WCBE 90.5 FM "Ocean's Twelve," "The Machinist"

WCBE #195-FINAL
IT'S MOVIE TIME with John DeSando & Clay Lowe
Producer/Director: Richelle Antczak, WCBE

Reviews: "Oceans Twelve," "The Machinist"
Taped: 4:30 pm, December 8, 2004
Air Time: 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm, December 10, 2004
Streaming live on the web at http://www.wcbe.org .

The Script:

Clay
"Ocean’s Twelve” is a tale of three cities . . .

John
"The Machinist” is a thin thriller stamped from better movies . . .

MUSIC UP AGAIN, THEN UNDER FOR:

Richelle Antczak

"It's Movie Time" in Central-Ohio, with John DeSando and Clay Lowe . . .

MUSIC UP, THEN UNDER AND SLOWLY DOWN AND OUT

John
I'm John DeSando

Clay
And I'm Clay Lowe.

John ("Ocean’s Twelve")
Clay, The heist film lives on every time a slick gang of bad boys and girls gather to take something that doesn’t belong to them.  Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven in 2001 was a caper film with the hippest actors such as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, and Matt Damon. The film Heist was a better character study that year; Ocean’s was more fun.

Ocean’s Twelve brings back the same thieves plus one in a more complicated project. Europe looks as inviting as ever, but the actors seem jet-lagged and the plot weary from trying to be ingenious and new while it is really tired and old.

I want to go back to Amsterdam but not with aging operatives.  Give me the very young you , Dr., with your naughty night ladies and savory space cake.

Clay ("Ocean’s Twelve")
John, we two old men may have gone bananas in Amsterdam, but in “Ocean’s Twelve” the bad boys were all business in that naughty city of trade and commerce. And even the marvelous city of Paris was not able to distract the ever intense Clooney, Pitt, and Damon from their death defying mission. But, in the end, all the roads finally lead to Rome where Bruce Willis gets to surprise Julia Roberts (a great scene), and the movie gets to lay a great big egg . . . Fabergé, no less.

“Ocean’s Twelve” is a mildly entertaining amusement, but it you want a real heist movie thriller, check out Ben Kingley’s “Sexy Beast,” because nobody ever did heist any better.

John ("The Machinist")
Mix Memento and Insomnia with The Tenant and The American Friend and you will have some notion of the dark brew of a film called The Machinist: It has more calories than nutrition with payoff not half a good as the promise the premise makes.

Trevor (Christian Bale) is a very gaunt machinist whose life is unraveling faster than ever after his inadvertent responsibility for an industrial accident.  Because he hasn’t slept in a year and his refrigerator oozes blood, it’s fairly certain his mind is on its own trip.  

As the story progresses he becomes more disoriented while the film slips from extreme psychodrama to middling thriller and then relatively nothing in the end.

"If you were any thinner," Jennifer Jason Leigh’s hooker tells him, "you wouldn't exist." If the story were any thinner , it would die of literary starvation.

Clay ("The Machinist")
Folks, “The Machinist” is a hit and miss, hit and run film. Shot on color stock that’s been bled, mostly black and white except for, ironically, the color of red. Now, pay attention here, John, watch for red stop lights, red cars, and, of course, red blood.

0And disregard the fact that the gaunt man at the beginning of the film is reading Dostoyevsky’s “The Idiot,” because this movie is more Kafka-esque than Russian. So, is this beginning to sound like a thesis film? Well, only an old film professor would know for sure.

But there are some dead giveaways: assembly line shots that are reminders of shots from Charlie Chaplin’s “Modern Times,” subterranean shots that are reminiscent of the settings in Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil,” and the casting of John Sharian, as Ivan, the disappearing machinist, looks horribly like Marlon Brando’s ‘Kurtz’ from “Apocalypse Now.” Oh, where would movies be without the movies.

But stop the presses and watch your fingers, John, because it’s grading time.

John
Hooray!

HIT DRUMS

John
"Ocean's Twelve"  earns a "C" because even CLOONEY"S CHARM CAN'T save it. . .

Clay
"Ocean’s Twelve” gets a “C” because flashy CASTS do not a flashy movie make . . .

John
"The Machinist" earns a "B"  for being BOLDLY BORING . .

Clay
"The Machinist” gets a “B,” I hate to agree, because BOLD isn’t good enough if it leaves you snoring . . .

John
Clay, when WE visited Amsterdam, WE stole only young girls' hearts.  You Clooney, me Pitt.

I'm outta here.

Clay
John, you’ve got “Ocean’s Twelve” confused with “The Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

I'm outta here too.

See you at the movies, folks.

HIT MUSIC, ESTABLISH, THEN UNDER FOR

Richelle:
The Award Winning "It's Movie Time" with John DeSando and Clay Lowe is produced by Richelle Antczak in conjunction with 90.5 FM, WCBE in Columbus and 106.7 FM in Newark.

MUSIC UP AND OUT

© 2004 by John DeSando & Clay Lowe