Honey, I Shrunk Myself

Downsizing

Director: Alexander Payne

Cast: Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Kristen Wiig, Hong Chau

Released: December 22, 2017

As someone who lives in Omaha, the people of Omaha/Nebraska should be thankful for Alexander Payne. Why? Because if it weren't for him, the state of Nebraska would probably be best known for Teen Wolf, and trust me, we need all the help we can get. Yes, we have Warren Buffett and that one Lady Gaga song, but as far as films, it would be totally embarrassing and shameful if Teen Wolf (which takes place in some fictional Nebraska town, but wasn't filmed there) was the movie everyone thought about if (for whatever reason) movies that take place in Nebraska was brought up. Payne, who is from Omaha, has set many of his movies in Nebraska, usually Omaha. I remember when I saw About Schmidt with my mom and she goes, "Oh! There's [name of friend]'s house!" 

So this movie is interesting, to say the least. I knew that it was about Matt Damon becoming small (very small!) and when I first started watching it, I was like, Oh, this movie is like Honey I Shrunk the Kids! Except it's not. In that movie, Rick Moranis invents his contraption to shrink items; it's not meant for shrinking people. In this movie, shrinking people is very intentional and the whole point. Also, once you become small, you can never go back to your normal size, but, luckily, in Honey, the four shrunken kids are restored to their normal size. 

The movie starts in Bergen, Norway, where we see a scientist inject a mouse with something and put it into some machine, and, later, when he opens it, he looks surprised. We don't see the mini mouse (heh), but we know what he's seeing because we know what this movie's about. He excitedly tells his news to another colleague. 

Five years later and we're in Istanbul at a conference with a company called Global Solutions where the topic that day will be "Human Scale and Sustainability" with Dr. Andreas Jacobsen and Dr. Jorgen Asbjornsen from the Edvardsen Institute. In case you couldn't tell from their names, they're the two men from Norway we met in the first scene. 

Dr. Jacobsen tells the audience that the Institute "identified overpopulation as mankind's single greatest long-term threat" in the 1950s. One of their ideas they came up with many year ago seemed "too ambitious" and "out of their grasp", but they have finally made it a reality. While he's talking, he's standing next to a podium with a wooden box, maybe a little bigger than a shoebox, on it. He announces they are about to unveil what they "believe to be the only practical, humane and inclusive remedy to humanity's gravest problem" (He sure is laying it on thick here!) and that his colleague, Dr. Jorgen Ashborgsen, will tell them what it is. The audience clearly sees what is it when he lifts the box to reveal the tiny man who is Jorgen. He is standing behind his own tiny podium. 

Everyone is gasping and I can't blame them. That would freak me the f*** out. People are standing to get a better look and most of them are taking pictures/videos with their phones. Honestly, I'm surprised they were allowed to bring their phones. Somebody could just post a picture/video to social media and it would be out before they were ready to share their finding with the rest of the world. Even though Jorgen is small, his voice is still the same when he was his normal size. He says he and his colleagues "discovered a process by which all organic material can be reduced at the cellular level by a ratio of approximately 2,744 to one." This converts a man of 1.8 meters (5'11"; I had to ask Alexa to convert!) to 12.9 centimeter (5 inches)! That's a lot of science and math in one sentence. They also tested flora and fauna and "with the exception of some fish and shellfish, no side effects were detected." (I wonder what they were.) 

He presents a slideshow on the screen with the "experimental group" which consisted of 36 volunteers who joined him and his wife, Anne-Helene. Once they knew the procedure was safe, these 36 people became the "very first humans to undergo cellular reduction." I'm sorry, but who the f*** would volunteer for this? Jorgen says the volunteers are brave, but I would call them stupid idiots. We see a slide of the group sitting on some rocks outside. I guess the rocks are supposed to be pebbles, but they look like normal sized people sitting on/standing around boulders, which it probably is in reality! He claims the process is "short and painless" (heh, I wonder if he realized he was making a pun), the only discomfort being the "removal and replacement of dental and other prosthetics". We see a before and after picture of a man who downsized and the latter has a ruler and a measuring cup next to the tiny man to make it clear and obvious he's tiny! 

This must be going viral by now (thanks to all those audience members publishing their pics and videos to social media!) because other people who are in the building (at other conferences or meetings, I guess) come rushing into the auditorium to see the tiny man. He is now talking about their "little village" which is 7 meters (23 feet) by 11 meters (36 feet). It was "placed inside a gas-permeable enclosure designed to protect [them] from the hazards of weather, animals, and insects." Obviously, these people have never seen Honey, I Shrunk the Kids or they would know they could become friends with ants! Remember Anty? While he tells them they are living together in "the world's very first self-sustaining community of the small" (well, duh), Dr. Jacobsen, who had left while Tiny Jorgen was talking, walks in with a trash bag that's probably a third full, and announces to the audience that he's holding "all of the un-compostable waste produced by 36 people over four years." Wait, shouldn't it be 38 people since it was 36 people who joined Jorgen and Anne-Helene? Well, 36/38, either way, they don't use that much trash. Can you imagine how much waste 36 (or 38!) people produce in four years? Much more than that! I guess the tiny people have to feel smug about something! They have a "proposal for a two to three hundred-year transition for the world to transform from big into small." 

This seems like a lot of work to transform every person in the world (not to mention all the flora and fauna!) into miniature versions of themselves. Not to mention you'll have to completely change the infrastructure and don't get me started on transportation. Are there going to be tiny planes and boats now? I'm not exactly sure how far they got into their plan. There's a lot of holes in their plan that don't always get addressed. 

The very first village of tiny people are brought out on stage on a cart and the audience thinks this is the greatest thing ever. Nobody seems to have any objection to this at all. You think there would be one person who might find this a little unethical? No? Anyway, as you may have guessed, trick photography is used in scenes like this. 

They don't specify but I'm guessing all the small people are Norwegian. Jorgen points out a family with a toddler and baby and tells them that Ronni Nestrud is the "first small baby ever born." I'm guessing his baby sister is the second small baby ever born! 

I have to wonder....they said these 36 people volunteered to become small, but do you think there was a much larger pool of volunteers and they specifically picked these 36 people because they would help society? Like, maybe there was a doctor, someone in engineering, computer software, construction, just different experts in different subjects so they would have the knowledge to create what they needed? They don't really address that, but it must be the case! 

To no one's surprise, this thing goes viral and is shown all over the world. This is when we meet Paul Safranek (Matt Damon) who lives in Omaha and works at Omaha Steaks. This is just a quick introduction and the next thing we know, ten years have passed. He's now married to a woman named Audrey (Kristen Wiig) and still works at Omaha Steaks, but he's an in-house physical therapist who helps people with their wrists and joints. 

By this time, it's been fifteen years since the reveal of the new technology that can make people become small and several people have undergone the treatment. Paul and two of his friends are at a bar watching a news program that is debating the effects of people becoming small. We see a regular sized man and a small woman debating. The man says it's having a "devastating effect on our world economy" as billions of dollars are lost in consumer spending.  

So in this part of the movie, it's set in Omaha and I did get a chuckle out of a few things that only I (or anyone from here) would get. Paul and Audrey are wanting to move and are looking at a very nice house (that's probably in west Omaha!) and Audrey really likes it, but Paul thinks they should look "at that place in Benson". Haha, I know where that is! We see them attend a reunion at Creighton Prep. I've heard of it! Matt Damon wears a "Nebraska" shirt in a couple scenes. Ha, do you think he felt like a traitor? 

At the reunion, Paul runs into a former classmate randomly played by James Van der Beek (we'll see some other cameos pop up later) who is in the medical field. We find out that Paul was pre-med and wanted to be a surgeon, but had to take care of his sick mom (who has since passed away). Basically, he could have had this great life and make good money, but that's not the way things worked out for him.

During the reunion, a guy walks in with a diorama box and it contains a former class mate, Dave Johnson, and his wife, Carol who have both become small. In the box there are two small couches and they both have miniature megaphones (hmmm, is that an oxymoron?) they use to communicate. Quick question: do they have to make the small furniture, or can they shrink that too? I'm guessing it's the former. Now if they had Wayne Szalinkski's contraption, they could have easily just shrunk furniture and other objects. 

After the party, a few people have gone back to Paul and Audrey's house, including the small couple. While Carol is talking to a large group in the living room (she's on the coffee table they're sitting around), Paul is talking to Dave in the kitchen. Dave tells Paul that he and Carol had been living in Vegas where he had gotten "into some real bad habits" and "hit rock bottom." He and his wife decided they needed to change and "start all over" and that's why they became small. (That's a pretty intense and permanent change!) Paul tells him he must feel good about helping to save the planet, but Dave tells him "downsizing is about saving yourself." He says it takes money pressure off and that he's not "driven and ambitious", but he and Carol have a pretty cushy life. He tells Paul that if he and Audrey ever decide to go to small, they should live in Leisureland which is located in New Mexico. The name makes me laugh because it sounds like something you would find at the Magic Kingdom at Disney World, you know, like Adventureland or Tomorrowland, etc. Leisureland has the best houses, doctors, and restaurants...it even has three Cheesecake Factories! (Why the f*** do you need THREE of those?) 

Much later, Paul will have another conversation with his (small) neighbor who tells him that people don't become small to help the environment, but do it to become rich and have the things they couldn't have if they weren't small. 

Both Dave and Carol have romanticized the idea of being small and Paul and Audrey basically think what do they have to lose? They drive to Sante Fe where people go to get small just so they can check it out and see "if it's for [them] or not." On the drive there, they pass a billboard for Leisureland Estate claiming to be "America's #1 micro communinity." Pictured is a bunch of people and a dog...and a hot air balloon, so I guess they've created hot air balloons for the miniature people! They enter a huge building that has models of the homes that small people live in. Actually, models would imply that they're smaller scale, but these are probably the same size of the actual homes you would see in Leisureland. They look like huge doll houses, so they're basically mansions for the miniature people. 

A huge home for the small is set up in a theater and Senior Product Specialist Jeff Lonowoksi (played by Neil Patrick Harris) comes out the front door, being filmed by a camera guy and it's being shown on the screen for the normal sized people to watch. How did they create a camera that small? I guess it's very possible to create anything in small scale! 

He shows the audience the inside of his house (which, let's be real, probably isn't really his house, but probably a version of it) and it opens up like a dollhouse. I'm guessing since this is a show house for normal sized people, they created it that way so they could see the inside. Laura Dern is taking a bubble bath in the upstairs bathroom and her name is Laura and I thought she was playing herself, but she's the wife to Jeff, so she's just playing a character named Laura. I know Alexander Payne worked with Bruce Dern in Nebraska, so it was probably easy for him to get her to have a quick cameo in this movie. She's pretty much there to schmooze about what an amazing life they have. She's taking a bubble bath "to relax after such a busy day." She took a tennis lesson, had a massage, and after "a gourmet lunch with the girls" (heh, guess they didn't go to one of the three Cheesecake Factories in their town!), they went downtown to the new jewelry store where she bought "another diamond necklace" with a matching necklace and earrings. Of course she had to add that they were "all conflict free and set in platinum." All of it cost only $83 which is also equal to their food budget for two months. I have to say, they are doing a great job of selling becoming small because the normal sized people are looking very impressed and Paul and Audrey both have an excited look on their face as if to say that they're ready for this lavish lifestyle. I don't know...I don't know if I could become a miniature version of myself just to have all this nice stuff. It might seem great at first, but I feel like I would regret it very soon! 

Paul and Audrey talk to a (normal-sized) representative about going small and how much it would cost. She tells them that if they "liquidate [their] current home, cars, and other assets, they can purchase the Regency-level estate (which is the 12,000 square foot equivalent home on the 1.5 acre equivalent lot) at a base price of $63,000." Added to that will be the health and fitness package ($4,500) that includes gym, pool sauna, stream, hot tub, and a tennis court. The medical procedure for the two of them will cost $15,000 and insurance doesn't cover any of it, but "at the Recency level [they] qualify for a substantial discount." Now I wasn't quite clear if it was $15,000 for the both of them or each of them, but either way, it seemed kind of cheap for the procedure they might undergo. She takes a look at their current debt and retirement and other savings to see they are at a $152,000 in equity and tells them that's a "comfortable number" and in Leisureland that translates to 12.5 million. Both Paul and Audrey are very impressed by this and it makes them happy. Audrey asks the woman why she hasn't become small since it's such a good thing and she replies that she would except that her husband had a hip replacement so he's ineligible. A part of me (the cynical part) was wondering if the woman was just making that up, that she was just trying to sell them on becoming small and makes up some reason why she isn't a small person because she does a great job of selling it! 

Back home, Paul and Audrey decide that they're going to go through with becoming small and they sell a bunch of their stuff at a garage sale. In one of the last scenes set in Omaha, they have a farewell dinner with their friends at a restaurant called Jams downtown in the Old Market. This was the most exciting part of the movie for me because I've been to that very restaurant a couple times! The last time I was there I ordered the Texas Chopped Salad. 

Audrey tells her friends that she'll miss them, but they'll be back at least once a year to visit. Her dad shows up without her mom. He tells her that she "couldn't bring herself to come, but she sends her love." He admits that he was a little skeptical about the idea at first, but then he talked to an old friend who became small and he and his wife retired in Leisureland and they're "getting along just fine" and that now he "sees the appeal." I appreciate that they gave at least one character (even though they're off screen) some reservation about this whole procedure. 

Before they head out to Santa Fe, Paul and Audrey have put their wedding rings and a few sentimental photo and letters in a box marked "Keepsakes" and these will be the only things they will keep. When they're small, they can hang the pictures on their walls as huge portraits! 

Once they get to New Mexico, they take a bus from the airport to the facility. There's a closed off section (kind of like a display case) where a bunch of small people are sitting in their small seats. One of the small women (played by Margo Martindale) strikes up a conversation with Paul (who was sort of staring at the small people). When he tells her he's nervous about becoming small, she tells him he shouldn't be, because "it's the best thing you'll ever do." Seriously, does not one person regret becoming small? I find that hard to believe.  

Okay, better put a spoiler warning here, just in case.

Slight spoilers coming up ahead! You have been warned! 

Before they go through with the procedure, they have to answer some legal questions such as, "Do you understand of your own free will, you will undergo the permanent and irreversible medical procedure commonly known as 'downsizing', and that following the procedure your bodies will be approximately .0364 percent of their current mass and volume?" They have to give their consent to have this medical procedure and they are also told "that there exists an approximately one in 225,000 chance that the procedure could result in injury, permanent disability, or death." 

They're sitting in the waiting room and Paul's name is called. They both get up, but the nurse tells Audrey that she'll have to wait until her name is called because they separate the men and women. The whole procedure will take about five hours and they'll be reunited in the recovery room. Paul and Audrey hug goodbye and tell each other "I love you" and Audrey watches as Paul walks down the very long hallway with the nurse. It's gotta be a scary thought that the next time you'll see your spouse, they will be complete different. 

The majority of the five hours is spent getting ready for the actual procedure and we are shown a montage as Paul and other men are being prepped. Everyone's head and face is shaven clean, including eyebrows, then they are put under sedation and the rest of the body hair is shaved off. Next, dentists work on teeth to remove any cavities or fillings. When that is done, all the patients are wheeled into a huge machine (there's probably 30 men on gurneys in there) and they are all injected with "downsizing solution" which you must "shake well before use." Now don't get that mixed up with any other kind of solution! The door is shut and secured and the machine is turned on and it only seems like the actual shrinking only takes about a minute! The hell? A few nurses, who have been waiting (cuz they know this doesn't take much time at all!), go in and lift the tiny men off the beds with a spatula-like tool (hell, they probably WERE spatulas) and place them on a cart and they are delivered through a slot where small doctors and nurses are on the other side to finish up the rest which is just pretty much putting in new fillings for their teeth. 

Paul wakes up in the recovery room and the nurse checks up on him and everything seems to be okay. She asks if he's hungry and comes back holding an individually wrapped saltine cracker and of course it's almost as big as she is. (I'm sure they had a lot of fun with the props!) This is just a cute joke she plays on everyone and tells him she'll bring him some real food. Paul asks about his wife and she checks the records where she sees Audrey's name, but she hasn't been transferred over yet. She assumes she's probably still in dental. Now, at this point, it did cross my mind that something happened like maybe Audrey had died during the procedure. But what actually happens makes way more sense to the plot: she didn't die; she never went through with the procedure. Paul finds this out when he receives a phone call from her. We see her at the airport wearing a hat and one of her eyebrows has been shaved off, so it looks like she made it that far, and, as she tells him, she freaked out after they shaved her hair. She came to the realization that she didn't want to leave her friends and family and while she feels awful, she realized she was only doing this because she was trying to make him happy. Look, I don't blame her at all; that is a very big change to undergo, but it's too bad she didn't talk to him about this sooner. It's pretty funny when she tells him she's upset and he replies, "You're upset? I'm the one who's five f***ing inches tall!" 

Paul now has his nice, cushy big small home all to himself. When the keepsake box (which transforms into a storage truck) arrives at his house, a delivery man carries the rings up to his house and it looks like he's carrying two heavy gold hula hoops. 

One evening, Paul is watching BBC World News where the anchor is talking about how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Naturalization Services "have been warning about the ease with which downsized people, from illegal immigrants to potential terrorists, could penetrate U.S. borders." They report a story about how last week at a Target store in Eugene, Oregon, workers "opened a suspicious TV box (there were small holes in one corner) and discovered 17 downsized stowaways from Vietnam, 14 of them already dead, two more dying hours later at a local hospital." The only survivor was a woman named Ngoc Lan Tran (Hong Chau) who was transferred to the best hospital in Leisureland and doctors had to "amputate a portion of an infected leg". Her condition is "described as fair but stable." Ngoc Lan claims to have been jailed for her "political and environmental activism and was miniaturized against her will in a Vietnamese prison facility." This will all come back later. 

One year has passed and Paul and Audrey are officially divorced and Paul has moved into a nice apartment. He works at call center for Land's End and we see he's not really into the job and snaps at a caller who can't decide what color sweater she wants. The woman tells him, "Don't be short with me!" and he gets offended. 

I think this movie is more interesting when you see small people interacting with normal sized people because then you can see the obvious difference, but when Paul is interacting with other small people, you kind of forget they're all five inches tall...probably because they're just normal sized people in real life! 

Paul starts dating a woman, but it doesn't really go anywhere, so he decides to check out one of the wild parties that are often hosted by his upstairs eccentric European neighbor, Dusan (Christoph Waltz). He introduces his friend, Konrad, who is a sea captain, to Paul. Dusan had been in Paul's apartment earlier and noticed he had a life-size rose that he got from the shop that sells life-size flowers, so Paul brought it to him as a gift. I do enjoy when they bring in props to show us (and remind us!) that these are tiny people. 

The next morning after the wild party, Paul wakes up in Dusan's living room and sees three Vietnamese cleaning ladies come in to tidy up the place. He recognizes one of them as the one found in the box from the news because she's limping. He catches her stealing pills and thinks she's taking them for her leg. She informs him that they're old pills and Dusan allows her to take them; she's taking them for her roommate who is very sick. He offers to help with her prosthetic leg and after looking at her leg, he tells her she has arthritis and if she doesn't do something about it soon she's going to need a new knee. He advises her she need to go to a specialist as soon as she can to get a new foot. In the meantime, he can make adjustments to her existing prosthetic and give her tips on how to walk better. She tells him when she's done with her cleaning, he can come with her. He says they can do it here, but she wants him to go with her to help her sick friend. He tells her he's not a doctor, but she says she's tried to take her to a clinic, but her friend has to wait too long and she can't find any doctors to help.

So they take a bus that goes through a tunnel and Ngoc Lan takes him to her very crowded and shambled apartment building where she shows Paul her bed-ridden and sick roommate. Paul gives her some pills that might ease her comfort, but the next day, we find out she died. This whole plot point was to get a working relationship/friendship started with Paul and Ngoc Lan. He tells her he will help her clean until she has a better prosthetic to walk on. 

Ngoc Lan gathers leftover food from the wealthy people she cleans for (with permission) and takes it back to some of the people who reside at her apartment. 

Two weeks pass and Dusan invites Paul to join him and Konrad to visit the original small colony in Norway. After the party, Paul told Dusan that he had met Little Ronni (remember, he's the first small baby ever to be born and now he's a teenager) who still lives in Norway and how he's always wanted to visit the original small colony. Dusan tells him it's "all right" and he usually goes once or twice a year with Konrad for business. 

Now Paul has his chance to go and when the three men tell Ngoc Lan this, she invites herself along (not what they were expecting!) because she's been invited before because of her story. She had received a letter from Dr. Jorgen Asbjornsen who told her he feels guilty that her becoming small was a bad thing and that he never meant for it to be that way. He had invited her to Norway and she never had the means to get there, but now she has the chance to go there and meet him. 

The next thing we know, they're on a boat in the waters of Norway and Jorgen and Anne-Helene have joined them. They're talking about how methane in Antartica has been released and "it's the end of everything" and that "homo sapiens will soon vanish from the Earth." Paul asks if downsizing is an option for humankind, but Jorgen informs him that only 3% of the population has downsized and there isn't enough time. That's a shockingly low number considering that downsizing has been around for about 16 years. I guess the majority of the population wasn't into it. 

When they get to the first small colony (I can't remember the name of it...Smallville, perhaps? Heh.), Paul and Ngoc Lan are shown a huge tunnel (well huge for small people) that leads to the vault the colony have been workin on "almost since the beginning." They are told "the tunnel leads to a vault 1.6 kilometers (almost one mile) inside the Earth's lithosphere (which is the solid outermost rock shell of the planet...I had to look it up) and is encased in a double layer of Inconel 625" (I have no idea what the f*** that is). There's way too much math and scidene in this movie! Anyway, back to this vault. In it, they will be containing a "broad spectrum of biodiversity, the vault is equipped with fields for growing foods, forest for lumber, livestock for animal husbandry, the residential areas are spacious and easily expandable to provide for future generations." While they are being told about this, there's a monitor with many screens so they can see all this. Everything is lit because of artificial light. The power is 100% geothermal. They have thought of everything and it's only possible for them to do this because of their small size. They all will be heading down in the earth's core soon and they will stay down there for 8,000 years (!!!) or "until the surface environment stabilizes." Ugh, no thank you! Paul, however, thinks this is the best idea ever and he wants to join them. 

He tells Ngoc Lan and he wants her to go with him. By this point, they've developed a somewhat romantic relationship. She refuses and tells him she needs to go back home and take care of the people there.

When it's finally time to go into the tunnel (just a few days later), Paul says his goodbyes to Ngoc Lan, Dusan, and Konrad who will all be heading home soon. There's a long line of people going into the tunnel and he's the very last to enter. The only thing he has with him is his suitcase...something tells me he's not going to have enough clothes for this expedition. He runs up to somebody and asks him if they're walking uphill. The guy replies that they are because it prevents flooding. Then he adds a bombshell that Paul wasn't ready for (and thank God he found out about it now!): It's just a few hours climb before they descend to the vault and that entire walk will take eleven hours. Ugh, no thank you! 

Paul looks ahead at the people who are walking towards the vault, then back at the door which is still open, about half a mile away. Two guys are about to shut the door (and once the door shuts, it will be shut for good!) and he starts booking it, yelling at them not to shut it. He barely makes it out (and has to leave his suitcase because it gets stuck) and his three friends are still waiting for him outside. 

Can you imagine if he hadn't gotten that information about the eleven hour walk until one minute later? He might have not made it out in time! Also, how could he not have already known this information before he went? It seemed like this was just a spur-of-the-moment decision he made with no thought behind it whatsoever. Yeah, I'm sure the eleven hour walk didn't seem like a fun time to him, but I feel like if he really wanted to do this, he would have endured it.

They go back home and back to their lives.

This movie was interesting, but not my favorite. It gets pretty preachy at times. Honestly, if you want to watch a movie about people who become small, go see Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. It's much more entertaining, not to mention much shorter (I swear, that was not meant to be a pun!). Also, in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, you are constantly reminded that the kids are small (Anty, Rick Moranis almost eating his son who fell in his Cheerios, the entire backyard, the Lego, etc. etc.), while in Downsizing, I would literally forget that they're supposed to be tiny. 

You're Either In or You're Out

Ocean's Eleven

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Julia Roberts, Don Cheadle, Carl Reiner, Elliot Gould, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan

Released: December 7, 2001

Viewed in theaters: December 18, 2001

Ocean's Eleven is a fun movie. It's also a ridiculous movie if you really stop to think about it. I mean, there's no way that eleven people could ever simultaneously rob three Las Vegas casinos in one night such as they did in this movie. Once we get introduced to the characters and the plot for the con, you can just sit back and enjoy the ride. 

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) has just been released from prison (for attempted robbery, as we will soon see that is what he likes to do) and decides he wants to rob the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand casinos all in one night. I mean, why be so greedy? Why not just rob one of the places? There is a reason why he is targeting these three particular casinos. Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the man who owns these casinos, is involved with Danny's ex-wife, Tess (Julia Roberts) and even though he says this isn't about her, it's totally about her.

He reunites with his partner-in-crime pal, Rusty (Brad Pitt), where he tells him his idea and they recruit a handful of men to help him with the job. They all have a role to play in the heist; some are a little more important than others. They need someone to help finance the heist and with casino security knowledge so they go to an old friend, Reuben (Elliot Gould), who once owned a casino of his own. Terry Benedict is a rival of his, so he's happy to help with the heist. I assumed he helped pay for the replica of the vault they reconstruct and he offers his home as a sort of headquarters, but other than that, he really doesn't help with the actual heist. You always need a tech guy in a heist like this so this is where Livingston Dell (Eddie Jamison) comes in. He is in charge of all the electronics and surveillance. He has to sneak into the security room to set up cameras so the crew can see what's going on. Of course we get the inevitable scene with him where it looks like he's about to get caught by a security guard, but instead he gives him something back he forget and asks him a question about how the wires are working. They need someone with knowledge of explosives when it comes times to blow the vault door open, so Basher (Don Cheadle) is recruited He will also help when they need to turn off the electricity in the city for under a minute. For some reason, they made him British and he talks in this really heavy accent which is hard to understand at times. I was really surprised when they replaced Don Cheadle with Terrance Howard in the other two movies. The Malloy brothers, Turk and Virgil (Casey Affleck and Scoot Caan; I'm not sure who plays who) come in handy as drivers and just help with little things, such as pretending to get into a fight at the casino when one lets go of a bunch of balloons to block a security camera. They're just sort of there to assist with small little details. Rusty flies to Florida to convince con man Saul (Carl Reiner) to join them. He will come up with an elaborate story to fool Benedict. Somebody needs to fit into a small money cart that will be wheeled into the vault room (aka the room where all the money is!) so they hire Yen (Qin Shaobo) of "The Amazing Yen" after they see his acrobat show in Vegas. He's very small and limber and can bend his body in ridiculous ways so he's the perfect person to fit into a small box. Danny gets a card dealer he knows, Frank (Bernie Mac), to be transferred from Atlantic City to Vegas so he can cause a diversion later on. I guess he's the closest thing they have to an inside man. Last, but not least, they feel like they need one more person so Danny travels to Chicago where he finds Linus (Matt Damon), after observing his pickpocketing skills. These skills will come in handy with their heists.

When Danny and Rusty propose their idea to Reuben, he tells them robbing a Las Vegas casino (let alone three!) can't be done and tells them about the three closest times anyone's ever come close to robbing a casino. One happened in the sixties, one in the '71, and one in '87. Each time the perpetrator gets a little bit closer to getting a step outside (in fact the '87 guy actually does get outside), but none get away with the crime. I like how this scene is shot: each scene is shot in correspondence to how that time period would look on film (compete with what everyone is wearing and the lighting), the music matches the era ("Take My Breath Away" is played for the '87 con).

Turns out Benedict keeps all the money in the Bellagio's vault, so while they are still robbing three casinos, they only need to do it one place. At least that's a little more realistic..as much as this movie can be realistic! They plan to hit the casino on the same night a big boxing match is being held in Vegas because they know that will bring in a lot of gamblers with all the tourists coming to see the fight (not to mention all the celebrities) and all casinos are supposed to always have a set amount of money on hand so they will have enough. They estimate there will be 160 million dollars in the vault that night and will divide the money eleven ways. The fight will be held in two weeks so that's how much time they have to prepare. In order to do that, Linus goes to the casino everyday where he observes every move Benedict makes and where he is at all times. Lucky for him (and everyone else), this guy has a very set schedule and does the same thing everyday, at the precise minute right down to going to the bathroom. Seems quite convenient for our con artists! This is also when we're introduced to Tess, who works as the curator at a museum at one of the hotels, and Rusty finds out the real reason why Danny is so set on stealing from three casinos that belong to Benedict.

They build a replica of the vault so they can practice with Yen in the money-cart. This is the most dangerous part of the job because he will only have thirty minutes before he runs out of air so they need to make sure he gets where he needs to be in time so he won't suffocate. They also use this replica to make sure he can jump from the cart to another location without signaling the laser lights. While they do get blue prints to the vault, I find it hard to believe they would know the exact replica of it. And exactly how much did it cost to build this replica? If they had an inside man, this would make more sense. They do mention that Frank provided some information, but I doubt a blackjack dealer who just started working there would know all this information! Maybe I'm putting too much thought into this as this is a movie you're just supposed to watch and enjoy.

I do love the scene where the eleven of them are meeting in Vegas for the first time at Reuben's house going over the plan. Yen, who knows very, very little English, asks something in Chinese and Rusty answers him (in English, but still impressive that he knew what Yen was asking) with a very detailed answer. The look on Basher's face as Rusty is answering him is highly amusing.

Saul has a very good question. He wants to know if they get though the security doors and down an elevator they can't move and pass security guards with guns and though a vault that's pretty much impossible to open and not be seen by the cameras, that they're just supposed to walk out of there with all that money. Danny simply answers, "Yes" and Saul seems satisfied with that. Now, of course they don't want to give anything away with how they do plan to do this. As a viewer, I'm screaming at my screen because I want to know, but presumably Danny and Rusty tell everyone their idea off camera.

Danny has been red-flagged by Benedict himself because he has come to see Tess so Benedict knows he's in town and doesn't want him in his hotel. All security will be watching him when he sets foot in the casino. Of course, this is all part of Danny's grand scheme because he thought of everything. They play it off like it's a problem, but Danny knows what he's doing. This is when everyone else (who knows Danny used to be married to Tess) find out about Tess's involvement and there's a funny line where Saul says, "Tess is with Benedict now? She's too tall for him!"

There's an elevator that requires a six digit passcode every so many hours and this is where Linus will come in and will swipe the codes from Benedict being the stealthy pickpocket he is. They will need to turn the laser lights in the elevator shaft off in order to go through it. Basher suggests a device called a pinch (which they steal from The California Institute of Advanced Science) which can shut off all the power in Las Vegas for thirty seconds. While this is going on, Danny and Linus are doing a Mission: Impossible type move where they have to rappel down the elevator shaft before the lights turn back on. When the electricity comes back on thirty seconds later you see that everyone at the fight has become rowdy, so Terry and Tess leave. The patrons at the casino have also gone crazy and it turns into a free for all. Nobody seems to question that the electricity has gone out and there's not even a storm to justify it.

This is the type of movie where you know nothing bad is going to happen and that our protagonist are going to get away with this ridiculous task of stealing $160 millions from a highly guarded casino. You don't know how they're going to do it, but you know it's going to happen. There may be a few hiccups along the way (and we see plenty of them!), but you know they're going to get out of any jams they may find themselves in. You're really not sure what's going to happen until it folds out on screen, so it's fun to see the twists and turns they take. I had forgotten about how they planned to walk out with all the money, but I have to wonder, where did they get SWAT uniforms and trucks? Did Reuben provide those too? Did they share a cut with someone who provided those for them?

There is an amusing running joke throughout the film, where in each new scene he's in, Rusty is usually eating some type of food. I remember seeing nachos, a fruit cup, shrimp cocktail (very Vegas-y), ice cream, and a burger. And those are just the ones I remember off the top of my head.

Something I've never noticed before was during the credits (probably because I never watched the end credits), after they credit everyone, it ends with, "And introducing Julia Roberts as Tess". Obviously this was a joke/Easter egg because she was already a huge star by then and had already been in many, many famous movies and had won her Oscar the previous year. It just made me do a double take when I saw that!

I've seen this movie a handful of times, but I've only seen Ocean's Twelve and Ocean's Thirteen once. I don't remember anything about either of them except that I didn't enjoy watching them and thought they were a bit boring, or at least not as fun a the first one. There is one part I remember about the second movie and that's when Tess pretends to be Julia Roberts as she bares a striking resemblance to her...because she IS Julia Roberts, haha. I don't remember why she had to pretend to be the famous actress, but it was an amusing scene, although you have to wonder...if Julia Roberts exists in the same world as these characters, then why not George Clooney or Brad Pitt or Matt Damon? How come nobody mistakes Danny, Rusty, or Linus for those famous actors? I also saw the spin-off,Ocean's Eight, where Sandra Bullocks play Danny's sister and she recruits her own team of thieves to rob jewelry at the Met Gala. While not as good as the original (and while I know the 2001 is a remake of a 1960 movie of the same name with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis Jr, I consider the 2001 film the original because nobody ever talks about the 1960 movie or probably even knows it exists because the 2001 film is much more well known; heck, I didn't even know this was a remake until several years later!), I did enjoy it more than the sequels. My only gripe (and spoilers for Ocean's Eight about to come) is that they make this big deal how all these women were able to pull off his huge con, but psyche! Yen from the other movies was there all along (recruited by Sandra Bullock unbeknownst to the viewing audience) and helped them with a major part of the scheme. I was like, seriously? I know they wanted to have a fun cameo from the other Ocean movies, but I groaned out loud when I saw that. 

Boston Rats

The Departed

Director: Martin Scorsese

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Vera Farmiga, Alec Baldwin

Released: October 6, 2006

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (won)

Best Director - Martin Scorsese (won)

Best Supporting Actor - Mark Wahlberg (lost to Alan Arkin for Little Miss Sunshine)

Best Editing (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay - William Monahan (won)

If you've never seen it, I would highly suggest watching The Departed before reading this review. I will give warnings when I get to spoilers...I have slight spoilers and I have major spoilers. It probably won't be a big deal if you're spoiled slightly, but, trust me, you don't want to know the major spoilers if you haven't seen this movie yet! 

So this film is actually a remake of a 2002 Hong Kong film called Infernal Affairs. I've never seen it, but from what I do know about it, it's an hour shorter than The Departed (which is two and a half hours long). The inspiration for that movie was a more realistic version of Face/Off and while I was watching this, I did kind of get that vibe (just not as absurd!)

Even though this is a remake of a foreign film, I did get a slight Goodfellas vibe from it. Even though I enjoy The Departed, I like Goodfellas better. Let's be honest: that's the movie Scorsese should have won for! I will say this is my favorite collaboration between Marty and Leo. Well, it's a toss up between this and The Wolf of Wall Street. I'm not too high on Gangs of New York or The Aviator or Shutter Island. 

Slight spoiler warning alert! I feel like this information is probably known to everyone because it starts pretty early in the movie, but you never can be too careful! 

The movie takes place in Boston where Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) has become a detective for the Massachusetts State Police. However, he is actually a mole to gather information who has been trained and groomed by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson), an Irish mob boss who has been like a father figure to Sullivan ever since he was a young boy. In fact, when I saw the young boy they cast as him, I knew instantly it was Matt Damon's character! They did a really job casting him. In fact, he even calls Costello "Dad" whenever he calls him on the phone right in front of the police captain, Queenan (Martin Sheen). "Hi, Dad, I can't make it to dinner, but my friends are still coming!" Seriously, how did they not figure out what that's code for when he was saying that right in front of them?

Meanwhile, while there's a rat in the police unit, Captain Queenan and Sergeant Dignam (Mark Wahlberg) have placed undercover cop William Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) to infiltrate Costello's mob group. He has just graduated from the police academy and nobody knows who he is except for one person (and I'll get to that later). Their plan for Costigan is to have him get arrested for assault, spend some time in jail, then get in with Costello's group. That way at least it will look authentic he's a hood rat. Queenan and Dignam are the only two people who know that Costigan is working undercover.

After a major transaction of microprocessors (whatever the heck this is) goes wrong, Sullivan and Costigan are well aware there are rats on the other side and warn their respective leaders of them. While Sullivan is on police duty watching this transaction go down through surveillance with the other officers, he reaches into his coat pocket and we see him text a message to Costello, with one hand, mind you, and keeping his phone in his pocket, "No phones". Okay, this is 2006, so he's doing this with a flip phone and he's obviously memorized which buttons to push and how many times to push the up/down arrow to get to his contacts, then how many down to click on Costello's name and which buttons to push to write "No phones", but....if I did that, I would probably end up sending it to the wrong person....if I even got to contacts and the message would probably read "77 74843" or whatever numbers correlate with those letters! Obviously, he probably practiced doing that until he got it right, but I was pretty impressed he could do that. So he warns Costello to shut off the phones and everyone is like, "They turned their phones off!" However, there's one person who has kept his phone on and Costigan has texted Queenan a simple "$" to let him know the buyers are there. So that's how the two infiltrators are aware of each other. They just don't know who they are. 

For a movie without any adolescent girls or hardly any female characters for that matter, there's a lot of period talk. It's really gross. Well, it's really gross and skeevy in one scene, and in the other scene, it's still gross, but it's also funny. In the opening scene, when we're introduced to Costello and see him talking to a young Colin, he asks the girl who's working behind the counter, "Have you gotten your period yet?" First of all, ewwwwwww. Second of all, the girls is clearly at least sixteen. Of course she's gotten her period. Don't be an idiot, Frank. During this whole monologue we're getting from Costello, they keep him hidden in the shadows and I thought they were doing this because it takes place in the past and they didn't want us to see Nicholson's face cuz he needs to be young, but at the very end of his speech, we see him step out of the shadows and see his face.  In the other scene where periods come up, Costigan is at a bar where Costello's guys hang out and he orders a cranberry juice. One of the guys tells him that's what his girlfriend drinks when she's on her period and asks Costigan if he's on his period and in response gets a shot glass smashed on his head.

Speaking of women, police psychologist, Madalyn (Vera Farmiga) is the only one of note, and thank God, we don't have to hear about her menstruation cycle. She strikes up a relationship with Sullivan and they start dating. Their meet cute is super annoying. They're both on an elevator with several other people and Sullivan strikes up a conversation with her. When the elevator opens, it's her floor, and she gets off, but Sullivan, who tells her he's up one more floor, stays on the elevator, but keeps his body against the door to keep the elevator from closing and is still talking to her for several minutes, eventually getting her card. And there are other people still on the elevator waiting while these two are shamelessly flirting with each other! I'm surprised nobody got pissed at them! They're all just standing there, nonplussed. I would be so annoyed! It's like, why don't you get off the damn elevator and get her information and then just take the damn stairs up one flight when you're done! UGH! I did laugh when she gives him his card and he says, "I don't need it...I'm a detective, I'll find you" and she starts to take it back, but he snatches it and tells her, "I do need it." That was pretty cute. 

So they start dating, but guess who Madalyn has an affair with? Costigan, of all people! What a small world! Later in the movie, Sullivan will get a whiff of this information and Madalyn will tell Sullivan they're having a baby, but I have to wonder, as I did, if he suspects that it's not his as he has some, ahem, problems in the bedroom. 

When Queenan tells Sullivan to follow Costello because he believes that will lead them to the rat inside the police unit, a lightbulb goes off over Sullivan's head and he tells two officers to put a tail on Queenan, telling them he suspects Queenan might be the mole. It's actually a brilliant idea, it's just too bad the bad guys thought of it first! The two officers track Queenan to an abandoned warehouse where, indeed, Queenan is meeting with the infiltrator. Sullivan calls his guys and gives them the address and tells him they found the rat. When Queenan and Costigan found out they've been exposed, the former tells the latter to use the fire escape and that he'll be okay.

And now is a good time to go into MAJOR SPOILERS! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS MOVIE AND DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED BECAUSE NOW I WILL BE GIVING AWAY HUGE PLOT POINTS!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!!!

Well, Queenan wasn't exactly telling the truth when he tells Costigan that he'll "be okay" because when Costigan walks outside and around a corner, Queenan's body literally goes splat on the pavement in front of him from being thrown out the window. Oh my God! They killed President Bartlett! This is the first of many, many characters to become departed, hence the title. Costigan starts crying and freaking out and I'm thinking, Run, Leo, get the hell outta there! But when someone comes out of the building and asks him what took him long, I remembered that he was supposed to meet there in the first place. HOWEVER....in the next scene, the guy who texted Costigan tells him he gave him the wrong address and finds it curious that he showed up. Lucky for Costigan, this guy got into a shootout with the other policemen who followed Queenan and literally dies a few second later, so his secret is taken to the grave. I mean, how convenient is that?

There's a great scene where Sullivan dials the last number Queenan dialed on his phone and Costigan is smart enough not to say anything when he answers it. Both of them are just holding their phones to their ears, waiting to see if anyone will talk first, but no one does. When they hang up, Costigan starts packing, but then calls the number back and says, "You called this number on a dead man's phone. Who are you?" Sullivan tells him who he is and that he's taking over Queenan's division. Costigan wants to confer this piece of information with Dignam, but he took a leave of absence (or rather quit because he was furious that Sullivan got Queenan killed by putting a tail on him). I don't know why he just didn't call Dignam to ask him unless he didn't have his home phone number? :::shrug:::

In another turn of events, Sullivan finds out, from going through Queenan's notes, that Frank Costello is an FBI informant. What the huh? I wasn't exactly clear who all knew that information. Queenan for sure and probably Dignam. But did Costello know that Costigan was working for the FBI too? This whole reveal really confused me. Maybe I'm just stupid, who knows! Sullivan is worried that Costello is going to rat him out, so he kills him when the police bust him and his gang for some drug thing. Costello has one of those movie deaths where he's shot in the chest and spits up blood, but psych! He's not dead yet! It takes another shot to kill him and Sullivan is hailed as a hero, so I'm guessing nobody there knew about Frank's secret. 

There's a scene where Costigan gives Madalyn an envelope and instructs her to open it if something happens to him or he tells her to and that she's the only person he trusts. Remember this piece of information. Speaking of envelopes, there's another one that's an integral part of the story. When Costello finds out there's a rat among his crew, he makes everyone fill out a form with their name, address, social security number, etc. so he can check out everyone. All of these papers will be in an envelope with CITIZENS (actually it will be written twice because the first guy who wrote it spelled it wrong) scrawled across it. Everyone is supposed to stay in the bar where they're filling out until they've all been checked, but Costigan says he's not staying, so that's a huge sign that he's the rat! Though I don't blame him that he wants to leave...if he stays, he's dead.

So this envelope with "Citizens" will come up later when Costigan sees it sitting on Sullivan's desk when he goes to get his pay and that's when he knows that Sullivan is a mole within the Force. He also knows that Sullivan knows he was the rat within the mob. He leaves without telling Sullivan, but he doesn't tell Dignam, who is, remember, the only living person who knows the truth about him. Instead he gets Sullivan to meet him at the building where Queenan was killed, baiting him by saying Costello told him he has recorded all his conversations for insurance and if they are released, Sullivan will be revealed. Costigan also called Anthony Anderson, the one person who was also in the same academy as Costigan and knows who he is. Costigan thinks he can get him to trust him, but it doesn't quite work out that way. I still don't understand why he didn't call Dignam! 

Costigan takes the elevator down with his gun pointed at Sullivan's head, but when the door opens, we see someone shoot Costigan in the head, and then when Anthony Anderson comes down the other elevator and sees Costigan dead on the floor and two of his fellow officers, he doesn't quite know what's going on. The guys shoots him too. This is someone we've seen in the background, but not a major character. He tells Sullivan that he wasn't the only one working for Costello and they have to look out for each other. When Sullivan gets the chance, he kills him. 

Not long after, Sullivan will come home to his apartment to see Dignam there with a gun and he kills him. You may have never noticed this if you've only seen the movie once, or maybe you didn't even notice on a second time, but next time you watch this movie, be on the lookout for X's when a character dies or is about to die. When Sullivan is walking down the hall to his door, the carpet in the hallway has large X's (super tacky if you ask me), when Costigan and Sullivan are in the elevator, you see an X created with duct tape about Costigan's head, and when poor Queenan falls out of the building, he pasts several windows with tape making an X. 

Remember that envelope Costigan gave Madalyn to open if anything happened to him? We never see it again. The last we see of Madalyn is her at his funeral, crying. I guess they thought it was unnecessary since we already knew what would be in that envelope, but it just seemed weird to bring up if they're not going back to it.

The movie ends with a shot of a rat on the balcony railing which made me groan for two reasons. One, this is an extremely nice apartment complex in Boston and now there are rats balconies? No, I don't buy it. (And I literally wouldn't buy the apartment if it had rats!) Two, it was a little too on the nose.  

It's all Gwyneth's fault

Contagion
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Cast: Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law,  Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow
Released: September 9, 2011
Viewed in theaters: September 22, 2011

Warning: some spoilers

If you already hate Gwyneth Paltrow, like I do, then you will hate her even more after watching Contagion!  Not only do we find out that she's cheating on her husband (Matt Damon) in the first ten seconds of the movie, but she's the reason this fast-killing virus spread to the United States after returning from a trip from Hong Kong where the virus originated. She infected thousands of people who died, including her own six-year-old son! Good job, Gwynnie, good job!

Luckily, her husband is immune to the disease and even luckier, his daughter was with his ex-wife. There is widespread panic as many people fall sick and entire cities and towns become ghosts towns with stores being unable to operate without people to run them and those who are still healthy start rioting and breaking into stores to steal food and other equipment. Matt just wants to leave the city with his daughter before she gets infected, but they are quarantined.

Meanwhile, in Atlanta, at the first sign of the outbreak, a doctor (Laurence Fishbourne) sends an expert in viruses and epidemics (Kate Winslet) to Minneapolis, one of the first cities to get infected (Gwyneth's hometown). Let's just say, she should have worn a mask more than she did. (I always thought those masks looked like they couldn't keep germs away.)

We also have Jude Law who plays an obnoxious blogger who thinks the government is lying to everyone and that they are keeping vital information from the public about how they can be helped. On a shallow sidenote, you can definitely tell Jude is British because he has some messed up teeth! I guess some stereotypes are true.

Marion Cotillard, who is so very, very, very pretty, plays a doctor with the World Health Organization who travels to China to see how the disease originated. I was worried about her because she is also shown not wearing masks at times and they did a lot of close ups of her touching item after item after item after item. I don't want to spoil her storyline, so I'll just say I was a little confused with how they wrapped it up.

This was a decent movie, but it was a tad bit on the boring side at times. Reviewers kept saying that this movie will scare the daylights out of you because everyone gets sick and germs are everywhere!!! Eh, whatever. I was fine. I even used the restroom at my theater after the movie ended!

Bowler Hats Needed

The Adjustment Bureau
Director: George Nolfi
Cast: Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie
Released: March 4, 2011

The Adjustment Bureau is part romance, part sci-fi with a dash of politics. Matt Damon plays David Norris, a young New York politician who's running for the state Senate. Before a big speech he has to give, he meets Elise (Emily Blunt), a ballet dancer, and immediately feels a connection with her, but is unable to get any contact info because she has to leave before security catches her because she had been crashing a wedding in the same building he's to give his speech. He had been down in the polls, but meeting Elise inspired him and he changes his entire speech so it's more him speaking and not the correspondents who help him with what he should say and should wear to appease the voting public.

It just so happens the next day he runs into Elise on a bus and is thrilled. They start up a conversation and she gives him her number. (Personally, I don't know what he saw in her - I thought it was extremely immature when she took his phone when someone was calling and answered by saying, "He's not here", and even more immature when she dropped his phone in her coffee. Like that's totally charming.)

Men With Hats

One morning David walks into his office building and notices that everyone is frozen and sees a group of men he doesn't know dressed in suits and bowler hats. Like anyone in his situation, he gets freaked out and starts running and calling for help, but the group of men sedate him and he wakes up to find himself in a huge abandoned warehouse. The leader of the group tells him they are part of the Adjustment Bureau and that they "are the people who make sure things happen according to plan". He tells David that he wasn't supposed to see them just now; that he should have spilled his coffee, gone back to his apartment to change, and had been ten minutes late. He tells him that if he tells anybody about them, that he will erase his entire mind and he will not remember anything at all or even know who he is. On top of all that, he tells David that he was never supposed to run into Elise on the bus and that he is never to see her again and burns the paper with her number on it.

Even though he only has Elise's (first!) name to go on, David doesn't give up trying to find her and three years later sees her walking down the street while on the bus and runs out to talk to her. She thinks that he had just blown her off all that time ago and doesn't believe him when he tells her he lost her number. She agrees to have lunch with them and the Bureau is alerted and quickly tries to come up with ways to separate them. They succeed, but David is determined and still manages to get to her with all these roadblocks in his way.

Why is the Adjustment Bureau so adamant about keeping David and Elise apart? Because separately they would have turned into extraordinary people. David is destined to be President, but could never be if he stayed with Elise because she is too much of a free spirit. Elise is destined to be one of the world's most famous dancers, but if she stays with David, she'll only be a ballet teacher for young kids. David is fine with giving up that dream to be with the woman he loves, but when he learns that her dream will never be fulfilled, he walks out on her while she's in the hospital after she sprains her ankle (something the A.B. made happen). I didn't understand why he couldn't just talk to her and say, "Look, I'm worried that if we stay together, I'll hold you back from being a great dancer and I think we should split up." She would have either agreed or not cared if that happened. Seriously, who cares if she never became one of the world's most famous dancers. There's nothing wrong with teaching ballet. She could always choreograph awesome dance movies like Center Stage! Can anyone even name a famous ballet dancer because I sure can't.

Eleven months pass and he finds out that Elise is getting married to her ex-boyfriend and decides that he does want to be with her (make up your mind!) and with the help of one of the members of the Bureau played by Anthony Mackie, he finds a short cut to get to the courthouse where she is to be married. The members of the Bureau have the cool ability to walk into one door and appear at a totally different location when they cross the threshold. Anyone who is wearing a bowler hat can do this. I loved the scene where he's running through doors and trying to dodge any of the members; I thought that was really well done.

Good movie, I really did like it despite some of my complaints. Personally if I were given all these signs that I shouldn't be with someone, I would take them all into account and be like, F it! They must not be worth it. That power with the hats is pretty cool though; that walking through a door and being closer to your location would come in rather handy, especially during the winter so I wouldn't have to drive in snow!

Oscar season is upon us

True Grit
Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Cast: Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Hailee Steinfeld
Released: 12/22/10
Viewed in theaters: 12/23/10

This movie may have been completely shut out of the Golden Globes (and yet they give a nomination to The Tourist for Best Comedy - huh!?), but I have no doubt it will rack up quite a few nods when the Academy Award nominations are announced. The film is a remake of the 1969 one of the same name starring John Wayne in the role Jeff Bridges takes over in the updated version. I've never seen the original, so I can't compare.

True Grit takes place in the nineteenth-century and is centered around a 14 year old Arkansas girl, Mattie Ross (played by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld in a role that's Oscar-worthy) who is trying to find Tom Chaney, the man who killed her father. She enlists the help of the best marshal in town, the one who will most likely be successful in helping her catch Chaney and that is Rooster Cogburn, played hilariously by Bridges. He's usually drunk half the time and he wears an eyepatch over one eye, so he has horrible aim with his gun. One of the funniest scenes involves Cogburn and Matt Damon's character LaBeouf, who accompanies them on their journey, when they have a shooting contest.

My mom complained there was too much talking between characters, but the script is strong and quite humorous at times and there is still plenty of action. I audibly gasped aloud many times when Mattie falls into a snake pit. Believe me, this is far from a dull movie. I predict a Best Picture nominee. I'm not sure if the Coens will get in directors since there are only five slots open for that category. I strongly think that Bridges and Steinfeld should get in the Best Actor and Actress category, but of course there are still plenty of other performances I have yet to see.