Heist movies, they’re a lost art. So when the remake of “Ocean’s Eleven” came around several years back and wowed me off my feet I was left with this glorious notion that heist movies were suddenly back and in perfect form. Then the sequel, “Ocean’s Twelve”, came along. I don’t think I’ve seen a worse sequel in theaters since “Jason X”. So naturally, once the trailers for “Ocean’s Thirteen” began invading the preview reels my confidence in the franchise was suitably weakened. Well, let me just say, “Ocean’s Thirteen” is everything “Ocean’s Twelve” should have been and so much more. A more than worthy follow-up to the original, it’s likely to be your best bet for this weekend.
Reuben (Elliot Gould) is in a bit of a jam, as his Vegas hotel partner, Willie Bank (Al Pacino), has double-crossed him, taking everything Reuben owns and leaving the shock to send him into a catatonic state. Reuben’s protégé Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his gang aren’t about to take this laying down and join back up to get revenge on Bank and restore Reuben’s bank account. Bank’s new casino is opening up and Ocean’s thirteen intend to break the bank, so to speak, by rigging every game in the house. A tough job, but it doesn’t end there. In addition to that, they’re going to have to ruin his chances of winning a Five Diamond award and steal his collection of diamond necklaces from his fortified loft.
Just about everything that lead me to dislike “Ocean’s Twelve” is gloriously absent from this installment. So that means no space-age hologram machines and no fourth wall-shattering plot devices that save the day in the nick of time. And quite possibly the most important change of all: no Julia Roberts. That woman smiles like a horse.
“Ocean’s Thirteen” takes the cast of characters we’ve come to love and returns them to a more familiar setting. However, just because they’re performing another casino heist doesn’t necessarily mean that this film is a retread of “Ocean’s Eleven”. On the contrary, it deviates from the first film for all of its schemes and keeps things nice and fresh. They come up with some very interesting, complex and hilarious methods to rip off the casino and do it with Director Steven Soderbergh’s sense of style and humor.
The cast of familiar faces really carry this movie. Although the headliners of Danny, Rusty (Brad Pitt) and Linus (Matt Damon) undoubtedly receive the most face time, some of the less-appreciated members of the crew get more opportunities to shine. I thought Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle) really came out of top in this film, contributing more than most of the other team members. And Yen (Shaobo Qin) also gets to participate more in the disguise and infiltration aspects of the plot, extending his role past the “hired ninja” he was in the previous installments.
While some high-tech gadgets do come into play in this film, nothing as ridiculous as the aforementioned hologram machine is to be seen. All the technological doodads employed for the job are quite low key and believable, with nothing anymore outrageous than magnetic dice and reprogrammed slot machines. Well, except this one crazy tunneling device, but it’s actually pretty funny and clever and isn’t some sort of space age James Bond machine, either. Soderbergh tries to keep things on the level in order to add a sense of real world credibility to the scheme.
The villain of the film, Bank, is a bit two-dimensional, I’ll admit. Al Pacino delivers a stellar performance (and that should go without saying, he’s Al Pacino), so it’s not his fault. Bank is just sort of an evil jerk for the sake of being an evil jerk, so don’t expect much depth out of him. The villain of the previous two films, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), plays a rather pivotal role in the film as a supporter of Ocean’s crew, of all things. They manage his inclusion rather well and he keeps things pretty interesting.
All in all, “Ocean’s Thirteen” is the sequel we should’ve gotten in the first place. It keeps things familiar but always fresh. If “Ocean’s Eleven” was an A, I’d give “Ocean’s Thirteen” a B, for certain.
Grade: B
Hoffman and Thompson reteam for “Last Chance Harvey”
“Stranger than Fiction” co-stars Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson are re-teaming for a new film from Overture Films according to the trades. “Last Chance Harvey” a romantic drama that centers around a man (Hoffman) who, while down on his luck finds an unlikely companion (Thompson) while in London attending his daughter’s wedding.
British helmer Joel Hopkins (“Jump Tomorrow”) will direct from his own screenplay…shooting is set to begin in September in London.
Denise Richards sheds classy image to play stripper in “A Beautiful Life”
That there’s a joke folks…the title, I mean. Stay with me here…
Dark Horizons reports that “[Denise] Richards will play an exotic dancer [in A Beautiful Life] and marks a first for Richards who moves from broader mainstream pics to an edgy indie film.”
I don’t really think this marks a first of any kind for Denise Richards. She stared in an “edgy indy film” in 2004 called Yo puta (aka. Whore) where she played…you guessed it…a whore.
I’m pretty sure Richard didn’t accept this job to be “edgy” as much as to be “employed”. I mean, seriously…when’s the last time you saw her in something? TV Movies? Yeah she did a few of those…even a pilot that didn’t get picked up…but the last time she was on a big screen as 2003’s Scary Movie 3.
Knocked Up (2007) – Review
I can’t say I was really excited about seeing “Knocked Up”. I mean, at all. Not that I have a vendetta against these sorts of tooth-rottingly sweet comedy-dramas, but it’s just not my kind of movie. That aside, for what it is, I can’t say it was all that bad. You have to be into these types of movies to fully appreciate it, I’m sure, but even if this isn’t you forte’ you’ll probably enjoy some of it on some level.
Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) is an unemployed stoner do-nothing who spends his days goofing off with his friends, partying and overall accomplishing nothing with his life. Allison Scott (Katherine Heigl) is a successful employee of the E! Network who has just been promoted to do onscreen interviews and has a bright future ahead of her. By shear coincidence, the two meet at a party and after some heavy drinking, go back to Allison’s place and have some classic unprotected sex. A few weeks later, Allison discovers she’s pregnant and alerts Ben to the dilemma. The pair must now adjust their lives and prepare for the hardships of childcare which lay ahead of them, but most importantly, they must learn to like each other.
That’s it. That’s the extent of the plot.
This movie isn’t what I’d classify as “story-driven”. This sort of thing happens a lot here in America. And by “a lot” I mean “epidemic”. You’ve likely got some friends or family or both who have undergone the same conflict as the characters in “Knocked Up”. And those friends and family are probably the film’s target audience. This isn’t a goofy over-the-top comedy; the humor is about as realistic as it gets. This might disappoint some, especially if you’re expecting a laugh-out-loud riot from start to finish. Even the dialogue between the characters never gets too funny. It’s the sort of stuff you’d say with your friends, which you would find absolutely hilarious, but in reality, it’s just not that funny. This somewhat works to the film’s credit, as it keeps everything firmly grounded in reality.
What the movie lacks in story it tries to make up for with characters. With a plot as thin as this, the characters are all you have left. I commend Director Judd Apatow for casting primarily unknown people for the roles. The film’s “realistic” approach just wouldn’t work if it starred, oh, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez. One thing I rather liked about Ben and Allison is that you both love and hate them. The film never favors either one of them too much. One moment Ben is being an irresponsibly piggish stoner douchebag, the next he’s a sweet, caring and level-headed boyfriend doing his best to add levity to a complicated situation. Likewise, Allison can be responsible, understanding and fun, then a second later she erupts in a rage of hormone-induced psychotic bitch-fury. You get a fair view of the situation from both perspectives.
The supporting cast is both good and bad. Ben’s horde of stoner friends are obnoxious, stupid and irritating, but I think they’re supposed to be. They’re like those friends you had in high school or college that just never grew up. And while I fully understand why they acted the way they did…they were still annoying. On the flipside, you have Allison’s sister, Debbie, her husband, Pete, and their kids. They contribute a look at married life for Ben and Allison and what they’re future might hold. While it isn’t pretty, it is again, fairly realistic. It might remind you of your friend’s marriage, or your parents’ marriage, or God help you, your marriage.
“Knocked Up” isn’t for everybody. In fact, it wasn’t even for me. It’s sickeningly sweet, thin on plot, only mildly funny and at times pretty boring. Yet, from an unbiased perspective, I can see it achieved what it was going for and the fans of these types of dramas will likely have a fulfilling experience. If anything, it’ll inspire some of you to invest in condoms.
Grade: C+
Magic (1978) – Review
Those of you who were disappointed in this year’s most recent killer-ventriloquist-dummy-horror movie, “Dead Silence”, might be interested in checking out “Magic” starring Anthony Hopkins which was recently unearthed on DVD. Much more of a psychological thriller ala “Psycho” or “Rosemary’s Baby” and less of a gratuitous “killer toy” movie like “Child’s Play” or “Dolls”, “Magic” actually tells a very unnerving and engaging love story with a very solid cast you wouldn’t expect to see in a movie such as this.
Corky Withers (Anthony Hopkins) is a ventriloquist who’s moving up in the world of show business thanks to his manager, Ben Greene (Burgess Meredith). However, Corky is a bit too attached to his loud and crass dummy, Fats (voiced by Hopkins), and when he is required to take a psychological exam before taking a television contract, panics and flees to his old home town. He takes up residence at a lakeshore motel run by his old high school crush, Peggy (Ann-Margret), and the two immediately hit things off. However, Fats’ personality begins to dominate Corky’s and he views Peggy as competition. Corky undergoes even greater psychological stress when Peggy’s violent husband begins threatening him and Ben Greene tracks him down, determined to get to the bottom of his mental disorder. Corky eventually snaps from the stress and under Fats’ guidance, deals with his problems one after another.
For a movie that typically gets relegated to the silly horror movie bins alongside “Rock and Roll Nightmare” and “Troll 2”, “Magic” has an incredible cast. You’ve of course got the likes of Anthony Hopkins in the lead role, back before he really hit it big. But you’ve also got then-bombshell Ann-Margret and the ever-talented Burgess Meredith filling out the ranks. The all-star cast alone should tell you that this is more than some goofy movie about a killer ventriloquist dummy.
“Magic” is a psychological thriller at its core. Fats is never actually “alive” in the sense that his dummy-body isn’t animate; he exists only within Corky’s delusional mind. It’s rather similar to an episode of The Twilight Zone (“The Dummy”) in a few ways, so if you recall that popular episode then you might have an idea of how this movie was handled. While Fats is never actually alive, Hopkins delivers such a strong performance you actually find yourself forgetting he isn’t at times. Despite being an inanimate doll, Fats truly steals the show in this film. It’s amazing how frightening he can be. He never actually moves on his own (save for one scene where the dummy operator screwed up), yet he becomes such an entirely separate character from Corky, that you discover yourself finding Fats scary and Corky not, despite them being the same person.
“Magic” provides some very tense and memorable sequences. My favorite is the scene where Burgess Meredith tells Hopkins to shut Fats up for five minutes. The movie then moves along in real time as Hopkins nervously tries to keep Fats quiet. A very uncomfortable sequence done extremely well, to Oscar-winning Director Richard Attenborough’s credit.
If you’re in the mood for a wacky horror flick about killer ventriloquist dummies then you’re not going to find it here. However, if you’re in the mood for an extremely well-crafted and well-acted psychological horror film then you’ve come to the right place. “Magic” really delivers and belongs on every cinema fan’s shelf.
Grade: B+