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Film
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The Glib Thirteen
It’s the second sequel to a remake of a 1960 Rat Pack romp. In other words, there’s no need to criticize; all this summertime bonbon requires is to contextualize.
Friday, June 8, 2007
By Richard Horgan
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Warner Bros.
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Two of the Glibbest Men Alive
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Here’s how I imagine Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) evaluating the prospect of taking a break from masterminding in favor of a bit of movie going at say the plush screens of the Brendan Palms Casino in Las Vegas:
Danny: You heard anything about Ocean’s Thirteen?
Rusty: Not really, but I sure liked the first twelve.
Danny: It’s got Clooney and Pitt… That’s not too shabby.
Rusty: Yeah, but it’s also got that guy Damon in it, with a fake nose. Can’t stand Damon; can’t stand fake noses.
Ocean’s Thirteen is another tall, dry martini, showcasing the marvelously glib banter of two of the Sexiest Men Alive as they jive about everything from magnetrons to random acts of TV talk show charity to their offscreen lives. It’s not as good as the first, better than the second and – in terms of the long list of 2007 summertime threes – better looking than Shrek the Third, less convoluted than Pirates 3 and as satisfying as Spider-Man 3, replacing the latter’s four villains with two (Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin).
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MGM
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Shaken and silver-tongued
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But what really comes across, after a three-year break, is how Clooney and Pitt reaffirm that they could also, if People ever got into this game, be in the running for Glibbest Man Alive. The rest of the Ocean’s gang is fine, but no one matches our golden boys in terms of facile line delivery. To find eleven more glib greats, you have to reach back into the previous millennium.
Roger Moore: Of all the James Bonds, Moore was the most flippant. Even in his last entry, A View to A Kill, he was still doing justice to this part of 007 better than Connery, Brosnan and now Craig. Some of his dialogue in that one with Jenny Flex (Alison Doody) includes – JF: ‘I’m Jenny Flex’; JB: ‘Of course you are;’ or, JF: Yes, I love an early morning [horse] ride;’ JB: ‘I’m an early morning riser myself.’
Peter Lawford: As far as their Rat Pack lineage is concerned, Clooney and Pitt connect back most in my opinion to this guy. Dean Martin is a close second. At one point, Lawford tells a masseuse in the original Ocean’s Eleven, ‘I made a cardinal rule: never answer the phone in December… Because one time, every time I picked up the phone, they sent me out into the snow to play with my friends. That was at the Bulge.’
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20th Century Fox
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Leader of the Wilder Pack
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William Powell: Not long after the dawn of the talkies, this actor put his stamp on the beautiful banter genre with a series of Thin Man movies. If you wonder where Moonlighting, Hart to Hart and Remington Steele got it from, look up Nick and Nora Charles at your nearest video store or rental website. ‘I read you were shot five times in the tabloids,’ says Nora in their 1934 series kick off, The Thin Man. ‘It’s not true,' answers Nick. 'He didn’t come anywhere near my tabloids.'
William Holden: There may never be a better snap, crackle and pop partnership than that of Billy Wilder and this other William. True, he mixed a little sneer in with the snap, but especially in Stalag 17, he did it marvelously. When a barrack mate tells his character Sefton the he doesn’t like him, never did and never will, Holden replies, ‘A lot of people say that, and the first thing you know it, they get married, and live happily ever after.’
Bob Hope: If Clooney and Pitt are ever looking for another yuk yuks franchise, they could do worse than jump into the Road movies genealogy. In one of the better ones, 1947’s Road to Rio, Hope plays a character named Hot Lips Barton. After knocking out a bad guy, he asides, ‘That’s what they get for not seeing our pictures.’
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MGM
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Hitchcock's banter man
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Cary Grant: As far as great looking glibbers, Archibald Leach is right up there with the hunks from ER and Thelma and Louise. There are so many classic moments to pick from, but as far as the Hitchcock slice of Grant's oeuvre, To Catch a Thief and North by Northwest are neck and neck. At one point in the latter, for example, he asks Eva Marie Saint, ‘How does a girl like you get to be a girl like you?’ (Her answer: ‘Lucky, I guess.’)
Groucho Marx: True, Julius Henry is a tad more anarchic, but if you cut to the You Bet Your Life end of things rather than any of the Marx Brothers’ classic cinema capers, you’ve got a dot that arguably connects. Seriously, if they take the real life parallels a little further in Ocean's Fourteen, can’t you just hear George-as-Danny replying to Brad-as-Rusty’s rhapsodizing about fatherhood with, ‘Hey, I enjoy a good cigar, but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.’
Paul Newman, Robert Redford: Back in the day, in films such as The Sting and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, this pair did the contemporary kibbitzing about as well as anyone. How does your boss do it, Robert Shaw asks The Sting? ‘He cheats,’ Redford as Johnny Hooker replies. And again, can’t you just see Clooney and Pitt, if there was gunfire in Ocean's, mouthing this exchange from Butch Cassidy: ‘Is that what you call giving cover?’ (Paul, George); ‘Is that what you call running? If I knew you were going to stroll...’ (Brad, Robert).
Chevy Chase: Chase has got a new book out, which among other things reveals that the real reason he left SNL after just one season was to pursue a girl on the west coast that he was madly in love with. During the early part of his film career, in the Fletch films and elsewhere, he continued to wield his trademark Weekend Update wryness, albeit with a bit more Groucho-like goofiness. In the original Fletch, he tells a nurse at one point when she asks if he needs anything: ‘Do you have the Beatles' “White Album?” Never mind, just get me a glass of hot fat. And bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia while you're out there.’
Alan Alda: Before his more recent run as a scene stealing dramatic supporting actor, nobody dished the glib like Hawkeye. Yes, it’s TV, not film, but where would this list be without at least one acknowledgement of the small screen. Bruce Willis in Moonlighting, James Garner in The Rockford Files, Tom Selleck in Magnum P.I.… The list goes on and on. But for my money, the Alan Alda-Mike Farrell jibs and jabs from 1975 through 1983 most immediately recall The Danny and Rusty Show.
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