Schizopolis, Steven Soderbergh’s unrated and hilarious film begins with an introduction to the film by Soderbergh. In this, he states his belief that every man, woman, and child should see this film, not during some matinee half-price sort of deal, but at full ticket price. He continues by saying that if any audience member doesn’t understand the film, it is their own fault and no fault of his, and they should see it again and again until they understand it fully. He follows this up by saying no expense was taken to create the film, and as such the introduction was not profit-oriented.
Funny, right? The film is a commentary about modern-day society, communication, and all of our schizophrenic tendencies. The 1996 film features Steven Soderbergh (writer and director of the film) as the lead characters Fletcher Munson as well as Dr. Jeffrey Korchek. The film contains such characters as nameless numberhead man, attractive woman #2, Elmo Oxygen, a psychotic exterminator that seduces lonely housewives and leaves pictures of his genitals on their cameras, and T. Azimuth Schwitters, the founder and spokesperson of the self-help company that Fletcher works for: Eventualism.
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Steven Soderbergh’s Schizopolis opens with a scene of an empty movie theater and Soderbergh directly speaking to the audience about the film. Memorably, he says to the viewers, “In the event that you find certain sequences or ideas confusing, please bear in mind that this is your fault, not ours.” After that opening you can almost anticipate just how odd the movie will be, but even those expectations of strangeness would be shattered with how the film unfolds. (more…)