Soderbergh Able To Make Most Of Mainstream Hollywood Pap
If the name Steven Soderbergh sounds familiar, you may remember him as the guy who attracted so much attention during the 1989 Cannes Film Festival.
His “sex, lies and videotape” won the Palm d’Or, and the film’s star, James Spader, won the Best Actor award.
Even today, “sex, lies and videotape” remains an impressive achievement, a work of quality uncommon for a first-time director.
In 1998, Soderbergh made another film that ended up on several filmmakers’ top-10 lists. “Out of Sight,” while nowhere near as influential as “sex, lies” - which was shot in black and white, made Andie MacDowell into a bona-fide star and tackled a troubling topic, dysfunctional sex, with both passion and intelligence - is a fine example of what Hollywood pap can be when a talented filmmaker steps behind the camera.
But you can see that for yourself. “Out of Sight” (see capsule review below) is in the video stores this week.
What you might want to do also is rent one of Soderbergh’s earlier films. Here are my recommended choices:
“Kafka” (1991) - Starring Jeremy Irons, this moody little piece suffered from a script that was a little too, well, Kafkaesque for its own good. But it looks terrific (a Soderbergh trademark), and Irons makes the best kind of confused protagonist.
“King of the Hill” (1993) - In adapting this memoir by A.E. Hotchner, Soderbergh delivers a blistering indictment of parents who mistreat children while insisting that it’s for their own good. Jesse Bradford (so good in the recent “A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries”) is the protagonist, a boy who ends up living on his own and being very nearly sunk by the kind of desperation that the Great Depression imbued in most everyone of Hotchner’s generation.
“The Underneath” (1995) - Peter Gallagher, one of the co-stars of “sex, lies,” is an armored-car guard who gets involved in a heist and who then must deal with the inexorable growth of suspicion that threatens to sink him in a sea of deceit and revenge.
“Gray’s Anatomy” (1996) - It’s hard to distinguish yourself when all you’re required to do is put a camera on monologist Spalding Gray as he tells his stories. But at least Soderbergh doesn’t get in the way, and Gray - an acquired taste, for sure - is an entertaining performer.
The week’s major releases:
Out of Sight *** 1/2
As you would expect from someone with his talent, Steven Soberbergh (“sex, lies and videotape”) manages here to give novelist Elmore Leonard the best play he’s ever had on the big screen. And he provides rising stars George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez with their best roles to date, Clooney as an escaped bank robber who falls for Lopez’s deputy U.S. marshal. The story concerns Clooney trying to remain at large long enough to make the big score that ultimately will set him free; Lopez, meanwhile, tries to capture him while at the same time figure out why she finds this career criminal so much more fascinating than any of the law-enforcement types she typically hangs with. Soderbergh peoples his film with able side players, such as Ving Rhames, Steve Zahn, the dependable Don Cheadle and Dennis Farina (along with the uncredited likes of Michael Keaton and Samuel L. Jackson). But his real strength rests in his ability to play out Leonard’s trademark dialogue while always giving us something interesting to watch. Rated R
How Stella Got Her Groove Back ***
Slow but stately, this adaptation of Terry McMillan’s novel does its best to argue for romance between older women and younger men. The two hard-body principles are well-suited for their parts, Angela Bassett being 40 and newcomer Taye Diggs being 27. When hard-charging Stella comes to Jamaica to unwind, she finds her young suitor. But the path is hardly smooth, with friends, family and former mates (Stella’s) cropping up to check things out. The movie misses here and there, but the relationships seem real, the dialogue feels true and the hard parts of real life are never ignored. Romance and reality: What a concept. Rated R
Disturbing Behavior **
Hoping to cash in on the post-“Scream” craze, this little horror of a horror film could have been titled “The Stepford Teens.” It involves what happens when a new kid (James Marsden) moves to town (Canada passing for California) only to be confronted by the Blue Ribbons, a group of do-gooders who just happen to have homicidal impulses. Seems a school counselor (Bruce Greenwood) is doing some experimental neurology that results in some fairly serious side effects. Pretty soon, hunky Marsden and curvy Katie Holmes are fighting for their very souls. The only fight they can’t win, however, is the one for cleverness: Any single scene of “Scream 2” boasts more intelligence than the entire 83-minute running time of this turkey. Rated R