Sasha Grey: "The Girlfriend Experience" Available TODAY?

[M Most]

He's so ahead of his time! First with RED and now this. He's just jumped to the top of my favorite's list.

It's only ahead of it's time and smart marketing if it makes money. If it doesn't, it doesn't make a bit of difference. It's show business, not show art-for-art's-sake.

Besides, the marketing plan - in fact, the entire concept of making these quick low budget pictures - is from Mark Cuban's company, not Soderbergh. Steven took the deal, and is apparently enjoying the experience, but it's not his money and it's not his plan.

 

[Joel Kaye]

If knocking off movies like "Bubble" or "Girlfriend Experiment" helps Soderberg explore techniques and ideas that may be incorporated into something bigger and more substantial someday, then why not?

Well, Soderbergh can do whatever he wants but I don't think it's smart for aspiring filmmakers to think they'll get noticed if they go out and make Bubble.

I'm reading a lot of small scripts right now and I'm pretty tough on the writers if what they are up to is small, intimate and boring.

Thinking of Pi. That was a small little movie loaded with ideas. If you're going to do something small then I think you should risk a lot more to make it worthy of a watch in a very crowded marketplace.

 

[jpp]

But as a DP, I can understand any artist who likes to play around on something small now & then, where the stakes are lower and you feel free to experiment, even free to fail. If knocking off movies like "Bubble" or "Girlfriend Experiment" helps Soderberg explore techniques and ideas that may be incorporated into something bigger and more substantial someday, then why not?

In principle, I'd have to agree, it would be hard to damn experimentation. But in practice these low budget ventures strike me less as experiments than an aggravated form of celebrity culture -- these guys want praise for showing up, for lip-synching a performance.

Nothing prevents S.S. and others from experimenting, and he certainly has enough money to do it at his own expense, but once you start marketing the stuff, I think you poison the well, standards are obliterated. It also probably comes down to how much one respects or admires S.S. in general.

Anyway, it's not Soderbergh's fault that worthier projects can't get financed at even half of what he gets for these experiments of his, but hell -- this system is rotten. Look at American film today. Are we happy with this financing and producing model, where a "name" can get virtually anything made and marketed, without respect to quality?

He can't be blamed for playing this system for what it's worth, but do we have to celebrate him for it?

 

[donatello b]

"Well, Soderbergh can do whatever he wants but I don't think it's smart for aspiring filmmakers to think they'll get noticed if they go out and make Bubble"

lets just say that Bubble was a bad movie ( for my point) ... i've NEVER meant a director/writer/producer that set out to make a bad movie ... infact before any film/tape/digital rolls everybody thinks their script/idea/outline is good/excellent ..
you can get a acedemy award for one script and the next one could is a stinker ...
i don't belive that SS in pre-production thought Bubble was just a so-so idea - anybody that has done a 5min to 2hr+ project knows it takes alot of time & effort ... how things read on a page just might not be the same on the screen = could be worse , better or same ..
from the movies that you see at festivals , local theater etc nobody really knows how the paying public is going to respond - they think they know but then they just can't explain the one they thought was going ot be sure hits turned out to be duds ... or the one the exe's thought were going to be eh turned out to be hits ... IMO if you have a script and you believe in it ( even a Bubble) GO for it ...

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

it could be. i would be interested in hearing from Rado if his 720p copy shows this noise.

but thing is, the well exposed shots in the copy I saw had no noise and no issues. only the indoor, low-light shots that you would expect to produce this type of ugly digital noise actually had it. to me, it seemed to be camera generated.

OK, I saw it too.

I also downloaded a sample of the DVD rip version you mentioned, for comparison. I don't think it's camera generated, looks more like a compression thing. It's worse on the DVD version and acceptable on the 720p one. But the 720p is generated from a 1080i version, which was broadcast somewhere. So, we should wait for a proper BluRay release to judge it. Personally, I think it's from the compression.

Otherwise, I agree, the movie is not good overall.

Bad/no script, strange visual approach. Some scenes looked good, but in overall it looks a bit video-ish and I didn't like how it was lighted. I understand why SS did it this way but I don't like it much.

The whole thing feels a bit like an experiment.

What was a real surprise for me was Sasha Grey's acting. I thought she was some porn cattle but she really has talent and an interesting presence. Which raises the question: What is she doing in the porn business?.. Very strange. Anyway, I think she has a future as a serious actress.

Just my humble opinion.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Yeah, like you say, the only thing interesting to take away from this film is Grey. She's obviously a strange bird. She has engaged in so much incredibly dirty porn that it boggles the mind -- and I'm talking about stuff that is degrading, semi violent and only borderline legal. But on the other hand, she is apparently very well read and interested in philosophy and art and rare classic films, and so on. Definitely unique.

In terms of the noise levels, I just remembered that I was watching on a laptop that tends to really brighten dark images and make them noisy. Even my own night timelapses can look awful on this laptop. So maybe I spoke incorrectly about the noise in this film.

 

[Steven Caesare]

This appears to be airing on Dish netowrk this week in HD.

Wasn't it just released?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

There are 3 showing times in HD on HD.NET next wednesday 5/20. I'll set my DVR to record it.

 

[Tom Lowe]

Is that for free, or on-demand PPV?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

Should be free, if you get the HD.Net Movies channel. It's available all over the place now as an on-demand deal. According to the HD.net site, it should be free on May 20th. It's one of their sneak-previews and it's on their movies channel schedule. I've already got my DVR (DirecTV) set to record it.

http://hd.net/movies_sneakpreviews.html