Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Soderbergh stars while simultaneously wearing the directorial, authorial and cinematographical hats for this quirky absurdist comedy.The film is features interconnected story lines that involves a self-helf guru T. Azimuth Schwitters, a pest exterminator dallying with bored housewives named Elmo Oxygen, both of which strikingly resembles Soderbergh, who himself plays two different characters, an employee in a company that manages Schwitters's activities, Fletcher Munson, and a doppelganger dentist, Dr. Jeffrey Korchek, both happens to live in the same neighborhood.I got to say that he looks good without a shirt, even if he's bit on the leaner side (No kidding). Makes me wonder why he hadn't been in front of the camera often, he's a fantastic actor who embraced the goofiness and awkwardness of he characters he played (Not sucking up really). The first two acts explores the two Soderbergh personas' point of view and the third is a bit of a puzzle in which some of the scenes that were shown in the previous acts were re-done in a different vantage point. The film feels gritty without being amateurish. The performances from not-so-well-known performers are never second or third-rate. The manner the story unfolds, can be likened to a cerebral jigsaw puzzle which would reward film connoisseurs who doesn't just like their movie-watching experience a passive one. (But of course, one has to read the manual somewhere to figure out or decode what the maestro is trying to relate to the viewer.) My rating: B-plus.

This is a very, very, very strange film--so strange that it clearly is an acquired taste and a film that won't appeal to most viewers. My feeling is that I liked a lot of the strange things that Steven Soderbergh did in this film but after a while it just became too much of a chore to watch. To me, it's a film with some wonderful ideas...too many.When the film begins, Soderbergh addresses the audience in a VERY funny intro. He insists that EVERY SINGLE person on the planet MUST see the movie and if they don't understand it, they must go back to the theaters and pay full price to see it again and again until they do! I was excited by this clever start.As for the rest of the film, it's a mixed bag of weirdness--all cloaked in a strange and enigmatic plot involving 'Eventualism'. This is a weird Scientology-like cult that describes itself as neither a religion nor philosophy but a 'state of mind'! But the film isn't just a take off on Scientology (I would have loved that) but is just filled with weirdness just for the sake of weirdness. Bland conversations between the main character and his wife consist of phrases like 'generic greeting' when the husband enters the house and 'imminent sustenance' when he smells dinner. Some other times, folks burst through the fourth wall and say things to either the filmmakers or audience. None of it is consistent...just weird and disjoint.Overall, a film with some funny and inventive moments which don't add up to an enjoyable whole. Too bad. I really think had Soderbergh used SOME of these weird gimmicks the film would have worked better than using them all. Or, if he'd simply parodied Scientology (such as in "Bowfinger") it would have worked. Instead, it's an odd and frustrating film.By the way, if you do decide to watch, expect to be offended here and there with characters (non-graphically) masturbating, using colorful language and the like.

I had passed over this title at the rental place several times and the week I decided to get through the entire Bergman Scenes from a Marriage TV version, I figured I'd need something lighter to turn off my brain for a while (I don't actually watch television). The box looked like perhaps it might be good, sadly, it was not, and after 45 minutes or so, I found my mind wandering.Just because a film juxtaposes bizarre images and ironic situations with ironic reactions does not mean that the film is saying anything concrete or penetrating any depths of human understanding.For example, one listens to the music which is a sort of modern counterpoint as it begins, which, as a musician, caught my attention. Sadly, the counterpoint that could have been interesting relied on that over used cliché, a female making noises of "enthusiasm" which can be found in lots of commercial piped music you find on your commercial radio stations today. It is not edgy. Nor is this movie.They try to do a similar thing with the film itself, make a counterpoint of irony and situations, however, it fails. One reason is that they are trying to make the film seem like a vignette film visually and with the pacing, yet it is not. They do not compensate this lack of cohesion, which is fine, with anything substantial to make the format work.I'm going to go read a book instead.

I will echo a comment that someone made about -The Big Lebowski- (my #1 favorite comedy followed by this delightful mess). "Warning: this film transmits on a strictly limited wavelength." If you don't catch this curveball, you're likely to be bored. I won't say that if you don't like it on first viewing, then you're never going to like it. In my case, certain movies get more enjoyable on repeat viewings even after receiving a ho-hum response the first time around. This is one of those movies. With a narrative more fractured than your average David Lynch film, there are connections between one scene and another that jump out and take notice only on repeat viewings, sort of like "portals" from one part of the movie to another. Music that plays, pictures shown on the wall, one-sided phone conversations, that sort of thing. Aside from the already-limited-wavelength humor, these amplify the laugh factor. This is a movie destined for some kind of limited cult-following someday, but keeping to a murmur level when you're standing next to an air conditioner. The Criterion DVD has some good features and outtakes, like the "Maximum Busy Muscle" segment extolling the virtues of all products vinyl.Update Nov. '06. Re-watching this almost on a whim, and it all comes together (such as it is) even more. This is truly hilarious, a comedy masterpiece reveling in all its many absurdities, which come one after the other at a highly accelerated rate. I'm upping my vote from 9 to 10."You will learn something from me here today." --Elmo Oxygen (Noooo!!! Oooogghghgh!!)