After proving himself as a major Hollywood player with the critical and commercial successes of “Erin Brockovich,” “Traffic” and “Ocean’s Eleven,” Steven Soderbergh was allowed to return to his indie roots and indulge in the idiosyncratic style and loose structure of some of his earlier works such as “Sex, Lies, and Videotape” and (especially) “Schizopolis” with this all-star experimental oddity. “Full Frontal” plays like a Robert Altman film if he had dug French New Wave as it follows a group of characters in and around Hollywood, with the line between fiction and reality blurred as we sometimes jump from cheap-looking digital video (this was mostly shot on the Canon XL-1s) to a sleek 35mm movie-within-a-movie (a not-so-subtle representation of Soderbergh’s own personal tug-of-war between being a fierce independent and studio darling). Ultimately, this is a prime example of those strange cinematic exercises that would later be referred to as “one of those Steven Soderbergh movies,” though a cast that includes Julia Roberts, David Duchovny, Nicky Katt, Catherine Keener, Blair Underwood and, briefly, Brad Pitt helps it go down easy. Bonus treats: a rare on-camera appearance by director David Fincher and Terrence Stamp reprising his role from Soderbergh’s “The Limey” … sort of. – IFC Staff
Full Frontal
