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Soderbergh's on a roll, Contagion looks awesome and now this trailer for Haywire!

The trailer for Haywire looks bad. It reminds me of a third rate "Kill Bill". Considering the amount of reshoots done and the release date being pushed back serveral times (now being dumped in January), I'm guessing it probably is as awful as it looks. Contagion looks like it should be fun.

Haywire doesn't look anything like a Tarantino or a Tarantino ripoff to me- it looks more like a Bourne movie, both stylistically and in tone. It looks like it could be interesting.

ianungstad wrote:The trailer for Haywire looks bad. It reminds me of a third rate "Kill Bill". Considering the amount of reshoots done and the release date being pushed back serveral times (now being dumped in January), I'm guessing it probably is as awful as it looks. Contagion looks like it should be fun.

I don't know what looks Kill Bill about it (the sub-genre of assassins/agents being double-crossed on assignment is older than Kill Bill and doesn't technically include it). The fight scenes look appropriately brutal, given that the lead is a professional fighter rather than an actress. The movie actually continues the experiment Soderbergh started in The Girlfriend Experience of casting non-actors who hold analogous real-life jobs, and if anything, should be compared with that.

I expect that, despite what we see in the trailer, Soderbergh will provide a lot of interesting directorial and editorial touches to make this movie stand out.

Can we get a thread for this? Soderbergh always inspires discussion here

If anyone's interested, here is what the lead actress does as her day job. It's also, presumably, what prompted Soderbergh to cast her.

Looks okay to me, although Carano appears to be as bad an actress as I feared. I've anticipated this film for a while now, interested to see Soderbergh's take on the spy film/revenge flick. His cinematography looks a little boring, although I like the contrast in climates and locales, complete with color tone; straight Soderbergh. It's a shame he's planning to retire, he's been the most consistently interesting Hollywood-er for ~20 years.

Well besides some similar story elements, Gina Carano seems to be channeling Uma Thurman's Bride character in her delivery. (Comes across as very similar characters to me)

Mr Sausage wrote:The movie actually continues the experiment Soderbergh started in The Girlfriend Experience of casting non-actors who hold analogous real-life jobs, and if anything, should be compared with that.

One reason why I think his upcoming male stripper film with Channing Tatum should be of particular interest-- a lot of people are scratching their heads over it, but it sounds like a really intriguing project for much the same reason

I was actually going to bring that one up. Soderbergh is always at his most interesting to me when he repeats himsel and these three films look like the apex of that sort of thing.

ianungstad wrote:Well besides some similar story elements, Gina Carano seems to be channeling Uma Thurman's Bride character in her delivery. (Comes across as very similar characters to me)

Kill Bill is a genre pastiche. Saying it shares some similar elements with another genre movie isn't saying much. Similarly, Thurman is herself channeling the same performances that Carano probably is since, as I said, these kinds of movies have been around for a long time.

domino harvey wrote:One reason why I think his upcoming male stripper film with Channing Tatum should be of particular interest-- a lot of people are scratching their heads over it, but it sounds like a really intriguing project for much the same reason

That sounds like a Paul Morrissey/Joe Dallesandro film as Channing kind of brings out that Joe vibe. Sounds intriguing, first time I heard of this news.

Details on Magic Mike here

domino harvey wrote:Details on Magic Mike here

Thanks dh.

I'm still hoping The Last Time I Saw Michael Gregg gets released at some point. It sounds great!

I don't know why he picked his voice-over announcer/library music out of a late 90s Trimark VHS trailer.

But it looks better than people are giving it credit for.

*CG* wrote:

domino harvey wrote:One reason why I think his upcoming male stripper film with Channing Tatum should be of particular interest-- a lot of people are scratching their heads over it, but it sounds like a really intriguing project for much the same reason

That sounds like a Paul Morrissey/Joe Dallesandro film as Channing kind of brings out that Joe vibe. Sounds intriguing, first time I heard of this news.

That's exactly what I said after I saw Fighting. He's a fascinating presence. The sooner we recognize how good that movie is, the sooner we can advance as a society.

tarpilot wrote:

*CG* wrote:

domino harvey wrote:One reason why I think his upcoming male stripper film with Channing Tatum should be of particular interest-- a lot of people are scratching their heads over it, but it sounds like a really intriguing project for much the same reason

That sounds like a Paul Morrissey/Joe Dallesandro film as Channing kind of brings out that Joe vibe. Sounds intriguing, first time I heard of this news.

That's exactly what I said after I saw Fighting. He's a fascinating presence. The sooner we recognize how good that movie is, the sooner we can advance as a society.

I like Fighting too (the marketing did look like some MTV Films/Step up type crap, but it wasn't like that at all and more like Morrissey's Flesh, but instead of selling himself in sex, it's fighting.). Channing gets alot of crap, but if used right (mainly in Dito Montiel's films), he can be a solid actor. He should stick to New York setting films, because he matches those Morrissey films perfect.

Mr Sausage wrote:The movie actually continues the experiment Soderbergh started in The Girlfriend Experience of casting non-actors who hold analogous real-life jobs, and if anything, should be compared with that.

It goes back even further than that, with stuff like K Street or Bubble. Somebody more versed in Soderbergh's work can probably find examples before those.

Technically wouldn't Schizopolis count of shades of that too even if it's not a straight example.

Another really nice cast list: Mathieu Kassovitz is apparently also in there too in an acting role. The casting of Carano makes me think of Cynthia Rothrock's films for some reason.

I'm most excited that it shows Soderbergh teaming up with Lem Dobbs for the first time since The Limey. Perhaps they've stripped out the 'middle man' from a smilar kind of plot and let the victim become the revenger themselves although, as Mr Sausage says, it is a well travelled trope anyway. It will be interesting to see if the protagonist of this film follows through with her revenge or just leaves Ewan McGregor in a similar position that Peter Fonda was left in at the end of that film! (I'm guessing not)

I'm a little concerned. Filming finished well over a year ago. Then there were extensive reshoots. Then it moved from Lionsgate to Overture. It's been in the can for nearly a year. Now Overture is releasing it in late January (no, it's not getting an Academy qualifying run or anything like that). January is where movies go to die. I'm hoping that it is indeed something more experimental than anyone was expecting and Overture just isn't sure what to do with it, but it doesn't bode well.

Has anyone else seen this yet? I just watched it and was quite entertained. Carano may not be as experienced or charismatic as the other actors, but she does a great job here. The stunt work is particularly good and isn't cut too rapidly. The entire film is quite spare and that helped generate much of the excitement that I felt in the movie. The cinematography looks quite good as well. The entire cast worked quite well together and like many other Soderbergh films are a major source of the entertainment. (The car hostage was a rather amusing.) I guess the main draws are the cast, fighting, Carano, and Banderas' beard but it was all put together well enough to be worth the wait.

I liked it well enough too. There's not much to it, but it's got a fun old-school action vibe. It's lean and spare and short. I really can't imagine why Lionsgate unloaded it and Overture dumped it in January. Maybe it won't play well with mainstream audiences, but I don't know why; it's got a 70s B-movie feel in the best way. I love that he shoots the action in wide shots with minimal cuts. It's so much more visceral than the disorienting vertiginous camera movies and half-second shot lengths of most modern action movies. I suppose this is what some would term "minor Soderbergh," but it's better than the "major" action films of most directors.

Jean-Luc Garbo wrote:I guess the main draws are the cast, fighting, Carano, and Banderas' beard

The retro score by David Holmes ain't too shabby either.