Full Frontal
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Movie Reviews of Full Frontal
Movie Review: Intermittently funny, but generally inane and faux chic
Summary: 2 Stars
"Full Frontal" is built on a remarkably juvenile screenplay by performance artist Coleman Hough; it's pretty amazing director Steven Soderbergh saw anything in it. It's literate enough, but about all the neurotic, postmodern things we've grown to loathe: weird sexual fetishes, the debate of "reality" vs. "unreality", that two-degrees-of-separation-in-LA material, and, finally, unnervingly, Hollywood mechanics. We did not need another ludicrous, didactic structural analysis of Hollywood.Boy do we get it. "Full Frontal" begins with an introduction of the characters through series of random, purposeless monologues drawn from different points in the film, then the opening scene of what looks like a big budget romance movie between an actor (Blair Underwood) and a journalist (Julia Roberts), just staged and false enough to let you know it's winking, before commencing with seemingly unrelated subplots that wink like an old creep with a pocket of butterscotch candies.
Another journalist (David Hyde Pierce) is clinging to his magazine job and his marriage to a human relations executive of some kind (Catherine Keener) who is quite clearly deranged or a descendant of the inquisition: She conducts interviews, all day it seems, by throwing a plastic blowup globe at her applicants and demanding the names of all the countries in Africa. This story is intercut with the opening of a second-rate stage comedy about Hitler, with a lead actor (Nicky Katt) channeling Cary Grant and quoting Peter Ustinov; and a massage therapist (Mary McCormack) who eventually crosses the paths of all the characters. David Duchovny appears in a cameo as a kinky movie producer that proves he's pretty hard up in life after "The X-Files."
Soderbergh is usually pretty savvy with a variety of film styles and camera lenses, but using cheap digital cameras mutes the small victories of comedy Hough's script does deliver. The hand-held jitter is agonizing as well. There's only so much of the follow-the-globe cam we can take.
Mostly, though, "Full Frontal" is a painful (and refreshing) reminder that not every chic, self-absorbed New Yorker like Hough can waltz into LA and force audiences to acknowledge her obvious highbrow wit and trendy verbal gymnastics by inserting bizarre non-sequitors like vampires, marijuana brownies and guys crawling along hotel floors. Keener especially rants and moans her way into the pantheon of grating personas. It could be said that Roberts acquits herself in a small role - Roberts seems to be doing a lot of that lately - while Pierce most closely approaches a performance of resonance.
Based on its less-is-nothing marketing campaign, Soderbergh and others basically knew "Full Frontal" was inside baseball, pertinent to the few, aimless for the rest. That knowledge doesn't excuse the film, particularly the ridiculous final scene that pulls back and back and back to reveal a couple of artists an hour past being "on it" and hip.
Movie Review: Experiment? Ensemble Drama? The Film Doesn't Know it.
Summary: 2 Stars
Though "Full Frontal" boasts of its great casts including Julia Roberts, the film is rather an experimental indie film, mostly shot in 18 days with a digital camera (which cost only $ 4,600). That is not a problem if the film is interesting -- I mean, interesting characters, interesting techiniques, interesting stories, or anything. No such luck, sorry. Though some actors are giving their best efforts, the film looks more like a self-indulgent film-school student's work.The film follows the events that happen to the characters (whose profiles are revealed in the introductory part). Journalist Julia Roberts is interviewing TV star Blair Underwood; Cathrine Keener is doing the most uncomfortable job of the human resorce office (that is, firing the employees); her sister Mary McCormack is talking about the guy she met on the net; David Hyde Pierce (who shows uncanny resemblance with director Soderbergh himself) is rehearsing the stage drama for the always quizzical Nikky Katt. When the day comes close to the end, these assorted people find themselves strangely entangled in the web of human relations, which is represented by the dinner party for "Gus," powerful Hollywood producer played by one star from "X-Files."
The film also includes 'film within film" device (and even "film within film within film" devide, too), which might confuse some of the viewers. Fortunately, the device is not overused, and soon you will understand what is doing on.
The trouble is, except for some moments including talented Keener, none of the characters can really grab your attention. They are facing the critical moments of life, the film implies, but strangely we do not care. And as the experimental film, "Full Frontal" is not as innovative as "Schizopolis" (in which Soderbergh himself starred).
Possibly, here is the reason for its half-baked result: first, incredible you might say, but Soderbergh's use of digital camera is so poor like someone's home movies. At one scene, you see Sandra Oh very briefly. Well, but I couldn't see whether it was her or not because of a blurred image (I knew her voice, and saw her name in the credits), and I was thinking -- what is the point of doing that? The poorly shot images just detract our attention to the characters which should not be sacrificed for the dirctor's unnecessary "experiments."
Some parts of the film might interest you (if you're a film buff). You see many cameos -- Brad Pitt, Terence Stamp, and David Fincher (as the perfectionist director who needs 49 takes for one breif shot). But they are not enough for us to keep being interesting in the story which should really count. The conculsion is this; you just cannot use this great cast just because you want to be experimantal. Life is too short to do that, especially with this cast.
Movie Review: Full Confusion
Summary: 2 Stars
I expected more from this highly touted film by Steven Soderbergh but sadly I felt lost and unaffected throughout the entire experience.
I know this film is supposed to be artsy and creative, something profound that only a few really dedicated souls can figure out. I understand the movie within a movie concept and I get the need for all the grainy, jittery camera shots but I think this film went too far into the ozone layer for the average person to comprehend its full meaning.
David Hyde Pierce, Julia Roberts, Blair Underwood, and a few other notables did good acting jobs but their characters were never really explained and then when they were things changed anyway so the theories once held were quickly swept away. David Duchovny is the "frontal" that caused all the uproar when this film originally opened, but if you blink you will miss what you came to see and it's dead anyway!
I hoped for more from Soderbergh but the interesting writing found on a few of the stories never seemed to tie all together in the end. I walked away completely confused and unsatisfied; it just wasn't a picture for me.
Movie Review: "Full Frontal"
Summary: 2 Stars
The reason I purchased this movie and the only reason it's tolerable is because David Duchovny is in it. I am a loyal fan of Mr. Duchovny. I own all his movies as well as the complete X-Files series. Throughout the entire movie, I kept waiting for something to happen. I figured out, at the very beginning, that it was a story-within-a-story, story-within-a-story, story-within-a-story which was very confusing. The grainy quality of the "real" story made it seem amateurish. I was disappointed that David Duchovny only had about four scenes. He made the most of his few scenes, however,even though they were at the very end. What I didn't expect was his character's death from auto-erotic asphixiation. If the point of the movie is that Hollywood celebrity-types lead boring, pointless, empty lives, it lived up to its expectations. The "f" word was used too many times. Whoever wrote the dialogue has a very limited vocabulary.Movie Review: Soderbergh does his Hollywood film..
Summary: 2 Stars
...but I end up not liking it as much as Altman's 'The Player' or Lynch's 'Mulholland Drive' and about the only thing going for this are the big stars doing small bit parts and cameos, ala 'The Player'. Catherine Keener and David Hyde Pierce however do flex decent acting chops here. Ducovney should have never accepted an asphyxiation role...those roles are difficult to recover from. I wonder what my favorite bitchy movie reviewer (and hero) Rex Reed would have to say about this?..."David D. Chokes in an anti-climatic Soderbergh film. Is Put on Hold"...
I don't like Blair Underwood. I don't know why. He's just not my type. Julia is wasted here. One should see happier Julia Roberts movies, not this bit of depressed and depressive effluvia. My overall advice: see side by side with 'The Player' and decide which is the better movie. I bet you'll go with 'The Player'..