No Big Deal
Soderbergh's 'Bubble' doesn't ... while 'Live Freaky! Die Freaky!' makes pointless fun of the Manson
By Andy Klein
Steven Soderbergh's name on a project usually means a Big Deal - either a major commercial entertainment (Ocean's Eleven) or an "important" film (Traffic). And every once in a while he throws in an oddball experiment, with stars (Full Frontal) or without (Schizopolis).
Yet the publicity for his latest, Bubble, has focused more on its distribution plan than its inherent commercial or aesthetic qualities. Bubble is being touted as the opening salvo for a new distribution paradigm: Simultaneous with its Friday theatrical opening are two showings on the premium HDTV channel HDNet, and the DVD will be released on the following Tuesday.
Consider it another oddball experiment - a forward-looking response to the ever-decreasing time between theatrical release and DVD, and DVD and cable.
Bubble is the first of six low-budget films Soderbergh is contracted to do for Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban, who own both HDNet and Landmark Theaters. Each feature, by the current plan, will be tailored to a specific non-Hollywood location, using nonprofessional actors.
Is the result a straight-to-video production with a perfunctory theatrical booking? Or a theatrical production that happens to be hitting home video instantly? Does this distinction even make sense?
For years, films produced for the home video market have been indistinguishable (from a consumer standpoint) from films whose intended theatrical bookings never materialized, whether justifiably or not. Something between 10 and 30 percent of the titles that open in Los Angeles every year have one-week runs that fulfill contractual obligations for such films. In a far smaller number of cases, straight-to-video productions have found themselves in theaters, usually thanks to critical interest. The dividing lines are far from well-defined.
In most ways, Bubble feels designed to play well on television. The cast and scope are both small; while visuals are carefully composed, there is nothing spectacular that would demand big screen viewing. (Although nearly everything at least deserves it.) One curious decision, however: Although shot on HD video, the movie appears to be anamorphic widescreen with an aspect ratio of over 2:1 - which means that HDTV-owning subscribers to HDNet will still have noticeable black bars at the top and bottom of the image.
Bubble is set in a small town in southern Ohio. Overweight, middle-aged Martha (Debbie Doebereiner) lives with her invalid father and works at a doll factory. She considers coworker Kyle (Dustin James Ashley) to be her best friend, though it's not clear that he's ever thought of her that way. Kyle is substantially younger - probably in his early 20s - and reasonably cute, and Martha has a thing for him, even if she's not entirely aware of it.
But when Kyle starts paying attention to new employee Rose (Misty Dawn Wilkins) - a pretty single mother closer to his own age - Martha feels rejected in ways that suggest more than platonic friendship.
Eventually a crime is committed, and the last third of the 75-minute film unfolds in the manner of a police procedural.
Everything about Bubble is deliberately flat - the tone, the acting, the landscape, the steady pacing. The story centers on inarticulate people who rarely express their feelings and barely realize they have them. A critique of the acting is pointless: The actors seem to be playing themselves, which could be a sign of brilliant immersion in their characters but is likelier a sign that they're, well, playing themselves.
There is an admirable rigor to Soderbergh's technique here, but it leads to a generally unsatisfying experience. It's reminiscent of the deadpan style of Jim Jarmusch and Aki Kaurismaki, but without the humor that makes their films tolerable. In fact, it's odd to see Soderbergh, a tremendously funny guy, so totally suppressing his sense of humor (unless there's a level of deep irony here that I'm missing).
All of which is to say that I don't think a lot of people will feel the necessity of shelling out to see Bubble in a theatrical setting. And I don't think the film really requires it. It feels scaled down in a way that Schizopolis and Full Frontal didn't.
Except in terms of intent, is there really such a big difference in the ways Bubble and Live Freaky! Die Freaky! are being released? The latter is also opening in theaters on Friday, albeit only for weekend midnight shows; and it also comes out on DVD on Tuesday. I don't know what its makers had in mind for its marketing while they were in the throes of creation. But then I don't really know what they had in mind on any level.
I mean, just what the world was waiting for: a musical version of the Charlie Manson story ... in clay animation. Right up front, I'll have to give points to John Roecker (writer-director) and Rancid-ite Tim Armstrong (producer-narrator) for sheer off-the-wall-ness. This is definitely one for the You've Never Seen Anything Like It file.
I just wish I could find other aspects to give the film points for.
Live Freaky! Die Freaky! opens in live action, in a post-apocalyptic 3069 Los Angeles. A narrator - Armstrong, in a performance that makes the cast of Bubble seem like the Royal Shakespeare Company - tells of a nomad (Jason Schmidt) who finds an ancient book entitled Healter Skelter (misspelling included). In the manner of Walter Miller's classic A Canticle for Liebowitz, he mistakes it for some kind of holy text.
Cut to scenes of crude clay figures fucking (for what won't be the last time). Most of the remaining story seems to be narrated by Susan Hatkins, a.k.a. Hatie May Klutz (voice of Theo Kogan). It's the movie's notion of humor (or something) to change all the original characters' names slightly, most frequently by replacing the first letter with an H. So, instead of Charlie Manson, Jay (Sebring), Sharon Tate, and Abigail (Folger), we get Charlie Hanson, Hay, Sharon Hate, and Habigail. Sharon Hate (Nelly Pozbourne, which is to say Kelly Osbourne) is a grasping, shallow Hollywood bitch, who does nonstop drugs while pregnant and brags about despoiling the environment.
The whole affair is so misbegotten, so pointless, so without wit or other redeeming entertainment value, that it's hard not to wonder: What the hell were they thinking?
On the other hand, you've never seen anything like it.
Published: 01/26/2006
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