Oceans 12?

[Fred Finn]

Ok has anyone seen Ocean's 12?

First off... It looks as though it was entirely shot on DV with a mini-35 adapter? WTF Why would a million dollar budget try to replicate low budget films. (i'm heated right now, feel like i was just robbed of $8.00) The reasons we use digital and 35mm adapters (for the most part) is because it's attainable. ..

What a crock. Don't even get me started on the storline and the acting. Don't waste your money it's a piece of poo.

[Imran Zaidi]

I haven't seen it yet, but did you see the first one? What did you think of it?

[Michael Wisniewski]

<<<-- Why would a million dollar budget try to replicate low budget films. -->>>

Steven Soderbergh likes to do that. I haven't seen this movie yet, but that's something that he has experimented with in many of his past projects.

[Philip Boyer]

I liked Ocean's 11 so much better. After my wife and I saw Ocean's 12, we didn't even care enough to talk much about it.

[Fred Finn]

Yeah I liked Ocean's 11.

I felt sooo disappointed. It was like watching something I or a friend had done when we first started making stuff. I couldn't believe it. It was so distracting. I kept waiting for it to change over, that the style was just for a flashback... It didn't.
The whole feel was so... so.... Amateurish. I mean when you're an amateur your stuff looks like that cause you are trying to imitate film. But when a multi million dollar film imitates amateur stuff..... I feel like i'm giving it too much credit just thinking about it. Haha if i wasn't so pissed about the $8.00. I did try to get it back, but I didn't want to push it just a mediocre effort.

[Boyd Ostroff]

Haven't seen it.... but I wouldn't suggest adding Full Frontal to your "must-see" list either. He manages to make an XL-1 look like a cheapo 1-chip shaky cam. Made me seasick.

Soderbergh sort of baffles me - I really enjoyed Solaris and thought it was beautifully photographed.

[John Sandel]

'F'y'wanna see something he made that's actually really good, watch "King of the Hill," which was released in '93.

It's based on Hotchner's memoir of growing up in St. Louis during the Great Depression. Hard to find on VHS & apparently not mastered for DVD yet.

JS

[Imran Zaidi]

Soderbergh's just one of those people that likes to make movies as much for himself as for other people. Much like we do, I think. I just looked at the metacritic.com score on Ocean's 12, and it looks like it's over the 50 mark, which means a lot of critics enjoyed it.

For those of you who don't know what metacritic.com is, they scan through dozens of reviews, give a 0-100 grade to it based on the review, and average them all out. I never like following any one critic, but metacritic, through the usual rule of averages, tells you if something really is awful, or just subjective. For example, "From Justin to Kelly" got the lowest score I've ever seen there - i think it was 14/100. Lost in Translation got a 92/100.

If Ocean's 12 got over a 50, we can at least surmise it's probably just subjective, and unlike "From Justin to Kelly", it's not a definitively horrid picture. Just another "Soderbergh experiment".

[Fred Finn]

Oh that sounds like a good idea. And yeah I would imagine some people could get into it. I would imagine if i didn't know much about film I probably would have enjoyed some aspects of it.

[Rob Lohman]

I actually liked it pretty much, but I may be biased since I saw
some of it shooting here in Holland. No it wasn't as great as
ocean's eleven and the story was so-so indeed, but overal I
enjoyed the humour quite a bit. The silly-ness seems to be
common in these kind of films....

[Robert Knecht Schmidt]

Count me among the disappointed with Ocean's 12 as well. The contrived twist turned me off to the entire second half of the movie.

[Dan Uneken]

For the first time in my life I bought a pirate DVD from a guy in the street who really seemed to need the 5 euros. It was Oceans 12.
After 5 minutes I ejected the DVD and threw it in the waste bin because I thought that it was copied handheld on a DV camera in a cinema and therefore looked terrible. So it was Soderberghs filming!! Brilliant!

[John Hudson]

I have always felt SS was overrated; at least I never have gotten the hype. I like a handful of his films but none have blown me away (unlike everyone else it seems).

Thanks for the metacritic link!

[Rob Lohman]

Dan: since O12 isn't out on DVD yet, your illegal version was
indeed a camera inside the theater shooting or some form of
using the film. These are always bad, I'm not sure how you can
blame Soderbergh for that! Rent it when it comes out or
something and you'll see it looks great. I saw it in the theater
and it looked good (like any other movie).

[Dan Uneken]

Rob, I'm especially curious about the way Amsterdam is portrayed, with a lot of things untrue about the way how it's built on poles, etc.
I will buy the legal DVD (no English version films in the cinema where I live) as a penance for buying the pirate copy.