Who Wants That Texture In Their Mouth?

Steven Soderbergh... well, he likes to keep himself busy. In 2008 he had the epic four hour Che extravaganza (which I will watch in one sitting one day when I have that much time free...), in 2009 he knocked out The Girlfriend Experience and The Informant!, and he so far this year has And Everything Is Going Fine with The Last Time I Saw Michael Gregg also listed as a 2010 release and three more titles in the works for next year. And he still manages to hit with some degree of critical and commercial consistency. How? I'm assume the devil's work.

The Informant! saw him working with his Ocean's trilogy collaborator Matt Damon, netting Damon a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical. Damon plays Mark Whitacre, a long time employee of an Illinois-based company involved in the production of lysine. One day he spills to an FBI agent that a number of executives, including himself, have been involved in the fixing of the price of lysine globally for many years. Mark goes informant for the Feds, spending years collecting hundreds of hours of audio and visual evidence to be used against his employer and many other companies around the world - this is a mammoth undertaking.

As it all progresses the stress and strain of his role start to see Mark unravel. His mind gradually topples and he shows signs of bipolar disorder - plus he decides to embezzle a fairly significant sum of money. All the while he is convinced that, after the collapse of pretty much all of the higher ranking employees at his company, the board will see that he is looking after their best interests and promote him to run the company. All in all, his deranged antics see him put in jail for three times as long as those criminals he initially set out to bring down.

Yeah, Damon was good. It was quite an entertaining role, and he pulled it off properly. Historically, I've never been a huge Matt Damon fan, but I'm starting to warm to him a little more. Still, I've seen him do better. Melanie Lynskey, who plays his wife, seems to ham it up a fair bit, which kind of works in a way, but probably not to the extent she does it. Soderbergh's take on the entire film (apparently a true story) seems to caricature it somewhat - presumably to make the idea of lysine-fixing entertaining to the general public. I mean, this isn't the tobacco industry. You can't pull through with an Insider. What the hell is lysine anyway?

That's all I really have to say on the film. Also because I have to go and get ready for work. And really, it was all just a little nothing. It was entertaining, but very easily forgettable. 2.5 stars.

The Last Time I Was Really Happy... I Got So Fat.

There you go. Happy = fat.


Ahem.


Back in 1989, a film was playing in West Berlin (the Allied controlled section) when the wall came down. People from East Berlin went into the cinema expecting to see some serious Western porn, but left sorely disappointed. What was that film? Why, Sex, Lies and Videotape of course!


Steven Soderbergh's debut feature won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1989, and announced the appearance on the world stage of someone who would go on to become one of the most recognised directors in the world - though it took until the one-two of Erin Brokovich and Traffic in 2000 and the huge commercial success of Ocean's Eleven the following year to really cement that status.

Sex, Lies and Videotape features four main characters. Ann (Andie MacDowell) is married to John (Peter Gallagher), who is having an affair with Ann's sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo in her credited feature debut.) An old school friend of John's comes to town, and the appearance of Graham (James Spader, who won Best Actor at Cannes and then, curiously, only picked up an Independent Spirit nomination elsewhere) throws that curious three-way relationship into turmoil. Ann initially dislikes Graham, but after they go apartment hunting his wily ways win her over and they start a sort of friendship, briefly, which ends once she discovers a pile of video tapes in his home. He quite honestly tells her that they are tapes of women talking about sex, their history, desires, fantasies, anything really, and this freaks her out a little. Cynthia, quite the little hornbag, meanwhile, is fascinated by this new friend of her sister and tracks him down, flirting outrageously (as is her wont) and then making her own tape for him. It is this tape and Graham's honesty that bring the truth of Cynthia and John's relationship out into the open - she confesses it on the tape, knowing that Graham won't let anyone else see it. But when Ann begins to suspect the affair, she mentions it to Graham, and he confirms it.


I won't go any further into the plot for fear of giving away what little remains a secret. All of the performances are reasonably strong, but San Giacomo was by far the standout. Her sultry, slutty sister was perfect. The other three were all fine, nothing overly exemplary, but she was fantastic. I've always loved watching her pop up in films like Pretty Woman, but it's a pity she never got to really show her chops like this again.


The film is an interesting one. I don't really think it's a brilliant film, more of an excellent exercise. That's what it felt like to me. I wasn't particularly riveted by what was going on in the film as much as I was riveted by how it was going on. The form of the film was more interesting than the content, I think, which was really quite stock-standard. Thematically, nothing was pushed, but structurally it was fascinating. I think that's what I'm trying to say. I'm remembering the film more fondly for how it played out than the specifics of what played out.


Gah, I'm not even making sense to myself. It's an interesting film, worth the watch, but I went in expecting fireworks (though not porn!) and got something entirely different. 3.5 stars.