Full Frontal reviews

[Keith Loh]

And the first one from hypemeisters "AintitCoolNews":

http://www.aint-it-cool-news.com/display.cgi?id=12835

[Ken Tanaka]

I noticed that this month's issue of Res magazine has a special feature on Full Frontal. In it he says that he loves the XL1s and still uses it today for "various" tasks.

Keith: Thanks for the review link. It's the first description of the film's story line I've seeen so far. I just saw the trailer on broadcast tv for the first time tonight. It looks like a rather off-beat film. I rarely go to theaters but I may make an exception in this case, if only to see how XL1s footage comes out when projected onto the big screen.

[Keith Loh]

The storyline doesn't interest me that much, actually, so I may go on a cheap night or matinee to see it for the technical aspects.

[Joe Redifer]

It is interesting when you are watching the movie. You get used to the video, then it suddenly switches to film again. It really makes you realize how nice film is. Seeing it switch to film-sourced footage is like suddenly taking off some chipped, dirty glasses and finally seeing the world clearly. Maybe Sodaburger's point was to show that film should not be abandoned for video.

[Keith Loh]

If that's his point (and I don't think it is) then he is missing it. DV is different than film. It is another tool to tell a story and can tell a story differently than with film and film's baggage.

[Chris Hurd]

The DV-originated material in Full Frontal was heavily processed in post. It doesn't look anything like what you expect from DV. It's been heavily altered with regard to adding noise and grain, and the color was also changed a great deal. Keep that in mind when you see it.

[Jeff Donald]

Just saw an ad for Full Frontal and it opens Friday the 1st. The clips in the ad look heavily processed, very grainy.

Jeff

[Dylan Couper]

Re: Sodaburger
LOL!!!!

Heh heh, good one Joe!

I'd just like to remind everyone that is going to see it before me, to post SPOILER warnings before you start talking about plot related stuff.

Thanks.

[Aaron Koolen]

Yeah I heard about a clip they were going to show on the news the other night which started with a line like:

"Most independent directors have to use video and hire their friends to be in there movies and that's what Steven Soderbergh has done"

So I waited for the shots and they were not what I expected. Yeah it's been majorly processed - that or he bashed his xl1s' around for a few hours with a hammer cause the footage was awful. It might suit the movie, I'm not arguing that cause I haven't seen it, it's just that I was hoping for something to make people go, "oooo video don't look too bad does it?" :) hehehe

[Peter Wiley]

Here's the New Yorker review (in the 8/5 issue by David Denby) of Full Frontal:

". . . 'Full Frontal,' which was put together by Steven Soderbergh . . . is perhaps the most naively awful movie I've seen from the hand of a major director . . . . 'Full Frontal' is the kind of arbitary mess that gives experimentation a bad name. The news that the movie was shot digital video and film in eighteen days, and that the actors drove themselves to the set and applied their own makeup, would have made a nice Sunday Times story if the movie were any good. But it isn't, so the low budget austerities come off as the newest form of ostentation . . ."

I guess there's still time make the first DV hit.

[Joe Redifer]

Well I didn't watch the entire movie, but I caught about 10 minutes of it on my way home from work tonight. I can't tell you if it is a good movie or not (probably not). The XL1 scenes are definitely watered down, post processed and then post processed some more. It seems like all movies shot on video look the same. All are handheld, all have very little "editing" and all just look kinda "bleh". In Full Frontal you'll hear two characters having a conversation with eachother. But the camera only shows ONE of the participants with no editing at all. Why? Simple. You can't do wide shots with video when you blow it up to 35mm. If you do, the poor resolution will look so bad that there might be extra vomit on the seats after the show ends. :) But obviously wide shots on video lack the necessary detail for the big screen. But still, I don't like that "style" of filmmaking. The zooming is rushed and looks like the guy holding the camera (Sodaburger) was incredibly inexperienced. If you are going to use video why not at least TRY to make it look like someone who knows what they are doing is behind the camera? It does look nice when it switches to film, and you see true professional quality imaging.

The audio is pretty damn good, though. From most of what I heard it didn't sound like typical "camcorder audio". You get minimal ambient sounds and most of the attention is on the dialog, which sounds great.

The plot seemed boring so I left and went home.

[Bradley Miller]

I had a sneaky feeling the end result would be something along these lines, but I was waiting for Joe to confirm it. This is virtually the same report I've heard from everyone who has seen advance screenings (bad picture and boring plot). Just as the typical moviegoer thinks that DLP is better than film "because it is digital, so it HAS to be better" (when it is NOT), now many people will go to see this movie knowing it was shot with a consumer videocamera and say "gee, the XL1 and the DV format isn't all as great as I thought it was. This looks like crap!" At least commercial DLP has enough resolution to look acceptable. DV can look quite good, but taking XL1 footage and running it through the washing machine 100 times, he mine as well have shot it with VHS.

Sodaburger is just hurting the DV community with this sort of mess. I don't see why everyone is so excited over this.

[Paul Sedillo]

<<<-- Originally posted by Brad Miller :
Sodaburger is just hurting the DV community with this sort of mess. I don't see why everyone is so excited over this. -->>>

Media hype due to an Academy Award winner. I agree with your comments. It is a shame that it is not a better story/movie. The DV world could have used the help.

[Joe Redifer]

This movie is bombing BAD! We have two prints (lucky us) and we haven't even sold ANY tickets for our second print yet. And our main print has sold maybe ten tickets at most, and four people have left mid-show because it was boring and looked BAD. There are only 4 screens with this movie in the entire Denver-metro area. Big Fat Greek Wedding continues to rake the people in even 10,000 weeks after release. Our theater is LOSING money with Full Frontal, as it costs more just to turn the breakers on for the auditorium than we make on this flick.

Nobody I talked to has appreciated the look of the DV footage. As if blowing DV up to film wasn't bad enough, he watered it down even more in post-processing to make it look even worse! I feel like ridiculing Sodaburger for this piece of crap "movie". Did I mention that we are losing money by simply showing this movie? Hard to respect a filmmaker for that. It is boring as all hell and I hope people refer to this in the future.... "Hey man, don't use that video camera... don't pull a Sodaburger!"

[Rik Sanchez]

Thanks for the heads up on this movie, now I can save my $15 and not see it at the theaters if this movie ever makes it over here. Too bad we can't make him give his XL-1s back, seems he doesn't deserve to shoot with it if he makes a movie like this. Hey, Sodaburger, give your camera to Chris Hurd! It better off in his hands than in yours!