After a few epic-size Hollywood films (Erin Brockovich, Traffic, Ocean's Eleven), director Steven Soderbergh has gone small. Full Frontal, his terrific new movie, is intimate and innovative. It boasts rules of Dogma-like rigor: the budget was $2 million; the shoot took just three weeks; most of it was photographed (by the director) on video; the stars were responsible for their own makeup; no limos or trailers were allowed. He also constructed a Chinese box of a film-within-a-film-within-a-film. The result is his liveliest experiment since the strenuously weird Schizopolis six years ago--except that this one works.
A tale of articulate people...