Full Frontal (3 out of 4)

Starring Blair Underwood and Julia Roberts. Directed by Steven Soderbergh.

Having enjoyed box-office success with commercial favourites Erin Brockovich and Ocean's Eleven, Steven Soderbergh is back to independent form with his exceptionally quirky and biting Full Frontal. A movie-within-a-movie that features a hilarious web of emotional connections, Full Frontal is cool heady fun.
Set in Los Angeles during a 24-hour period, the movie opens with a scene from the movie Rendezvous starring Francesca (Julia Roberts) as a journalist who follows rising actor Calvin (Blair Underwood) cross-country for a feature she's writing. Soderbergh then switches from 35 mm to digital to tell the "true" stories of Francesca and Calvin, including the latter's affair with emotionally unstable Lee (Catherine Keener) who is married to Rendezvous writer Carl (David Hyde Pierce). Meanwhile Lee's masseuse sister Linda (Mary McCormack) is preparing to meet her Internet date Arty (Enrico Colantoni) in Arizona, who in turn is staging a musical about Hitler. The film's climax is the 40th birthday party for Rendezvous' producer, Gus (David Duchovny).
While not as personal as sex, lies and videotape or involving as Traffic, Full Frontal contains enough wacky jabs and jokes to stir the most jaded filmgoer. Watch for cameos by Brad Pitt, David Fincher, Terence Stamp (in a scene from The Limey!) and Jerry Weintraub.

Publication Date: 2002-08-04
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=1646