This film turned out so disappointing and really bad that I am going to have a hard time writing much about it.  There's just not that much to say other than what the heck was Soderbergh thinking when he did this?  I've been a huge fan of all of his films in the past so it was natural to go into this film thinking I'm going to see another interesting and original Soderbergh film.  Boy, was I wrong.

      The film traces the lives of the major characters over basically a twenty-four period in Los Angeles.  We soon see a movie star struggling to get the right part, a screen writer whose wife is about to leave him, and a masseuse who is planning to finally physically meet a man she has met on the internet.  All of the characters eventually become connected to some degree thru events surrounding all of them.

      There is nothing much else to say about the plot because their really isn't one.  Nothing like a story really unfolds during this film, it's mostly people talking about their lives and the events which surround them.

      While I was expecting a character based film when I went to see this, I at least was expecting to see a movie that was about something interesting.  While the characters themselves are interesting, nothing they say or do is.  Nothing dealt with in this film is either compelling or original.  The fact that people in the film business are as troubled and insecure as everybody else has been done countless times before, and in much more biting and satirical ways.  Think The Player for example.  I will say that the characters are somewhat interesting, especially the one played by Katherine Keener.  But that hardly makes up for everything else.

      But the worse thing about this film was the irritating cinematography.  Soderberg shot the film on video to achieve a documentary real-life effect.  However, the quality of the film is so bad and so grainy for much of the movie, that the audience can't even see the characters clearly, and sometimes not at all.  My home movies look much better than this film.  It is just so baffling why he shot this film so grainy and hard to see.

      Save your money and watch any other Soderberg film on dvd.  This is in no way (like some critics have said) any sort of sequel to the marvelous Sex, Lies, and Videotape.  I guess every great director has one bad film to their name, and Soderbergh got his with this totally uninteresting and uneventful film.  Have I said how uninteresting this movie is?