There are some stories out there that chase the basic goal of their genre so intently and with no interest in anything outside it that they become a Form. Ocean’s Eleven takes the Heist genre and reduces it to the essential salts: a list of cool imagery. Director Steven Soderbergh knows that we don’t watch heists because we want to see moral action, or because we want to be told something of substance about the world, or to learn something new about ourselves – we watch it because we want to see cool people be smarter, funnier, and more attractive than people usually are. Much as I love and prefer works with Something To Say, I get deeply exasperated with works that clearly just want to Be Cool but are vaguely embarrassed about that, whether in the sense of trying too hard or in stuffing in a scene that otherwise doesn’t fit to look like it has something to say.
Ocean’s Eleven makes no such compromise. This is less of a story and more of a list of Cool Shit. Clooney is our embodiment of coolness here, obviously; he’s detached from everything without being above it all and amused by the qualities of people around him without being an asshole about it. But what amazes me is the distinct qualities of coolness; Pitt matches Clooney in terms of coolness while still very much being his sidekick. It’s become common for feminists to point out that misogynistic men tend to project their own submissiveness onto women – correctly noting both the hypocrisy and how that can be pathetic – but this movie does make it clear that one can fit into a hierarchy, even an overtly masculine one, and still be cool.
So you have, for example, the cheerful bro bickering of Scott Caan and Casey Affleck as they alternate between pointless but amusing oneupmanship when the stakes are low and perfect unity when they’re high. You have Don Cheadle’s technical intelligence and exasperation; likewise with Qin Shaobo in the physical arts. I enjoy how even the weakness of character in this movie is cool; there are two arcs of characters overcoming weakness here that sit on opposite sides of the age spectrum, with Carl Reiner at one end and Matt Damon at the other. We’re sympathetic to the apparent fragility of old age, because either we’ll face the same thing or we’ll be dead, and we hope that our lifetime of experiences will give us the same inherent dignity he carries.
Damon’s arc is quite clever; it’s often tempting for storytellers to try and tell stories about guys becoming cool, and they usually run into the problem that it’s hard to get young guys to empathise with the enthusiastic young guy when there’s a much cooler guy running around. My favourite example of this is Dragon Ball Z, where creator Akira Toriyama tried valiantly to replace protagonist Goku with his son Gohan, who has an arc beginning with being a sensitive five year old boy who frequently cries, but it failed miserably because fans had immediately latched onto the guy who was already cool and simply became cooler, which is generally enough of a power fantasy for most people who are indifferent to stories. Damon partly gets around this in O11 by being slightly cool to begin with – someone who would be the coolest guy in a lower-stakes movie – and largely by being a third-stringer, where we essentially have only two scenes of him not being cool before he can triumph.
My favourite example, though, is Eddie Jemison; he’s played many a not-cool character, but he comfortably flows in the backdraft of the coolness of the other characters; outside an early scene in the heist, he’s largely acting as a go-between for information, which is to say he’s observing everyone (and, crucially for a movie, acting as an avatar for the audience, feeling our joy with us). The central point of that feminist observation is that, unfortunately, the lowest man can consider himself higher than the highest woman; a terrible attitude for inherent identity like that but a great one for a profession. Every artist is part of my in-group; every Magpie is part of my in-group; their views are on the same level as mine and will get my respect, no matter how high or low they are in any given hierarchy.
This speaks to Julia Roberts, who is also incredibly, intoxicatingly cool. As the character Tess, she’s technically both object and antagonist; she’s both Clooney’s true goal in the movie and the person withholding that. Roberts invests her character with an inner life and motivations; she’s a little bit with the villain and not the hero out of spite (love the lines “Does he make you laugh?” / “He doesn’t make me cry.”), but she’s not with him because she’s stupid. I deeply enjoy, as well, how her decision to leave him at the end is played as a decision; the team essentially presents her with information and she’s free to act how she wants.
So if all that is cool, what isn’t cool? A cool hero needs a diametrically opposed enemy to defeat, and we have that in Andy Garcia as Terry Benedict. To describe him as uncool isn’t quite right; he’s actively a dickhead. The thing about cool people is that they’re cool even when they’re doing nothing; the opposite isn’t just someone uncool, but who actively exudes unpleasantness. What I love is that the movie never overplays Terry’s dickheadedness; Soderbergh constructs his film to be invisible, even when it’s being flashy. To be cool is to not care, and to be really cool is to be smart enough not to have to care too much.
If we’re using the word ‘dickhead’ specifically as a counterpoint to ‘cool’, then a dickhead has a constant, sweaty need to control everything around them. Garcia conveys that Terry is always considering every slight, humiliation, and failure he’s taken; when he’s not doing anything, he’s brooding on how miserable he is. In his introduction, he sees Tess looking at a painting and takes it as an expression of his domination of the world (“I like that you like it.”). Even his threats and one-liners are just a fraction too wordy, too wooden. It’s fun to empathise with a cool person; cool people care deeply about their goals and not a bit for the opinions of others. It’s not fun to empathise with a dickhead because they take no real joy out of the world and certainly create no joy within it.
About the writer
Tristan J. Nankervis
Tristan J Nankervis (aka Drunk Napoleon) has been a writer, pop culture critic, dishwasher, standup comedian, waiter, potato cake factory worker, gamer, TV worker, and various other things. You can find him in Hobart, Tasmania.
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I don’t watch or read heists to see people being cool. I watch them to see people outsmart other people. Beyond which, there is nothing cool about Parker. Cold, yes, cool, no. And there is nothing even a little cool about Dortmunder. Maybe this is why I don’t have much affection for either version of Ocean’s Eleven.
I think with movies there is often a basic “coolness” in the heist itself, in terms of how the characters have to stay cool to pull off the crime — thinking Rififi, Melville’s stuff, etc. It’s just intrinsic to the medium in a way that can be “cold” in books, especially the Parkers. But Dortmunder and comic heist stuff is an interesting exception, one of the many crimes of Play Dirty was introducing Dortmunder-ish goofery into a theoretically cool heist.
But Dortmunder himself takes a page from Ocean’s 11 in What’s The Worst That Could Happen, right? And while Dortmunder is possibly the least Clooney-ish person a guy of the same demographic can be, Kelp and Pitt have some similarities in terms of personality and partnership. I think “sidekick,” as used above, is not quite accurate — there is a hierarchy at play in Ocean’s 11 and in the Dortmunders where one guy is the planner and the other people help execute the plan, but a plan without action is nothing. On his own Dortmunder is a perfectly capable burglar (as is Parker, who will also go harder at times) but it’s not a coincidence that his burglaries generally net him very little and often lead to real trouble. He needs a crew to use his talents to the fullest, just as Clooney does (and part of Damon’s story is moving into this mode, from individual pickpocket to team player). In some ways, the lazy-seeming Pitt has the most work of anyone — he’s in on the entire plan from the start and has to middle manage the many players while Clooney can work on larger conceptual (and horny) issues.
What did we watch?
The Return
We watched this after hearing about it in Nolan’s Odyssey discussion. As the name implies, this only covers Odysseus’s actual return to Ithaca, skipping over the journey itself; similarly, it’s laser focused on the guilt he feels for leaving his family and home for twenty years as both have been left to rot. It’s a more florid and beautiful film, with long pauses for us to contemplate the lines and images (it’s much closer to Stalker than anything else). The final killing of the suitors is played less as ownage and more as execution.
Happy Endings, Season Two, Episode Four, “Secrets & Limos”
“Martin Scorsese. You’re not his buddy.”
“There’s no way Edmund James Olson likes to be called Eddy Jimmy.”
“I’m just taking a break.”
“A break from what? Women being attracted to you?”
Ownage.
“That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve heard Dave try and explain the housing crash.”
“Except the looking at me during sex is probably unlikely.”
“Okay Penny, ignore him.”
“Shall we dance?”
“I hate dancing.”
Max putting food all over his face had me howling.
“Feels like only yesterday I got bitten by your tiny dog.”
“Oh, women be stopping.”
“Lots of people use Pedal to the Pettle.”
“And for the record, I’m not entirely sure I’m not the universe.”
“You and your board need to get a room. A board room. Yes!”
“I want two first-class tickets to Greece for this weekend, and to gain five pounds of muscle. Also for this weekend.”
“You’re a bit of a skinny bitch for a black guy to be with! Am I right, Trick?”
“Please don’t do me.”
“You said hot twice.”
“She is hot twice. The other things are just words I put in there to spread out the hots.”
“Tired of yes men, you know what I mean?”
“Yes. Wait. No! What is the right answer?”
“Sure thing. I have a master’s degree.”
“It was a surprisingly long letter given that she is dead.”
“I got tagged by a Latin gang. Not sure what it says but it can’t be good.”
“Why’s that?”
“The skull and penis.”
“You’re not an idiot.”
“No, I am. I once ate a winning lottery ticket.”
“Like I would date a guy with a vision board.”
“Pedal to the Petal.” You know, like flower petals.
“Dude, you have food all over your face.”
Seinfeld, end of Season 8 – good to see Bryan Cranston back in “The Yada Yada”, and Jerry’s anti-dentist prejudices make for a good subplot. “The Muffin Tops” is a top-level zany episode, especially Kramer setting up a bus tour about his own life (via J Peterman). Season closer “The Summer of George” was solid – I enjoyed Kramer accidentally winning a Tony award. But it was “The Millennium” that was my clear highlight of this batch, and possibly the season, every plot in this one worked for me but especially George failing to get fired – hilarious stuff. “There’s a man running naked across the field! Actually, he’s not naked, he’s wearing a bodysuit! The crowd are going wild! Everybody loves him!” Kramer and Newman planning rival millennium parties (in 2007) was also very funny, Elaine trying to get a store closed down out of spite was great and Jerry’s speed-dial dilemma was also really strong… and while this run was full of fun guest stars, I was possibly most pleased to see Lauren Graham who obviously I knew and love from Bad Santa.
“What’s the deal with airline peanuts?” vs. frisbee is one of the funniest things the show ever did. How I mourn the lost Summer of George. But yeah, this is all great stuff and you can see Elaine growing more and more insane. Top of the muffin TO YA!
I meant 1997, not 2007.
A Fish in the Bathtub – Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara are (unsurprisingly) an old married couple whose marriage is in the cusp of ending when the years of bickering become worse. The idea of this is much better than the execution, as the comic elements never take off and as Stiller’s character is just too much of an ass and his repentance doesn’t feel entirely believable. Stiller does at least play the part well, and of course he and Meara play well off each other. Mark Ruffalo plays their son, who for some reason is tempted to have an affair in a B plot that adds little. Doesn’t help that Rufallo is pretty flat here and never seems believable as their son (Ben Stiller he’s not). Jane Adams as their single daughter and Paul Benedict as Stiller’s best friend are standouts. The last film of Joan Micklin Silver, who at least did a good job capturing the outer boroughs in the late 90s. (I don’t know what this was filmed, exactly, but the house number of our old marrieds suggests it was near me.)
Spider-Noir, “A Mistake I’ll Never Make Again” – That mistake being falling in love, or at least lust, as Ben and Cat get closer. Most of this one is concerned with the characters, and does a good job with that. And then suddenly we get our first hero vs villain fight, and it’s great. I am seriously hooked. Cage and Li Jun Li have great chemistry despite the massive age difference, and Brendan Gleeson steals every scene.
Elementary, “The Cost of Doing Business” – When a sniper opens fire in Lower Manhattan, Morland knows who the killer was, and that this was a cover for a single assassination. But as he has to protect his sources, he goes to Sherlock for help with the caveat that the police cannot be involved just yet. The solution to the mystery is a bit out there, but the way the pieces of the puzzle come together is very good, and under the mystery is the partnership of father and son, the son possibly changing his mind about the father only we at home know Morland’s agenda involves more than just brining a killer to justice. This one also has a great opening: a man puts in earbuds and can only hear the music and not the screams and gunfire until he takes out the buds and is himself shot. Chilling stuff on a show that isn’t usually that visceral. Guests include John Shea – the killer, but I would not say the obvious famous villain of the week since no one but Lois and Clark fans remember him – and Reed Diamond.
Doctor Who, “The Ark” – I follow a podcast where the hosts review a random Dr Who each installment, and this one is up next. And was new to me. So I watched. A First Doctor serial, and on the bland side. Half of it involves a visit to the titular ark, a generational ship where one of the Doctor’s companions has a cold and almost starts a plague before the Doctor can find a cure; the other half has the TARDIS arriving at the end of the ark’s journey to find that the slaves of the humans in the first half have taken over. It’s only in the last minute that anyone says out loud maybe the slaves were right to revolt. On the plus side, the sets and costumes are nice and Dodo is a lively companion.
Barney Miller, “The Courtesans” – It’s the monthly roundup of a house of ill repute in the Village, and Wojo is both really annoyed by the idea of sex work and really attracted to one of the women (Nancy Dussault). This one gave the show a big ratings boost because ABC slapped a warning label on it. Why? Because it ends with Wojo ready to pay for a date with a “hooker!” Cops on TV don’t do that! The treatment of sex workers here is in line with things like Rita Moreno’s appearances on The Rockford Files and the movie Klute: the women are at once sexy free spirits, just women trying to make a living, and an affront to some people’s morality. It’s messy but it never quite falls into stereotype. And the interactions between the madam and Fish, age peers and friends, are a delight.
I watched A Fish in the Bathtub also and I agree, mostly worth it for Stiller’s performance and for the low-key capture of a city in an era. But the script is not very funny or engaging, I wrote on Letterboxd that its main observation is how the characters will politely put up with a lot of weird tics from anybody except the people they’re married to.
A very good movie weekend:
Shoplifters
Masterpiece. Exquisitely empathetic about the messiness of life, compassionate but clear-eyed. I love any work of art that takes the kind of story we often encounter as a flattened, sensationalized bit of tabloid-style news and delves into the actual humanity at work there.
Playtime
Rewatch. Did Tati have the best sense of space of any director to ever live? It’s possible. Everything here works, from the grid-like apartment windows to how the score makes the buses and cars in their endless roundabout feel charmingly, if comically, balletic. So much joy here, even in the middle of an increasingly modern city and culture-less culture that’s constructed to dampen that.
Pitch Black
Very fun sci-fi horror, made in the era when you could still have this kind of movie be well-paced and well-lit even in its darkest scenes. Strong cast, even if we lose Claudia Black too soon here.
This was my first time watching this, but I saw The Chronicles of Riddick in theaters as a kid. All I had retained is that one of the theater’s seats was marked off with crime scene tape*, though, so I was essentially coming to this fresh.
* That’s what I thought at the time, anyway. In retrospect, it was probably some cautionary yellow tape with no known criminal associates. But believing I was sitting close to where someone might have been murdered in their seat definitely spiced the movie up.
The Mask of Zorro
Swashbuckler Summer #12. Magnificent ’90s studio blockbuster that executes its mission with aplomb. Great action (this may have the most swashbuckling of any of the films I’ve watched this summer, and good for it), well-defined and well-motivated characters, humor, danger, the works. It has its “made in the ’90s” flaws–anyone played by a Mexican/Latino actor is generally either a loyal servant or one figure in a helpless mass that needs rescuing and championing, for example–but in general, this is pure (and vibrant) entertainment.
Did William Castle present that screening of Riddick?
His sense of pizzazz was appreciated as always!
Mask Of Zorro is a key text in my “Martin Campbell: Secret Hero Of Cinema” theory; less controversially it is an ur-text in the “Catherine Zeta-Jones: YOWZA” proof.
He directed a handful of episodes of Reilly: Ace of Spies. They are the best episodes and good precursors to Bond.
I support both of these theses. (And while I know Chicago as its detractors, it is surely a key text for me in the latter category.)
Also a key text in my “Elliot and Rossio are really good at historical drama as blockbuster” theory.
It feels like, in Playtime, Tati has found his mechanized groove, which animates the scenes of the comic absurdity of city life. And the austerity of design fits with the pop art movement of the 1960s.
Replicating that on the Criterion cover was an excellent choice.
Catching up a bit:
Tales from Earthsea – Shockingly bad. Could only have been smuggled out of Ghibli by the son of one of its most esteemed founders, which of course is exactly what happened. I don’t want to heap more on poor Goro and in fact looking further shows I had a few things wrong. This was made a lot longer ago than I remembered (2006! 20 years ago!) and it was not, in fact, Goro’s only feature credit, he also made the solid From Up on Poppy Hill) more recently than I remembered (2011! 15 years ago!) The fact that I did not retain this information – despite explicitly discussing Goro in my Letterboxd review of it – says more about the man’s work than anything I could put here. But the jump between films represents improvement, for sure. So the lifeless Earthsea maybe says less about the dangers of nepotism than the dangers of allowing someone to develop their talent in the public eye.
[sees thumbnail for Earwig and the Witch] I’m gonna leave that lesson unexamined further.
Starlet – For example, Sean Baker, appearing to have entered the scene fully-formed, when actually he has I think two features under his belt before this one? This is the earliest I’ve encountered and it’s pretty wonderful. Like a modern Steinbeck tale, finding people funny within their own chosen brands of unpleasantness. The ending is a little too cute and pat for all the mess created, but this is a great journey with Baker’s signature prickly humanity and wonderful find in the only credit for the late Besedka Johnson.
The Apartment – Never quite got this when I first went down the AFI 100 list as a young man, other than it had some clever Billy Wilder lines and another skeevy Fred MacMurray performance but without the noir this time. Now of course I can better appreciate how wonderfully sweet, sour and melancholy this is. So many moments of loneliness framed against wild social occasions. Maybe the definitive “stuck on the couch and feeling sorry for yourself” movie.
Earwig sucks, so you are missing nothing. The art is of course hideous but the story is also so lame, the only reason to watch it is to see how watered down in tone and style a story can be while still being close in form to classic Ghibli. You could not pay me to watch Earthsea, which clearly waters down not just the cinematic forebear but the classic text as well.
The Dollars Trilogy – Nothing profound here, but I can’t think of another trilogy that improves as much and as well as this one does as it goes along. Every aspect of the filmmaking – the screenplay, Leone’s direction and style, editing, Morricone’s score – improves in magnitude with each entry. Even Eastwood’s minimalist acting with the squinting, chewing a cheroot, and little dialog carries more weight and charisma in each film. The Godfather, Star Wars and Lotr all peak in the second film and falter in the third. Maybe the Before Trilogy or Three Colors gives it competition, but I’ll take this.
Doesn’t hurt that Van Cleef (playing essentially the same character but with the moral compass redirected) joined the party, and then Eli Wallach completed the set. Clint doesn’t always need foils, but it helps.
What did we play?
Hues and Clues – a board game where you have to describe colours in words. Tricky! Especially since I’m a bit colourblind. You get to give two clues for each assigned colour square and the first has to be a single word, which leads to some interesting (usually unintended) ambiguity. Would play again.
Still playing all the same videogames as last week but I don’t feel like I’ve made much progress on any of them. Really enjoying Master Key though, impressive how well it evokes the spirit of pre-3D Zelda without using colour or dialogue. The puzzles are strong, there are plenty of secrets to find while exploring, the combat is… a little frustrating.
After starting over a year ago, we’re on the (probably) final puzzle of Blue Prince (tbf, we put it down for significant stretches, although probably not for more than a month at a time). And it’s a massive one that has us scribbling notes and pouring over riddles all over again. Last major puzzle we solved gave us a ten-second cut scene with no real new story information. Hoping for more here.
Capcom vs. SNK: Millennium Fight 2000 Pro – Capcom Fighting Collection 2 on Nintendo Switch
Played up to the final boss, mostly with Chun Li, Mai, and Morrigan. I’ve beaten it before so I didn’t feel compelled this time, but I had a good time. This is a very good fighting game, even if it doesn’t reach the highs and extremes of other Capcom and SNK games of the era.
Project Justice – Capcom Fighting Collection 2 on Nintendo Switch
Played this for the first time and it was pretty great. I’m not as experienced with 3D fighter as I am with 2D ones, so I was pleasantly surprised by this one’s style and fluidity. I’m still getting a hang of the controls but this plays great, and it’s got some solid, Japanese high school storytelling going on. I’m not sure it’s a good story, but it’s got my interest, which is a surprise coming from an arcade title.
Strider – Sega Genesis on Nintendo Switch Online for Nintendo Switch
Picked up an old save file and beat the second level. Great game, but I’m still intrigued the most by Capcom just letting Sega develop and publish an exclusive version of their biggest arcade action game. Can’t imagine that happening these days.
Is the Genesis Strider a direct port of the arcade version? The NES one isn’t. And it’s one of those games I really wanted to like, but it’s just too buggy.
Yes, the Genesis version is a direct port, or as close as they could get on Genesis. It doesn’t look or sound as great as on arcades, but it’s still very good on all fronts.
Shining Force II – Felt like something low-impact, realized I hadn’t played this one in years. One of these days I’ll get to one of the Shining Force games I haven’t played.
There are some balance issues with this one and less distinction between characters. But there’s also a lot more game, and you don’t lose stats from promotion. I dunno, one day I’ll finally get around to designing my own tactical game in this style, maybe.
Coolness point for Damon as early as his first big scene: he gets the smooth lift out from under Clooney’s fingers.
The header image is a great choice for this theme, because one thing I reliably find cool is when characters have that kind of shared, silent (or half-silent) communication: the bit in the still is my favorite, but Danny and Rusty make a whole running bit of it (“We could always–” “By tomorrow?”), and they even get into it with Reuben (“And I owe you from the thing with the guy in the place, and I’ll never forget it.” “It was our pleasure.” “I’d never been to Belize.”), and it’s like taking all the cool pleasures of watching someone be incredibly competent and translating them into the realm of the personal and intimate. This is how good you can be at knowing someone. And it also creates a sense of mystery, which is likewise cool. In contrast, I don’t think we see Benedict have this kind of rapport with anyone, even with other characters he knows very well. The effort to connect is always showing.
Had a similar thought about the header image, the characters defined by posture both individual and in relation to each other. Soderbergh knows his shit!
And one of the clever bits with Damon is that his big moment of talent — his demonstration of coolness that shows he fits in with the gang — is subsumed by him being (purposefully) a huge dipshit. No “hey, this kid is all right” condescension or obvious torch-passing that Tristan talks about, just the work being done as unprettily as necessary.
Year of the Month update!
This August, send us your pieces on any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 2001!
TBD: James Williams: Millennium Actress
Aug. 7th: Gillian Nelson: Recess: School’s Out!
Aug. 14th: Gillian Nelson: The Princess Diaries
Aug. 16th: Tristan J. Nankervis: Mulholland Drive
Aug. 21st: Gillian Nelson: Disney’s California Adventure
Aug. 27th: Cori Domschot: The Mummy Returns
Aug. 28th: Gillian Nelson: Walt Disney Treasures
Then, this September, you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, etc. from 1937.