Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh)

[Watashi]

IMDb (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1915581/)

http://media3.onsugar.com/files/2012/06/22/5/192/1922283/030385782a1e9540_magic-mike-poster1.jpeg

[number8]

Soderbergh, you finally have a film that's perfect for your preferred VOD distribution and you didn't do it. Come on, man.

[Pop Trash]

Soderbergh, you finally have a film that's perfect for your preferred VOD distribution and you didn't do it. Come on, man.

hahaha...personally I can wait until DVD for this (but I do want to see it)

[Raiders]

I keep forgetting Soderbergh directed this.

[Watashi]

I'm seeing this tonight with a large group of girls.

I just told them I was Channing Tatum's strip double in the film.

[EvilShoe]

Seems like a strange movie to see with your family.

[number8]

Oh snap.

[Irish]

Looking forward to hearing Izzy pontificate on the brilliant post modern sensibilities behind Channing Tatum crotch shots.

[eternity]

It made a fuckload at midnight, and is probably going to be #1 for the weekend.

Yep.

[Lucky]

It made a fuckload at midnight, and is probably going to be #1 for the weekend.

Yep.

I can't wait for the feminist sexual explosion (NPI) in the media after the success of this movie and 50 Shades of Gray.

[Pop Trash]

I can't wait for the feminist sexual explosion (NPI) in the media after the success of this movie and 50 Shades of Gray.

I can't wait to get laid more often...oh wait, I'll just get rejected for not having washboard abs by women who are 15lbs. overweight and a '7' at best.

[B-side]

Can't wait to see this. Hopefully tomorrow.

[number8]

Same here. I wonder if the theater will be empty if I go during the day.

[Mal]

It made a fuckload at midnight, and is probably going to be #1 for the weekend.

Yep.

Where do you get your news. Ted is overperforming because clothed penis wants to win this weekend.


Seeing tomorrow with a coworker, she is probably seeing it for the sweaty abs.

[eternity]

Where do you get your news. Ted is overperforming because clothed penis wants to win this weekend.


Seeing tomorrow with a coworker, she is probably seeing it for the sweaty abs.
I posted that before Deadline had hard numbers. They were originally saying Magic Mike and Ted were competing for #1. Not the case anymore, but it was true when I posted.

[Mal]

I posted that before Deadline had hard numbers. They were originally saying Magic Mike and Ted were competing for #1. Not the case anymore, but it was true when I posted.

Shalom.
I thought Ted always projected to do more, considering its screen count - Deadline could be underestimating both films overall though. My theater doubled their MM count on Thursday prior to Friday.

I'd probably try to see Ted, MM, and Brave this weekend if it wasn't for an Air Show providing inevitable traffuck.

[Watashi]

I liked this movie a lot.

The color filters, cinematography, the nonactors, and the overall execution is pure Soderbergh.

[Pop Trash]

It made a fuckload at midnight, and is probably going to be #1 for the weekend.

Yep.

Not quite, but it was really close Friday night. It'll probably drop off on Sat. and Sun. giving Ted an (unfortunate) lead. It's still going to be one of Soderbergh's biggest non-Oceans movies.

[TGM]

So much better than Ted!

[Henry Gale]

I think there's some sort of mistake because I don't see how three films not based on pre-existing properties can top the box office in late June. Not to mention the top two are R-rated and one is targeted almost entirely at women. The studios have told me these demographics don't like going to the movies!

[Ivan Drago]

I didn't think I'd want to see this, but the positive reviews have me intrigued.

[Mal]

There was something very irresistible about this film. Although I would have liked a little more story to do with the other male strippers, overall Sodes has crafted a very classic, very likable story of the American dream. And hats off to Channing Tatum and Mcconaughey who run this film otherwise with their solid performances.

[B-side]

I wrote a little something on this as it relates to The Girlfriend Experience and Soderbergh:

Steven Soderbergh and the Surrogate Salesperson

Without a doubt, as I'd precipitated once the first trailer arrived, Magic Mike is closely tied with The Girlfriend Experience in Soderbergh's recent filmography. Both Mike and Chelsea are human commodities in desperate financial times. Magic Mike is certainly more light-hearted in tone, but that's not to say it lacks pathos or punch in its probing of the popular male equivalent of female prostitution. Chelsea offers men a no strings attached "girlfriend experience" and Mike offers them the same, but vice versa. Both are professional surrogates; lovers or sheer titillation in a time of need. Soderbergh, thankfully, isn't interested in the morality of these occupations, and instead opts to examine both characters in their polar opposite environments. Chelsea works with rich clientele, eating at fancy restaurants and making thousands a night while trying to maintain a traditional relationship at home. Mike works in a small strip club for maybe a few hundred a night at best. Chelsea sells herself in newspaper ads and elsewhere publicly, fully acknowledging her position as merchandise while her wealthy temporary partners speak at her about their line of work and the ongoing financial crisis. While Magic Mike makes no explicit mention of its topicality, its release in a slow economic recovery in the US makes it so regardless of intent. When Mike says semi-jokingly to his crush that she doesn't wanna know what he has to do to get 20 dollar bills, I can't help but see that line resonating far beyond its stripping connotations. Soderbergh the photographer has become as important as Soderbergh the director, and his work in both of these films is fantastic. Magic Mike's flat, glassy, digital compositions emphasize the two-dimensionality of Mike's chosen lifestyle, while The Girlfriend Experience's photography is a little less flat and more clinical, uprooting any possible sense of emotional catharsis in what she does. Both are works of autobiographical fiction, mostly for Soderbergh, and partially for Tatum in the case of Magic Mike since the narrative is loosely based on his experiences as a stripper. Soderbergh has been hopping around the independent film scene since he got started in the late 80s, occasionally dipping his toe in high profile work that rarely pans out for him as an artist, and the same can be said of both of these protagonists. Mike (Soderbergh) lives in a state of perpetual transition, and claims he isn't defined by his work as a stripper (filmmaker), but rather as an individual who wants to create. Chelsea, as her clients know her, and "Magic Mike", as his customers know him, are only part of the story. There's an undeniable allure to good money sans the physical labor and decade of college, but as Brooke knows, sitting on the outside of the group, concealing a smirk that would give her away as enjoying herself, it won't last much longer, and neither, it seems, will Soderbergh's career in film.

[eternity]

My favorite Soderbergh movie since Ocean's Eleven. It was both a lot funnier and a lot more dramatic than I was expecting.

[Boner M]

This was like Shame if McQueen had anything resembling a light touch.

[Izzy Black]

I really like that it ended up being Soderbergh that put the lens on Tatum's semi-autobiographical tale. It racks up well with his career long interest in docufictional elements (or his "cinema of transparency" as I call it) and particularly with the recent blurring of actor / character in The Girlfriend Experience, Haywire, Full Frontal, and Ocean's Twelve (often armed with the formal eccentricities of digital). This film works on many levels, of course. It was recently suggested that Soderbergh isn't a political filmmaker, which I'm not sure how true that it is. At minimum, he's interested in interrogating traditional archetypal subjects and structures in film, and frequently, those archetypes have political significance (the gender politics of the action hero genre in Haywire, the exaggerated false reality of the disaster film in Contagion); here, it's acting on the traditional expectations of the audience gaze (it's no accident we have Tatum's naked ass in the first seconds of the film's opening frames, and for that matter, a topless Olivia Munn immediately after). Soderbergh has expressed skepticism about film's capacity to have meaningful political influence (he's said film is useless if it can't prevent tragedies like the thirteen-year-old rape victim in Somalia), and that's why I don't think his interest in political topics and his treatment of them carries an agenda (he's generally suspicious of political agendas in films). His cinematic goals are routinely and unmistakably formal, but those ends and interests often require an unavoidable personal investment that speaks to Soderbergh's political sensibility, and thus, one that's inextricably tied to his aesthetic sensibility. To make a genre film in a particular way for the sake of it, then, is to make a personal statement about the genre itself. This makes his contributions to a larger conversation about society decidedly indirect and unmistakably cinematic.

[Thirdmango]

It's not often I come on to vote and find I'm the only one who voted Nay.

Also I saw Ted in the same night and liked Ted more.

But, with that aside. I loved the first half of the movie and there were visual things in the second half I liked but mostly during the second half I just felt bored. I had gotten my fill of these characters after the first hour though I admit seeing Matthew Bomer dance was fun as well as Kevin Nash just sorta sway was fun too.

The part which really did me in though was the ending, the biggest problem I have with it is the choices that Brooke (The sister) made.

I simply can't believe that she could bring herself to allow this guy into her life after three months who was basically the lynch pin to destroying her brother's life. Yes she does say to her brother that she is done with him because it became too much but then to decide to sleep with Mike, what a couple of days after simply because he decides to not go to Miami? I know they had been building a connection and I know that people do weird things, but man she showed such exuberance for her brother that it didn't even seem possible that she could just overcome all of that just because Mike apparently forsake the stripper life.

[ledfloyd]

this is a movie that is unexpectedly good.

[amberlita]

I liked it overall, but I'm with Thirdmango on the ending. Not only for her unreasonable decision to invite Mike into her life and her bed (they had zero chemistry) but also the way with which she dispensed with her brother. They seemed pretty close at the beginning, he goes off the rails, and we get no impression that she really tried to get him back on track. Instead she just kicks him out of her life.

On a more superficial note, there is no way in HELL I would drop cash into Kevin Nash's drawers unless it was for the sole purpose of making him go away.

[Pop Trash]

I dug this.

I won't add too much, since Israfel said it best, but re: the happy ending
Soderbergh always has an angle to his films and I feel like he was mostly sticking to genre conventions of this being a chick flick/women's picture/happy funtime summer movie. It's ambiguous enough to not be a total eyeroller, but I'm honestly happy he didn't go for some trumped up drama and have The Kid o.d. or be killed by the Latino drug dealers.

A lot of this is a great portrait of How We Live Now too. It's also the best (as far as capturing the good/bad/ugly) Florida movie I've seen since Larry Clark's Bully; a place I know entirely too well having spent many summers there in my youth.

[amberlita]

It didn't have to end with something tragic. It just had to end with something that made sense. It should have ended 3 minutes earlier than it did, with Mike driving away from his old life as the Kid steps fully into it. The reward for walking away would have been far more poignant and fit better with what had developed. There's nothing in the preceding 2 hours that made me think Mike was doing this so that he could get the girl. And yet, that's the ending we get: Quit your shitty stripping life and you get to bang the classy hot chick instead of the slutty hot chicks you've been banging all movie. He even started to say that to her at the end when he found her reading in the atrium but cut himself off. I was rooting for Mike to get out of there because he clearly deserved more and I got that satisfaction when he left in tears. If I was supposed to be rooting for him to hook up with what's-her-teeth, then Soderberg should have given them more than 4 or 5 scenes together.

[ledfloyd]

i felt like those four or five scenes (especially the one on the sandbar and the one at the amusement park) were sufficient to convey mike's desire for that outcome.

as far as the other points, i kind of agree, but this is still a way better movie than it has any business being. i like it more the more i think about it.

[Pop Trash]

I thought it would end with a more ambiguous shot of him just taking off in his truck, but it would also be monumentally dumb for someone to just up and move on a whim. I'm assuming he has a lease plus his truck payments are probably enormous.

Like I said, I think part of it is Soderbergh letting mainstream auds have their cake and eat it too. Happy guy-gets-the-girl ending, even if it's pretty obvious their relationship will be rocky.

[B-side]

There's nothing to suggest that their relationship will work out. They were both clearly into each other from the beginning, but she wanted to remain "above" that lifestyle and those involved with it. It's obvious that she was intent on remaining clean, and her affection for Mike led her to, perhaps recklessly, give him too much of the responsibility in guiding The Kid around that world. Of course, ultimately, he was an adult and was going to do whatever he wanted, so this act of trust was essentially her way of conceding her affection for Mike and allowing him to get that much closer to her. Her cutting ties with her brother makes perfect sense given his attitude and behavior. He didn't think there was a problem, so why would he change? You have to acknowledge that there is a problem in order for anything to change. She's young and idealistic, which makes her a good fit for Mike, whose career idealism is the central conflict of his character trajectory. I don't think Mike quit stripping just for her. I think he needed extra incentive to do so and saw a path to a better life with her, so he finally did. The ending is totally a nod to Eyes Wide Shut, and equally ambiguous in its future implications.

[EyesWideOpen]

I thought this was a good but lesser Soderbergh film.

[Henry Gale]

I gotta wonder, was the average woman mad that the movie featured as little stripping as it does, or were they cool with it once they released the overall movie was as strong as it is?

I say this because it really is one of the most entertaining films of the year, and the fact that it was also one of the biggest, most unconventional hits of the summer (though perhaps only by having marketed itself under false pretenses) is definitely encouraging to see. Tatum and Horn's chemistry is fantastic, Pettyfer easily gives the most natural performance I've seen from him so far, and McConaughey is just ludicrous and marvelous in arguably the role his decades-old stoner exhibitionist persona has been leading towards him being able to perfect for all this time.

But I think it's awesome how when the stripping scenes do roll around, how Soderbergh fully commits them, both in terms of making them as hopefully titillating as appropriately cinematic as the rest of it. Mike's Ginuwine dance is genuinely exciting to watch unfold, especially since at that point I didn't care whether or not we saw Tatum take off his clothes again, though in how it plays off of Horn's reaction shots, coming right off of the fun scene between the two before that, and making that her introduction into this world Mike has brought her brother into; it's just a great scene.

Having the Saul Bass Warner Brothers logo kick it off, the long takes with its often hilarious and seemingly improvisational dialogue, with its great cast, typically rich Soderbergh cinematography and directorial choices, all of it sets the tone for the whole thing very early on, and they continue throughout to make this way more enjoyable than it should've ever been.

***½ / A-

[amberlita]

My sister and her female Facebook acquaintances are as "average woman" as you can get. She went with 3 of these people to the movie for a girl's night out.

They were pissed.

[transmogrifier]

I thought this was a good but lesser Soderbergh film.

Since The Limey, pretty much every Soderbergh film has been a lesser Soderbergh film. Except for The Informant! The Informant! is great.

[EyesWideOpen]

Since The Limey, pretty much every Soderbergh film has been a lesser Soderbergh film. Except for The Informant! The Informant! is great.

See I liked The Informant about as much as I liked Magic Mike. Haywire and Contagion are far stronger films in my opinion.

[Henry Gale]

My sister and her female Facebook acquaintances are as "average woman" as you can get. She went with 3 of these people to the movie for a girl's night out.

They were pissed.

Silly gals. Can't they appreciate an auteur at work when they see it? Especially one that's so willing to dole out a Tatum ass-shot in the first two minutes?

But whether or not it was all that people actually expected from it, this movie was probably the only time a mainstream summer flick could've unleashed gratuitous peen shots to an open-armed audience, and then the most nudity in it comes from Olivia Munn and Mircea Monroe. Thanks for nothing, Soderbergh!

[B-side]

Since The Limey, pretty much every Soderbergh film has been a lesser Soderbergh film. Except for The Informant! The Informant! is great.

Then his pre-2000s work must be phenomenal since his recent work has been pretty terrific.

[transmogrifier]

Then his pre-2000s work must be phenomenal since his recent work has been pretty terrific.

I would say his 1998-1999 work is phenomenal. The rest is varying degrees of "movies that exist"

[number8]

But whether or not it was all that people actually expected from it, this movie was probably the only time a mainstream summer flick could've unleashed gratuitous peen shots to an open-armed audience, and then the most nudity in it comes from Olivia Munn and Mircea Monroe. Thanks for nothing, Soderbergh!

Uh, did you miss the close up of Big Dick Ritchie's big dick being pumped in a penis pump in the first locker room scene?

[baby doll]

Then his pre-2000s work must be phenomenal since his recent work has been pretty terrific.sex, lies & videotape and King of the Hill are my two favorites overall simply because they have the most interesting and believable characters. Out of Sight is a stylish but disposable Elmore Leonard adaptation without any characters. The Limey is even more stylish and has more substantial characters than Out of Sight, but in many respects it seems to be appealing to the same tastes as that film. I haven't seen Kafka, The Underneath, Schizopolis, or Gray's Anatomy.

[Irish]

bd: interesting you picked two movies that were also written by Soderburgh.

[Henry Gale]

Uh, did you miss the close up of Big Dick Ritchie's big dick being pumped in a penis pump in the first locker room scene?

Yeah, I did forget about that, but it was an out of focus close-up, in all fairness. And are we positive it wasn't an inflatable prosthetic of some sort?

I stand by my somewhat facetious comment.

[baby doll]

bd: interesting you picked two movies that were also written by Soderburgh.Well, he's also credited with writing Solaris so I wouldn't read too much into that.

[DavidSeven]

Quintessential Soderbergh is mostly all the right ways. This is definitely material that is elevated by Soderbergh's approach and ends up being better than it has any right to be. Wish there was anyone outside of McConaughey or Tatum who could competently deliver a line, but I guess stilted performances are also becoming an unfortunate part of Soderbergh's repertoire. Still, pair a passable story with Soderbergh's more iconoclastic impulses and you usually end up with something pretty fascinating, if usually flawed. See Ocean's Twelve.