Though advance word on Steven Soderbergh's new lo-fi quickie The Girlfriend Experience was lukewarm after its sneak rough cut preview at Sundance, the poster for the film, just revealed on New York Magazine's Vulture, is a stunner.
Shot digitally in New York over three weeks last fall, The Girlfriend Experience stars porn actress Sasha Grey and, rumor has it, features a cameo by The Auteurs' very own Glenn Kenny! Magnolia is releasing the film on VOD on April 30 and in theaters on May 22 after its official premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Setting expectations impossibly high, at least for this viewer, Soderbergh has mentioned Antonioni's Red Desert and Bergman's Cries and Whispers as influences on his new film. So expect a lot of beautifully photographed hi-def pain and alienation. And a lot of red.
Meanwhile this poster is endlessly wonderful, from Sasha's bug-eyed sunglasses, to that swathe of red dots, to its combination credit/title/tagline type block (Grey's name is not above the title, where I'm sure it usually is in films such as Face Invaders 4 and Sasha Grey's Anatomy, but nicely to the left of it). Not to mention the barcode at the bottom.
And Grey herself may well be a reader of this site, since, in a gobsmacking interview on Larry Flynt's Hustler World in May of last year, she not only denies knowledge of the Soderbergh project (though the Hustler World interviewer seems aware of it), and answers the question "Do you like Steven Soderbergh movies?" with "Schizopolis is an amazing film" but, when asked "If you had to pick one thing, what would you say is the biggest influence in your life/career?" answers matter-of-factly "One thing? I would say either Godard or David Bowie."
One final thing, The Girlfriend Experience (which, by the way, is escort-speak for a certain range of services performed—and I swear I had to look that up) is the best use of polka dots I’ve seen since this awesome Japanese poster for Secretary:
