A director having two great movies out within one year is already an embarrassment of riches for the cinema-starved public. But two great movies out within two months? That’s like being served the will to live and the meaning of life on the same platter and being told that you can indulge in both.
Watching Steven Soderbergh’s “Black Bag” — the director’s near-immediate follow-up to January’s “Presence,” both written by notoriously economical screenwriter David Koepp — really does feel that gratifying. Not that anyone should be surprised. In his nearly four-decade career, Soderbergh has proven himself the king of directorial reinvention, nimbly sliding between genre and style without losing touch with his signature aesthetics. (The piss-yellow color grading in the film’s opening shot is distinctly his, and seeing it conjures an immediate joy akin to plopping onto the couch after a long, trying day.)
