Genre – Heist
Movie Total Runtime – 2 Hour 2 Minutes
Spoilers – Not really, but kinda.
I suspect this was another Blockbuster Bargain Bin acquisition. I’ve had it for ages but never bothered to watch it. We are talking about a sequel to a sequel to a remake of a Frank Sinatra movie. I’m not one wowed by ‘star power’, so the all-star cast gimmick doesn’t really help the movie be of interest. So, what have we got? I’m not going to do a play by play of the plot, they’re intentionally convoluted to bamboozle the audience, as the writers try to keep one step ahead of the viewer.
A heist movie, above all else, has to be clever. There are two ways for a successful heist plot to go down. Both start with the presentation of a supposedly impossible objective. The first one they do not tell the audience the plan, and the reveal is how the gang managed to outwit the impossible. The second is where they lay out the plan and we see it fall apart while the gang comes up with new solutions that fit within the established parameters.
I have some tolerance for magictech solutions provided they are established in advance of being needed, and they make sense within the context of the setting and how they are used. Think of it as Chekov’s Technobabble, you have to have it in play before it is deployed, or you come off as just pulling stuff out of your ass.
This movie basically does everything wrong as a heist.
They tell us the plan from the word go, and if you look at the story beats, it goes off as described. Each time something comes up that might otherwise derail the plan, rather than being clever, the gang asspulls a solution that puts the plan back on track. There is no reveal because they did not outsmart anyone.
In my notes I had rants about how the gang was somehow able to acquire not one but two secondhand tunnel boring machines, and smuggle them into Vegas, and set them up with zero staff, and bore under the strip undetected to fake an earthquake, with the second one replacing the first in the tunnel with no logistical difficulties in moving a building-sized machine. That’s as much bullshit as any of the miniaturized magictech they throw around to fix other problems.
There was never any tension because there was never the impression that the gang was going to lose. Each new problem seemed miniscule, even before the magic solution got asspulled to get back on the original plan. Throw something in that was not “Just as planned” and requires an actual change of direction. Derail the whole original scheme and require them to course correct on the fly. Show that you are actually clever enough to paint the illusion for the audience.
But they aren’t clever enough. So, they tried to keep the audience off-game through pacing. It moves fast, trying to keep ahead of the realization that none of this works.
I had complaints that the clipped, incomplete dialog between the big name leads was still annoying. It was deployed improperly and just made it seem like someone forgot to finish the script. I know it is meant to show that the two are supposed to know each other so well that they can finish each other’s thoughts – but it doesn’t. It just doesn’t.
Special guest villain Al Pachino is played by Al Pachino, and comes off as a foot-stomping petty little man who’d never have gotten any suckers to go into business with him the way he is known for burning business partners.
I’m struggling to reach my customary minimum of a thousand words because there’s just so little there. The movie is a shell game with clear shot glasses.
Don’t waste your time.
I wish I’d made more jokes… but I got bored.
No worries, I never had any intention of ever watching this.
So did I, with the movie. It was terrible. There isn’t anything more you need to say.
You’re all off in Rural Minne, so happy meetup.
I’m not.
I saw both the remake of Ocean’s Eleven and this one on TV. (For whatever reason, I don’t recall ever seeing Twelve. Maybe it sank into well-deserved obscurity.) I enjoyed Eleven well enough without thinking too much about it, but this one….yeah, the simulated earthquake is pretty far-fetched.
I will say that I much prefer watching Clooney in comedies than in dramas, but I’d much prefer to rewatch O Brother, Where Art Thou? than Thirteen.
I saw that movie once.
I’ve forgotten what it was about.
Twelve was when they were in Europe trying to make a big score because the guy from the first movie found them and threatened them. They had to beat the best thief in Europe to steal a fancy egg.
Yeah, I forgot the plot to that one as well as O Brother.
Hard to put into a nutshell. Off the top of my head – Clooney and a couple of dimwits escape from a 1920s or ’30s-era Southern chain gang so Clooney can get back to his wife and daughters. They have various adventures along the way, including recording what becomes a hit record. Coen Brothers, so suitably weird, and supposedly inspired by The Odyssey, if I recall correctly.
🤔
I think I saw that and forgot everything about it. Just not interesting to me in any way.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? is the movie Joel McCrea wanted to make in Sullivan’s Travels, instead of stuff like Ants in Your Pants of 1938.
O Brother Where Art Thou is a retelling of the Odyssey with escaped convicts in the 1920s.
I’m here, for the time being. This one was ok, and the more I think about it, it’s because I did like the first two so much. They both had that clever twist at the end, like they finally let you in on the joke. I hadn’t really noticed the third one was just played straight, probably because it had that fast pace.
I think the “make it quick so they can’t think too much about it” technique raises red flags all on its own in my brain. So I go back and ask “what are they trying to hide”.
I just got here.
The movie is a shell game with clear shot glasses.
Nice.
The plot of O Brother was supposed to be a ripoff of the Odyssey. Or so I heard.
Speaking of “caper movies” I watched this the other night. Elaborate scheme turns completely to shit. There’s realism for you.
The best of that is Kubrick’s The Killing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Odg-GY40w
Add Rififi to the list of great caper flicks….
No. Some of us just got home from watching a miracle victory for the Browns. From a stadium that was ~40% Packers fans who were nearly as loud as the Dawg Pound..
You see, the Browns are just building you back up so they can let you down.
Congratulations on your miracle.
So I’m trying to get this USB network adapter to work on my linux server so I can turn the machine into a gateway. (ran out of PCI slots inside, which is why the USB)
The adapter shows up in lshw, lsusb, and gets an IP address from the DHCP server – but doesn’t show up in ifconfig.
🙁
Nevermind, ifconfig has just deigned to recognise the new network adapter
*FBI mole types on clicky government keyboard:
“You’re welcome.”
RJ Is the Fed?
No, I was inserting a screenplay line in “Lives of the Tulpas.”
lol just the one?
We, I mean they, yeah, that’s it, they … are legion
Speaking of computer stuff-
I opened Firefox the other day (first time in i don’t know how long), and holy shit it tried to take over my computer. Updates itself in the background, it does. What else is it up to in the shadows?
Here is someone’s really bad day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPZ8XuuR6qI
really bad day
Oops.
REALLY REALLY bad day
Certainly expensive. However, if this is your hobby something tells me he’s got the cash.
Eh, he didn’t do anything tooooooo bad.
*I am also upset. Expensive and perhaps embarrassing, but Dude #1 had a much, much worse day. His *hurt.*
At least he didn’t take out the 250LM.
How do you take notes and rant at the same time?
I can do one or the other but not bolth.
VLC has a pause button.
I pause the movie to type. Notes turn into rants as I get my thoughts out.
You don’t dictate to a group of orphans that know shorthand?
I am not a libertarian, I don’t have orphans.
Today I learned one of my favorite artists was legally blind.
***
As a child, Knight was deeply interested in nature and animals, largely thanks to his father’s passion for the outdoors and spent many hours copying the illustrations from his father’s natural history books. His father also took him on trips to the American Museum of Natural History which fueled his knowledge for nature. Knight began drawing when he was around five or six years old. In later years he abandoned the practice of drawing from books altogether, and instead drew from life.
Though legally blind because of astigmatism he inherited from his father and after his right eye was struck by a rock by a playmate, Knight pursued his artistic talents with the help of specially designed glasses which he used to paint inches from the canvas for the rest of his life. At the age of twelve, he enrolled at the Metropolitan Art School to become a commercial artist. In 1890, he was hired by church-decorating firm J. & R. Lamb to design stained-glass windows, and after two years with them, became a freelance illustrator for children’s books and magazines, specializing in nature scenes. At this time, he met people like Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle. When Knight was eighteen, his father died and he took the little money his father left him and left home.
***
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_R._Knight
Heist movies and escape movies have a lot in common. The escape plan in Finding Nemo amused me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H5QYHVu4Fs
Escape movies are just heist movies told from the perspective of the desired booty, which perseveres to free *itself.*
*sagely fingertaps noggin*
I’m getting real tired of the Europeans thinking they have actual power to dictate terms in foreign affairs. Let’s go and recognize a Palestinian state after they launched a brutal terrorist attack on Israel and provoked a war! Let’s thumb our noses at Russia and demand the US pay for our war!
I wish Trump was actually about America First. Withdraw all US support from these fucking clowns. Make them choose between their bloated wellfare states and defense. If you want to basically spit in the face of the country that enables you to pretend to have your own foreign policy, fuck you.
I know this isn’t particularly libertarian, but there’s nothing libertarian about geopolitics.
There’s only so much one person, even the president, can do.
***
President Donald J. Trump vetoed 10 bills during his first administration.
***
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/vetoes/TrumpDJ.htm
The UK would cease to be a nuclear power if we stopped maintaining their missiles.
***
The United States is involved at every level of the so-called British nuclear weapon system, from design and procurement to operation and targeting.
The flow of knowledge, technology, materials and military personnel between the US and the UK is made possible by a number of treaties, most importantly the Mutual Defence Agreement treaty. It was first signed in 1958 and has been extended and expanded multiple times since.
Nuclear bombs assembled in Britain are based on a US design and have components shipped from the USA. The USA also builds, supplies, and maintains the missiles used to “deliver” the bombs to their targets.
The Trident missiles currently in use were designed and built in the USA by Lockheed Martin. The submarines that carry the armed missiles are built at Barrow-in-Furness but follow US designs and are powered by nuclear reactors dependent on components, materials and expertise supplied by the USA.
***
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/24696487.british-nuclear-weapons-really-american/
As is so often the case, Yes Minister explains: https://youtu.be/IKQlQlQ6_pk?si=Qqya5BpPc3fuwjiH&t=72
How do all of you people know that show? I’ve never seen it.
It was not on PBS when I was growing up. Maybe it was delayed to the late 80s or the 90s? Which would have ruled me out.
I heard about it and sought it out. I own the DVDs.
@ Rhywun
Watched it on first run in Australia. It was back to back with Fawlty Towers. Usually laughed so much I was in pain at the end of an hour.
You don’t stream right?
I found out about Yes, Minister from a Doris Lessing book while in Tanzania. Watched on YouTube a few years later in 2012.
We got that on PBS. But that premiered in the mid-70s which meant we got it in the US by the early 80s so I grew up on it.
Yes, Minister ran 80 to 84 according to wikipedia so that makes me think PBS didn’t get it until the late 80s when I was in late HS or college.
I’ll watch free stuff like Pluto but I won’t pay extra to stream because I already pay for cable.
Yeah, it’s streaming on an Amazon sub-channel.
Bought twenty years ago when it was on DVD also. Used to be a couple of Brit focused catalogs that I got and was featured there.
It’s best there not be another nuclear armed Muslim state.
See France.
It’s on Tubi.
I mostly agree with you. I’m not quite ready to cut ties but I’m getting there. In the meantime, I would enjoy Trump being Trump. Maybe Steven Miller can tell him about the drive for Scottish independence, desire for a Catalonian homeland, and Basque separatist aspirations.
Since RJ is here:
It’s not on Tubi, but Skidoo seems to be on Plex right now.
Pink Panther movies > Ocean’s
For sure
Pink Panther cartoons > either
On the Charlie Kirk exit wound conspiracy shit:
It may have been shitty reporting, but there were reports that the bullet hit a plate he was wearing and it was the shrapnel that did him in. As Tres noted this morning.
I haven’t heard anything on that since. I think it was reported the day after.
I’ve watched the video from multiple angles. The bullet hit a major vessel in his neck, and he quickly bled out.
raw video – graphic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L47dzO4KgQ
Bullets do strange things when they hit a body. I had a kid once shot in the face, handgun at close range. The bullet entered from the front just next to his nose, made a sharp right turn, traversed the rear of his left orbit (the bony cage the eye sits in) and exited out the temple. It severed his optic nerve, meaning his eyesight in his left eye was gone, but otherwise did no significant damage whatsoever. He walked out of the hospital the next day and if it wasn’t for the fact that his family made a huge scene he could have been discharged just a couple of hours after the injury happened. I never accept these “the bullet couldn’t possibly have done that” assessments until a lot of evidence has been presented. I’ve just seen too much weird stuff.
That is one magic loogie!
Good to see you, stranger.
Opus!
Berk Breathed has done a string of new Bloom County strips.
You and your honker are currently imprisoned in Mongolian dung mines. Steve Dallas blew himself up with a catzooka.
Let me guess, FMJ 9mm or 380?
I think shitty reporting accounts for a lot more than just this particular subject.
My latest creation turned out well:
https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2025/09/pennywise-terror-of-high-seas.html
The title contains no words in common with the prompt I used.
Kansas City looks like a shadow of what they were a season or two ago. Sorry Mojeaux.
Can only be to the Bills’ advantage. 😀
Related to that, NYG may displace NYJ as the New York Sadness Machine.
I didn’t watch a lot of – OK, any – football during the 25 years I lived in NYC so I never developed any interest in either of those teams. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It was only when I moved back to Bills territory a couple years ago that I found an interest in checking out the product again.
Not tonight, I guess. 😞
Not likely, Chafed. The Giants seem to be the team of the Goodthinkful Class while the Jets are for the Icky Class blue-collar types.
I haven’t watched one game this season[2] They’ve been going downhill for the last three years, about as long as their O-line has been trash.[1] It’s just they haven’t been going downhill as fast as everybody else.
You got a 10-figure athlete and you can’t shell out to protect him? WTF is wrong with you people? ANYWAY, I got tired of being pissed off about them being sloppy (yes, I even wrote it in my journal years ago) and said fuck that noise, I’m no longer interested.
[1] I said that about a trash O-line on Twitter last year and promptly got jumped on by sOoPeRfAnS who told me I’m a woman and don’t know what I’m talking about, and I’m like, dude, I’m not gonna blow smoke up your ass if you need improvement. YOU can suck Chiefs dick all you want—but you’ll have to wait until they can get it up. *still waiting*
[2] Several things have me off football, actually.
a) They’re sloppy, they’ve been sloppy for years, I keep saying they’re sloppy, my husband keeps saying the only thing that matters is the W and I do NOT agree because sloppiness turns into a habit and you’re just rewarding sloppiness. YeAh BuT wE wOn DoEsNt MaTtEr HoW Yes, it does matter. It matters VERY much.
b) We left for Utah on Christmas Day just after the game ended for my uncle’s funeral that we never made it to because blizzard. I am not driving down Echo Canyon in a blizzard in the dark. Or the light, either. For whatever reason, I have that whole misadventure tied to the Chiefs in my mind.
c) Then my mom got sick 3 days after we got home and my life blew up and I had to sue my aunt and I just couldn’t care and then they lost the Superbowl. And why did they lose? BECAUSE THEY WERE FUCKING SLOPPY!!!
Nobody listens to me.
Honey Harvest went smoothly, production was lower than we’d hoped for but that’s always the case, 6 of Richard’s buttons were distributed and one for me and Zep, so that’ll make it 8. I still have 4 left. PONick pinned himself right away.
PONick became the true unabashed and unchallenged leader for consecutive HHs. Jimbo tried to say it was for the total, which would have made him co-champ with Nick
but the Glib crowd erupted with boos and shouts of “Shame, shame” and Jimbo took his licks like a marine. The food was good and plentiful. Kinnath’s mead made for a lot of smiling faces. Some Glibs and wannabees convinced Kinnath to gift them a souvenir and were rewarded. CPRM pulled a zoom and we saw the faces of some remote
Glibs. Even non-Glibs wanted CPRM’s gift cards.
Weather was cooperative, no mosquitoes, no one got stung as bee activity was light. The locals pitched in, got the job done and mostly cleaned up and tomorrow we will be putting stuff away for another year.
Not a single one of you even Firsted today.
I commented on your comment. I did my job.
I put some comments on the post, now I must rest. Long day.
I’ll try to make it in person next year.
I would like to make it someday too.
Sounds like a good time. Glad it went well, Fourscore.
That risk/horror hadn’t occurred to me. 😨
I think we’ve only had one reported sting in the last ten tears or more. I’m kind of suspicious of that one, it was a kid that claimed he was stung but no red mark or any other evidence.
This year my bee partner got stung on the leg when we were moving hives a week ago. I didn’t get any the whole season. I have been stung in the past but honey bees are mild.
I got mildly stung the first time I visited, but that was the middle of the summer.
I got bit a couple times this year by deer flies/horse flies. They hurt/itch for a couple hours.
Regarding wildlife, I sometimes see deer wandering around my small-town downtown here but thank goodness no barbed insects in my current residence knock on wood. I remember that nonsense was a frequent danger in the much bigger city that I grew up in. Or we were just poorer 🙂
Ocean’s 11 (remake) came out when I lived there. I tracked down the warehouse exterior where ‘they planned the job’.
So, first off, Al Pacino ALWAYS plays Al Pacino. He can be no one OTHER than Al Pacino. There is a special place in storytelling for an Al Pacino, so I do not begrudge him this. I’m just aware of his limitations, which are quite limiting.
Second, I was reminiscing about the golden decade of movies, which was the 90s, during which time I would spend all weekend at the movies and watch one right after another. I also saw The Fugitive, Dracula, and Strictly Ballroom more than a lot of times in the theater.
Fitting my ‘Friday’ is the most chill of the week. Today’s my 6th Rebirthday anniversary since The Incident on Sept. 22, 2019. With ‘new’ car and my financials met after 6mo at WallyWorld, the needle’s officially shifted into a ‘serious Job Hunt’ gear. At 2pm I’m off for 61 hours to start lining the other gears together.
Be well and may YOUR Monday begin with resolve. Hopefully, there’s a cute squirrel to draw your attention for a spell.
My AI art project continues.
https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2025/09/shai-hulud.html
Great googly moogly! Get up and be awesome today.
😎🥇☀️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C6yyKkclkA
🎶🎶
I’m awesome in bed without getting up.
I’m awesome every day.
Good morning, Sean, Derpy, EfE, Ted’S., and U!
Mornin’
Good morning, (((Jarfy! How are you today?
**Incoherent mumbled sounds
Ah! Too much blood in your caffeine stream!
Yes, although it was more a bog than a stream. Caffeine has been ingested, and oxygen is now being carried to my brain.
🧠👍
Stunning plot twist, my newly oxygenated brain is remembering the state of the world and whining that it wants to go back to bed until things no longer suck.
🙁
😟?
I got 4 hours of sleep despite trying for more. I have a doctor’s appointment (regularly scheduled) this friday. I have to go into the office today, and I did none of the cleaning I wanted to get to in the living room, so it’s slightly worse.
I’m worried my inspiration will leave me by the time I get back from the office, and I won’t finish the story.
Your inspiration will be fine! 🙂👍 Do you have some reason to worry about the doctor’s appointment?
I haven’t been sticking to my intended diet plan, so my numbers will not be better.
Good morning!
On the topic of shit entertainment, I heard good things about The Residence. I gave it a shot.
Do you really miss the dialog from Sports Night? Are you craving a fat Black lesbian girlboss being perfect and White and Asian men being stupid? (Yes the Black men are suitably deferential to the Girlboss). Boy, do I have a show for you. I am freaking amazed this didn’t get renewed since it panders so hard to the critics I can only assume that Netflix’s payola checks were sub-par.
I mean, it’s billed as a comedy and isn’t funny, but since when has that ever been an issue? Maybe Woke really is dead?
Nice to see someone else hated Sports Night.
So you mean “Murder, She Wrote”?
Are you sure this wasn’t supposed to be a response to Not Adahn?
I’d prefer not to.
Hmm, I was going to spend the day punching myself in the nuts, but maybe I’ll watch this instead.
Sabrina Lloyd was adorable.
BD 🙂
“A tiger handler who was an “associate” of “Tiger King” star Joe Exotic was fatally mauled by a big cat under his care at an Oklahoma preserve over the weekend, according to authorities.
Ryan Easley died after a tiger attacked him during an “accident” on Saturday at Growler Pines Tiger Preserve in Hugo, the preserve wrote in a Facebook post.”
https://nypost.com/2025/09/21/us-news/tiger-handler-and-joe-exotic-associate-fatally-mauled-by-tiger-at-oklahoma-preserve/
Not everyone can be Mike Tyson.
I tried to fix the AI drawing UCS posted about last year:
https://platedlizard.blogspot.com/2025/09/desert-space-marine.html
https://www.glibertarians.com/2024/04/aiart6-inpainting-revisited/
Anyone else notice the site is slow?
I had a bit of slowness in the past ten minutes, but not before that.
Nope, but I also have work, so…
suh’ fam
whats goody