Pizza-lovers have plenty of options when it comes to enjoying their favorite pies. There’s the high-ambiance pick of dining in, savoring the aroma of yeast and garlic wafting from the kitchen while relaxing to the sound of Dean Martin crooning “That’s Amoré” from the speakers in the ceiling.
If there’s no time to cook and the family’s starving, call ahead and pick up a couple of pizzas on the way home from work. Or if you’re home-bound rather than homeward bound, pick up the phone and 30 minutes later – BADA-BING! – pizza at your doorstep, and you didn’t even leave the couch.
Watching a new movie is about to get just as flexible.
Oh, sure, it’s not like the options don’t already exist. You can dine in (go to a theater), carry out (rent or buy a DVD) or get it delivered (cable or satellite TV). Until now, though, there’s been a certain lack of synergy between those three media. But that’s about to change, thanks to a maverick media mogul and his partnership with one of Hollywood’s leading directors.
A bit more than two years ago, Mark Cuban, the charismatic owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team and co-founder of HDNet, a premium television service, purchased Landmark Theatres, the nation’s largest chain of “art house” cinemas. (In St. Louis, that includes the Tivoli, Hi-Pointe and Plaza Frontenac theaters.)
That purchase attracted the attention of Steven Soderbergh, who in recent years has become one of the best-known directors in Hollywood, cranking out blockbuster hits such as “Traffic” and “Ocean’s 11.” He met with Cuban and his business partner, and out of that meeting came the idea for a new series of films that would be distributed in an entirely new manner, both to increase exposure for the films and to get big-time brand recognition for Cuban’s companies. The first of those films, “Bubble,” is scheduled to run until the early days of February.
AND it’s available on DVD at local stores and movie-rental chains.
AND it’s airing on HDNet, if you’re a subscriber.
That’s right: dine in, carry out, home delivery. Just like a pizza. All available right now. No waiting three months for it to come to cable or six months for the DVD. “Bubble” is out there, everywhere, all at once.
There’s a fine line, though, between “groundbreaking” and “novelty.” The distribution blitz for “Bubble” means nothing if it’s a lousy film. “Ocean’s 12” notwithstanding, Soderbergh’s participation virtually eliminates any likelihood of that. In fact, he’s taken a rather daring risk with “Bubble,” but I believe it’s going to pay off, at least from a critic’s perspective.
“Bubble” is a concise tale set in and around a doll factory in a small, relatively poor town in eastern Ohio. Martha (Debbie Doebereiner) and Kyle (Dustin James Ashley) are two of the workers, and they’ve formed a close friendship as the byproduct of years of tedious routine. The mundanity is broken by the arrival of Rose, a young single mother who quickly starts her own relationship with Kyle. But soon Rose is found dead on the factory floor, and the evidence paints a jealous Martha as the likely murderer.
The premise of a fatal love triangle is ancient. Soderbergh’s innovation isn’t in the story, but in the way the film is crafted. Read over the cast list for “Bubble” and you’ll recognize no one. There are no movie stars in this movie, and few of the cast are even professional actors. Instead, Soderbergh and screenwriter Coleman Hough found this town and the setting of the doll factory and wrote a movie around it. Area residents make up the cast, wearing their own clothes, driving their own cars. The whole thing was shot on digital video cameras over less than three weeks.
The result is something like a student film project but with the sharp eye and timing of an accomplished filmmaker. It’s unlike anything else that’s out there right now. Soderbergh has invested “Bubble” with almost horror-like visuals; the scenes inside the doll factory are frequently eerie, with deep shadows washing over boxes filled with body parts. The cast is entirely authentic; this is their town, these are their jobs. Nothing is forced beyond the necessity of advancing the story.
Whether Cuban and Soderbergh’s experiment will succeed or not is up to viewers all over the country. HDTV is still only a wish for many households, and theater owners already were grousing months ago that the simultaneous DVD release would eat into their first-run profits. Nevertheless, Soderbergh continues work on the following films in the series; “a cycle of Americana from [an] oblique angle,” he calls it. In other words, a slice of America, served up any way you want it.
A good pizza is like a good movie. A good crust (plot), a tangy sauce (setting) and delicious toppings (characters), when in balance, are a sensory delight. Plenty of places deliver, but finding a pizzeria with ambiance takes some effort these days. Vito’s, right next to Saint Louis University, has great pie and a great place to eat it, but you can get it to go or delivered if you like. Its extensive menu runs from traditional to dazzlingly creative. But with a stark film like “Bubble,” I’d strip away all pretense and go with the purest pie of all, the Margherita, an elemental creation of tomato, basil
and mozzarella.
This article appears in Jan 1-31, 2006.