Ed Solomon

The Christophers

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Lori looks at Julian

The story goes that Steven Soderbergh and Ed Solomon wrote The Christophers for Ian McKellen and Michaela Coel without having any idea if they’d do it or not. According to the IMDb trivia on this film, Soderbergh and Solomon didn’t even know McKellen and Coel, which is plausible in Coel’s case – she’s only been around a relatively short time – but surely not in McKellen’s. It’s the sort of film that Soderbergh knocks out between big projects. For every Ocean’s 13 a Kimi, for every Magic Mike a Presence – that is to say: tiny cast and crew, controlled location, films that could almost be stage plays. Here, McKellen is a fruity … Read more

No Sudden Move

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Don Cheadle and Benicio Del Toro at a phone box

On the principle that second-rate Soderbergh is better than no Soderbergh at all, a warm hello to No Sudden Move, a pastiche 1950s crime drama with a Maguffin that insists it’s more than a Maguffin. Don Cheadle, Kieran Culkin and Benicio Del Toro play three prickly guys hired to “babysit” a family (ie hold them hostage) while one of them takes Dad Matt (David Harbour) off to pick up something from a safe. That “something” becomes increasingly important as the story progresses, eventually bathing everything in a Chinatown-style glow as it becomes apparent that behind these no-marks is a vast scheme based on corporate corruption of a sort that makes day-to-day Mob activity … Read more