Ocean's 13

I saw Ocean's 13 today, so I figured that I'd talk about that before getting into a bit of news. Personally, I really liked it. It felt like a more complete movie than the second one, and it was truer to the original. The premise was that Reuben (Elliott Gould) got screwed out of a big deal by Willie Bank (Al Pacino) so bad that he went into medical shock, and so Danny (George Clooney) and his gang assemble once again to get revenge. The heist is to make Pacino loose enough money to run him out of business and force the deeds into Reuben's hands, and I thought that it was still quite clever and not nearly as convoluted as the second one. In fact, it was a simpler heist than even the first one, I thought. And it had some interesting twists, but nothing too unpredictable, I suppose. That didn't really bother me though. There's a difference between a movie being not unpredictable and just being obvious, and I think that Ocean's 13 strove to tell a story and did so very well. It was quite entertaining and funny, though it could've been funnier. Then again, I did just see Knocked Up so that puts my standards for comedy kind of high. In other words, it was a heist movie first and a comedy second, and I had no problem with that either. The acting and dialogue was nice and tight, and I felt that the pacing was great, too. It was a fun moviegoing experience overall, but I think the most it can be is a B+ because it didn't do anything different or exciting. It mostly just capitalized on the strengths of the first movie and did just the minimum to entertain us. Plus, it could've used another strong female actress amongst the sausage fest. I don't mean for eye candy, I just mean that I noticed that it was lacking in that aspect. And the ending could've come off cleaner and more satisfying. Overall, I was still pleased though and would recommend it.

While I was on my little hiatus, Google unleashed Google Street View to the world to alienate the mass pubic. I love the idea of being able to see buildings and stuff so you can try to recognize them rather than just street names, but when you can see a guy picking his nose, that's just too much. What if someone was having a fight on their front lawn when the trucks came by and now the world can see it? Anyway, I do still defend the idea against privacy concerns because I know it would be helpful in places like Austin where roads tend to do crazy things.

Rumors have started to sprout about Apple adding movie rentals to iTunes at a price point of $3 a month and to be transferred to at least one other device in the process. Personally, I like that price. I'd totally download a movie if I could watch it for 30 days. Unless that means I have 30 days to watch it once, which would kind of suck but still be something easily marketable if it's that cheap. The only question is, would it be in HD? By the way, tomorrow is WWDC and you can hear the Steve Jobs keynote live over here. This is the first time I'll be in the right time zone for an Apple keynote!

There are some big time ISPs charging companies to ensure that their e-mails go through, but I don't like this idea. It's ostensibly voluntary, but what's to stop them from manhandling people into paying them for their e-mails to get delivered to people at all? Why not just make a better spam filter? Isn't that what your customers pay you for already?

In the box office, Ocean's 13 ended up doing fairly well at the top with a cool $37.1 million. Granted, this is less than the predecessors, but still a respectable opener and should easily put them past $100 million. Pirates followed closely behind with about $16 million less, and Knocked Up came in very closely behind that. In fact, Knocked Up faced an impressive 35% drop. Next weekend we'll see big summer player: the Fantastic Four sequel. That ought to rake in the big bucks.

You can read the plot to Harold and Kumar 2 over here, and it just sounds awful to me. I'd rather see them screwing around in Amsterdam than in a jail. But maybe it'll have an awesome trailer and maybe they have some good ideas after all. The first was a classic, after all.

All I have for you now are trailers. The trailer for Vantage Point is actually packaged with Ocean's 13 and looks like a really involved drama. It has a really great cast, and I like the overall concept (granted, the trailer is just a tad hokey with the taglines). The red band trailer for The Brothers Solomon is definitely a step down, though I didn't have high hopes walking into that trailer anyway. I just don't see what's funny about it at all. The other trailers are for horror movies. The first is for The Invasion, featuring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig. It really just sounds like an alien twist on a zombie movie. The other is for 30 Days of Night, based on a graphic novel, and I really only like the color scheme in the trailer. It's just your standard vampire fare other than that.

I'll leave you with a pretty picture. I have some more from my jaunt today to the Olympic Sculpture Park that I'll probably put up later.



Now for some Unconscious Mutterings:

I say ... and you think ... ?

1. Acoustic :: Guitar


2. Sanity :: Old Age


3. Mambo :: New York Salsa


4. Session :: ID


5. Hound :: Release the


6. Cat :: Mouse


7. Coward :: Jerk


8. Trunk :: Elephant


9. Hold me :: Tight


10. Psychological :: Disease