Another month, another Soderbergh movie: Side Effects (Rooney Mara, Channing Tatum, Jude Law)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvKGhbM3Lp4

Can Soderberg please go back to putting Matt Damon or someone in everything instead of Channing Tatum?

"everything"?

http://www.vulture.com/2013/01/steven-soderbergh-in-conversation.html

Well, I’m remaking—it’s been a long process—but I’m overhauling Kafka completely. It’s funny—wrapping a movie 22 years later! But the rights had reverted back to me and Paul Rassam, an executive producer, and he said, “I know you were never really happy with it. Do you want to go back in and play around?” We shot some inserts while we were doing Side Effects. I’m also dubbing the whole thing into German so the accent issue goes away. And Lem and I have been working on recalibrating some of the dialogue and the storytelling. So it’s a completely different movie

I’m importing this liquor from Bolivia: Singani. Technically it’s a brandy. I was turned onto it while I was doing Che and everybody on the crew got hooked. You don’t get that burn in your throat like you do with most hard liquor, so it’s dangerous. You can drink it like water and then you’re invisible.

This was good if slight. Best seen having read nothing about it. If you read the spoilers, no need to see.

didn't really care much for this

First hour was really very good. Then steadily downhill.

^agree. Starts off like it could be interesting but ends like a bad episode of Law & Order.

"...in the wake of Soderbergh’s Contagion, The Girlfriend Experience, Magic Mike and parts of Haywire, it’s also the latest in the director’s ongoing series on the financial crisis—examining a world in which contentment is measured in money and mitigated through corporations and facades.":
http://timeoutchicago.com/arts-culture/film/16040276/side-effects-movie-review

I enjoyed this, but aside from the little bit of protagonist jujitsu, it was still pretty silly, predictable, standard issue ironic-turnaround stuff. I did, however, appreciate its slightly less ridiculous resolution more than I appreciated the utterly ridiculous resolution of "Gone Girl."

I also enjoyed this despite recognising that ultimately that it's a little silly plot-wise. But I really enjoyed the acting, mainly Rooney Mara but also Jude Law, and the cinematography.

One minor niggle - Soderbergh really overuses the device where you hear the dialogues for the next scene before you see it.

It's got a bit of a De Palma kick to it (even the De Palmface twists).

The push-pull of the social commentary/satire of Big Pharm and antidepressants with the lurid/ludicrous crime thriller pushed this one off the rails. I liked Law tho -- he's turned into a convincing twit quite seamlessly -- and CZJ was kind of hilarious.

Is Rooney Mara always somnambulant, or was this just her approach here? If the first, she could be a contender for the Patricia Arquette Trophy.

also, has GLAAD said anything about the 'phobic denouement? or are they too busy giving awards to Bill fucking Clinton?

This doesn't sound like much of a compliment, but I mean it as such: thought this was made with a great deal of skill.

this kind of unraveled and became much less interesting than it initially portended. yeah, directed with a lot of skill, but i actually think the screenwriter did a poor job of managing audience knowledge. some plot points were fairly overstated or you could see them coming a mile off, while crucial information that we were _supposed_ to pick up on was presented too elliptically. where's hitchcock when you need him? anyway after my partner and i parsed the plot on the ride home, i didn't think about this again. i guess i liked jude law's performance.

really liked the second half much more than the first. the unease of the relationshop between the wronged doctor and the lying patient was much more enjoyable than anything else -- really the opposite of a con movie in that way, where the sequence where everything clicks into place is sort of the 'point'.

reminded me of waugh and the loved one in particular

i enjoyed this. wouldnt have thought to compare it to the loved one, but it was more blackly funny than i expected. it's not as trashy and exuberant in its filmmaking as i'd like from this kind of movie

I hated this movie. Had a fairly interesting first third, but went into ludicrous territory real fast. was hard to stop from laughing when they got to the lesbian scene reveal.

he dropped a bollock having (SPOILER) Zeta Jones as a bad guy, as anyone who'd seen Traffic (in which she was a bit of a 'bad guy') would twig straight away she was maybe not all she was cracked up to be.

yeah I was fairly sure of it within 30 mins even without having seen Traffic.

was hard to stop from laughing when they got to the lesbian scene reveal.

yeah not sure whether to blame soderbergh or zeta-jones for that.

Watching this now. Lol that thus far her fatal trigger was not wanting to move to Houston.

this was really bad

Starts off like it could be interesting but ends like a bad episode of Law & Order.

very otm

for a duo that managed to mastermind a sinister plot that fooled the rest of the civilized world, Mara and Zeta-Jones sure make it extremely easy for Jude Law to 'crack the mystery'.

ok done awhile ago. Agree with Clem about it being made w/skill, find it odd along w/Morbs about GLAAD not raising a ruckus about lesbian characterization, but overall feel this was minor, and I would have liked it better if it was about a beautiful young woman who took drugs and killed her husband because she didn't want to move to Houston. If Soderbergh hadn't been directing, and some (but not all) of the actors involved weren't involved, this would have been on Lifetime every other week for two months before entering Redbox hell.

Finally watched this, hadn't read anything to know there was a twist of sorts, enjoyed it a fair bit.

No twists this interesting have been on Law & Order for some time. Maybe on Criminal Intent when it was on, but it was always subject to even lower production values

this is a bad movie

good commenting on a revive