13 Thoughts About Ocean's 13

I'm a little bit worse for wear today (too much alcohol, too many cigarettes, too much dancing) but I told myself I had to crawl out of bed and stop watching The Closer episodes on DVD and to have a shower and wake myself up. Now that I am I present to you seven pros and six cons about Ocean's 13, which I saw last weekend.

PROS
Scott Caan and Casey Affleck - Somebody give these guys a spinoff or a sitcom where Caan is the lovable slob and Affleck is his finicky, but well-meaning best friend. Caan makes pizzas at his father's pizza place (constantly resulting in hilarious ethnic comedy gold) while Affleck has just finished law school and is trying to become a high powered lawyer. Can they get along? Will it end in tears? Will it win an Emmy? I say YES!

Mexico - I know it's just an extension of the above, but any scene in the Mexican factory was a riot. Seriously. SPINOFF! (okay, not seriously, but you catch my drift.)

Oprah - Because me and my movie-going friend Georgie both turned to each other and went "I've seen that episode!" The one where the woman has, like, 43 kids and so Oprah gives them a house and such. It was pretty awesome.

Ellen Barkin - She's totally bonkers, but she's a hoot.

The Heist - Once it really gets into motion is delightfully entertaining, much like in Ocean's 11. But definitely not like Ocean's 12. I always like seeing (in anything like this) how all the pieces are going to fit together and such. I'm one of those people that likes the "a ha!" moment when you notice something that most people probably caught onto scenes back. But, whatever, y'all don't know me.

The cinematography - "Peter Andrews" always does great work and he does a great job with the widescreen canvas. Loved the shots against the deep blue night sky.

Vincent Cassell - No reason why exactly. I just like looking at him.


CONS
George and Brad - They're sleepwalking to the nth degree. Perhaps it was a deliberate attempt to try and get more people to focus on the peripheral character (like, possibly, Affleck and Caan?) but that still doesn't mean they have to look as if they're just biding time between margaritas between takes.

Some of the first half - Much like the one above, it felt like the movie was cruising for a while on the uber-ness of the film itself. Like they were all just making it up as they went along. I'm all for movies to look like the cast was having loads of fun, but when they're having loads of fun off camera it sometimes means they're not as "on" when they're on camera. Get it?

Bernie Mac - The one problem with ensemble films such as this is that they make casting based on who's hot at the time and I guess Mac was popular for a while back in 2001 (hard to believe, but true) which means we have to continue watching him. It's not entertaining, nor will he ever be.

The Godfather jokes - I liked Caan and Affleck playing a characters called Turk and Virgil (as in James Caan's "Virgil the Turk"), but geez, it seemed they shoved half the Godfather dialogue into the film and other references to the films what with Caan, Garcia and now Pacino in on it too.

Bernie Mac - Nope. Still don't like him.

Thirteen - There weren't thirteen members of the plan. Ugh.

IN CONCLUSION
B-

Time and Ocean's posters

I've never seen a Kim Ki-Duk film (Spring has been in my DVD queue for ages), but the poster for his next film Time looks amazing. Like... wow. That's some amazing design right there, folks. This does exactly what a poster should do - introduce an unknown film to an audience and get them intrigued, interested or excited. I'd never heard of this film before today, but now I sorta want to see it just to know what the whole hand staircase thing is.

And then compare and contrast to the poster for Soderbergh's obligatory Ocean's 13 - he's made two experimental movies, Bubble and The Good German, so now it's time for crass commercialism. I was a huge fan of Ocean's 11, but was definitely not one of the pale sequel Ocean's 12. The big inclusion this time is, er, Ellen Barkin. As much as I like the lass, she ain't exactly stepping on Catherine Zeta-Jones' heels in the fame stakes. Thankfully they've also decided to include Al Pacino who could be delightfully madcap. Having said that, the poster is a true abomination. Just a harsh and awfully designed waste (even worse than The Illusionist if you can believe that). Let's get over the fact that it looks like amatuer hour at the Photoshop station at Kinkos (I, quite seriously, could have designed this). But there's only 12 people represented on the poster!! Apparently Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin are famous enough to get their names above the title (moreso than Casey Affleck, James Caan's son, Elliot Gould, the Asian dude who wasn't in Ocean's 12 and the old one who had a fake heart attack in the first film) yet not enough to get their mugs on the poorly designed poster. If you got Al Pacino in your movie you sorta want to show his face. One of the faces they do show is of Andy Garcia who is "the one" in the "13 to one" stakes the poster alludes to.


[Click to enlarge both]

Aagh, this poster is horrible. And it hurts my eyes too. Little Miss Sunshine did the bold colour thing so much better. Hopefully the final poster will be better.