Ocean’s Thirteen
September 19th, 2007
Counting Ellen Barkin and Mr. Soderbergh himself, more than a baker’s dozen of very talented people are completely wasted in this redundant bore. I get the idea all involved are having a blast making these movies, but by the second sequel of the first remake, the breeziness has turned smug and the exceedingly baroque casino-busting shenanigans have become tiresome. Who cares how Clooney & Co. get the remote-controllable magnetic ingredient into the factory that mixes the plastic which goes into the dice that an inhumanly tan self-parody of Al Pacino uses on his craps tables? Not even entertaining enough to while away the time on a transatlantic flight.
Ocean’s Thirteen. Steven Soderbergh, 2007. *
The Long Goodbye
July 18th, 2007
“That’s a lot of entertainment for five grand!” Philip Marlowe’s talking about the questionable spectacle of a bunch of gangsters (including an uncredited Arnold Schwarzenegger) stripping to make a point, but it applies equally to Robert Altman’s time-traveling Chandler adaptation as a whole. Mumbling Elliott Gould is miles apart from Humphrey Bogart but drop dead cool in his own inimitable way, and all of 1970s Los Angeles emerges as his deceptively sunny antagonist.
The Long Goodbye. Robert Altman, 1973. ****
- Roger Ebert
- Terrence Rafferty revists The Long Goodbye
- Terrence Rafferty on the occasion of Altman’s 81st birthday
- Ill-Informed Gadfly
- Christopher Sieving at PopMatters
- The Long Goodbye at Wikipedia
The trailer:
