Rewatchables Reference

• The entire Julia Roberts/Tess goes to Rome sequence, including the Bruce Willis hotel scene. All three hosts agree this is the pick. 'If it had been handled in any other number of ways, it completely undoes the entire project – not just this movie, but any of the movies.' Bruce Willis greeting her as Julia Roberts while she's a woman pretending to be Julia Roberts is 'some of the greatest American acting I've ever seen.'
• The Matsui meeting with Robbie Coltrane – five minutes where no one knows what anyone is saying, and Damon is doing the lyrics to Kashmir. 'If you had to give someone 45 minutes of these movies and just be like here's what it's about, it's a pretty good distillation.'
• The 12 reunions – Danny getting the gang back together, Scott Caan insisting it was 'one job we did together' and the proprietary stance is insulting. They use takes where actors crack up.
• The breakdown of the Van der Woude heist – 'Do we have to call him a freak? The National Institute of Mental Health estimates 5.6% of adults develop agoraphobia. Would you call Emily Dickinson a freak?'
• Rusty and Danny getting drunk on red wine watching Happy Days dubbed in Italian. Amanda's husband called it 'a really beautiful movie about male intimacy.'
• The Vincent Cassel Night Fox introductory montage – 'always film on location, that's all I ask of anyone making a movie.'

• The look, sound, and feel – it's a background movie, great to look at and listen to, doesn't demand a lot of the brain.
• David Holmes's score – essential to the Soderbergh Ocean's legend. Great nods to 70s Italian crime soundtracks and Goblin soundtracks.
• Brad Pitt's fashion – the buzz cut, leather coats, silk shirts. 'In 2004 he was supposed to look completely ridiculous. Now everything he wears you can see on the men's runways.'
• The ensemble chemistry, 15 years later – 'you look at what they've all done and you're just like, yep, still checks out.'
• The concept of movies as an excuse for rich people to have vacations in beautiful European locations. 'Let's send more people to Europe and film.'
• Lake Como and Vincent Cassel's lifestyle – the fruit smoothies, the fresh-cut fruit platters.

• Catherine Zeta-Jones's subplot – not her performance (they're mixed to positive on her), but the fact that the Isabella Lahiri scenes pull you out of the Ocean's crew hangout that everyone wants to be in. 'You just don't really care. You want to be spending time with the other guys.'
• The connection of Isabella to Lamarque as his daughter at the end – 'a little bit of a bridge too far, very convenient.'

• Mark Wahlberg was lined up to replace Matt Damon if he backed out. Damon considered not doing the movie after an exhausting Bourne shoot. 'I don't know if this is real' – the promo interviews around this movie are like 'a fucked-up Preston Sturges movie' where they're constantly pranking each other.
• Peter Fonda filmed a scene as Linus's dad but was cut and replaced by Bob Einstein (Super Dave / Marty Funkhouser) in Ocean's Thirteen.
• For Isabella Lahiri recast: Angelina Jolie ('noisier'), Rachel Weisz (Sean's pick, she wins an Oscar four years later for The Constant Gardener).

• Bruce Willis – the entire hotel scene with Julia Roberts is a masterclass in a cameo. 'Hey Jules... Lula left her SpongeBob blanket in the red casita.'
• Cherry Jones as Linus's mom – 'I'm really proud of you.' 'Thanks.' 'We both are. You told Dad?' Incredible.
• Albert Finney in the red pants on the boat.
• Andy Garcia stabbing everybody with his ring while giving the honor speech about Virgil's honeymoon to Epcot Center being postponed.
• Topher Grace – 'I quit the show. I totally phoned in that Dennis Quaid movie.'
• Jared Harris as Basher's engineer – 'fantastic stuff,' 10 years before Chernobyl.

• Nobody is really overacting in this movie – that's the whole point. Everyone is under-doing it.
• Albert Finney with the red pants? Jerry Weintraub? The hosts can't really find a winner.

The only real discussion is about Isabella Lahiri. Amanda's stance: the issue isn't Catherine Zeta-Jones, it's that the character has to do a lot of work that doesn't relate to the Ocean's crew.

• The Ocean's Twelve story was taken from George Nolfi's spec script 'Honor Among Thieves,' which was originally going to be made by John Woo. Nolfi rewrote it to fit the Ocean's characters – same thing that happened with the second-best 'Die Hard' movie (Simon Says).
• Peter Fonda filmed a scene as Linus's dad but was cut from the movie.
• Movies referenced in Ocean's Twelve (incomplete list): 'The Sixth Sense', In Good Company (the Dennis Quaid movie), Miller's Crossing, Hindi films.
• Soderbergh was annoyed that critics said they shot at Clooney's Lake Como house – they didn't.
• Soderbergh shot the film himself under his cinematography pseudonym Peter Andrews.

• Brad Pitt – possibly yes. Troy, Ocean's Twelve, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith era. 'Peak cool guy and also a little self-effacing.' He's the biggest star in the world at this point.
• Arsenal FC – gets a shoutout in the movie. Went to the Champions League final against Barcelona the next year.
• Amsterdam – looks incredible in this movie, though Sean argues it has a thousand years of artistry and architectural brilliance beyond just being in Hollywood claptrap.
• Lake Como – popularized to American consciousness through Clooney buying a house there and this movie.
• A certain kind of silk shirt – 'no living human should wear except for Brad Pitt.'

• If Tess looks just like Julia Roberts, do Danny, Rusty, and Linus look just like Clooney, Pitt, and Damon? The movie never addresses this.
• How do you identify someone from a random boot print on the street? Isabella somehow links a boot print to a nail salon via a stolen credit card. The forensic logic is extremely shaky.
• The Night Fox's capoeira laser scene – he gets hit by about 45 lasers. Very graceful, very impressive, but he definitely doesn't clear them all.
• Isabella knows both everything and nothing at all times. She can track a boot print but doesn't know the Night Fox's real name.

• 'Get the fuck out of here.' No.
• Sean would watch 'The 10 Heists of the Night Fox' as a series. Amanda would rather watch Rusty running The Standard hotel. Chris agrees with Amanda.

How did Danny get all the biographical details about the most mythical, reclusive thief in the world (the Night Fox) in a matter of hours? Wikipedia page?

• Chris: Steven Soderbergh – 'the first movie is a movie star movie, this is a director movie. No wasted shots, gorgeous to look at.'
• Amanda and Sean: co-winners with Soderbergh. Amanda floated 'Europe' as a winner. Sean joked about the long-term health of the global population and the Democratic process.
• Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and George Clooney were all strong contenders. Clooney is hardly discussed because he's hardly in the movie.