Soderberghs

For the majority of film-makers, the restrictions insisted by Covid became a stifling force and created a clear dividing line between those who could flourish in extremely prohibitive circumstances and those who could not. Steven Soderbergh, a director who has never allowed anything – from Oscar glory to blockbuster success – to kill his plucky spirit of invention, made one of the only essential pandemic movies with the maddeningly underseen thriller Kimi, a sleek and canny new-tech upgrade of a paranoid 70s thriller. He…

Steven Soderbergh is a filmmaker who is known for being consistently interesting. He constantly pushes the envelope with his craft, whether hitting a home run with his directorial debut, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, writing and directing big-budget comedies like the Oceans 11 trilogy, or experimenting with making movies like Unsane, shot entirely on an iPhone. He's not afraid to reinvent himself or try something unexpected, which is precisely what he has done with his upcoming horror movie, Presence. According to early…

You know the Tolstoy quote about all happy families being the same, but “every unhappy family is unhappy in their own way?” The quartet at the center of Steven Soderbergh’s ghost story Presence has refined their own particular brand of dysfunction to perfection. The mom, Rebecca (Lucy Liu), is a first-class control freak, has become involved in some shady financial dealings, and dotes on her teenage son, Tyler (Eddy Maday), in a way that would make Freud’s head explode. He’s a champion swimmer, and she has her hopes…