Originally posted 8 December 2001
Movies: Ocean's Eleven, In the Bedroom, Tape, and more
Not to ignore the fact that I haven't written a review since late June, but we all know that the double play of baseball and terrorism has kept me off the airwaves all this time, so I'm not going belabor it. Fortunately, a downright scorching December has not kept me out of theaters lately, and I'm here to report on "Ocean's Eleven."
The original 1960 casino heist movie features rat packers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr, plus a dippy soundtrack and intermittent musical numbers from the headliners. My friend Hope and I rented it the other night and were underwhelmed. Although the movie is appealing for its period style and the actors' obvious comfort with each other, it is slow moving and unsatisfying. During lulls, Hope and I entertained ourselves watching our dogs wrestle. Afterwards, we agreed that "Ocean's Eleven" was ripe for a remake--ideally, one with a snappy, coherent screenplay.
Ta da! Steven Soderbergh steps up to the plate. The director of "Sex, Lies and Videotape," "Erin Brockovich" and "Traffic" has remade "Ocean's Eleven," and it opened yesterday. My friend Jackie and I carved two hours out of the afternoon and went to see it.
It would be disingenuous to call this film's cast "star studded." "Wall-to-wall" is more like it. With George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts, Don Cheadle, Elliott Gould, Carl Reiner and Bernie Mac, to name just a few, this version outdoes the original in its marquee power. It also bests it predecessor by being a lot more fun.
The first third of the movie, in which the eleven-man heist crew is introduced, is particularly amusing. Gould and Reiner chew up the scenery, and even Pitt--wearing a different suit and eating junk food in every scene--does a good job tossing banter as Clooney's criminal partner. In the original, Sinatra's Danny Ocean is the toughest guy on screen. In this version, Clooney plays the title character as a softer thief, but Andy Garcia is perfectly menacing as a ruthless casino owner, and his performance gives the movie its slight tension.
Unfortunately, that tension is fleeting. As the movie continues, it goes slack and gets a little confusing. Also, Julia Roberts is woefully underused in a lousy role. And I really hated the ending (the 1960 film had a much niftier wrapup). Still, the actors are good to watch, the soundtrack is cool, and you don't have to wonder whether any of the stars is going to burst into song at odd moments.
Here's how "Ocean's Eleven" scored on a scale of 1 - 10 in my categories of analysis:
* Shoes: 2. Kind of lacking, especially considering the loving attention paid to Brad Pitt's clothing.
* Dogs: 3. A few dogs appear in this film, most notably racing greyhounds. I don't know much about dog racing, but a few of the weirder people in my local dogrun have greyhounds and are very committed to liberating these skinny beasts from the competitive ring.
* Cell phones: 4. Glaringly absent from the 1960 version of the movie, cell phones and laptop wizardry are used here in all the cliched ways you'd expect in a millennial movie. In the audience of about 10 people, I didn't hear any cell phones, but somebody had a watch or a beeper that went off incessantly for a *while* near the end of the movie. I was irked.
* Do things blow up? 6. A model car is smashed to smithereens in a satisfying manner.
* Poker: 10. As I've lately developed an avid interest in poker, I'm inaugurating a new category here. It works two ways: 1) would I rather have been playing poker than seeing this movie? And 2) how was poker depicted in the film? In the case of "Ocean's Eleven," the movie made me want to go enjoy a few rounds because it made the game look like so much fun; it's a tossup, however, whether the two hours I spent watching the film would have been better spent at a poker table. Depiction: I nearly choked on a butterscotch laughing during a scene in which Pitt teaches five-card draw to young movie stars playing themselves.
With its starting lineup, I doubt you'd miss "Ocean's Eleven" even if I told you it was worse than a diet powder infomercial. So go. Enjoy. Then go coral up your friends for some Texas Hold 'Em, and listen to Sinatra tunes while you lose nickels by the handful.
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Bonus poker story! This is a Web-only treat, added on December 21, 2001.
Last night, I attended a just-forming all-girls poker game. It was hosted by a friend of a friend of a friend, and I was invited on a fluke. Beforehand, I got a snippet of an email saying that many of the players were brand new, so we were going to have a teaching session. I thought: Cool, maybe I'll learn something.
The game was called for 9pm, and when I got to the King Street site at 9:30, only four of the nine (nine!) babes were there. But nobody seemed concerned; there were so many cigarettes to smoke. Anyway, I didn't really know anyone there, so I looked around the ginormous two-bedroom, two-story, converted-school apartment (the occupant of
which is a grad student at Columbia film school, and a renter), then I settled in to see about the lesson: "So we've got somebody coming to teach poker basics?" "Yeah, my downstairs neighbor was going to come up, but he couldn't make it. We heard you know how to play."
Dear reader, I was the poker expert at the table.
The chick with the chips was late, but I had brought a bag of Hershey's Kisses (with almonds), and we used them to begin teaching five-card draw to the earlycomers. It was a slow start: after three people asked if aces were worth one or thirteen, I wrote out the order of the hands (turns out I know it(!)). Also, it's difficult to really convey the rules of the game when you've got to spend a lot of time chatting about whether or not to get a tan on the holiday vacation, if we're the right age for calcium supplements, are male gynecologists acceptable, and whether you should break up with your Italian boyfriend even though your potential kids would be bilingual. I felt like Brad Pitt in "Ocean's 11."
By the time all nine foxes were around the table, it was a major battle just to keep a simple game of Texas Hold 'Em going. Side conversations! Cell phones ringing! Delivery orders being placed! Food everywhere! Wine spilling at every flop, street and river! There wasn't even a thought of trying to learn another game. But the good news is that partly through luck, and--incredibly--partly through
experience, I won the first few hands, which was cool, becase the game went late, and my winnings paid for a cab home.
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Contest! Get your thinking caps on. I need to change the URL for my Website, currently www.sarahsmo.com (which stands for Sarah's Movie Opinions). I'm looking for something more memorable or obvious. Possibilities include: www.sarahmilstein.com, www.sarahmillie.com, www.millie.com, www.goatsontoast.com. Let me know if you like any of these. Or if you suggest another URL and I use it, I'll take you out to a movie and offer you an optional guest review. Send me your most creative suggestions today!
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I've seen 11 other movies (that I remember) since last I wrote. Here're some mini reviews:
* My neighbor Rich and I saw "In the Bedroom" a couple of weeks ago. It was spare and excellent, on par with "You Can Count On Me." Go see it.
* Over Thanksgiving weekend, I saw "Tape" on a third date with a guy Jackie had set me up with. As we were waiting to go into the theater, I casually asked whether he had any seating preferences. He said, "Oh, I'll sit anywhere." I thought, "Thank god." He added, "As long as it's on the aisle." I thought, "This is our last date." Indeed, it was. But I really liked the movie, directed by Richard Linklater ("Slackers," "Dazed and Confused"), and I recommend it.
* My friend Chris and I went to see "Amelie" recently. Charming French film. Not life changing. But inventive and pleasant nonetheless.
* My friend Marty and I rarely see eye to eye on movies. Very rarely. But we saw the Coen brothers' new movie, "The Man Who Wasn't There," a few weeks back, and we both found it: visually stunning, too weird for its own good, filled with good acting. What's not to like about Frances McDormand and Tony Shalhoub? Also, Billy Bob Thorton truly seems as if he isn't there.
* Over the summer, I saw and loved: "Apocalypse Now Redux." I really liked: "The Blue Angel," "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," "The Closet." I was disappointed in "Ghost World," "Sinners in the Sun." I hated: "Sexy Beast."
This week, Laurie F. and I renewed our seats for the Yankees' 2002 season. Opening day is more than 100 days away. I'll be spending as many of them as possible at the movies. Watch your inbox for updates, and meanwhile, send me all your best URL ideas.
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Posted by: Hattie | May 18, 2005 at 01:49 AM