“Dreamworks, Carmike and Mel Gibson be damned!” That’s what the folks at Magnolia Pictures said this weekend as they laughed themselves to the bank on Steven Soderbergh’s indy latest film, Bubble, which coincidentally stars nobody you’ve heard of, probably isn’t playing at a theatre near you, and was released via DVD the same weekend as it hit theaters. Yet it grossed $5 million in revenues, including only $72,000 from 32 screens…the rest of the cash comes from DVD pre-orders! The stereotypical film marketing bubble has popped.

But more importantly than its innovative marketing strategy is the film itself. Really, it’s a fantastic movie.

Bubble is a slice of life in the modest lives of three dollhouse factory workers in the poor Ohio/West Virginia heartland. Unknowns Debbie Doebereiner, Dustin James Ashley (doppelganger of the Twin Cities’ Keith, the Gopher Bar bartender,)and Misty Dawn Wilkins (Martha, Kyle and Rose, respectively) took an anemic script — and I’m guessing their community college acting lessons — and put them to the test of the heart-pounding boredom that is known to some of us as the heartland.

Soderbergh is an awesome director, and here’s why. Sometimes a photo of you and your best friend at the donut shop is the highlight of your day – even when it comes at 6 a.m. And when the highlight of your year is a $50 bonus for making quota and a ride to your second job, it’s hard to argue missing out on the latest fashion trend. And perhaps eating fast food every day for lunch isn’t always a hook from which to base a documentary.

It’s half documentary, half independent film. You laugh and you cringe. You’ve been there or you know someone who has.

I recently watched the David Sutherland film, Country Boys, and couldn’t help but see the resemblance of Sutherland’s real life down-home conversation and life experience portrayed in his film to Soderbergh’s daily back and forth conversational regime rife with forced agony and friendship (mostly between the Martha and Kyle characters). In fact, if you liked Bubble, I strongly recommend you check you Sutherland’s documentary.

Could it be that the monotony of poor, down-home life is the stuff dreams are made of? For the 80 minutes I escaped the Uptown mindset, I was in a little bubble myself.

Bubble is currently playing at The Lagoon, which has an awesome online ticket sales feature that makes going there effortless. If you buy a movie ticket for Bubble, you get $5 off the DVD, which they sell at the snack counter.