Mystic Pizza (Released in 1988) - A coming of age movie - Starring Annabeth Gish, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon and Lili Taylor

Released in 1988, Mystic Pizza is a coming of age film directed by Donald Pitrie. The movie follows the life of 3 girls, in the short span of time between high school and college. Even though life after high school and the movies made on it are more than a dozen, Mystic Pizza captures the spirit of anticipation and finding oneself so as to prepare for life ahead, with complete ease.
The 3 girls who steal the spotlight in the movie are 2 Portuguese-American sisters and friends, Kat and Daisy (played by Annabeth Gish and Julia Roberts), and their friend Jojo (played by Lili Taylor). The movie opens in a small resort town by the name of Mystic, Connecticut. We start the movie to find Jojo leaving her fiancé - Bill, (played by Vincent D’Onofrio) at the altar. She gets back with Bill, but is not ready to commit to marriage. Bill however puts his foot down and decides he does not believe in sex before marriage, leaving Jojo in a conundrum about whether her feelings are truly deep or just superficial.
Jojo, and Kat and Daisy are all shown to be working at a Pizzeria run by Leona, (played by Conchata Farrell) who is famous for her secret sauce. Meanwhile, Kat and Daisy may be sisters, but are quite opposite in every regard. While Kat has aspirations of perusing astronomy and will be going to Yale on a partial scholarship in the fall, Daisy is more laid back and wants to find love, through any means possible. Kat is the apple of her mother’s eye, while Daisy is more the black sheep.
Each of the girls gets their “temporary” Mr. Right only to have love blow up in their faces. While Kat maybe goal oriented, she is also naïve when it comes to love and idealism. She goes to babysit for 30 year old Tim (played by William Moses) an Anglo-American Yale graduate. Kat is mighty impressed by him, and starts to take a fancy to him, even though she knows he has a wife and child. She convinces herself that he would leave his wife.




Kat and Tim have intellectual conversations and both are impressed by the other, their idealism gradually turning to “love”, as Tim starts taking a liking to her, more because she is young and fresh, than because of her intellect. Meanwhile, Daisy is out one evening with her friends for a few drinks, when in walks Mr. Right. She is immediately attracted to his rich bad boy attitude, all the more, when he throws bulls eyes on the dart board after tequila shots. They start talking and she starts dating him.
The movie follows the 3 girls in their budding romance over a few months. Each love story turns sour, and teaches the girls a hard lesson. But, instead of making it preachy and overdramatic, the movie seems light and effortless. It does not try to force a point across but subtly keeps moving ahead. With the help of their “love interests”, the girls discover a lot about themselves and what they want in life. Rather than being a movie about girls in love, the movie is about how these girls discover their standards for love through the mistakes they make.
It is interesting to watch Annabeth Gish, Julia Roberts and Lili Taylor work their magic in the movie. Even though the setting is that of a small resort town, the characters created are smart and react in wonderfully unexpected ways. The movie is refreshing and well executed, not leaving room for clichés.  While Mystic Pizza did not do very well in the box office when it released, it started getting a sort of cult following over the years, with a lot of other movies, sitcoms and songs making references to Mystic Pizza.

Ocean's Twelve (Released in 2004) - Successful sequel to con movie - Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Andy García, Julia Roberts

The 2004 sequel to the world acclaimed multi starrer Ocean’s Eleven; Ocean’s Twelve is yet another super entertaining piece by Steven Soderbergh. Even as most movies with heist escapades end with the thieves or con men going into well-earned retirement, most sequels to such movies begin with how the dapper con men are forced to come out of retirement for one or the other reason and perform one more long con.
In Ocean’s Twelve, the reason for the flamboyant eleven being pulled out from enjoying their spoils is Terry Benedict, played by Andy Garcia – the man from whom Danny Ocean and his boys had stolen $160 million in the previous movie. Now Terry has managed to track down the eleven and has demanded that they return his money, plus interest worth $38 million, unless they want to be turned over to US Authorities. Terry personally goes to meet each and every one of the members and makes it clear to them that they have exactly 2 weeks to return his money.  
With time running out, the group decides to stage a heist in Europe to avoid further problems with the US Authorities. Danny is tipped off about the location of the first stock certificate ever published, by an informant named Matsui, played by Robbie Coltrane. However, their elaborate plans are foiled by another master thief who goes by the name of Night Fox. To make matters worse, Europol Detective Isabel Lahiri, played by Catherine Zeta-Jones, is investigating the theft. Rusty (Brad Pitt) and her had a relationship a long time ago. She realizes that her conversations with him must have given him the idea of how to steal the certificate. She turns up unannounced at the group’s accommodations and warns them that she is on to them, and that they cannot hope to beat either the Night Fox, or his Mentor the mysterious LeMarc.
If the plot wasn’t already getting complicated, then here’s more. The Night Fox, who turns out to be Baron Francois Toulour, played by Vincent Cassel, a wealthy businessman, invites Danny to his mansion. After bragging to Danny about how he has been a step ahead of him the whole time, he goes on to crib about how he is offended that LeMarc doesn’t think of him - Toulour as the greatest thief ever. He challenges Danny to steal the famous Faberge Imperial Coronation Egg, and promises Danny that if he and his gang win, then he will pay off Danny’s debt to Terry Benedict.




Danny hires one more in his group, now making the count twelve. What follows is an elaborately planned heist, complete with holographic representations. However, when the plan goes haywire and half the members of Danny’s group are in prison, Linus (Matt Damon) creates a new plan which gets Tess Ocean involved. With cameo roles of not one but 2 actors – Bruce Willis playing himself and Julia Roberts (who is Tess in the movie) playing Julia Roberts for the Heist, the plot gets only more entertaining. Needless to say, Linus’s plan is foiled and now everyone lands up in jail.
Enter the FBI agent, played by Cherry Jones, who has come to extradite the group to the US. It turns out she is Linus’s mother and helps them get out of prison. But, if you are thinking even for a moment, that Ocean and his twelve con men did not get the Faberge egg, you are wrong. Not only do they get the egg, which is elaborately explained by Danny and Tess, in a narrative and flash back sequence, to Toulour, but they also managed to wipe the smug expression of Toulour’s face. Toulour as promised pays the money owed by Danny, to Terry Benedict and Danny promises to steer clear of Terry in the future.
In the end, Rusty takes Lahiri to a safe house that he claims was left to him by LeMarc, where she is reunited with her father, who turns out to be LeMarc himself. The final scene shows Rusty taking Lahiri to a private poker game where the entire group has reunited to enjoy themselves.
In the movie, it doesn’t matter what priceless treasure they stole or how they stole it. What matters is the behavior, dialogues and star power that each actor brings with him. With at least fifteen big names running around the silver screen enjoying themselves in panache and style, one can only wonder as to the number of actors starring in the next sequel. Also, where most movies highlight the implausibility of the script in a bad way, Ocean’s Twelve only makes you enjoy the unrealistic scenarios played out here. Soderbergh has as always done a wonderful job to highlight the strong points of the movie, namely the charm and smooth talking style of its actors like Clooney, Pitt and Catharine Zeta-Jones.
While some of the heists planned seem unrealistic, the movie is not so much about the heist, as it is about fun and frolic created by Soderbergh and his merry band of actors. Overall, Ocean’s Twelve is an entertaining movie which urges the viewer to root for the con men and their escapades.

Ocean's Eleven (Released in 2001) - Starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Andy García, and Julia Roberts

A remake of a 1960’s movie with the same name which starred Frank Sinatra and his Rat pack, Ocean’s Eleven is an American comedy about a group of guys who are brought together by Danny Ocean to plan a heist. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, the movie is fun, entertaining and slick. It is a fine example of what happens when a serious accomplished director decides to venture into some “over the top” quirkiness.
The movie has an impressive star cast, with Danny Ocean being played by Mr. Smooth and Sauvé – George Clooney, and his better half Tess Ocean is played by one of the few actresses who can hold her own next to Clooney – Julia Roberts. Not to be left out, Ocean’s eleven include superstars like Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Casey Affleck, Elliott Gould and Turk Malloy.
The movie opens with Danny, who is fresh out of prison, and eager for a job. He gets in touch with his trusted sidekick, Rusty, played by Brad Pitt. Together they chalk up a plan to steal $ 160 million from not one but three casinos in Las Vegas, namely The Bellagio, The Mirage and The MGM Grand. They get together a team to help them with this job. The team comprises of a talented acrobat, con artists, a techie, a pick pocket, gifted mechanic and an electronics and surveillance expert.




Rubin, a senior con artist, played by Elliot Gould, is initially reluctant to help because he knows how tight casino security usually is. However, with a chance to get back at Terry Benedict, the Casino owner, played by Andy Garcia he jumps on board to finance the whole operation. While some of the members recon the casinos, the others get into making exact life size replicas of the casino vault floors.
On one of the recon missions, Rusty finds Tess Ocean walking with Terry Benedict, the guy they are about to rob. He confronts Danny and asks him whether this entire heist is about her. Danny replies that it is of course about her. It is about stealing from his ex- wife’s new boyfriend and trying to get her back in the process. However, George Clooney and Brad Pitt pull off, even a confrontation, with style.
When the plan is set and everything is in motion, as a viewer you feel like rooting for the con men. Not for any other reason but the sheer panache and flair with which they pull of a very detailed and intricate plan. In the end, Danny gets Tess back, by proving to her that Terry prizes his money more than he does her. Mind you, nothing is done simplistically in this movie. Every scene and every dialogue has a certain smooth talker style and élan which could only have been accomplished by Ted Griffin’s style of dialogues and screenplay.
As far as the heist goes, there have been movies with more fastidiously planned con jobs. But in Ocean’s Eleven, one does not go for the heist. They go for the super smooth dialogue delivery and an end which doesn’t involve a shootout, but a rather exquisitely planned heist which goes off exactly as Danny and his boys had planned – with finesse.
The movie is nothing like the usual Soderbergh movies, but it is an entertaining enjoyable watch never the less.