2002, R, 101 minutes

Beginning with the impressively stylish crime drama Out of Sight in 1998, Steven Soderbergh has put together a shockingly good string of movies in roughly half a decade, and was even nominated twice in the same year. With sudden fame and possibly even more pressure to produce quality, it was only a matter of time before he cracked, and the only question was would he fall gracefully or flat on his face? With Full Frontal - a movie that seems incapable of being admired - the answer is a little of both.

To be perfectly frank, Full Frontal is a pretentious, boring piece of crap. There are only a few interesting scenes in the entire movie, and even those barely manage to be engaging, and for the most part I couldn't care less about the characters and their little self-important lives. However, the film is not a complete failure in that Soderbergh was able to disappoint (yes, disappoint) without damaging his career so far as the studios are concerned. He made it clear he needed to get the inflated commercial movie feeling out of his system - likely the result of all the hoopla surrounding the Las Vegas shoot for Ocean's Eleven - and he did it for a mere 2 million dollars. Is this a waste of money? Of course it is. But on the other hand, I imagine many directors would have attempted such an experiment and flushed ten times that amount of money right down the toilet. Clearly, Soderbergh never expected this film to be a success, and for good reason, but I still see it as a success in that he got it out of his system without hurting his career to the point that in the future he might not get the funding necessary for something ambitious on a larger scale. Traffic sat on the ground for years until he became attached to the project and it'd be a shame if he lost that kind of clout.

As for the movie itself, I really don't feel it's worth my time to talk about it much. A few shocking things happen (particularly when David Duchovny makes his entrance) and the scenes between Blair Underwood and Julia Roberts are kind of fun if you're watching the movie while doing something else, but I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone - I don't care how much you love these artsy fartsy experiments. Even if you're a huge fan of Steven Soderbergh like myself, it isn't worth it. Perhaps you've followed his career for years and want to check it out with low expectations... well... it's your time if you want to waste it. One thing I will say: at least it isn't Waterworld.