The Informant - Trailer for Steven Soderbergh's Matt Damon film

The government decides to go after an agri-business giant with a price-fixing accusation, based on the evidence submitted by their star witness, vice president turned informant Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon).

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Moneyball strikes out

Despite the fact that it was about to start production on Monday in Phoenix, Arizona, Columbia Pictures has halted work on Steven Soderbergh's upcoming major league baseball project Moneyball. The film, which was to star Brad Pitt, has been placed into "limited turnaround" by Columbia Picture's Amy Pascal. According to Variety, this gives Soderbergh a chance to set up the project at another studio. It is currently being shopped to both Warner Brothers and Paramount.

The decision to halt work on Moneyball came after Pascal read the final draft of the screenplay, written by Steve Zaillian with Soderbergh, and found it to be quite different than the original film she once championed. If another studio does not pick up the film by Monday, Columbia Pictures will look at replacing Soderbergh as the director. This could delay filming for quite sometime to come.

Moneyball is based on Michael Lewis' bestseller of the same name, with Pitt signed on to play Billy Beane, the former Major League phenom that undermined his playing career by taking a big paycheck before he was ready. The player resurfaced as Oakland A's general manager and found success fielding competitive teams for low cost, compared to the payrolls of league rivals like the New York Yankees. Soderbergh was set to use real ballplayers as actors. He also shot interviews with ballplayers for vignettes that were to be woven into the film.

Moneyball's fate will be decided on Monday.

Source: MovieWeb
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Sasha Grey talks about The Girlfriend Experience

Envelope columnist Scott Feinberg interviewed Girlfriend Experience star Sasha Grey at the Edie and Lew Wasserman Cinematheque.

It is a good interview and as Jeffrey Wells says over on Hollywood Elsewhere, 21 year old "Grey comes off as shrewd, mature, intelligent and -- sorry -- faintly tragic. Because she works in an icky industry filled with untalented and under-educated people, and because no porn star has ever walked away from it intact."

The Girlfriend Experience is Steven Soderbergh's latest film and has been getting some excellent reviews.

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Hensons 11 - The Muppets meet Oceans 11

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The Girlfriend Experience - Trailer for Steven Soderbergh's latest film starring Sasha Grey

Set in the weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election, The Girlfriend Experience is five days in the life of Chelsea (adult film star Sasha Grey in her mainstream film debut), an ultra high-end Manhattan call girl who offers more than sex to her clients, but companionship and conversation – “the girlfriend experience.” Chelsea thinks she has her life totally under control—she feels her future is secure because she runs her own business her own way, makes $2000 an hour, and has a devoted boyfriend (Chris Santos) who accepts her lifestyle. But when you’re in the business of meeting people, you never know who you’re going to meet…

Sasha Grey last graced Life for Film's pages in the PG Porn short, Roadside Ass-istance, but here she has gone all serious and mainstream.

The Girlfriend Experience looks like it could be one of those extremely interesting yet ultimately hollow films that come along every now and again. Have a look at the trailer below and let me know whether you agree with me.

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Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience - Poster

Shot in just 21 days with a mostly amateur cast (including New York's own Mark Jacobson!), Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience, due on May 22, stars popular pornography actress Sasha Grey as a high-end prostitute pondering the state of her life. The film hits On Demand on April 30, and arrives in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on May 22. Magnolia Pictures gave Vulture an exclusive first look at the movie's poster, featuring Grey

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The Informant - Look it's a tubby Matt Damon with a moustache

Teaser Trailer had the photos for Steven Soderbergh's latest film, The Informant, starring Matt Damon.
The Informant is based on the true-life novel by Kurt Eichenwald. The story revolves around Mark Whitacre (Damon), a rising star at the agriculture conglomerate, Archer Daniels Midland (ADM). At the urging of his wife (Melanie Lynskey)Whitacre spilled the beans to an agent that he had been involved in a price-fixing scam with other major corporations over the food additive, lysine. As if that wasn't enough of a story, it was later revealed that Whitacre (one of the most high profile, whistle-blowers in history) was suffering from Bipolar disorder and had defrauded millions from ADM.
The film also stars Patton Oswalt, Scott Bakula and Thomas F Wilson. It is due out this November.

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Che, 2008 - Movie review of The Argentine and Guerrilla

Director: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: Benicio del Toro, Julia Ormond, Demián Bichir, Rodrigo Santoro, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Franka Potente
Running Time: 257 minutes (The Argentine - 126 m, Guerrilla - 131 m)
Score: 8 / 10

This review by Chris Knipp

Ironically the most talked-about American film in the 2008 New York Film Festival is 98% in Spanish. The extra-long film's controversy began at the Cannes Festival. There were love-hate notices, and considerable doubts about commercial prospects. As consolation the star, Benicio Del Toro, got the Best Actor award there. I'm talking about Steven Soderbergh's 'Che', of course. That's the name it's going by in this version, shown in New York as at Cannes in two 2-hour-plus segments without opening title or end credits. 'Che' is certainly appropriate since Ernesto "Che" Guevara is in almost every scene. Del Toro is impressive, hanging in reliably through thick and thin, from days of glorious victory in part one to months of humiliating defeat in part two, appealing and simpatico in all his varied manifestations, even disguised as a bald graying man to sneak into Bolivia. It's a terrific performance; one wishes it had a better setting.

If you are patient enough to sit through the over four hours, with an intermission between the two sections, there are rewards. There's an authentic feel throughout--fortunately Soderbergh made the decision to film in Spanish (though some of the actors, oddly enough in the English segments especially, are wooden). You get a good outline of what guerrilla warfare, Che style, was like: the teaching, the recruitment of campesinos, the morality, the discipline, the hardship, and the fighting--as well as Che's gradual morphing from company doctor to full-fledged military leader. Use of a new 9-pound 35 mm-quality RED "digital high performance cine camera" that just became available in time for filming enabled DP Peter Andrews and his crew to produce images that are a bit cold, but at times still sing, and are always sharp and smooth.

The film is in two parts--Soderbergh is calling them two "films," and the plan is to release them commercially as such. First is The Argentine, depicting Che's leadership in jungle and town fighting that led up to the fall of Havana in the late 50's, and the second is Guerrilla, and concerns Che's failed effort nearly a decade later in Bolivia to spearhead a revolution, a fruitful mission that led to Guevara's capture and execution in 1967. The second part was to have been the original film and was written first and, I think, shot first. Producer Laura Bickford says that part two is more of a thriller, while part one is more of an action film with big battle scenes. Yes, but both parts have a lot in common--too much--since both spend a large part of their time following the guerrillas through rough country. Guerrilla an unmitigated downer since the Bolivian revolt was doomed from the start. The group of Cubans who tried to lead it didn't get a friendly reception from the Bolivian campesinos, who suspected foreigners, and thought of the Cuban communists as godless rapists. There is a third part, a kind of celebratory black and white interval made up of Che's speech at the United Nations in 1964 and interviews with him at that time, but that is inter-cut in the first segment. The first part also has Fidel and is considerably more upbeat, leading as it does to the victory in Santa Clara in 1959 that led to the fall of the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba.

During 'Guerilla' I kept thinking how this could indeed work as a quality European-style miniseries, which might begin with a shortened version of Walter Salles's 'Motorcycle Diaries' and go on to take us to Guevara's fateful meeting with Fidel in Mexico and enlistment in the 26th of July Movement. There could be much more about his extensive travels and diplomatic missions. This is far from a complete picture of the man, his childhood interest in chess, his lifelong interest in poetry, the books he wrote; even his international fame is only touched on. And what about his harsh, cruel side? Really what Soderbergh is most interested in isn't Che, but revolution, and guerrilla warfare. The lasting impression that the 4+ hours leave is of slogging through woods and jungle with wounded and sick men and women and idealistic dedication to a the cause of ending the tyranny of the rich. Someone mentioned being reminded of Terrence Malick's 'The Tin Red Line,' and yes, the meandering, episodic battle approach is similar; but 'The Thin Red Line' has stronger characters (hardly anybody emerges forcefully besides Che), and it's a really good film. This is an impressive, but unfinished and ill-fated, effort.

This 8-years-gestating, heavily researched labor of love (how many more Ocean's must come to pay for it?) is a vanity project, too long for a regular theatrical release and too short for a miniseries. Radical editing--or major expansion--would have made it into something more successful, and as it is it's a long slog, especially in the second half.

It's clear that this slogging could have been trimmed down, though it's not so clear what form the resulting film would have taken--but with a little bit of luck it might have been quite a good one.

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Che - New Poster - I like the tag line on this one

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Che Trailer

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Che - Poster for The Argentine and Guerilla

Che is a true life historical epic made up of two individual films (The Argentine and Guerrilla) that chronicles the life of revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. They're both directed by Steven Soderbergh, of Traffic, The Good German, and the Ocean's Trilogy previously. The screenplays were written by Peter Buchman, of Jurassic Park III and Eragon previously, and are based on Guevara's memoirs.


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The Random

Cheers to Pop Candy for pointing out some of these.

Michael Douglas as Liberace in Steven Soderburgh movie.

Where the Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak is interviewed in this piece.

This is what happens when you start "Breaking Down the Presidential Campaign Using John Hughes Movies."

Evil Dead: The Musical in 3-D

Warner Bros. plans to rerelease The Dark Knight in January on a big IMAX push.

A list of classic cult movies that paved the way for new cult movies.

Time interviews Chuck Norris.

The author of Fletch has died.

Kevin Smith wants to make a superhero movie starring Seth Rogen.

The whole thing about Philip Seymour Hoffman appearing in the next Batman movie is just a rumor.

William Shatner doesn't appear in the new Star Trek movie, J.J. Abrams says.

Actor Alan Cumming is trying to become a U.S. citizen so he can vote in the presidential election.

Viral Website for Eagle Eye hits.

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