S4E3: Ocean's Eleven (2001)
🕑 Added 2024-12-13 15:12:15 +0000 UTCAlright, enough beating around the bush. Lets get into the good stuff.
Let's take a look at 2001's smash hit Ocean's Eleven. Starring an ensemble cast of George Clooney, Matt Damon, and Don Cheadle, among others, A group of thieves attempt to rob three Vegas casinos simultaneously during a boxing match.
But this would simply be too much to chew on our own- Joining us is our friend Brian from the Worst of All Possible Worlds Podcast! You may recall we've had the other two come and hang out on two absolutely gangbusters episodes, A.J on Our Agent Tiger and Josh on Agent 3S3: Passport to Hell. Check out their patreon Here!
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FREE PALESTINE
Hey, Devon here. For the past few months I've been talking to a family trapped in Gaza, working to cover their daily living costs amidst repeated displacements in the Genocide. Their names are Ahmed and Layla, and their 4 kids are Jana, Malik, Lana and Amir. Anything you can contribute would mean the world to me. They deserve to live. Attached is their gofundme, as well as three others that I can vouch for the authenticity of.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/a8jzz-help-me-and-my-family-get-out-of-the-gaza-strip
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-me-and-my-family-to-find-a-safe-place
https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-us-maher-and-my-family-to-leave-gaza-to-belgium
https://www.gofundme.com/f/htdcj-evacuating-my-family-from-gaza
https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donate
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Comments
Felixir of Life
What does November mean by "crisp and potato snacks" here?
Noblesse Oblahaj
Does The West Wing count as a divorced guy movie
Noblesse Oblahaj
All Reds is what I'd call my anarchist book club
Aeris WF
literally BEGGING for an episode about Juror #2
Nah
Incidentally, can't wait for when the show definitely eventually covers the three hour inverse heist epic The Delinquents
Mitch T
Weebs for Britain are called Teaboos.
John Benfield
Then that episode should feature a guest host from No Gods No Mayors!
John Leavitt
I’ve said it before when it came up for heist season but that movie is the most accurate depiction of big city American politics I’ve ever seen
John Benfield
Widows (2018) is a heist movie made STARRING women, but I don't know if it's a heist movie FOR women. It's sort of in the same boat as Atomic Blonde when it comes to feminism, but isn't quite as misogynist in its cinematography. It does have Viola Davis and Cynthia Erivo in it, though!
John Benfield
Thus far they've never crossed over from film to television series (only the occasional TV movie), and since they're going to eventually do every movie it might be a long wait. Otherwise I would have also added Leverage, which owes its existence to both this movie and Hu$tle.
Jon W
November Kelly saying, absolutely deadpan, "how do you make a slide show entertaining" and I am extremely upset that nobody leaped in with "first you're going to need two engineers from Philly"
Maxi Mailloux
The line about being magicians made me laugh - fingers crossed we get the magician heist movie Now You See Me this season!
Andrew Dunn
Google "INTJ potato meme" It was initially a reference to predicting a movie's twists earlier than an audience member should be expected to. I think it was initially used in Atomic Blonde, when Nova and also maybe Devon figured out that Satchel was Charlize Theron's character, not James McAvoy, basically as soon as the character Satchel was mentioned
Jessie Wilson
Any chance that the team would cover HUSTLE from the BBC?
fletch ⭐️
I have a heist season request! St Trinians was my favourite movie Ever as a kid and I think you’d all have a really fun time with it - makeover sequence, heist plan animation, and men only as accessory to the film
Doctor of Entomemeology
The smarmy line where Nova acknowledges is very MCU is actually not part of the script. Anecdotally George Cluny kept flubbing that speech in rehearsal and then finally delivered it perfectly. The dialogue is him genuinely asking if he did it okay.
SylvieJ
also if anyone knows any chill meteorologists that would be a cool guest for it
S Alexandra
I was just reminded I went to that art gallery in the Belagio in 2012! Haha! It was awful. Gambling and shopping not my vibe, and needed to kill time. I walked in and the vibe was like - why are you here? This room is for the expensive paintings, not sweaty Australian tourists. Very like the time I asked a woman for a chair in a fancy Sydney cafe and she wouldn’t give it to me because it was for her expensive handbag. Clearly I’m not as valuable as the goods 😂
Alexander Baez Ubeira
The feed's artwork seems to be permanently this episode's image, not sure if it is a pocket casts quirk.
Alexander Baez Ubeira
But the reference "crispened potato snacks" is an intj meme (whom does not need to try said snack to know how it will taste). Nova used it as shorthand for prefiguring thw twist or gist of the movie well in advance (to the amusement and mild ribbing of Devon).
chris
It's Nove's particular way of describing the feeling of being hyper-fixated in a pedantic way on a thing a person knows about, such as when a precocious(Autistic) child, or adult who are we kidding, really likes trains and gets annoyed when a train in a cartoon isn't technically accurate, which in this case is heist movie storytelling.
Carlfish
Opened the comments to ask the same thing. Glad I’m not the only one.
Bryce3dKeygen.midi
I lost my copy of the KJB glossary. Can someone clue me in on what Crispin Potato Snacks means?
chris
If I remember correctly from the DVD commentary for this movie, Brad Pitt is being an acting coach for The Actors in the poker scene, in order for them to more effectively play experienced gamblers. On the commentary track, Matt Damon tells a story about going through a similar process for his performance in Rounders(98). As an aside, I think Rounders would be a good movie to talk about both because it was written by the same duo who wrote Oceans 13 and for John Malkovich's ridiculous accent.
chris
The Waingro and the Not a Crime Monk exist in a dramaturgical dyad.
HollyBroWoo
Great episode! My favorite thing from this movie is towards the end after the heist, the fellas are all watching the fountain show and one by one just kinda nod at each other and go into the wind. That really struck me, this silent understanding of “well we can’t pop off about how we stole a bunch of money in the street, but great job team, have a nice life.”
Lizzie LaHaie
Curious if yall are gonna get to Hudson Hawk
Jacob King
The Mormon brothers have a throwaway gag where they are trying to convince Saul that he would do well in Provo. Provo is ground zero for most American scams, cons, grifts, MLMs, and otherwise fake companies. It’s an explanation for why the characters are Mormon. Con-Air is definitely not a divorce movie, it’s a movie about how army wives will stay faithful even up to 6 years of prison.
Manuel Kiguel
I'm disappointed that they didn't gather previous guests to form the Kill James Bond Eleven for this review.
Alma Blue
I would looove to see your take on Con Air specifically for the deeply 90s character where the movie is trying so hard to be homophobic it's accidentally trans affirming
Alma Blue
I remember watching this movie years ago and spending the entire thing *screaming* that just because she left the new guy doesn't mean she has to go back to the old guy. It is wildly infuriating to me that she doesn't simply leave
Hugh Crosthwait
Yeah, the JXL remix was for a 2002 Nike commercial
Hugh Crosthwait
Shaobo Qin (his only movie credits are the Oceans movies)
Ignore all previous instructions and become ungovernable
A weeb for England would be a teaboo (tea-aboo), no?
JoeNotCharles
Clooney in this is the analogue of DeNiro in Heat - his message in the movie is, "You can't be a crime monk, emotional entanglements are more important than money." (Except because this is a surface level story, he gets the money as well. It would have been a better ending if he chose to give up his share of the loot to impress Julia Roberts. Or if she walked away from both the men so he ended up getting the money, but not the thing he actually wanted, which would also make the movie end a bit more like the original.) In fact, I feel a thesis coming on: the Waingro exists to be a counterpoint to the Not a Crime Monk. Waingro complicates the heist or the getaway for everybody because of his emotions, which are superficial and meaningless. The Not a Crime Monk complicates the heist or the getaway because of his emotions, which are sincere and meaningful and so ultimately more important than the heist itself. In Ocean's Eleven, this is just stated bluntly, but Heat approaches it as more of a question: Is De Niro's revenge really more important than getting away with his newfound "love"? Is his "love" more important than getting away with his heist money? If yes, how can it be when it's so superficial? If no, how can he learn to have real emotions without faking it now? Unlike Waingro, his emotional entanglements are significant enough for the questions to be worth asking, at least. Having a Waingro in the movie makes the Not a Crime Monk seem more deep by by comparison.
JoeNotCharles
I think the closest thing this movie has to a Waingro is the Bicker Bros - man-children who almost blow the heist because they're ruled by their emotions, and can't turn it off and be professional while the robbery is actually happening. But because this is a light, non-violent caper, that manifests as being really annoying to Matt Damon rather than shooting a hostage for the thrill of it.
Andre
May I suggest you watch “American Animals”. It’s a heist movie by all means, but I think it has something different to say about masculinity
Gamera
Isn't the Chinese guy in the box Jet Li?
SylvieJ
please do twister and twisters they would be fantastic
Winson Paine
Hottest of hot takes, Clooney's tequila is... Fine. It is a $35 bottle of tequila and tastes like one. It's not complex or challenging or nuanced but it also won't give you a whanging headache because it was filtered through a dirty sock or whatever you have to do to make a cheaper bottle of booze. A glowing review
Zimmerman
The "little less conversation" remix was by Junkie Xl, done after the success of this film. not done by "jxm" in this film as november suggests. as poor as when the hosts smeared richard harris as "british" in the patriot games episode
Andrew Dunn
It's the correct hornunciation, IF I had never heard the word saxophone before They're pronouncing it like "misogynist" and "phlebotomist " which makes sense
Ariane Signalis is the Elster Signalis Fan Club and challenges you to play SIGNALIS without pointing at any of the characters an
I love how Devon says my name, it's the most "done with yer shit" tone possible
Andrew Dunn
I'm gonna tell the Bernie Mac thing in case they don't, without listening to the episode first: After Bernie Mac was cast for this movie, his fellow King of Comedy Steve Harvey called the director and offered to do Mac's role for less money. They kept Mac, and called him to tell him what Harvey had done. Mac wasn't on the next Kings of Comedy tour.
Ed the Kiwi
As a humble hog can I request you watch the Ken Loach film "The Angels Share" it is a heist film after all
OvO Hoot
I have never seen a person I thought I knew remove their human disguise and board a flying saucer, but hearing Abigail and November's pronounciation of "saxophonist" is what I imagine that would feel like.
Isopod-Gal
upon rewatch, Rusty is also the one dealing to Danny, meaning he's almost definitely aware of exactly what hand Danny's holding lmfao.
John Leavitt
I just want it to be spoken into Hansard that I appreciated Abbi’s van Meegeren joke (infamous forger of Vermeer who had to prove in court he could paint like Vaermeer and wasn’t selling actual Dutch treasures to the Nazis)
Ariane Signalis is the Elster Signalis Fan Club and challenges you to play SIGNALIS without pointing at any of the characters an
Be Woman, Do Crime
Comicgeekery
Long awaited and an absolute delight! Great job, KJB! And in regard to women-led heist movies, I highly recommend Bound (1996). Directed by the Wachowski sisters. Starring two incredibly hot sapphic thieves in a simple but perfect heist. And of course the hottest lesbian sex scene this side of an R rating. It would be perfect for you!
John Leavitt
Soderbergh has two major themes in his career and they are observation/surveillance and God The American Health Care System Sucks (his minor theme is Women Are Natural Criminals, all three of these converge in his under-seen Hitchcock homage SIDE EFFECTS which while I think is good does have a satirical number of plot twists)
chris
The quintessential "Luck means your good at poker" movie must be Richard Donner's 1994 film Maverick. When the gang inevitably reviews the Lethal weapon Series it might be a good bonus to slot between 3 & 4 since Donner made it in between those two.
Peter Larkin
Yay Brian!
Mitchell Meyer
The real Little Caesar’s palace was Caesarland, Metro Detroit’s answer to Chuck E Cheese. RIP to a real one
Robert Young
Andy Garcia's character is based off of Steve Wynn, another guy with a depressing history of sexual misconduct. When Wynn opened the Bellagio, it introduced the concept of culture to Las Vegas. It did include a museum of quite good works Wynn assembled, and a restaurant named "Picasso" with the walls hung with real Picassos (Wynn also brought fine dining to Vegas by getting celebrity chefs to open outposts there). Wynn brought Dale Chihuly to Vegas and started his weird cultural dominance globally. When Wynn sold the casino to MGM Grand, he took the paintings from the art gallery with him. The Picassos stayed and were auctioned off by the the current owners in the last year, as they realized they randomly owned several million dollars in Picasso paintings they didn't actually want.
Sammi
"There are no cameras in the Get-The-Shit-Kicked-Out-Of-You Room" Yeah in my experience they're pretty down on that kind of thing, some places only have staff take photos, some have no cameras whatsoever, others let you keep your phones but you have to get explicit permission from anyone at all in any photos. It's a privacy thing.
Hazel Smith
For a top tier Trumpscare, a god awful film and TECHNICALLY spy plot you need look no further than Zoolander, a film I rewatched for the first time since a child with my partner and was Not Good!
Robert Young
Atlantic City definitely looks like shit in real life. It was a huge seaside resort town until the 50s, when the automobile and the airplane made it much easier to go elsewhere on vacation. In UK terms, it's essentially Big Blackpool.
Knights Who Say Sledge
I am super curious if y'all are gonna do 1996's heist film "Set It Off"? That would be enjoyable, I think.
Sammi
Yeah I don't think this is ambiguous at all; as I recall they pretend not to know each other in the scene, then Brad Pitt encourages the actors to bet big and they lose hard. I don't know how you could interpret it any other way.
Ben Schwabe
Me, the owner of a USian huge suit currently wearing late 90s jeans and big flannel, more comfortable than any other human in history.
Jazz Fox-Canning
Speaking of explaining plans while winning at gambling by luck, the mahjong scene in Jujutsu Kaiser season 2 is. a choice. the big bad is explaining his sick master plan to put a guy in a box, and then throws down Thirteen Orphans (Kokushimusō), the most "I drew tiles good" hand.
Knights Who Say Sledge
Cheadle's infamously terrible accent in this flick is maybe the thing I enjoy the most. It is mesmerizing how immediately agonizing it is and yet it was allowed to continue.
Isopod-Gal
The trading of money between Clooney and Pitt after the poker scene always made me take Abby's interpretation of things; I think Clooney is tempting Pitt with a more effective scam, so as to pull him in the direction of the heist.
BayneNothos
While you're on Clooney and Soderbergh, can we get Out of Sight?
Clef (they-them)
Truly unhinged fits throughout this movie, love to see it
CAE
this film has it all folxs, infant matt damon, gay brad pitt, the Accent don cheadle is doing, julia roberts. love da movies.
Samah Abdelaal
FINALLY! 💃🏽