Are you watching "Bubble" tonight?

Cafe Society
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Bubble is Steven Soderbergh’s latest movie, and as far as I know the first to be released simulataneously at theaters, on cable and on DVD (the DVD release is actually next Tuesday, I think, but if you’re friendly with your clerks, ask 'em). It was shot in Digital HD. I don’t know how well that will play on a big screen, but we’ll see.

It’s apparently shot in a small town and doesn’t use actors. THe characters are just people from the town, and I think the story revolves around some mystery.

Anyway, I’m lucky enough to have HDNet, so I’ll be checking it out there.

I’m somewhat intrigued because it’s mostly well reviewed, but the reviews are astoundingly diverse. To wit, (from rottentomatoes)

“Astonishingly effective melodrama–down to the devastating last line.”
– Jurgen Fauth, ABOUT.COM

“Soderbergh set out to make a movie about shallow people, but wound up delivering a shallow movie.”
– Colin Covert, MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE

“An embarrassment to all concerned, the film was written, directed and produced by Soderbergh for reasons that are not readily apparent.”
– Ray Bennett, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“Among Soderbergh’s worst films.”
– Phil Hall, FILM THREAT

“Soderbergh’s best, most instinctive filmmaking in years.”
– Jeffrey M. Anderson, COMBUSTIBLE CELLULOID

And Ebert gave it 4-Stars.

That’s good stuff. They’ve been promo-ing it on HDNet for a while and it’s hard to say what it looks like. The promos are just shots of baby dolls in various stages of production.

I’ll check back on Monday and give a review.

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It sounds intetreting; I’ll check if DishNetwork has it on PPV.

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Saw this a few nights ago. I’m in the “inspired and brilliant” camp; Bubble was amazing. It starts off mighty slow, though; we were about a half-hour in before I figured out what Soderbergh was doing.

The dialogue was, hands-down, the most realistic I’ve ever seen. Granted, when you’re discussing conversation, “realistic” means “banal”; as Ebert pointed out, I wouldn’t want every movie to be like this.

The performances were note-perfect all around; I went into the movie with no knowledge at all of how it was made, and I was shocked to learn (from the DVD extras) that none of these people had ever acted before. One was the retired manager of a KFC, one was a 19-year-old high school dropout who (IIRC) works on computer networks, and one was a hairdresser. Also:

The guy who played the police inspector was a real police inspector. This didn’t surprise me a bit; during the film I caught myself thinking, “he has GOT to be a real cop.”(I’m spoiler-boxing this because you’ll really be better off going in knowing as little as possible about the movie. If you rent it, try not to read the box.)

Anyone else seen it yet? Thoughts?

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I bought the DVD and watched it a few weeks ago. I was impressed with the realism of the people’s lives (it’s hard to think of them as “characters”) and impressed with the natural dialogue.

I think this kind of movie needs a new word to describe it. It’s like if you asked me to relive my day while you filmed it. What would you call it? Is it cinema verite? (I don’t know how to do that little thingie over the “e”.)

That said, I have no desire to watch it again.

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I kind of purposely didn’t come back in and review it because it was real boring to me.

It’s hard to call it bad. It just sat there. I really have no idea what he was trying to achieve.

So, like I said, the buzz about the movie was mostly that it was simultaneously released in the different formats and shot with a high def camera. So, I got the feeling that Adoerbergh just decided, “ok, that’s the gimmick. What do I want to do with it. . .eh, I’ll just film three people’s lives for 3 days and then throw in a big twist at the end.”

It really seemed amateurish to me. I haven’t thought about the movie for one second since I saw it. I was pretty unimpressed.

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I appreciated it as an interesting experiment rather than liked it as a movie. I agree with everyone that the dialog was realistic, almost as if we were watching action captured by a hidden camera.