a major director.” 

The Hollywood Reporter’s ever-dour Kirk Honeycutt also goes personal, closing his review with, “Nothing is truly new here, though. OK, so movies are not reality, but a movie pointing that out doesn't make it any less so. Sometimes such existential cleverness is a mere disguise for a lack of imagination. In "Full Frontal," it's the director who wears a fig leaf.”

I suspect that this is just the beginning.  And that’s a damned shame. 

Soderbergh has made an experimental film with a major league cast.  Like Mike Figgis’ Timecode and Hotel, this film should be appreciated for as much as it is and for as little as it is.  And the last thing any of us should be doing… an act more despicable than any bad film could ever be…  is to be attacking Steven Soderbergh for having the audacity to follow his muse.

This is, in its own way, much like the fight over George Lucas.  Set aside the fact that the majority of critics reporting in to Rotten Tomatoes recommend Attack of the Clones.  My issue is that we all scream and whine about the artist not having enough freedom to deliver their vision to the screen… Hollywood is homogenizing American cinema.  But when a George Lucas or a Steve Soderbergh gets the freedom to do their work and some of us judge that work to be, on some level, disappointing, suddenly all that matters is what WE think.  Never mind that I would actually trust studio execs before some of the burnt-out mediocrities that make up today’s corps of critics.  If we support the artist’s right to create, we have every right to criticize the work, if we don’t like it.  But we don’t get to withdraw our support because of the result.  Without consistency, there is no morality.  If we really believe in the artist, we don’t get to pick and choose.  It just doesn’t work that way. 

P.S. The third interview with Soderbergh that I’ve read, in today’s Hollywood Reporter, is once again in straight Q&A format.  Miramax tells me that it is a coincidence, but I’ve never seen this kind of thing show up so consistently across the board.  I’m going to keep an eye on this oddity. 

I’M NOT A PLAYER, BUT…:  I’m seeing Signs tonight.  But right now, the best August release that I’ve seen is Blue Crush… going away. 

Longtime readers of this column will recall that I am a fan of John Hancock’s beach classic California Dreaming.  Seeing Blue Crush a second time in a couple of days, I was reminded in California Dreaming and the way the film left me with a crush on Glynnis O’Connor and Tanya Roberts and Alice Playten… three very different women with very different figures.  But unlike so many films, these women were real.  And they were real sexy too.

Blue Crush happens to display its women in all assortments of skimpy attire.   And Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez and Sanoe Lake are all very sexy.  But they are sexy because they are real.  They are alive in a way that is absolutely infectious.  Whether they are surfing the most remarkable waves ever recorded for a feature film or trying to weasel a discount at the local food mart, claiming that Hostess products are proper breakfast foods or even working hard for a living, these are not just girls that arouse the senses.  These are young women that you just know would be a barrel of laughs over a beer or a video game or, obviously, a surfboard. 

Charlie’s Angels claimed to be a girlpower movie, but it wasn’t.  When push came to shove, our troupe of feminists pushed their lips out into a pout or shoved their breasts in men’s faces to get what they wanted.  In Blue Crush, these women are doing what they want to do and working hard to maintain their freedom to do it.  There is still a cute boy and a love story, but these women know about the world.  And they are strong enough to survive.

John Stockwell has become, surprisingly, the strongest “women’s director” in the business right now.  And I suspect that the box office return for Blue Crush will make that designation an even higher honor than it is today.  Blue Crush doesn’t delve into the dysfunction that dominated Stockwell’s last film, Crazy/.Beautiful.  Nonetheless, that film also featured a strong woman at the center, trying to find her way.  Stockwell’s touch with the underdog bodes well for a long career making films that actually touch the human heart and not just the part of the brain that gets excited by loud noises and flashing lights.  And isn’t it stunning that Stockwell and fellow Christine alum Keith Gordon have become two of the very best intimate filmmakers in America today?  Is Alexandra Paul going to give up acting and the triathalon to take her shot next? 

The credits of Blue Crush are also a unique experience.  Brian Grazer has been front and center, but this is also the first producing credit for the team of Buffy Shutt and Kathy Jones, former Universal and Columbia marketing co-chiefs who were kicked upstairs shortly after they were hired, back in the Bronfman era.  The film is based on a magazine article by the great Susan Orlean.  This is the first of two films to be release this year, centered around women and generated from Orlean’s work.  The other is Adaptation, which comes from Orlean’s book, The Orchid Thief, which started as a magazine article and which stars Meryl Streep as Orlean.  (The screenplay was adapted and co-written by Lizzy Weiss.) 

The only weakness in this film comes from a handful of CG manipulated shots of Ms. Bosworth’s face stuck on her surf doubles body.  But the reason these few badly done shots are so galling (and doing them right is a near possible task in an environment like the one in Blue Crush, with live water and a stunt double whose head is wider than Ms. Bosworth’s) is that the film feature’s such spectacular work by Stockwell, cinematographer David Hennings, Second Unit Director Mary Ellen Woods (I’m assuming) and editor Emma Hickox in putting you right there in the water with the girls. 

If there has ever been a better fictional film made about surfing… if there has ever been a more beautiful film of any kind about surfing… I haven’t seen it.  I will happily encourage any of you who end up loving Blue Crush to pick up Dogtown & Z-Boys when it finally arrives in video and DVD.  But even that visual extravaganza doesn’t do what Blue Crush does.  There’s no point in detailing some of the techniques that the team uses to make this movie work so well.  Until you have seen the work, you won’t understand.  And after you see it, you’ll have to go back to see all of the strokes. 

It’s not like Blue Crush is the cure for the common cold.  It’s still a little movie about a girl with a dream, her two friends that get her through the hard times, the little sister that she’s responsible for and the guy she falls in love with.  But it has that odd little magic that films like Dirty Dancing and An Officer and a Gentleman had.  The girls all look great in their bikinis, but you can’t help, no matter how much of a dirty old/young man/woman you might be, but to look into their hearts… to smell the surf… to ride the wave.  Crush.

The third film I want to mention is called Roger Dodger.  It isn’t scheduled to open until October, but when you get a great surprise at a screening, you want the world to know and to know now.

To put it simply, Roger Dodger is to Tadpole as Fight Club was to American Beauty… though any comparison to American Beauty is too kind to Tadpole.  Roger Dodger has the brain, the heart, the toughness, the reality and the story structure that Tadpole wishes it came close to matching. 

The story is about Roger, a fast-talking, theory spinning, woman-chasing jackass/copywriter whose nephew Nick shows up one day, looking for advice on women.  Most of the movie takes place in their night of adventure in New York during which seemingly anything can happen.  I’ll be curious to discuss the film with women, who could be turned off by Roger’s predatory edge.  The genius of the film is that it is a tough as it is… and that its heartbeat remains strong.

I doubted first-time director Dylan Kidd in the early parts of the film, during which he moves the camera like a Dogma 95 director having a spaz attack.  But it turns out that the slow calming of the camera matches the evolution of the main character, Roger.  By the end, Kidd seems to have the assurance of a veteran.

Roger is played by Campbell Scott in what I consider easily his best performance ever and a real Academy Award nomination possibility, if Artisan can round up the horses.  But even more exciting is Jesse Eisenberg, as 16-year-old Nick.  I’m sure that Tadpole’s Aaron Stanford is a very nice kid.  But Eisenberg has the quirkiness and depth of an actor who is going to be around for a long, long time.  Scott’s Roger is a scene-stealer and Eisenberg pulls through time after time after time.  There are also terrific performances by Jennifer Beals, Elizabeth Berkley, Mina Badie and Isabella Rossellini. 

I will see this movie again before its October release.  Turns out, it won the Best Feature Film award at the inaugural Tribeca Film Festival last May.  I’m not that surprised.  There is greatness here.  And I never saw it coming.  Keep riding those waves…

READER OF THE DAY:  ANTIE EM writes:  “I want to give you a female perspective on "Perdition" though.  I thought it was very interesting that there were no strong, let alone mediocre female characters.  Jennifer Jason Leigh had a nothing role as the wife / mother (and my officemate who was an extra in the film said she was a real bitch during the filming of the wake scenes).  The movie was beautifully filmed, but I thought the dialogue was awful.  It seemed like all of the actors either did very flat, not-quite-believable bad-guy performances (Hanks & Newman), or were completely over the top (Jude Law, Stanley Tucci & the fellas playing the Boss's son & the "particular" accountant).  The only genuine performance was done by the 12 year old kid.  A friend told me he thought the last scene of the boy was uplifting, but I thought it was really trite.  I walked away from this movie wondering if Sam Mendes was really trying to be faithful to the graphic novel, or trying to make a "pretty" imitation of a 40s gangster film.”

E ME:  Funny you should mention Jennifer Jason Leigh, whose character was angry and drunk at the wake, since she was aware that her husband had murdered the man who the wake was for and didn’t care for being in that position.  Other stuff included in the screenplay was cut, apparently to soften the film.  Reportedly, the film wasn’t testing well at first and that minor changes were made to please potential audiences. 

In any case, is any one out there less excited about Signs than they were about Goldmember?  How about xXx?   How good does it have to be in order not to disappoint?  And are you ladies ready for the Crush?