Bubble

[modage]

that was quick...

The 43rd New York Film Festival

September 23 - October 9, 2005

BUBBLE, Steven Soderbergh, USA, 72m. 2005. Magnolia Pictures.

http://www.filmlinc.com/nyff/nyff.htm

[MacGuffin]

Oscar-Winner Soderbergh Slams Reality TV

Steven Soderbergh, who used a cast of nonprofessionals to make "Bubble," a murder story set in a bleak Ohio town, says fiction on screen is more real than reality TV.

The Oscar winner for "Traffic," and director of "sex, lies, and videotape" and "Erin Brockovich," Soderbergh was in Venice this weekend for the out-of-competition premiere of "Bubble."

"I tried very hard not to disturb the cast. We designed the story to fit the town," Soderbergh said at a news conference on Saturday. He said he wanted to "incorporate much of their own lives into the story."

"The initial idea was three characters who worked in a factory of sorts, doing manual, repetitive labor," the director said. He decided on a doll factory, which when he scouted the location turned out to be "even more surreal and bizarre than I could have imagined."

Soderbergh slammed reality TV for being "as far from reality as you can imagine and more fictionalized than the movies you see."

"They're forcing the issue onto characters," Soderbergh said, contending reality TV's goal is to "force these people to be humiliated."

In "Bubble," Soderbergh said he was "taking a real environment and taking real people in a way that's much more fluid and much less aggressive" than reality TV.

On reality TV, "the humanity has been taken away from these people," said Soderbergh, who asked if the trend in TV entertainment had caught on in Europe.

He was told it had, in a big way.

Soderbergh said he is curious about audience reaction to "Bubble."

Some people "haven't any interest in seeing their lives on film ... Many will say, 'I want to escape" by watching more classic entertainment, Soderbergh said.

The movie will be shown at the New York Film Festival, which begins Sept. 23.

In the town in "Bubble," most people are either unemployed or working two jobs to stay afloat, the director said. One of the characters laments how they are stuck there because they don't have enough money to move.

"Bubble" is the first of six high-definition format films he will produce over the next five years, he said.

The film is being released simultaneously in movie theaters and on DVD, pay-per-view cable and satellite television.

"This is where the business is going. Give consumers a choice for how they want to see films," he said.

[polkablues]

This whole project seems like a reverse-version of the short-lived FOX reality show "Murder in Small Town X", which would have been really, really good if it hadn't sucked utterly and completely.

[mutinyco]

I absolutely adored this.

[modage]

damnit!  why are they going to hold a press screening BEFORE the film festival?

[mutinyco]

Press screenings for the NYFF begin a week before the public NYFF.

[modage]

A Synopsis:
How does the protean Steven Soderbergh—the rare indie trailblazer inventive and confident enough to play in Hollywood on his own terms—follow up a glossy studio picture starring some of the world's most glamorous movie stars? By shooting an absolutely riveting little tragedy in High Def in an Ohio doll factory, starring non-professional actors as enthralling in their untrained sincerity as George Clooney is in his expert panache. The stunted tale of doll-assembler Martha (an astonishing, sustained performance by real-life cashier Debbie Doebereiner), her young factory friend Kyle, and Rose, the thorny new hire, packs shades of mystery, menace, triangular romantic jealousy, and everyday punch-the-clock ennui into its documentary-style contours. And that's even before the violent death.... This haunting experimental project is the first in a series of low-budget dramas Soderbergh plans to shoot around America.  72 min.  USA, 2005  A Magnolia Pictures Release.

i thought the film was okay.  many of you will love it, but even with it's moments it never really picked up any steam or became totally involving.  the whole thing just feels a bit slight.   it's very low key and it seems to be missing a lot of his most soderbergian traits.  perhaps to better suit the feel of the town and its characters he has slowed things down a bit and forgone dialogue overlapping other scenes and jump cuts in favor of a slowly unfolding portrait of 3 characters.  with the freedom he had i would've even liked to see him go a little more experimental, but besides using non-actors, it was pretty conventional.  they did do a good job though.  C-

soderbergh said he would do the next 2929 film in early '07 and that bubble would be released in january.  he also said that all hte 2929 films would be filmed in different areas of the country and that the area would heavily inform the film (as it does here).  

the best part was getting to partially rectify this situation...

at a screening for solaris i was sitting a few feet away from Steven Soderbergh AND James Cameron taking notes for them but was so completely flabergasted i didnt talk to them.  my ultimate nerdy regret.

with Traffic and Solaris dvd's now signed, i am halfway toward nerd redemption.

[Pubrick]

the modage alphabet:

ACDEFG...

[cowboykurtis]

can the powers that be please change my title -

i find it really upsetting and can not concentrate -

anything else would suffice

"shot on Betacam" would even be less upsetting

or "wathches VHS tapes", something to that effect

or anything else you see fit, and don't think about anything derived from the boondock

[grumpus]

The "Another Steven Soderbergh Experience" thing really bothers me.  If not for that bit it would be a very good poster.  (still excited to see the film).

[cowboykurtis]

i agree - the poster is quite wonderful - the text is fairly pretensious

[modage]

my prediction is that this movie will be loved on xixax in a fairly low-key gus van sant way.

[JG]

that text (except with my name) is what i put on my movies freshman year of high school.  it's not pretentious, just stupid. 

[polkablues]

it's not pretentious, just stupid. 

Unless you're Jimi Hendrix, it's pretentious.

[modage]

TEASER: http://www.themoviebox.net/movies/2006/0-9ABC/Bubble/trailer.php
CLIP: http://www.cinematografo.it/Trailers/00003271.html

BUBBLE opens January 27th.