Reviews

Ocean's 11 is another ensemble all-star-cast caper movie. As such, it is one of the best of that lot, but overall that lot is a sorry lot. Ocean's 11 reminded most recently of a similar ensemble caper flick of a few year's back, "Sneakers" (1992)with Robert Redford and Sidney Poitier. The reason ensemble cast caper films don't work is that there are too many characters for any of them to get developed in the course of a 2 hour movie. Both of these films (Ocean's 11 and Sneakers) therefore come off as shallow, undeveloped, and slight. One of the big attractions of Ocean's 11, that gets us into the theater in the first place, is Julia Roberts, but her character is so poorly developed here that she is little more than window dressing and we never understand her motivations (in fact, she doesn't actually do anything in this movie, when you come right down to it.) The saving grace of Ocean's 11 is the stylish, sophisticated filmic style brought to it by Steven Soderbergh. Is is so, so refreshing to see a crime picture without a lot of gunfire. Still, my wife complained as we left the theater that the film didn't have a climax. You be the judge--the whole film is a mixed bag that way.

The first installment of the Rings trilogy is such an exciting success that it is hard to contain oneself (coming from an old Tolkien fan). I was also pleased to see similar response from critics that had not read the books. There are so many facets of this film to comment upon, that it is hard to pick just one--but that one should be that this is, quite simply, one of the best jobs of Adaptation ever pulled off. The filmmakers have filled in Tolkien's backstory and all the stuff that happens off-stage in the book The Fellowship of the Ring so well that they have actually improved upon the book by making a seemingly unfilmable work cinematic. This season we have seen the rote scene-by- scene adaptation worked on Harry Potter, which turned a light, charming book into a long, slow 2-1/2 hour stint in the theater. By contrast, The Fellowship of the Ring has been transformed in its adaptation into something truly worthy of the big screen. We truly haven't seen such a wondrous transformation worked on anything since the days of The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind, two other works that have managed over a period of many years to maintain separate, viable existences in both book and movie form.

Excess Baggage was a joy. Alicia Silverstone is gorgeous, bratty, and fun. Benicio del Toro is frumpy and totally unlike any other leading man ever. Unfortunately, this film seems to have been misunderstood in a big way, by the audience, by reviewers, and by the people I saw it with. But, it's worth another look.