17 Comments

I’m one of this film’s ardent admirers and have been since I saw it on its brief theatrical release. The whole time I was reading this, Cliff Martinez’s moody score was bouncing around in my head. It’s one of the few film scores capable of bringing me to the verge of tears at the mere thought of it.

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20 years on and it's so weird that Peter Andrews (the DP) and Mary Ann Bernard (the editor) still won't give interviews without Soderbergh being there.

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author

Right. I love Soderbergh but he definitely keeps some key collaborators in his shadow. I'd love to hear from them and Roderick Jaynes while we're at it.

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I think this movie's problem was it wasn't arty enough for film snobs: "it's no Tarkovsky," and too arty for the masses.

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There's a line of dialogue in the original Tarkovsky that seems to prefigure this more emotion-based Soderbergh version: "Don't turn a scientific problem into a common love story."

Well I'm gonna take a stand for basic bitches everywhere and say that this is one of the rare cases where I like the modern version better.

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founding

I have to admit I haven't actually seen this, but reading this review it's giving me very strong The Fountain vibes, which I loved

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My recollection from its release is that Soderbergh cut it as close to the bone as possible and there was a lot of material cut. I’ve been waiting for a Criterion set that has the original cut and maybe a new cut. Would be very curious what he would (or wouldn’t) do differently 20 years on. In any case, I love this movie and need to revisit it.

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I always thought this movie was the reason why Jeremy Davies was cast as Daniel Faraday in Lost. Dude just exudes "Billy Pilgrim was unstuck in time" vibe...

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Though I haven't seen it in a few years, I've always loved this film and might actually prefer it to Tarkovsky's version. Martinez's score is perfection for me; like you, Keith, I would write to it frequently (as well as the Jesse James score, curiously), and it exists in such a tonally abstracted space for me now I wonder how I'd respond to it when cued with the film (another favorite score of mine is Glass's for The Hours — and rewatching The Hours nearly ruined the score for me).

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This came out about the same time as De Palma's "Femme Fatale", and both were championed by Ebert, so I went with my trusted reviewer, and was not disappointed with either.

I may have been distracted by Natasha McElhone, to be fair.

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Nov 30, 2022·edited Nov 30, 2022

There’s a great series over on The Solute that revisits all of the movies to get an F on CinemaScore to explore why they got the F and whether it was merited:

https://www.the-solute.com/what-the-f-have-we-learned/

The Solaris essay is particularly good and focuses on the choices Soderbergh made compared to Tarkovsky.

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Oh man, this is top tier Soderbergh for me and one of my favs of all time.

- the scene where Viola Davis peaks out of her room and is in total unhinged angry sad vibes without ever explaining what she saw is some total master class in showing-not-telling-once-removed

- I don't think I've ever quite thought before about how well Clooney is cast in this. Totes spot on Keith that his super confident vibe does a lot to inform this character who has buried a LOT and gets by via projecting 'i'm on it' even when he's not

- Rewatched this a couple months ago and I do admit, I found Jeremy D.'s performance to be the least-good part this time (still good! but, the least). He's great in role and obv. well cast but what seemed striking back when I first saw this felt a lot more like a mannered, 'he always does this' performance with a lot less under the hood than what everyone else is doing

- good call on the Roeg comparisons, never thought of that but hell yeah

I was a teen when I saw this the first time and while it really stuck with me, I def didn't get a lot of the heaviest parts of emotion - seeing it again as a middle-aged person is a hell of a lot more devastating

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Rewatched this back to back with Tarkovsky’s this summer. I hadn’t seen it since it came out and was so happy to find depth and meaning in it. It’s one of those films you keep in your back pocket to recommend to just the right person under just the right circumstance in hopes that it might reveal something about your nature that you might not be able to verbalize.

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I really should give this a second watch. I didn't hate it back then, but I didn't really see it for what it was instead of what I wanted it to be. But I remember that Clooney appealed to me as a good casting choice.

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