I've been sounding off recently in class and in the blog about the importance of physical training for actors. One of our number, Jay Kiecolt-Wahl, just visited New York, where there is a remarkable exhibition about the human body, featuring actual cadavers that have been opened up to provide us with unprecedented visual access to the systems that make us go. For more information:
http://www.bodiestheexhibition.com
PS Notice that the graphics involve ball-throwing!
I rented Steven Soderbergh's latest effort Bubble last night, about a triangle between three empyoees in a doll factory in an American small town. The actors were "regular people" (i.e. non-actors) that Soderbergh found. The woman who plays Martha gives an excellent performance. The film is good enough, certainly not great, but I enjoyed it for the perfomance I mentioned (the detective is quite good as well), and for the way that they showed what this kind of world really looks like. It is familiar to all of us, yet because it is not at all glamorous, it is relatively rare that it is treated with this kind of candor on screen.
Another interesting point is that I read somewhere that Soderbergh released the film in the cinemas, on DVD, and through cable TV all at the same time, attempting a kind of marketing coup. Not sure how much of a tremor he really made, but it could be shades of things to come.
