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Well I did say nifty rather than good. It's probably cute more than anything else. I was actually looking to see if Michael Gregg had been leaked yet. Sadly no.

Before recently, I had no idea that Soderbergh had worked on the neo-noir anthology series Fallen Angels, but thankfully, both of his contributions are available online. The two episodes, The Quiet Room and Professional Man, feature a few Soderbergh players, including Peter Gallagher, Vinessa Shaw (Deirdre Banks in Side Effects), and John Mese (the title character in Soderbergh's short Winston).

Awesome find, thanks!

Each time this thread is updated I hope for news of a blu-ray release of The Limey.

I'm often confused by just what qualifies some of the films discussed in this thread as "b-sides", but I can't think of any reason why The Limey should be included in that fuzzy category.

I think it has more to do with its distribution and box office gross than with the content or quality. It came out in the US between Out of Sight and Erin Brockovich and was showing in, on its biggest weekend, 105 theaters in the US.

zedz wrote:I'm often confused by just what qualifies some of the films discussed in this thread as "b-sides"

Simple: On this board, any Soderbergh film that doesn't already have a thread

domino harvey wrote:

zedz wrote:I'm often confused by just what qualifies some of the films discussed in this thread as "b-sides"

Simple: On this board, any Soderbergh film that doesn't already have a thread

In that case, shouldn't this thread be tidied up into a straight Filmmaker thread? (Does Soderbergh really not have one of those already?)

EDIT: Looks like he doesn't!

The A-side/B-side thing ended up being sort of a phase for him ("One for them; One for me"). The distinction gets awfully murky. What sure sounded like a B-side (Channing Tatum wants his pal to direct a $7 million indie about his pre-acting days) got picked up by Warner and grossed nearly $160 million worldwide.

Any opposition to just making this the Steven Soderbergh thread?

Make me the thread's originator and I'll update the first post with usual filmmaker thread stuff

domino harvey wrote:Make me the thread's originator and I'll update the first post with usual filmmaker thread stuff

Thy will be done.

EDIT: Apparently Matt and I were doing that at the same time resulting in a bit of a mess at the beginning, but it works.

Boom

Just to be pedantic, it's Underneath, not The Underneath.

And to be a little extra pedantic, The Informant! was released by Warners, not Universal.

Not changing this, will update the Informant! goof tho

Perhaps in the UK it was released as "Underneath", but I'd say the version used in the home country should take precendence.

Actually, the opening credits also call the film Underneath, but that's neither here nor there.

The Narrator Returns wrote:Actually, the opening credits also call the film Underneath, but that's neither here nor there.

It's not the only case where what the film is actually called on screen is at variance with what it's usually known as.

Before Criterion comes out with it, here's the original cut of Kafka on YouTube.

Who watches entire movies on youtube? In 240p?

RobertAltman wrote:Who watches entire movies on youtube? In 240p?

8-[

RobertAltman wrote:Who watches entire movies on youtube? In 240p?

Me, if there's no viable alternative.

I've got the laserdisc of that cut, but I've not yet watched it - at this point I'd rather just see what he's doing to recut it first.

Steven Soderbergh is my favorite American director from the past 25 years; I've never seen a Soderbergh film I haven't liked, and I've seen almost all of them. He's one of the few directors out there who can seamlessly & effortlessly move from making small independent films to big Hollywood blockbusters.

To follow-up on some of the films already discussed:

Kafka (1991): Amazing film, and very Kafkaesque. The chase through the deserted night streets of Prague was very well-done, and for some reason reminded me of the chase scene through the sewers in The Third Man. The film was also quite humorous, i.e. the Tweedledee & Tweedledum-like inept assistants, & the scenes when Kafka's supervisor (Alec Guiness) told him that he's not advancing in his career because he needs to be more "sociable" & that he needs to "get out" more instead of being cooped up in his office - this was like the early 20th century Prague version of Dilbert - LOL.

King of the Hill (1993): A film I saw for the first time this year. Excellent coming-of-age movie about a kid growing up during the 1930's. Liked the various quirky characters that inhabited the hotel where he lived. It was also both sad & funny how he would make up stories about what his father did to avoid embarassment. One of my favorite scenes was when he had to quickly move his father's car, in order to keep it from being confiscated/towed. Very nice ending as well.

The Underneath (1994): Very underrated noir film, with great lighting. Enjoyed the use of flashbacks, as well as the brief scenes of the Texas bar bands.

Spoiler

The very last scene with the Joe Don Baker character in the gas station was brilliant; this made it evident he was in on the scheme the whole time. Superbly done.

All three of the above films are screaming for a Criterion DVD/Blu-ray release (Yes, I think they're all Criterion-worthy). Kafka & King of the Hill have not been released on R1 DVD at all. And, The Underneath got a sub-par DVD release back in the late '90's; The print may be Anamorphic Widescreen, but it appears that it was designed for the old CRT square TV's - when you play this on a widescreen TV, the small rectangular picture only takes up a small portion of the middle screen. So, it's about time this also gets a proper DVD release.

Schizopolis (1996): Just saw this for the second time & thought it was great, though it was a huge mind-*&^$ at times. I got the impression it was mocking Scientology & corporate America, though may have misinterpreted this. It was very funny how two of the characters (the narrator & the bug guy) bore a resemblance to Soderbergh, who was also in the film. The movie was also Dilbert-like at times, re: the office scenes.

It was also hiliarious how, in the beginning, the narrator said something like, "If you don't understand this film, it's your own fault, not ours, and you need to see it again" - LOL. This was especially amusing to me, since I've already seen the film twice & will probably need to see it several more times to fully comprehend what's going on...LOL

Out of Sight (1998): Great action/romance/comedy, with a lot of stars at the top of their form. I consider this Soderbergh's first big budget Hollywood film. It was great to see Nancy Allen (a De Palma alumni) in a cameo.

Bubble (2006): Excellent independent drama, with a disturbing ending. Liked the non-professional actors/actresses, and the documentary-like style. When this came out I was impressed that it was being released on DVD & in the theatre the same week, which I thought would be the wave of the future.

Recently re-watched The Limey. Wow. Simply.....brilliant. One of the best & most underrated crime noir thrillers of the '90's, and made even better with a nostalgic late '60's/early '70's vibe/tone re: the amazing soundtrack & poignant flashbacks. I always felt the Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda) character is what Fonda's Wyatt character in Easy Rider would have ended up becoming - if he had lived.

It was a stroke of genius for Soderbergh to use flashbacks from the old Terence Stamp film Poor Cow (1967) to show the character in his youth; this type of thing is rarely done in films.