Curious to see what Steven Soderbergh does with his time? The filmmaker kept a daily diary of every movie, television series, book and play he consumed for an entire year. It’s probably unsurprising that the endlessly productive Soderbergh — who has released an average of one movie per year over the last two decades, to say nothing of television work, producing efforts and other endeavors — was a voracious media consumer.

To a particular kind of person (i.e. me), this kind of thing is quite intriguing. I particularly like how he watched “The Social Network” twice in a single day, one watched it again a week and a half later, read “The Accidental Billionaires” a few days after that and followed that up with yet another viewing of “The Social Network.” And the three viewings of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (in black and white!) in the week leading up to Christmas. He was also working on the movie “Haywire” while dashing between Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe, Andre Agassi’s “Open” and “Freedom.” (The dates might not specify when he began and ended certain products, e.g. his listing of a single day for “Infinite Jest.“)

On the one hand, yeah, I can see how he might want to retire so he can spend even more time vacuuming up stacks of culture. But isn’t this the kind of person we need writing and directing more movies? Somebody who takes in such a wide variety of quality and intelligent work? While I wrote this, he probably just rewatched “The 400 Blows” while rereading “The Recognitions” and editing his “Liberace” script.

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