I was always peeved that this film won the Palme d'Or over Spike Lee's film. So much that when I first watched it, a few years ago when I was getting started in film, I turned it off after 15 minutes and claimed it to be one of those film classics that I didn't approve of. Because I was being edgy back then. Finally coming back for a full viewing on a Saturday afternoon, I prove my young self-worth wrong again. It's truly amazing at just how mesmerizing, audacious, and downright sexy Soderbergh’s debut is.

It's been said that Sex, Lies, and Videotape is the independent film that got mainstream audiences into independent films and while that was certainly true…

I feel as if I know Laura San Giacomo from somewhere, but after checking her IMDb-page, I am pretty certain that I have never seen her in anything, no movie at least; must be the distinctive nose in combination with the hair that (strongly) reminds me of some other actress I cannot recall right now. Anyways, Sex, Lies, and Videotape, the more-or-less debut of director Steven Soderbergh, of whom I had already seen nine features before this, many of which I like, but none of which I love. Until now! Because Sex, Lies, and Videotape is undoubtedly (in my opinion at least) his best work to-date, and since he claims to be retired, it will probably defend that title for…

-Sex as a form of illusional self-empowerment AND a justification of living a double life
-Lies as a mechanism to justify said double life and a means to psychologically deny your own problems as a social being
-Videotape as a form of distancing yourself from your surrounding reality, beginning by your own, and confronting yourself and your deceptive fantasies from a third-person perspective

From Polanski and Zanussi (interestingly enough, both debuts) to Pasolini, the third party triggers the hidden emotional mechanisms of a marriage slowly disintegrating to shatter it to pieces, but passively, not directly interfering in what is fundamentally wrong with the protagonistic relationship, but rising to the surface the unspoken truths that are causing a consciously unspoken lack…

Writer-director Steven Soderbergh's terrific debut is a tremendously intimate, slowly unfolding low-key human drama about conflicted characters, marvelously played by its actors.

Sex, Lies, and Videotape is a risky film which graphically examines sex head-on with the utmost seriousness. In this film sex isn't made into a joke like so many low-brow comedies, and it isn't taken too far either like an over-the-top erotic thriller. Sex is looked at under a very dramatic and very sincere scope which treats it like any mature and significant piece of subject matter. This is what sets Sex, Lies, and Videotape apart from so many other films of its nature. It is serious, but doesn't give the feeling that it takes itself too seriously.…

I don't consider myself a fan of Steven Soderbergh but after revisiting Sex, Lies, and Videotape I have a renewed sense of respect for his craft. This was his very first feature-length film and remains one of his best. I may not be a fan of Soderbergh but I am a fan of this film.

Soderbergh brought out a vulnerability in the actors, providing them with career-defining roles. Besides the soft-spoken and sweet Andie MacDowell, the most noteworthy cast member is James Spader. Obviously, I'm going to be a bit biased as I have been in love with him since I was old enough to recognize what attraction entails. With that aside, this was Spader's first great role, sure, he…

Now way in hell is this a first film. I'm not buying it. Somewhere in somebody's basement is a box with like 4 or 5 Steven Soderbergh movies made before 1989 that we don't know about but he must have made in order to build up to such a mature and confident work like Sex, Lies and Videotape.

Sex - The film is as much about intimacy as it is about sex, which are linked, but not the same thing.

Lies - What are the lies we tell ourselves and how do they manifest? Specifically, how do lies affect our ability to be intimate?

Videotape - How or why does filming something create truth where there was previously a lie?…

Every so often a film comes along that both connects and yet confounds its audience, and for me this is that very thing.

While I typically write my thoughts down literally minutes after viewing, a part of me feels that no matter what I present  here, something will doubtless be overlooked, but In its simplest terms, I feel as if I’ve witnessed an exercise in social contradictions, largely based around dated notions of sex and intimacy, the conflict of gender predispositions, and the abject pain of loneliness.

Without spoiling the overall concept, ‘Sex, Lies and Videotape’ deserves your attention at least once if not twice, and it’s ironic that the subject matter is as relevantly today as it was almost…