The Good German was recently screened in New York for the Directors Guild of America to a very poor reception. There have also been some screenings in L.A. and everyone around town is taking about what a terrible disappointment it is. Here is what cinematical.com had to say:
the new Steven Soderbergh film was received pretty horribly at a recent DGA screening in NYC. And despite the director being present for a Q&A, members of the audience felt no need to be nice.
The writer claims that during the film there was some guffawing and loudly expressed commenting going on, and when the film ended, there was little applause. Then, when Soderbergh came out for questions, it got even worse. One person asked if the film was supposed to be a spoof or parody of The Third Man. Eventually, Soderbergh issued his own criticisms of the audience members but also had a little fun with the response.
This is a real shame. This movie has an all star cast including Cate Blanchett, George Clooney and Toby MaGuire,a strong director in Steven Soderbergh. And it had the great idea to shoot everything like a 1940’s movie.
So, what went wrong?
Well sometimes people rely too heavily on a high concept film, and if it’s all about the concept other things, like the story and the acting may fail. It sounds like maybe Soderbergh got too wrapped up in his vision and wasn’t open to any feedback on how things were going.
I think the industry folks are so upset about this movie because they had such high hopes. It’s not every day that people invest in a movie like this. This is a film made by a man who loves old school films, he remade Ocean’s Eleven, he helped produce Good Night and Good Luck which had an old movie feel to it. Sadly I think he just got carried away.
Maybe he wanted to do this idea ever since film school, now he has fulfilled his fantasy. Nothing wrong with that as long as he is willing to pay the price.
