BUBBLE and OCEAN’S THIRTEEN *** (out of ****) Directed by Steven Soderbergh
			OCEAN’S THIRTEEN Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Elliot Gould, Casey Affleck, Shaobo Qin, Scott Caan, David Paymer, and Andy Garcia Written by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, based on characters by George Clayton Johnson and Jack Golden Russell 2007 122 min PG13
BUBBLE Starring Debbie Doebereiner, Dustin Ashley, and Misty Wilkins Written by Coleman Hough 2005 73 min R
	Oh, sometimes I just don’t know what to make of Steven Soderbergh.  In interviews, he strikes me as being less believable than Justin Theroux pretending to be Steven Soderbergh in “Mulholland Dr.”  Lately he’s got his designer glasses, his shaved head, his designer jacket, and his bright red Heinz 57 tee-shirt.  In movies, I’ve felt close to Travis Bickle, Pocahontas, Eskimos, Ewoks, HAL 9000, Chinamen who lived over two millennia ago, and I’ve probably felt sorry for dozens of murderers once the chase has turned against them.  But for some reason, there doesn’t seem to be anyone on the planet whose life experience has less to do with mine than Steven Soderbergh. It’s not just him as a person.  I always find myself questioning the sincerity of the messages in his serious movies.  And I don’t think it’s a prejudice.  I thought “Traffic” was the first of his movies I ever saw (actually, “Kafka” was), and while I loved it for its visuals and its cross-cutting, large-canvas storytelling, I didn’t buy its message.  I enjoyed the look and feel of “The Good German” and “Solaris,” although I’m not sold on the sincerity of their messages either. So we come to “Bubble,” which is well-assembled and engaging, but there’s a nagging in my mind that, well, did Barton Fink write this?  You remember the Coen Brothers’ “Barton Fink,” don’t you, in which Barton goes on and on about “a theater for and by the common man?”  But his contact with “the common man,” from his intellectual New York ivory tower, is basically nonexistent.  Every time he meets a common man he does all the talking and none of the listening. So a voice in my head cries “bollocks!” against “Bubble” as a bourgeois Los Angelean trying to get street-cred by doing a movie about “the little people” in the flyover Midwest.  Slant Magazine rejects the film as being nothing but condescension.  More telling, Ruthless Reviews, in their vitriol against all things “apple pie America,” love that lives they consider pointless are portrayed by “Bubble” as pointless.  (Both websites, incidentally, hold reversed opinions of the films of David Gordon Green, who can never be accused to condescending to his lowly Southerners.) But that’s it, my only complaint, and it may be imaginary.  Despite that, “Bubble” is, technically, a “good” movie:  it defines its characters, what they want, and how they are crushed by their milieu.  The accuracy of the portrayal or the questionable motives of the filmmakers are beside the point:  if these people do exist, and they exist in this situation, then they would behave in the way portrayed here. “Bubble” follows three boring people in an unspoken love triangle at a Midwest factory.  The two women are overweight, middle-aged Martha, who saw the young man first, and attractive young Rose, with whom the young man is, of course, going to be more interested in.  They drive to work and eat fast food and have almost nothing to talk about.  Then things go wrong… One thing I do believe Soderbergh is sincere about is technique and craft.  I never doubt that he loves the movies, that he loves pointing his camera at things, that he loves building stories.  So I feel completely at home in his shallow diversions, like “Ocean’s Eleven” and even moreso in “Ocean’s Twelve.”  “Ocean’s Thirteen” is, well, more of the same, and you can probably just read my review of “Ocean’s Twelve” and get the idea.  It’s about cool people acting cool throughout, and how their charm can get them by, yet they are self-effacing enough that we stay on their side.  Throughout, Soderbergh has an infectious blast with the meat-and-potatoes of filmmaking – camerawork, editing, lighting, music. So the set-up is that ultra-suave and comically handsome thief Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his ultra-suave gang of thieves (including most of the names at the top of this page) must exact retribution on a crass casino owner who betrayed a friend of theirs.  The casino owner is Al Pacino.  Hoorah.  He delivers one of the best lines of the year, about how something is not an employee’s fault.  Scott Caan and Casey Affleck also shine as two members of Ocean’s gang; a great scene features them being really mean a hotel guest (Mamet regular David Paymer) while disguised as hotel security. In his mildly negative review, Roger Ebert complains that Danny Ocean’s purchase of one of the giant drills that dug the Chunnel stretched his suspension of belief too far.  But the explanation is simple:  Ocean charmed it out of someone. “Ocean’s Thirteen” is a fun, quick comedy, not of broad “gags” but with many of its laughs coming from understated line deliveries, or reaction shots, or subtle puns (Ocean’s computer hacker is named Roman and he must hack into a computer known as El Greco).  It’s a pure entertainment that doesn’t outstay its welcome.  You’d think movie snobs like me aren’t supposed to like it.  But then I guess you’d be wrong. Finished Thursday, July 26, 2007 Copyright © 2007 Friday & Saturday Night