Easy Rider is not just a significant American movie. It is also an exceptional example of independent filmmaking, one where, with the unwavering ambition of youth and a desire for something different, a film rises above and beyond the studio-beholden establishment to achieve a triumph all its own.
The process of excitement for us filmgoers is normally the same. We hear about a film in development that appeals to us, especially if it’s the next entry in a popular franchise, and then we patiently wait for, or perhaps anxiously anticipate all that comes next: director, screenwriter and casting announcements, set photos and promotional …
As The Knick entered the second episode of its second season, it seems fitting that this is an hour which barters for the notion of second chances.
Wait, wasn’t he “retired?” It seems like that wasn’t true as director Steven Soderbergh gears up for a new project. Entertainment Weekly reports the director of Traffic and Magic Mike is set to make a “choose-your-own-adventure” movie at HBO with Sharon Stone and Garrett Hedlund set to star. According to the report, Soderbergh is designing …
‘Magic Mike XXL’ is a thoroughly entertaining trifle that doesn’t have a malicious bone in its perfectly-sculpted body. Director Gregory Jacobs serves up a hilarious slice of All-American beefcake that puts a smile on your face and a wiggle in your hips.
“It’s best not to think of her as a woman. That would be a mistake.” These words are uttered by Kenneth (Ewan McGregor) to freelance operative Paul (Michael Fassbender) in a scene somewhere toward the end of Steven Soderbergh’s truly excellent but much ignored action movie Haywire. The woman they are referring to is Mallory …
In July, a panel of SoS TV editors and critics picked the best episodes of 2014 so far. Here are their picks for the best episodes of the second half of what has been another fantastic year for television. The Honourable Woman, “The Empty Chair” Written by Hugo Blick Directed by Hugo Blick Aired July 3, 2014 …
The Knick is the rare case of a show that arrived precisely at the perfect time for it. Some shows arrive too far ahead of their time, and are thus canceled prematurely. Some shows arrive on the back of a trend far too late to really make an impact. But The Knick? It arrived precisely when it should have. The trend of filmmakers making their mark on TV is still in an exciting growth stage, and the medical drama has been in need of someone like Soderbergh to come in and tear up the sutures.
This day was always going to come on this show. The moment we saw Thackery use cocaine in episode one it was clear that one day he’d be faced with the challenge of no cocaine at all. Soderbergh is right there with Thackery in the direction of each scene of his, often opting for long takes focused on Thackery’s sweaty façade. Whether it’s in a board meeting or an examination of a patient, Soderbergh opts for a one take that’s marvelous in its simplicity, focusing on Thackery while others around him chatter.
This week’s episode begins with Thackery living up to his more whacky reputation, calling Bertie into work in the middle of the night to ramble on about his new coke-induced placenta surgery ideas. Oh, and he’s got two high-priced sex workers there to keep him company for the past two days while he experiments on them: “Our budget won’t allow for pregnant prostitutes, so we’ll just have to make due with what we have here.” It’s absolutely bonkers, but the amazing thing is how easily the audience can buy into it. Of course Thackery would do this. The previous five episodes have been insisting how “renegade” Thackery is by referring to his antics – his coke addiction and radical ideas – but this is the first time the show really delivers on how insane yet brilliant Thackery is. Now this is how you open an episode. Naturally the episode doesn’t stay at that height of ludicrous antics, as not everyone at the hospital is spending their time testing revolutionary placenta surgery methods on sex workers, but what a great moment of triumph it is to see Thackery and Chickering’s surgery actually work! It’s completely predictable, but in the moment the success of their new approach, the fact that they finally pull it off, is astonishing.
In this new golden age of television that we are currently living in, the television industry is poaching some of cinema’s greatest minds more than ever to create their own long form stories after being restricted to the hour and a half to maximum four hours that film allows. The gap is getting increasingly small …
The episode asks the title question in just about every scene. Consider the opening jaw-dropping opening scene featuring Cleary dumping a bag of rats in a ring to be stomped on, all diegetic sound muted with only Cliff Martinez’s bonkers and wondrous score playing over it, making it all the more haunting. Where’s the dignity?
30. Conspirators of Pleasure (1996) Directed by: Jan Švankmajer We’ve already seen two films from Jan Švankmajeron the list, but this elaborate movie about a number of separate, but connected people takes the cake. Conspirators of Pleasure follows six people, each with their own incredibly unsettling fetish. A letter carrier ingests dough balls every night before …
Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh recently made a new foray into television following his announced retirement from filmmaking to helm all episodes of the first season of Showtime’s The Knick. That’s not the only tv project Soderbergh is involved in, however, as he has also teamed up with filmmaker David Gordon Green, among others, as a producer for the potential series Red Oaks. Following a university student in 1985 New Jersey as he tries to figure out the next stage of his life while working at a tennis club, Amazon and the creators have released the pilot online in hopes of getting a series order. The pilot, while not touching on the full potential of the show, is nonetheless an entertaining episode with a lot of promise for the series.
What’s striking about The Knick so far is that it’s not the sum that hooks you, but the way all the parts add up. One of the benefits of building a world — especially a period piece — on TV rather than in a film is that, in this case, Soderbergh has 10 hours to make it stick, whereas in a 2 hour film, every element must be given at once in an attempt to swallow the viewers’ imagination. Soderbergh gets to take the time to dole out little snippets of 1900s New York, opting for grimy streets rather than soaring overhead shots. TV is giving him the freedom to let the audience live in the world, rather than visit it.
Very much in the tradition of shows like Boardwalk Empire, Cinemax’s new series wishes to take us back to a time that most of us know very little about, but rather on a smaller scale, vying for the world of medical experimentation and advancement rather than bootlegging gangsters.
The running line about Steven Soderbergh in the last few years has been that he’s the most prolific retired filmmaker today, supposedly having given up film for good and turned his mind toward other mediums and projects. And in the short time since February 2013 when his official “last film” Side Effects was released, …
Behind the Candelabra Written by Richard LaGravenese Directed by Steven Soderbergh USA, 2013 Steven Soderbergh thoughtfully details the purported destructive indulgence of Liberace’s most intimate relationship in Behind the Candelabra. A film replete with the salacious dirt and glamorous high living of a legendary celebrity, this project is perfectly tailored to Soderbergh’s nuanced flair for …
Steven Soderbergh followed The Underneath, a superb neo-noir that expertly uses widescreen framing and color photography to its full potential, with Schizopolis, a film motivated by his feelings of artistic impotence. This is somewhat surprising given that The Underneath is one of his best films, one of the best neo-noirs from the nineties, and one …
Traffic Written by Stephen Gaghan Directed by Steven Soderbergh USA, 2000 In his review of King of the Hill, Zach Lewis skewers Steven Soderbergh’s fascination with political structures throughout the director’s filmography and reading the 1993 film’s Depression-era survivalism as a “residual effect of those outside any political sphere.” Seven years after King of the Hill, …
Both Soderbergh and Clooney have tackled many different questions over their careers, but together, they consistently aim to understand celebrity in all of its glory and danger. The pair seem to inherently understand the allure of movie stars, and their most successful collaborations are celebrations of those we elevate above the status of “actor” and to the level of pop culture Gods.
Following the release of Sex, Lies, and Videotape in 1989, Steven Soderbergh was poised for stardom as the darling of the indie scene. He sat at the head table in a push to change the face of cinema. Unlike contemporaries like Tarantino, his predicted rise didn’t happen right away. He followed the popular debut with …
Steven Soderbergh, screenwriter Lem Dobbs, the cast and crew come together to produce one of the more striking films of the director’s career, which is saying a lot considering the stunning number of vastly different projects he helmed. It is difficult to peer one’s eyes away from Kafka.