What’s Aged the Best?
The tone
In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 00:25:55Read transcript
- Three candidates cover it: the tone, George Clooney's suits, and the heist.
- A sartorial question asks whether Clooney here invented the open shirt collar with a suit; invent is a strong word, he popularized or cemented a Vegas rich-guy cool look; his reserved navy, gray and white contrasts with Pitt's loudness and the Ted Nugent's shirt line, showing the alpha and omega of the pair; perfect frame, height, hair and tailoring for 2001, turning a look that can go Vegas lounge rat into Cary Grant; it may have started in Out of Sight after the Jennifer Lopez encounter.
- Swingers, seen coming out of high school, is try-hard and stressful about Vegas: get the suits, drive six hours; this is effortless, as if everyone is at a spa though it was probably 101 degrees and everyone needed moisturizing cream; iridescent, shimmery clothes on Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts; one host loves Soderbergh and calls The Knicks (as transcribed) a favorite show.
- The getting-a-gang-together sequence was reinvented here and has been ripped off for fifteen years, patently absurd like the Greaseman setup observed at Barnum's and the travels to Florida to get Saul; the tone is named as what aged best, encapsulating it all.
- The heist, almost twenty years later, could have been technologically dependent and silly, but the mechanics still seem entirely plausible, a vault working that way and cutting a phone line, with no cheesy CGI or made-up words; smart or lucky, maybe both.