Sex, Lies, and Videotape
Dir: Steven Soderbergh
1989
**
Sex, Lies, and Videotape is one of the most overrated films of all time. It has been said that both Sex, Lies, and Videotape and Pulp Fiction both pioneered independent film in the 1990s. That's not true, independent cinema with relatively low budgets had been gaining momentum rather successfully worldwide, mainly around Europe but also in America. I can name 100 better independent films made in the early 90's, many having made much more of an impact on contemporary cinema. What Soderbergh and Tarantino did was to make independent films mainstream, thus, loosing what was essentially what made them so good in the first place. Tarantino didn't really hide his influences and went on to improve on many of the ideas he'd seen and loved anyway, he certainly added his own 'Cool' branding to them. Soderbergh went straight to European cinema, ripped it off and claimed it as his own. He's not the first person to have done so, to his credit it's a good bit of ripping but it's still a McDonald's Happy Meal disguised as a Michelin Starred feast. I guess if you're used to eating crap and don't realise it you would know no better. I'm not being a film snob, I'm really not, but after watching many films by Éric Rohmer, Louis Malle, Claude Chabrol - to mention a few, a film like Sex, Lies, and Videotape is just poor imitation and an annoyance when it claims so much dishonestly. It was a pioneer in what I would describe as the 'Mutten dressed as lamb' era.