Theatrical Review: Now You See Me 2

Date: Sunday June 12, 2016
Location: Pocono Movieplex
Time: 1:10pm
Duration: 129 minutes (+3 trailers)
Party: 2 (my sister & I)

Director: John M. Chu
[notable credits: Step Up 2 and 3 and the Justin Bieber documentary film]

Cast:
J. Daniel "Danny" Atlas- Jesse Eisenberg
FBI agent Dylan Rhodes- Mark Ruffalo
Merritt McKinney- Woody Harrelson
Lula -Lizzy Caplan
Jack Wilder- Dave Franco
Owen Case- Ben Lamb
Walter Mabry- Daniel Radcliffe
Li- Jay Chu
FBI Deputy Director Natalie Austin- Sanaa Lathan
FBI Agent Cowan- David Warshofsky
Thaddeus Bradley- Morgan Freeman
Arthur Tressler- Michael Caine

[Opening Comments]
http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2013/06/theatrical-review-now-you-see-me.html
I'll include my review of the original movie in case anyone is interested.

I liked the original. Enthralled by the special effects and loved the all-star cast. Despite all the bad reviews, a sequel went into the works almost immediately. And supposedly, there is already talk of a THIRD installment.
I guess people love magic... or the cast members. It's hard to say at this point.

It'll be interesting to see Daniel Radcliffe play a bad guy, but even before seeing the movie, I'm not wholly convinced he's the only "villain" this movie has. That'd only be too easy, right?

Lizzy Caplan is another newcomer. Most people (including myself) know her best as Janis Ian from "Mean Girls." Seeing no trace of Isla Fisher (one of the original "Four Horsemen") in the trailers, I wondered if something bad happened that made her pull out.
According to IMDb, the designated female role was given to Lizzy because of Isla's pregnancy. Still so weird to me that she's with Sacha Baron Cohen of all people... even though his profile says that he's nothing like the characters he plays.
And they didn't recast the role of Henley. Lizzy plays a brand new character, a new member of the magical quartet known as the "Four Horsemen"). So with that in mind, I wonder if they'll address Henley's absence in the movie or if Lizzy may possibly be a villain.

Seriously, a movie about magic, anything can happen. The identity of the mysterious 5th Horseman in the previous film proved that. [I didn't give that away in my last review, but there's a good chance I may have indulge that secret in order to properly review this movie].
[Audience Comments and Coming Attractions]

The two of us were among maybe 10 people in the entire theater, which is a slightly better turnout than the first movie. We were there for a couple minutes when the first three showed up. Two girls and a guy. The guy walks in, then says to his companion "we might have trouble finding a seat, it's packed." Of course, complete sarcasm. We had so many commercials before the previews (seriously, there must be have been 24 commercials in the 15 minutes we waited until the movie started... the movie didn't even start on time). He was reading subtitles and made some comments to amuse himself. Don't remember anything specific, but at least someone had humor about the situation.
A group of four walked in during one of the previews. And there were moments of laughter throughout the movie, but only 3-4 times.

I wondered to myself beforehand what trailers they would have because Summit Entertainment doesn't have anything big coming out. Then I noticed as we progressed that Lionsgate was also one of the studios. Either way, I was hearing of two of the movies for the first time.
We were going back and forth between "Warcraft" and this movie and the day before, my sister said we should go to this one. But even then, I was worried with the previews that unfolded that it might have been too much. She's not into scary movies or thrillers with intense scenes and that's what all the movies had in common.

Deepwater Horizon starring Mark Walberg and Kate Hudson
Within seconds, I knew exactly what this movie was going to be about and I was FURIOUS. They are actually making a survival story about the BP oil spill. The worst oil spill in history and they made a movie to profit from it. I don't care that it's been 6 years. That is just in poor taste.
I remember being in a panic about it for months, dying to go down there to help in some way, but I couldn't because I had a job. A job I lost that September. And by then, there was nothing to do. I mean, the oil spill wasn't a end-of-the-world scenario, but it threatened to devastate an entire ecosystem. Not to mention how many cruise lines and vacation spots it could have impacted if it wasn't stopped.
I think Mark Walberg might also be attached to a movie they're planning to make about the Boston marathon bombing. Again, poor taste. Just like 9/11 films like "United 93." Movies like "Remember Me" and "Extremely Loud and Close"- they were fine because they were about how people were affected by the 9/11 tragedy, not about the tragedy itself.
Then with the Benghazi film- possibly in poor taste, but at the same time, it's a story that needs to be told and not forgotten about.

Sorry if I'm getting too political, but in dire times like these, it's hard not to. The day we're seeing this movie, the Orlando night club shooting happened, and it served as a good escape from all that negativity and just being terrified that the world is falling apart.

Nerve starring Emma Roberts and Dave Franco
We saw the movie poster for this in the lobby. The text was written backwards, but I read easily. It had Emma Roberts facing computer screen. NERVE was at the top. And below it had two boxes that can be clicked on- WATCHER or PLAYER.
This was maybe the craziest trailer I'd ever seen. Whether it ran for 3 or 5 minutes, it felt like 10, and I was on the edge of my seat the entire time.
The premise is an online experiment. You can either be a "Player" who follows a list of instructions in hopes of winning a lot of movie. Or you can be a "Watcher" who make the suggestions to the players and observe what happens.
Emma Roberts plays a girl who'd never taken any risks in her life and her friends convince her to give it a try. In the first "dare" [the opening monologue said this game was truth or dare but without the truth], she kisses a random guy, who happens to be played by Dave Franco. I thought- "nice plug"- because he plays one of the Four Horsemen in this movie. And the two of them wind up going on this journey together. But there comes a point where it goes downhill and the "watchers" basically are holding them hostage until they complete the game.
I say this was the craziest trailer I'd seen- not just because of the heart-racing action. But I don't think I'd ever had this great a Ping-Pong match while watching a trailer. I went back and forth so many times trying to decide if this movie is going to be really bad or if, in fact, it is GENIUS. If the reviews are good, I just might consider it.

The Shallows- starring Blake Lively
Yeah, I don't need to go into detail about this one. It's a survival movie and there's a great white shark involved. And seriously, how bad does your career have to be where you have to agree to something like this? And "Jaws" touched on this archetype YEARS ago- does it really need to be revisited?

[Other Reviews and Ratings]Going back to my review on the first movie, I decided to bring this back.

Going by headlines alone, Indiewire.com is 50/50 on this. David Ehrlich hated the original so much that he didn't even give the sequel a chance. Liz Calvario is more lenient, saying "the thrills disappear" but the cast still shines.

Richard Roeper either hasn't reviewed this movie yet or he simply refuses to because there's no record of it on his website. It's just as well. He gave the original a really bad score.

Yet IMDb still has a positive rating: 7.2 out 10 stars.

The consensus on Rotten Tomatoes goes one of two ways. People either hate the movie entirely or they suggest turning your brains off and just taking it for what it is.

The trailers and the behind-the-scenes special on HBO looked impressive. And seeing as I liked the first one so much (although despite my comment on my post, I did not get the DVD... somehow it just slipped my mind).

[The Story]
I'm sorry, but I cannot process without SPOILING the events of the first movie.
So be forewarned... also some mild spoilers ahead about this current movie...

The Four Horsemen have been in hiding for a year. And Atlas is impatiently waiting for instructors from 5th Horseman. After making a final plea to "the eye" (a mysterious person or persons that lead this organization whose job it is to right wrongs committed by people in power), he finds Lula in his apartment. Someone he'd never met before, but somehow knows all about the Four Horsemen's antics, the fact Jack Wilder is alive, Henley left [answering my question about whether her absence would be addressed] and so on.
The scene we met Henley in the first movie caught me off guard and I'm still ill-at-ease about it. Apparently, we have to continue that theme and give Lula's magic a gross-out factor. I'm not saying women can't do gross stuff, but just why?

And in their downtime, it appears that Merritt and Jack are trying to teach each other their unique talents.
I commented in my "Now You See Me" post that Jack Wilder was not to be underestimated... that appears to be a continuing theme and it works out pretty spectacularly. Yes, even more than the fact he survived the first movie's car accident.

The Horsemen finally reunite with their leader and the rest meet Lula for the first time. [And she actually used my words- calling herself "the designated female Horsemen].
Their next gig is at a launch party for a new piece of technology and they need to expose Owen Case's agenda. That his new technology will allow him to access and download everyone's private information. But their plan goes so horribly wrong that it's scary. It's hi-jacked by someone else remotely who exposes all the players. That Jack Wilder is still alive and that the 5th Horsemen is a member of the FBI.

The biggest SPOILER about "Now You See Me" that I didn't disclose until now...

Dylan Rhoades (aka Mark Ruffalo) from the FBI was actually behind all the tricks and heists executed in the first movie. And his motive behind it all- framing Thaddeus Bradley and putting him behind bars. Given the flashback we start with here, it's easy to piece together the fact Dylan blames Thaddeus for his father's death. His father was Lionel Strike- one of the greatest magicians- who died performing his final trick.

As the Four Horsemen flee, they take their planned escape route... but like Harry Potter winding up in Knockturn Alley in the "Chamber of Secrets," they don't proceed carefully enough and take the wrong escape route. And they find themselves in Macau. The movie refers to it as the "Las Vegas of Asia" but in layman's terms, it's a Chinese peninsula that's close to Hong Kong.
Here, they not only run into Merritt's twin brother, Chase [who used to be his partner in magic business] but they learn he's working for Walter Dabry- Owen's ex-business partner who the world believes to be dead.

So with my assumptions going in about the new cast members, I broke even. Lula didn't wind being a bad guy (although we had a sequel on the horizon, so there's still that possibility), but Walter isn't the supreme villain in this movie.
Even though he took a bunch of selfies with the Horsemen, knocked out en route to Macau (one of the biggest laughs the movie got- the second in response to Daniel Radcliffe, it's in his final scene, but I'm not gonna spoil that), he is still a bad guy with a lot of control and he means business.

The Horsemen commit a heist for him, stealing the technology that can unencrypt any computer system in the world. The technology being metal and the entry way to its location being a built-in metal detector... it's bound to make things difficult and my belief changed into utter disbelief the longer the scene went home.
Atlas tries to get them out of their contract to Walter and fails miserably.
Luckily for him, Dylan uncovers their location, arrives to save him, but almost gets himself killed in the process.

The movie goes back and forth between the Macau misadventures and Dylan having to swallow his pride and seek Thaddeus Bradley for help- under the impression he was behind their disappearance.
He breaks him out of jail, Thaddeus says where they need to go, and he gives him the slip when they visit a local magic shop. A place the Four Horsemen went to get supplies from local magician Li and his grandmother.

Thaddeus returns later in the film and his overall contribution to the story. Not just the current one, but what happened to Lionel Strike. It's not exactly what you expect and it's kinda cool. But it also leaves behind a bit of a headache.

As does the rest of the movie.
In a cryptic online message, the Horsemen threaten to expose Walt (without actually mentioning his name) using the technology they stole and the final act takes place in London.
This is where the majority of the magic happens in the movie. Of course, it's thrilling to watch and it's dazzling.

But the critics might be right about this one. The story gets a little convoluted. As good as our heroes are at what they do, it becomes harder to believe that they are going to come out on top. Until the final moment, nothing seemed to be working in their favor. Unless you account for the fact you didn't see who drove the van that captured them and brought them to the bad guys.
The only way I knew that for sure was the unspoken contract between movie and audience: The good guys always win.

And at the end, there are a few secrets and reveals still to come and a little bit of a cliff-hanger. The Horsemen are at the headquarters of "the eye" and they see something at the bottom of a spiral staircase that they run towards... but we never see what it is. Maybe it's nothing, but it could also be something that will lead us to the upcoming sequel.

[Other Comments]

Yeah, I found it really distracting and kinda stupid to write a twin brother for Woody Harrelson's character. To me, it felt like an excuse not to put someone else on the payroll. On a previous occasion, he said he mentioned someone who took everything from him, but with so much emphasis on the special effects, who's going to remember details like that?
[Well, I'm usually better at it, but it'd been 3 years since I last saw it].

Daniel Radcliffe played a pretty good villain, but of course he wasn't the only one involved.
It's kinda funny how "revenge" is a common theme.
In a way, they borrowed from "Ocean's 12" where the good guys were forced to work for Andy Garcia to get back the money he stole from them.
The money that was stolen by the Horsemen in the previous movie belonged to him and his father. And the two of them aim to exact their revenge.
We have that and Dylan's vendetta against Thaddeus and how he believes the disappearance of the Horsemen was Thaddeus's revenge against his framing and false arrest.
Both have radically different results.

For a role that has some sickness involved, Lizzy Caplan was the right person for it. She showed no fear and is just weird enough to make it work.
There's a potential romance also between her character and Dave Franco's. It's explored, but only at the surface. At least in this movie.

Grade: A-/B+
[the margin between the two grades is insanely slim. The difference is whether or not I care about the convolution and excess length in a couple places. Not a bad sequel, but the original did it better]
 

Theatrical Review: Mortdecai

Date: Friday January 23 2015
Time: 2 pm
Location: Pocono Movieplex
Party: 3 (my mom, sister & I)

Director: David Koepp
Based on the novel "Don't Point that Thing at me" by Kyril Bonfiglioli
Type: Comedic Heist spoof

Cast:
Mortdecai- Johnny Depp
Johanna- Gwyneth Paltrow
Martland- Ewan McGregor
Jacques- Paul Bettany
Krampf-Jeff Goldblum
Georgina- Olivia Munn

Introduction and Trailers
The three of us were the only ones in the theater, but then it's not every day that the local theater has matiness on Fridays... rather strange, considering that movies come out on Fridays. I paid for the tickets, my sister paid for some Reese's Pieces... and we practically had the place to ourselves.

The two trailers were so-so.
The first was for Will Smith's new movie "Focus"... I can't even remember what it's about other than he's a bit of a gambler/player who hires a girl to get to someone he wants to steal from... I didn't even catch the name until we left the theater and saw it on one of the posters.

The second had me thinking about the sad state Adam Sandler's career has taken over the last five years... not that Will Ferrell does a lot of great movies in general... having Kevin Hart as his co-star might give "Get Hard" a boost. Supposedly, Will Ferrell plays a rich guy who is indicted and has jail time coming to him and Kevin Hart teaches him how to "survive on the inside"... why do I get the feeling he's not even going to spend jail time?

Story
Mortdecai is a rich snooty Brit who happens to be an expert in fine art. Occasionally, this allows him to be an asset to the local police. He lives with his wife, Johanna, who takes a strong stance against his new moustache, and his manservant, who takes a lot of accidental damage in the field of duty.
The plot revolves around finding a missing Goya painting.

Casting and Other Comments

This is probably the first time in a couple years I saw a movie before reading any of the reviews... somehow I get the feeling all of them will read the same after a while.

Based on the trailers, I figured this would be a decently funny movie. It's certainly in the vein of the "Pink Panther" movies. The question is whether it's better or worse than the Steve Martin versions of that brand...
I don't know what I came expecting, but the way they were selling soap for this movie... the fact Ellen said on her show that was ridiculously funny and asked how they could survive laughing between takes, I thought it'd be a LOL type of affair.
During the first half of the film, it was anything but that and I was very disappointed.

Johnny Depp is recognizable as this character about as much as his accent is well-done. In which case, it wasn't the best British accent I've ever heard. But I don't think that was the point.
The point was that he's supposed to be the protagonist yet I didn't really find him very interesting.
Gwyneth Paltrow lit up the screen as his wife and attempted to keep Mortdecai grounded as best she could...
The most interesting character was actually the manservant. Jacques suffers from a lot of accidental injuries. Heck, Mortdecai has him accidentally shot at least three times (once in a flashback that was obviously a jab at Dick Cheney's "hunting incident"). But like a good employee, Jacques does everything asked of him without question. He also has a very healthy sex life that leads to some good shenanigans.
And of course I found Ewan McGregor charming... I always find him charming. Even though he is trying to woo Johanna away from her husband (who is less than pleased with the moustache), he doesn't do it in an overbearing manner as to make him unlikable.

One could argue that Mortdecai had all the makings of a primary character. Some defined traits. Motivation. But I didn't feel like he was three-dimensional.
A lot of the other characters had the issue of not being three-dimensional... but the protagonist kinda needs that to succeed.

The editing can be jarring at times, particularly when they transition from city to city, showing the airplane travel over 3D renderings.

To their credit, the movie did get funnier when the action started coming in. The movie began with Mortdecai negotiating a price for a vase with some gangsters of Asian decent, something that goes terribly wrong. At one point, he gets kidnapped by another group of people interested in the Goya painting.
The realization that we were in Moscow, I felt like that flipped the switch and I became invested... between that and the realization that the Russian thugs were threatening to apply shock therapy to Mortdecai's nether-region... probably because they reminded me of two key interests of mine... a great chase scene followed where Mortdecai and his manservant (who somehow managed to follow his kidnappers all the way here) escape on a motorcycle and sidecar.

The movie did get progressively better, but there were still a lot of goofy moments that generated awkward laughter... like how two people who planned to steal the painting from Krampf's residence poured poison randomly over the shellfish platter... whoever wrote the line in the script "It's the shellfish!" should never work in this industry again.
To make up for that, partially, vomit did have practical use in the following chase scene... something I never thought I'd get to say because I usually am very anti-vomit when it comes to movies.

Another positive that came later on was a revelation about Johanna that got her more involved with the movie... making her more than just Mortdecai's wife who might leave him in his absence because of his moustache and the fact they're steeped in debt.

...as for the rating, I thought it was a little much. There was one f-bomb (the only profanity in the entire film). There was a very brief sex scene in a flashback with no nudity to really speak of, one scene where we hear sex noises in a hotel room, and multiple references to Jacques's sex life.
They could have easily gotten away with PG13 on this... I've expressed these concerns previously about G-rated movies. One lewd reference or moment of "peril" automatically garners a PG rating. By those rules, anything that isn't direct-to-DVD and/or based off a show for elementary kids will be PG... therefore the G-rated movie is as good as dead.

Grade: B+
(The first half was worth a B, the second half an A-)

I don't think I'd recommend spending money to see this. Although my mom and sister said they enjoyed themselves as well.
It saddens me to say this as a Johnny Depp fan, but based on recent choices he's made (by that, I mean "The Lone Ranger"... I actually liked "Dark Shadows"), I don't think I can put him in the same class as some other A-list actors... not anymore.

18. Ocean's Eleven (2001)

Code-name: Vegas
[where else?]

Director: Stephen Soderbergh

[yeah,  as a long time fan of this movie, I can't believe it's the same dude who directed "Magic Mike" and "Behind the Candelbra," both of which I saw back to back the first and only time]

Type: dramedy, adventure, heist

Notable Award:
ALMA- Andy Garcia for Best Supporting Actor

[on a side note, I don't think Brad Pitt did this movie just because there could have been a Teen Choice award in it for him]

Cast:
Danny Ocean- George Clooney
Rusty- Brad Pitt
Reuben- Elliot Gould
Frank Catton- Bernie Mac [RIP 2008]
Virgil Malloy- Casey Affleck
Turk Malloy-Scott Caan
Livingston- Eddie Jemison
Basher- Don Cheadle
The Amazing Yen- Shaobe Qin
Saul- Carl Reiner
Linus- Matt Damon
Terry Benedict- Andy Garcia
Tess- Julia Roberts

Cameos at Rusty's poker game:
Topher Grace [That 70's show]
Barry Watson [7th Heaven]
Joshua Jackson [Dawson's Creek]
Shane West [Once and Again]
Holly Marie Combs [Charmed]

Write-up:

Opening Remarks

I actually managed to list all Ocean's 11 from memory, either by actor or by character (most of them, both), with the exception of Livingston.

For the record, I have not seen the original movie by the Rat Pack. And I'm not sure if I want to. With the whole original vs. remake scenario, I tend to lean towards the version I see first and as a result, the second one does not live up to the same expectations.

I don't know how this movie appeared on my radar, why I wanted to see it as much as I did. Whatever the reason, I think of it as one of my first truly mature movies. I grew up on cartoons and many of my first movies were comedies. Everything else, I just didn't have the patience for.Don't get me wrong, "Ocean's 11" does have its slow moments (as often is the case, in the third act), but it's not usually the type of movie I go for.

And all of these types of movies, large ensemble heists like "Tower Heist" and "The Italian Job"... even "Now you see me" fits into this genre, "Ocean's 11" is the best representation.

On the whole, what makes it, not just glimmer but, SHINE... of course, is the cast. Particularly the dynamic of Clooney and Pitt.

You could jokingly say that this is a movie full of big stars, and if they weren't stars yet, they would soon be. Seriously, if you weren't a big star before this movie, you were on your way up to the A-list.

The biggest, brightest example of this: Matt Damon.
Shortly after this movie became a hit, he became a big action star (opposed to smaller projects like "Good Will Hunting") with the Bourne series

Plot

Ample Spoilers along the way...

The three act structure is pretty solid here, one of many things that rock about this movie

I: meet the players
2: forming the plan
3: the heist

Danny Ocean's out on parole after serving some time in jail.
We don't get a lot of details outside of his testimony in front of the parole board:

"My wife left me, I was upset, I broke into a self-destructive pattern"

It can't be much worse than House driving his car into Cuddy's house after she broke up with him.

So naturally after spending time in jail, the very first thing you do is get together with your best buddy, leave for Las Vegas and plan a massive heist... to get back at the new guy your ex-wife is seeing.

That's all well and good. Unless of course the guy happens to be as powerful as Terry Benedict; the man in charge of the trifecta of Vegas casinos: MGM Grand, Mirage and Bellagio. The combined total of cold hard cash in their underground vault on a Fight Night, the night they plan to rob it: $160,000,000+

And with any good heist, you're going to need a team of men with a unique set of skills.

Luckily, this is taking place in a movie, so they've got a wide variety of personalities to go with those skills. If not for those personalities, this movie would have sucked :P

The Cast

By the time this movie was available at Blockbuster, I think I knew the name Matt Damon.
I never watched it, but I knew Bernie Mac had a TV series back then.

I also knew who Julia Roberts was even though this was couple years before I saw "Pretty Woman."

And of course, there was Clooney and Pitt.
Two of the biggest names and I had yet to see any of their acting. I mentioned in my "Spider Man" review that I didn't get the pin-up appeal of Brad Pitt. Most of this was due to the fact he always seemed to have long hair in his movies. Nowadays, I say "It depends on the guy," but I didn't get why the long hair made all the other girls adore him.

Clooney was another big name that I didn't really know, but he already had an outstanding reputation.
Who would have thought putting them together would turn into something so amazing?

As for everyone else... I don't think the little Chinese guy (that's an actual line from the movie, btw) went on to do anything else.

Casey Affleck never made it as big as his brother. It's funny I should mention "Tower Heist" because he was in that.
And I was going to spend this paragraph trying to explain how I get him and Dave Franco mixed up (Franco was in "Now You See Me"... yet another tie-in I didn't expect when I named-dropped that film... loved it)

The other of the Malloy "twins" (they look nothing alike but that's how Clooney and Pitt called them in the movies), Scott Caan, would later make it big on the reboot of "Hawaii 5-0."

[Amazing bit of trivia: the twins were originally gonna be the Wilsons but they were doing that "Tenenbaums" movie and had to drop out... I don't think the movie could have handled their star power in addition to the main guys, lol]

Other than Matt Damon, I think of Don Cheadle as the biggest break-out star this movie has. I found his character Basher charming in a quirky sort of way (had to be the accent!!) with a wicked sense of humor, in both good and bad situations.
His biggest gigs include the Showtime series "House of Lies" and, of course, some of the "Iron-Man" movies... for whatever reason, I still haven't warmed up to his version of Captain James Rhodes. (That discussion will continue in the next month or so, promise).

An older audience might recognize Carl Reiner from "All in the Family." I hadn't seen that series and probably should, but he brings his own wily sense of humor to this part.

When asked [again] about being up for his part in the 'grand scheme,' he has a comeback for Clooney so good, there was simply no comeback for it.

"If you ask me that question again, Daniel, you won't wake up the following morning"[pause]Clooney (whispers to Pitt): "He's ready..."

Had it come from anyone else, this joke wouldn't have worked.

Another great addition is Andy Garcia as the villainous Terry Benedict. This is my first encounter with him and he blew me away. The way he carries himself on screen, maybe it's just that mob-style mentality he brings to his other roles, can't help but be impressed by that.

Then of course Julia Roberts shines as the only big female role in this movie. No matter who it is, she doesn't let anyone push her around. An admirable quality for sure.

The Writing

The best parts of this movie for me are a tie between the acting and the writing. Naturally, without a good script, this wouldn't have worked as well.

As Rusty, Brad Pitt is the one member of the team able to keep Danny in check, especially when it appears his priorities are a bit scrambled. Spending more time trying to woo Tess than working on the plan.

Their dynamic is amazing in that they know each other so well, they can finish each other's sentences. This is almost to the point of clairvoyance. They don't even have to say anything and the other knows exactly what their thinking.

My personal favorite: the one line that kept me coming back to the movie:

They'd just recruited Saul and Clooney is talking to Pitt:

"So Saul makes 10, 10 ought to do it, don't you think?... you think we need one more?... you think we need one more...... all right ,we'll get one more"

Absolutely priceless. Especially since Brad Pitt gives absolutely no indication he's dissatisfied with just 10 guys... it's just the aura he gives off as he's resting his chin on the counter.

Everyone works off each other so well. Even when plan A's have to give way to plan B's and C's, the improvisation often works out better than the original scenario.


Another thing that stood out to me about this movie when I was younger was that it had great balance between drama and comedy. There were enough light movements in between to break up the drama.


Other Lovable Details


It's one of those great movies my family and I like to watch together. As I do, my mom loves the Poker scene with Eric Forman from That 70's Show and other TV actors who have no idea what they're doing.


"Look, all reds!"


We also love poking fun at the fact that in almost every scene Brad Pitt is eating...
I got halfway through the movie and gave up counting how many scenes.


Apparently it was more than coincidence. Rumor is that everyone was so busy working on the movie that they barely had time to eat and Brad Pitt came up with the idea to give Rusty that unusual character trait.
And supposedly during one scene, they did so many takes that he wound up eating 40 shrimp.


My dad pointed out during our last viewing of this movie that the featured prison is Rahway Prison and on a recent customer call there, he drove by it.


One thing that also stood out to me was the second to last scene in front of the Bellagio fountain. "Clair du Lune" is playing in the background, all the guys are reflecting on the fact they got away with the money and they all go their separate ways one at a time.
When I was younger, I wasn't a fan of this scene. It was just so serious and kinda sucked the fun out of the movie for me. Or I just didn't fully grasp the genius or the beauty of it.


Combined with the fountain, the looks on everyone's faces, the swelling of the music, it's amazing to watch now that I understand it. I guess I just needed to mature a bit and it's great when you can appreciate more things from your favorite movies with age.


I only recently saw "Ocean's 12." It brought back a lot of the same players, which was nice, but unlike this movie, the great scheme didn't fully make sense. We saw the heist take place, but all wasn't fully explained until afterwards.


Coming Soon


Oh wow... got a really big one coming up next week...
I spent this past weekend looking back on some nostalgic things. Mostly music, both good and bad, and "High School Musical" (which remains as awesome as it was the first time I saw it).


Next week's movie is about as nostalgic as it gets.
Most likely my very first "favorite" movie.
I don't remember this, but supposedly I rented it so much from Blockbuster that one of my grandmas finally bought it for me.


And for anyone following my blog actively, they can probably piece together the fact that it's.... animated...