It's the grand experiment: the simultaneous, domestic theatrical / television / DVD release of Steven Soderbergh's new film, Bubble. I haven't seen it. I really want to. But I live in Toronto, which apparently doesn't fall anywhere under the rubrick of "simultaneous domestic."

You won't find information about the Toronto release of the film (which, ironically, premiered at last year's Toronto International Film Festival) on Bubble's official web site - no clue whatsoever, in fact, as to whether the film will ever show here in proper movie theatres at all.

Nor will a trip to the Canadian web site for Best Buy let you know whether the Bubble DVD will be released here on Tuesday, as it will be in the States.

Nor, of course, will it be airing on TMN.

What is this, Switzerland?

On a personal and professional level, I was simply looking forward to taking part in the experiment itself. Casting my vote for theatrical distribution by going to see the movie in a real movie theatre... then, quality-depending, rushing off to my local DVD store (well, okay, that one stretches the definition of "local") to buy the disk, so I could listen to the director's commentary on my iPod the next day. I'd probably have been willing to dump the flick into my PVR, as well, if it had been playing on TMN's hi-definition station, just to say I'd completed the trifecta. No such luck.

Apparently Soderbergh has planned half a dozen of these things; small, no-budget movies shot with non-actors in the heartland of America, being exported out to us (or really, "them") by any medium available. Here's hoping that by the next one, he's figured out how to get the flick north of the 49th parallel.