CANNES, France — Liberace fluttered into the Cannes Film Festival this morning and graced the masses with the heartfelt Behind the Candelabra, Steven Soderbergh’s directorial swan song and a touching May-December love story between Mr. Showmanship (Michael Douglas) and Scott Thorson (Matt Damon), his longtime arm-candy companion. (American audiences with a good cable package Read More
“Tickets out!” they barked. “This area is not cleared for standing!” It was as if the AMC Lincoln Square had been converted into an international airport and Shindigger was preventing aircraft from landing.
The multiplex was bursting with the arrivals of Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jude Law, Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum for the premiere of Steven Soderbergh’s Side Effects, hosted by Open Road Films, The Cinema Society and designer Michael Kors. Read More
Catherine Zeta-Jones, who’s enjoying a mini-comeback with a slate of upcoming films including the musical Rock of Ages, has reportedly been cast as a doctor in Side Effects, an upcoming Steven Soderbergh thriller wherein Blake Lively takes pharmaceuticals to mute the effects of her depression. Ms. Zeta-Jones previously appeared in Mr. Soderbergh’s Traffic and Read More
Just what we need — another violent comic-book fantasy about another covert government operative (a catch-phrase that describes just about everybody in escapist-action franchise movies from incoherent Tom Cruise Mission Impossible flicks to Jason Bourne cinematic Xeroxes with Matt Damon). This one is called Haywire. The only difference is that this time the battering ram doing all the kickboxing, slicing and killing is a woman, more or less played, since she cannot act, by kung fu expert, karate specialist, martial arts star and Angelina Jolie wannabe Gina Carano. She’s a female boxer who was defeated in 2009 by Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos in the Strikeforce Women’s Championship, whatever that is. The men she beats the crap out of are an all-star bevy of camera-ready hunks baring their pecs in faceless roles to sell tickets. They are wasting their time, but, boy, do we need them. It is doubtful that the box-office flame exuded by Ms. Carano on her own could draw moths.
Haywire makes no sense whatsoever, which should come as no surprise. It’s the latest brainless exercise in self-indulgence from Steven Soderbergh, whose films rarely make any sense anyway. Read More
It is often predicted that the world will no longer end with the whimper of a long, boring war, but with the scream of a fatal, incurable and fast-moving plague. Addressing that theme in time to scare the living daylights out of everybody, Contagion is a star-studded, apocalyptic wake-up call to the horrors that await mankind in a test tube. We’ve made so much progress in terms of immunology, technology, scientific research and medical miracles that the planet considers itself immune to everything from small pox to swine flu. But there’s still no cure for cancer or AIDS, and the canvas of new viruses gets broader every year. So the topicality in Contagion is dark and unquestionable, if not creepy and off-putting. Read More
The director Steven Soderbergh, who has long flirted with leaving the film game, recently told The New York Times that he expects that his post-movie career will involve painting. Read More
The Hunger Games is a series of sci-fi young adult novels written by Suzanne Collins and published by Scholastic that we know from reading the internet all day that people are really excited about. Presumably they’ll be even more excited to learn that Steven Soderbergh is directing the second unit of the movie Read More
So much happens every day–how to keep it all straight? Time to test your memory!
-What prurient topic could drag Steven Soderbergh away from retirement? (Call it The Boyfriend Experience, perhaps?)
-Whose hat–which still looks to us like a pastry Photoshopped onto a woman’s head (it just doesn’t belong there!)–is a new Read More
Monday: Gossip Girl
There is some wear on these treads—specifically with regards to Blair, who has been spinning her wheels in a swampy mess of weekly plotting and scheming for no real reason other than the script telling her to do so—but those breathlessly wailing about the demise of Gossip Girl couldn’t have it Read More
The sun is still shining on Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs! For a second straight week the animated film dominated what was a sluggish session at the multiplex, grossing an estimated $24.6 million and setting itself up as one of the sleeper hits of the fall (not to mention giving us Read More
Affordable Housing or Lack Thereof
