Who Gold-Plated Al Pacino?

After much back-and-forthing on Friday afternoon, I decided to throw project deadlines to the wind and go to the movies. Specifically, to the long, cool drink of water that I was hoping Ocean's 13 would be — in contrast to the sideways Amsterdam puzzle of Ocean's 12. Sadly, Christine made other plans during the "No, I'm not going" portion of the afternoon, and told us to hit it without her once I informed her that it was back on.


Since Crocker Park is always insane in the membrane on Friday nights, Cathy suggested car pooling to avoid us both having to search for parking spots. Then when I picked her up later, she complained about looking like lesbians on a date: I'm togged out in my WITNESS shirt, jeans, and some Converse One-Stars; she's got on some kind of black halter top and jeans and sandals of some kind. Whatever. Moving on.


I had enough points on my Regal Cinemas card to get a free popcorn, but of course the concession lines were lengthy and slow-moving. Cathy noted that part of the problem was that the people in front of us wanted a kiddie-pool-sized tub of popcorn, but it was too late: we were already committed to that lane.


Snacks in hand, we successfully navigated the escalator, because of course they had to show Ocean's 13 in theater 13, which is completely on the other end of the complex. We had decided on the spur of the moment at 7:19 to get tickets for the 7:20 instead of the 7:40 showing, thinking that we would just miss a few commercials while we got our snacks.We ended up missing all of the previews, and sitting down just as the Village Roadshow logo came up to start the movie. On the one hand, this was perfect timing. On the other, I'm enough of a movie nerd that I actually like watching all the previews and prefer to be seated before all the lights go out. Again: Whatever. Moving on.


The movie itself was a lovely return to form. If you liked the Ocean's 11 remake, you'll enjoy this sequel. We were a little surprised by the, uh, carroty tinge to Pacino; hence Cathy's observation about the gold-plating. Otherwise, it was just giggling and drooling, with maybe one or two smart remarks thrown in. Some highlights:

• The subplot with Casey Affleck and Scott Caan (Cathy's personal favorite) at the factory in Mexico is hi-larious.


• The George Clooney-Brad Pitt foreinterplay: Love it, love it, love it!


• Matt Damon is still hot, even with the fake nose. I would not need faux pheromones to be all over him.
  (An aside: I finally got around to watching The Good Shepherd last night, and he did a great job in that. His character in it is so ... I don't have a good way to explain it, really: quiet, self-contained, not demonstrative or vocal about his thoughts or feelings; perfect for the character's job, I guess, but maybe tough for an actor to convey a lot with little tightenings of the mouth, quick sidelong glances, and minor brow furrowing. I'm not sure I completely caught everything that went down in that movie, because I stupidly started watching part of it about 45 minutes before I had to leave for a meeting, and then when I started it back up again later — I couldn't sleep after the basketball game was over — I dozed off toward the end and had to rewatch the last fifteen or twenty minutes when I woke up.)

Anyhow, since we went to the earlier show, I had plenty of time to pick up some signs at Kinko's and get the gift bags and whatnot organized for the alumni golf outing on Saturday. I'm totally going to buckle down tonight and tomorrow and power through the rest of this project, though so no Pirates 3 on $4 night this week. Sigh.