Living in a Bubble

Bubble, the latest film by Steven Soderbergh has garnered a lot of press lately. Unfortunately, most of the press has been about the pros and cons of the simultaneous DVD/Cable/Theater releasing scheme. Even the reviews of the film miss the most important aspect of this movie, which is the film's effective proof that there is no reason to pay Jennifer Lopez millions of dollars for her services. With the right director, a woman who has worked at a KFC for 24 years can turn in an effective and affecting performance. Bubble is the story of three people who work at a doll factory in Belpre, Ohio. The movie explores what happens when their lives intersect. Nothing earth-shattering here, but it is the first time that these people have ever acted. In some cases it shows, but even then it works somehow. In terms of acting, the closest thing I can compare it to is Monte Hellman's superb film, TWO LANE BLACKTOP, which featured singer James Taylor and dead Beach Boy, Dennis Wilson in the leads roles. But even there, Hellman hedged his bets, hiring some talented Hollywood regulars lest the film careen off into disaster. Soderbergh works without a net. The end result is a film that feels like a documentary, and yet we know it is not. A word has to be said here about Soderbergh's cinematography. This film is visually stunning. I'd say kudos to Director of Photography, but Soderbergh did it himself, as he often does, under the name Peter Andrews. If you can, I would recommed seeing this in a theater just because the visual deserve the largest format possible (unless you have a 50' screen at home, in which case, never mind).

It's been a while since the last Pop Void saw the light of day. Now it is back thanks to Blogger. I will probably be updating this site once a week. Perhaps a little more often at first. We shall see....

For those of you who are familiar with Pop Void, expect to see some of the articles from it appearing here in revised versions. For those of you who are new to Pop Void, PV was a journal that I put out back in the eighties. It was devoted to exploring the aspects of pop culture that either go unobserved or are quickly forgotten by the general public. Sometimes these things that may seem really important at the time. I started PV as a response to a phenomenon that I saw all the time. There were so many aspects of our culture that came and went and no one was paying any attention to them. I knew these things were shaping us, and for that reason, they needed to be held up to scrutiny. Often these things were banal (Sillisculpts, Rod McKuen poetry, Keane paintings), mundane (Kraft M&C dinners, chewing gum, McDonald's vs. Burger King), or just plain under the radar (Henry Gregor Felsen novels, nudist magazines, Ed L. Cahn films).

That was before the Internet.

With the advent of the Internet, suddenly the void dispappeared. It is a rare topic that finds no hits in Google. Somewhere, some one has become on expert on every subject imaginable. As near as I can tell, the void is gone. For me, this is a wonderful thing because it frees me up to do what I do best: examine the subtexts of things. For those of you who really know me, I will also be looking back on subjects that I tackled in Incredibly Strange Films. And for those of you who really, really know me, I will also be revisiting some subjects from my Trashola days.

As a request by several people, I will also be placing some ofthe original articles from PV #1, and the previous Pop Void web site up here as well. Some of these articles were written by others, including Barry Alfonso, Mike Wilkins, Boyd Rice, J.C. Garrett, and others. I reserve the right to go off on any tangent I feel like.

Huh?