Bubble. (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Has anyone else seen it? I caught it tonight over at the Kendall Square Theater in Cambridge. The theater had to install a new digital projector just to show it; got to see all sorts of trailers while they were calibrating it. "Chicken Little" was spectacular looking.
As for the film itself, it's a strange experience. On one level it is very direct, it's never especially unclear as to what's going on or what it's saying. The characters however, express everything in non-statements. Very rarely do they saw how they actually feel about something, though what they do say and how they say it says it all. The actors and actresses are apparently untrained. The performances aren't traditional, but they aren't bad either.

 

[BrianShort]

I have the DVD in my Netflix queue. It's being released on the 31st. I think it's on HDNet too, but I don't get any HD channels :frowning:
I thought the trailer was one of the worst I'd ever seen, but after listening to Ebert and Roeper's rave review, I'm very interested in seeing it.

 

[Chad R]

I'll be watching it on HDNet tonight, and I have to say I'm looking forward to it.

 

[Chad R]

It was an interesting experiment, which I think that's all it is intended to be. The story is very straightforward with no surprises or secrets. How Martha acts is known, if not explained (which is how it should be).

Honestly, it was a short film story stretched out to 73 minutes. The story wasn't strong enough to hang such a long runtime on, and I say that full well knowing how short 73 minutes is for a feature.

Most illuminating was the little chat with Soderbergh after the film ran. Basically, he set the deal up with Landmark and HDNet, and then decided to find interesting locations, ones that have never been filmed before, and build stories around them.

The doll factory was an interesting place, but I'm not sure the story he built around it was the most true to those people, which is what he claimed he wanted to do. The addition of the murder actually took away from the film, and I think if events played out more banal, with just the theft story playing out to the point of Rose leaving town, and then everything snaps back to banal (which it kind of did), would have been a more poignant statement about these people.

 

[Ted Todorov]

I'd give the acting and realism very high marks, but the story didn't grab me.

On the other hand, if the story had been more substantial it would have been difficult to use non-actors and have 100% improvised dialog.

Ted

 

[BrianShort]

I just finished watching it. I thought it turned out pretty well for what it was, a simple story with no real surprises. I thought the performances were pretty good considering they were using non-actors. Some of the reactions of the characters seemed kind of unrealistic though, especially the parts where each was finding out about the murder, and the reaction of the lady's dad when he found out his daughter had commited murder. It was like they heard it was supposed to rain the next day. Maybe that was the point, I dunno... I'd give it a solid 3 stars though on a scale of 5.

Brian