
Full Frontal
Now playing at far too many theaters
w. Coleman Hough
d. Stephen Soderbergh
str. Julia Roberts, Catherine Keener, David Hyde Pierce, David
Duchovny
"How
Long is this Damn Movie!? An hour-and-a-half I've been sitting
here, and I haven't seen one naked person!"
Let's pretend for a moment that we have an idiotic Hollywood
hack, an out of work actor, and an unknown screenwriter
all hanging out in a Holiday Inn eating hash brownies. "Oooh!"
you say. "That sounds like an interesting movie!"
Now imagine they are all talking about making a movie staring
Julia Roberts. "Wow" you say. "She's got
a pretty smile, and I hear she played a hooker once. I wonder
if she'll do me." Now pretend that the director is
that illustrious pot-head Stephen Soderbergh, the actor
is David Duchovny, and the writer is some guy you've never
heard of. "I didn't know Soderbergh was a pot-head"
You say, "guess it makes sense though, that would explain
Traffic." Now finally imagine that the hash is so strong
everyone in the cast and crew stays high through out the
writing, casting, filming and editing, so no one bothered
to stop and realize "Hey this movie kind of sucks."
"Oh no." You say, "but don't they realize
that no one ever has an actually brilliant idea while stoned,
it just seems that way?" Apparently Not.
Having sat through all 91 minutes of Full Frontal I have
come to the conclusion that this is the only logical way
that this movie could have been made. Let it be a lesson
to all of you who think pot isn't really dangerous.
The Pros
Well
It is nice to see David Duchovny getting work.
And Catherine Keener plays the disgruntled 40-year-old woman
as effortlessly as always. The rest of the acting throughout
Full Frontal is quite good. The small cast stays closely
knit together, and no one seems to be either extraneous
or over-saturated. While the script is such that the relationships
between the characters are about as subtle and evocative
as a drunk chicken-hawk prowling for boys at an empty 3AM
bar, the actors still work well with what they're given
and produce some very real, believable characters.
There are some nice bits of dialogue, or monologue I should
say, since no one in the movie actually talks to anyone
else in the movie. David Hyde Pierce has a truly inspired
lecture on why American guys like gangster movies delivered
impeccably and with brilliant energy. What's great about
the scene is that he's talking to no one but himself. This
is one of the truest moments in the movie (come on! we've
all done it. Ranting about our personal philosophy about
something ridiculous with no one in the room. Realizing
how brilliant we are the more we talk. We all do it
.
don't we?)
The movie also opens quit well. Each of our characters
is presented to us with a little note telling us what they
do for a living, what's making them tick at the moment,
and how they know the enigmatic producer Gus (Duchovny).
It is a clever device, which illuminates these characters
without the need for build up, or development. A little
cheap, sure! But if they hadn't done it this way, the movie
would have been over two hours long, so I'll let it go.
To be fair the movie does start to grow on after around
an hour, but by that time it has lost far too much ground.
The Cons
Full Frontal stinks of Hollywood trying to be clever;
the problem there is that Hollywood is a very stupid machine,
and when it runs out of interesting ideas it substitutes
camera tricks, celebrity cameos, and non-linear story lines
for brilliance. Soderbergh uses both video and film in this
movie. A trick that smacks of the "I'll use four different
colored filters so people know which story line is which"
Traffic fiasco.
The movie is way too monologue heavy. Everyone is doing
a voice over. Everyone is spouting out their opinion on
life. It's like all the Slackers from Slacker turned 40
and moved to Hollywood and got industry jobs. And they are
all still saying the same crap. But now that they're 40,
it doesn't sound deep and meaningful, it sounds sad and
pathetic.
There are also problems with the form. Movies about movies
are usually pretty empty in the end. The Player, for example,
was clever and funny and interesting, but by the time Tim
Robbins starts to freak out about the murdering screenwriter,
you realize that you don't much care if he gets killed or
not. He's a Hollywood producer for Christ's sake, it's physically
impossible to care about them.
When it's a vignette movie a la Short Cuts or Magnolia
I always spend way too much time trying to figure out how
each character's story inter twins with all the other characters'
stories. Also, probably because of this, there is never
a bigger picture to these movies; there is never a point.
At best, these movies are clever. At worst they're just
boring. Full Frontal is dangerously close to boring, but
there are some glimmers of hope. Mostly from Catherine Keener,
who gives a note-worthy, but by no means stellar performance(If
you really want to see her play that role well, go see Lovely
and Amazing). The fact that she's the best of the bunch
is terrifying.
The Ratings (out of four)
4 E's for effort
This movie tries really hard. Everyone in it tries really
hard. I'll bet they all had fun making it too (of course
they did. They were still high from the hash). Julia smiles
extra big, Catharine Keener looks extra pissed off. Even
David Duchovny goes the extra mile and funnels all his raw
acting talent into a mammoth hard on (well, it's not actually
that big of a hard-on, but then, he's a terrible actor).
4 Walkouts
Yup, that's right. People paid $10 a piece to see this movie.
The humidity was up around %85 and it was edging on 90 when
I saw this. And there were still people who just couldn't
take it. The first two left after only ½ an hour,
then one more followed ½ an hour later and two more
ditched out about 10 minutes before the end. That's how
boring this movie is.
1 dead director, first tarred, then feathered, then
hung, then drawn, then quartered, then devoured by an army
of very angry maggots.
OK I'll admit it. I have this thing against Stephen Soderbergh.
I'm not sure what it is that makes me hate his movies so
much, but I simply can't help it. Virtually everything he's
done has pissed me off in one way or another. Maybe it's
that he thinks he's far better than he is. Maybe it's that
he so much more successful than I'll ever be. Maybe it's
that he's one but-ugly mo'fo. Whatever it is, it's undeniable,
unrelenting, and thoroughly enjoyable. He is the Tom Hanks
of directors. I love hating him. And you can't stop me from
doing it.
1 1/2 Over-all piles of crap
There are three major things going against Full Frontal.
One, the director is an idiot. Two, the writer is an idiot.
Three, it's a really stupid idea. But it's still better
than Attack of the Clones.
-B.C. Edwards
b_c_ethic@hotmail.com
|