It's All Downhill From Here: Steven Soderbergh, Film by Film

In 1989, director Steven Soderbergh's debut feature sex, lies, and videotape won the Palm D'Or at Cannes.  The film's distribution rights were acquired by Bob and Harvey Weinstein's fledgling company, Miramax Films, and the movie turned a tremendous profit, especially when compared with its meager production costs.  Not everyone agreed with the Cannes jury's selection.  sex, lies bested a lot of formidable competitors that year, among them Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing.  Wim Wenders, who was on that particular jury, admired Lee's film's, but rejected it on the basis that "it didn't have any heroes".  Lee grumbled that he didn't see anything particularly heroic in the actions of Soderbergh's protagonist, who videotapes women discussing their sexual fantasies.  "It's all downhill from here", Soderbergh quipped upon accepting one of filmdom's highest honors. 

Over twenty years and thirty films later, Soderbergh has successfully disproved his infamous words on the croissette.  He has stubbornly followed his own artistic insticts, made films of all shapes and sizes, dabbled in television, won an Oscar, and produced a handful of bona fide Hollywood blockbusters.  Sensing, perhaps rightly, that he had nothing left to prove, Soderbergh recently announced that pending the completion of his current projects, he would be retiring from filmmaking.  This seemed like a perfect opportunity to embark on a careful examination of his body of work.  Whether his biopic of Liberace and big screen adaptation of the TV show The Man From U.N.C.L.E. will be brilliant, subversive works along the lines of Schizopolis and The Limey, or well intentioned failures like Full Frontal or Kafka remains to be seen, but the goal will be to take as complete a look at his body of work as time allows before Soderbergh walks out of the editing room for the last time. 

Of course, many people threaten retirement, then change their mind, and Soderbergh may prove to be no exception.  If he stages a comeback, this project will resume.  Until then, we'll begin at the beginning, pre-sex lies, with a look at Steven Soderbergh's direction of Yes: 9012Live.

UPDATE:

Soderbergh has already un-retired.  Or at least he won't retire until after he directs Channing Tatum's male stripper movie, Magic Mike:
http://www.deadline.com/2011/04/steven-soderbergh-reveals-retirement-plan-to-sportscaster/