There is a lot of hubbub going on outside the frame and behind the camera when it comes to "Bubble." The manner in which it was filmed is as unique as the system employed to market and release the film. Yet all this extraneous noise is really a moot point, for "Bubble" is a complete and utter failure on the screen. What happens within its frames is certainly no cause for all the hype and excitement generated by its shooting and its marketing.

Director Steven Soderbergh may want to return to low-budget filmmaking and take up the mantle of digital filmmaking, but his final product in doing so is a drab and pointless affair, a reworking of "Dancer in the Dark" without the dancing or the blindness. And without a high caliber star along the lines of Bjork, Soderbergh has absolutely nothing to offer.

Soderbergh wants to take the same chances and get the same payoffs as his indie contemporary Gus Van Sant it seems. But Soderbergh apparently doesn't have the chops or the balls that Van Sant does. In his last three films, "Gerry," "Elephant," and "Last Days," Van Sant has forsaken his Hollywood mainstream success and created three of the most breath-taking, awesome, amazing and artistic films of the past few years. Soderbergh's "Bubble" pales in the face of Van Sant's work and provides ample proof that some people are meant to be artistic and brilliant and others are better suited for more mainstream fare. Soderbergh needs to put a call into George Clooney as soon as he possibly can.

The story of "Bubbles" production suggests that Soderbergh, working off of a script by Coleman Hough ("Full Frontal"), went to a small town in Ohio, hired non-professionals to appear in his film, and then shot the piece in sequence. As an added kick to the proceedings, Soderbergh also did not let his non-actors see the entire script while they shot each scene. He only allowed them to know the script to the point of where they were enacting it. In other words, the actors did not know the ending of the film while they were shooting the scenes that came before it. This idiotic shooting gimmick leads to a boring, pointless, floundering mess of a film where characters walk around looking like morons with nothing interesting or insightful to do or say. The lead character of Martha says "I don't know" so many time in the film that surely a drinking game will evolve around the utterance of the phrase at screenings at college frat houses. And, God damn it, when she is saying "I don't know," it is because she truly doesn't know what the fuck is going on in the film. She isn't acting, she's reacting to an idiot filming situation. Soderbergh had to hire unknowns because any professional actress would have thrown up her hands in frustration and walked off the set working in this manner.

While Debbie Doebereiner is decent as Martha, she is blown off the map by Cyndi Williams in a little film called "Room," directed by my friend Kyle Henry that came out last year. Williams and Henry are up for some prizes at the Independent Spirit Awards in 2006 and rightfully so. Williams makes Doebereiner seem as frustrated and poorly prepared as she surely is. And while it is nice to see larger ladies in lead film roles, Doebereiner is shut down by her director where Williams is exalted by hers.

But at least there is Dustin Ashley to look at for the (thankfully) short running time of "Bubble." Ashley may not be the hottest young man to walk the planet but his pretty facade sure helps to glitter up the screen in the conglomeration of fecal matter that Soderbergh is splattering on it. Ashley is cute and charming and soft and lovely and its quite difficult not to fall in love with him as the film runs. At least that gives some justifications to the ultimate plot twist at the end of the film, regardless of how amazingly inane it is.

"Bubble" was produced by the loudmouthed and utterly ignorant Mark Cuban, a jackass who is only allowed to spew his nonsense in the media because he has a lot of money. Cuban, who owns some sports franchise as well as the Landmark Theaters chain, decided it was a smart business decision to release this film at theaters, on DVD and on cable TV all on the same day in February 2006. Actually, the film had one weekend in theaters before the Tuesday release of the DVD. And the theatrical release was, in fact, a sham, as the film was released mainly in the Landmark Theaters that Cuban owns, and when shown at these venues was only projected via a digital projector. There was very little expense for the theatrical leg of Cuban's hyped multi-outlet release because the theatrical portion of it cost him only the fee of generating DVD's to run in the theaters. This is almost nothing especially when compared with what it would have cost to generate 35mm prints for the release of the film. As it was, even though Cuban publicly stated otherwise, the theatrical release of the film was a bomb with only about $70,000 taken in, a paltry sum for an opening weekend of an arthouse film playing in over 30 theaters. But Cuban is indeed a genius, he got massive free media for the film's release with his bombastic claims that it is smart business to release films at theaters and on DVD at the same time (it's not) and he actually hurt much of his competition, the megaplexes, by helping further the thought in film distributors that a small window between theatrical and DVD release is a wise idea (it's not).

That's a pretty good windfall that comes from releasing one of the worst features that will be shown at theaters this year. "Bubble" is also one of the worst DVD's to be released this year and one of the worst films to debut on cable TV this year. Remember this axiom my friends: Hype equals Bullshit. "Bubble" is another little bit of the cinematic proof of the truth to that statement.

Notes:

Viewed at the Dobie in February 2006. I tried to find a DVD copy to rent but my local chain video stores were not carrying it.

"Bubble" ran for one week at The Dobie. The DVD was on sale in the lobby for $24.99.

Report Card

Script: F

Acting: F

Cinematography\Lighting: C

Special Effects\Make Up: A

Music: C

Final Grade: F