Full Frontal (2002)

I'm a Soderbergh guy. sex, lies & videotape is one of my all-time favorite films. I watch that at least once a year, typically on a sleepy Sunday afternoon. The Limey, with Terence Stamp (his presence is in Full Frontal, a nod to the film, obviously), I think is close to greatness. Side Effects and Contagion: good films about topics quite relevant and thought- provoking today (pharmaceuticals and the threat of a damaging disease that could spread quite quickly). Erin Brockovich, about a past incident that sheds light on corporate corruption, pollution causing cancer to the public, and the law's use to see those wrong-doers pay for their sins. The Danny Ocean films, cotton candy for your cast-heavy sweet tooth. The Girlfriend Experience, where he focuses his camera on a young woman who provides a service for clients that allows them to have a "temporary companion" to provide them comfort, sex, and company.Films all serve a purpose, have a vision, want to tell a story, or just entertain you. Full Frontal, on the other hand, feels like an attempt at the French New Wave crossed with Altman's The Player, and it never succeeds due to its insufferable characters, purposely perplexing (one scene, which just had me throwing my hands up has Roberts, the actress, handing a cup of water to the character she portrays in a roll with a wig) plot, and hopeless setup that drives it (Gus is having a party in his honor; Duchovny, who has one scene, where he is getting a massage and boner because of it; he is later found with a plastic bag over his head and a naked torso, obviously due to erotic asphyxiation).Besides a wasted Duchovny, there's Julia Roberts as an actress portraying a news journalist (both appear to be characters in this film, but the film doesn't know what it wants with them) interviewing a black actor struggling to break through (Blair Underwood) in Hollywood. A card with a secret-admirer type of writing devoted to him he believes is from the journalist. Later, it is revealed that this is just a film, when Soderbergh not only breaks the fourth wall but obliterates it with a rocket launcher. The bits with Brad Pitt, superstar, I found nauseating. Underwood also portrays a real actor struggling. So both characters are essentially the same. Try figuring out if he is one in the same or whatever, by film's end I flat didn't give a crap. Also Catherine Keener (boy, is she a keeper) is a human resources manager who makes fools out of employees desperate to keep their job. She is currently sleeping with Underwood, and has left a note for her husband (played by a rather pitiable David Hyde Pierce) telling him she's done with their marriage. Pierce works for a magazine involved in articles he hates, only staying there for the money, later fired for answering a stupid question about whether he would drink a beer in a glass or from a bottle by the boss. He doesn't know what is next but he loves teaching so there's that. Yeah, that and his dog becomes non-responsive due to eating too many dope brownies (sigh). Keener is becoming a basket case while her massage therapist sister (Mary McKormick, the best thing about this miserable "film" or experiment, or whatever you want to call it) wants a real relationship, planning to meet someone in Tuscon, Arizona (Enrico Colantoni, also portraying Underwood's agent; again, doing this, Soderbergh further confuses the audience) she met online. Mary winds up masturbating Duchovny, later admonishing him for suggesting she do so while massaging him (he offers five hundred bucks for 30 seconds of jerking him off). Meanwhile Enrico has written a small-scale play about Hitler starring a douchebag actor (Nicky Katt), a self-loving, self- involved, opinionated jerk who hijacks work by others to soothe his own ego. With narration by some of the characters on occasion, you get to learn a little more about them (which, by the end, I wanted to erase them from my memory). I liked how the Enrico and Mary story ends (begins?) at the end up until Soderbergh pulls the camera away to reveal them on a Hollywood set which just made me groan.The whole "it's only a movie" dynamic of the film just did absolutely nothing for me. It seems desperate to be arty and cinéma vérité, a throwback to the way directors once incorporated "outside the box" techniques and devices at telling stories using the camera and crew in a style audiences weren't accustomed to. In this film's case it feels so inorganic and superficial, I felt the director only encourages us to fantasize about punching him in his pretentious face. I hate to visualize that because I think he's an absolute talent, prolific and always tackling projects that cover a wide variety of humanistic themes and topics that are meaningful. And he can make entertainments that are exceptionally well made and labyrinthine (like the Ocean movies) although they are basic popcorn. And he does make films that are unlike him (Magic Mike, Bubble, and Haywire), as well as "historical" films which focus on real-life characters (Behind the Candelabra & Che); Soderbergh is a talent I want to continue to remain busy due to his willingness to be eclectic, making interesting films covering anything and everything. But "Full Frontal" is one of those films I think you could skip and save for any number of better films like Neon Maniacs or Future Kill.

It saddens me to say so but "Full Frontal" is painfully boring, pointless, disjointed, and underdeveloped. I am a big fan of indie experimental original movies but this one gives the term bad meaning. As hard as they tried, the talented performers ((David Hyde Pierce, Catherine Keener, Mary McCormack, Julia Roberts, Blair Underwood) could not make their lifeless characters interesting enough for me to care. I love Catherine Keener in every movie I've seen her but she's played the same role in better films. She is much more interesting in Neil LaBute's "Your Friends & Neighbors" (1998) which reminds in some ways Full Frontal. Both, Neil LaBute's and Soderbergh's films picture selfish and often unpleasant and despicable people who are not happy with themselves and can't make happy those close to them. Another Keener's film that came to my mind, is Living in Oblivion (1995), a 91 minutes long low-budget independent movie about trials and tribulations of making a low budget independent movie. Tom DiCillo's smart, funny, playful, and highly enjoyable Living in Oblivion has surreal, strangely poetic and amusing quality to it. Unlike, Soderbergh's empty exercise in self-indulgence, wonderful cast of Living in Oblivion has something interesting to play and the characters created by Steve Buscemi, Catherine Keener, Chad Palomino, Dermot Mulroney and Peter Dinklage (in a very funny cameo) are alive and three-dimensional. I am a fan of Soderbergh's work since I saw his fascinating debut, the Palme d'Or winner "Sex, Lies, and Videotape". I read that "Full Frontal" is in a way a sequel to Soderbergh's first feature. If that's true, it only proves that sequels almost never measure up to originals.

I heard Full Frontal was great. However, I also heard horrible accounts. The only solution left was to view it myself.I wasn't quite sure what to expect and the film leaves you feeling ... well, nothing in particular. Full Frontal's effect (if there is a desired effect) was lost upon me.However, the film can be viewed as an interesting search for truth or the reality of Hollywood. The lines between the cosmetic and authenticity, as in real life, are blurred. Even when you (as a moviegoer and fan) think you know a character, actor, person, screenwriter Coleman Hough reveals the rose-colored lens. Through the intertextual narrative of the film, one can view the absurdity of our celebrity-obsessed culture. Some may interpret the film's stylistic features as condescending or pretentious - which is a valid argument. However, I think the intended effect was to be a self-reflective caricature. Some of the film's features such as the name game and the roles played by Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt reflect the self-parody of the film. Furthermore, the ending, along with the Underwood/Roberts subplot, reveal the nature of Hough's parody. It just seems to have gotten lost in its direction.Nicky Katt and Catherine Keener give great performances as always. David Hyde Pierce is desperately trying to stop audiences from exclaiming, "Hey, that's the guy from Frasier" but to no avail. Pierce's delivery and mannerisms are too reminiscent of Niles for the audience to consider him as Carl. And Mary McCormack does a great supporting role, unfortunately, the bare bones story leaves the audience awaiting something that is not coming.Overall, this is a film worth viewing. Maybe twice...if you can stomach its lack of direction.

It might be because I was very tired yesterday, or because the movie pretty simply sucked... How can anyone call this a comedy? I didn't laugh once :( The only fun thing is when you in the end think back on the movie and realizes how extremely weird and boring and dull it's been, that actually gave me a little smile, how can anyone do this to me? And then have a picture of Brad Pitt on the cover, I thought, then it must be some good in the film, because i usually like him, but hey, he is in the movie for like 30 seconds, in a scene where he has 2-3 lines or something, it's weird... Well, after all I didn't understand the plot, the only positive I found is the way it was filmed, it's pretty neat, but it's the same style as in Ocenas 11, so see that movie instead, even if you have seen it (Oceans 11) 1000 times it will be more amusing...