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Ocean’s Eleven

Steven Soderbergh is one of the most interesting and challenging American filmmakers working today. That he continues to work so steadily, with such odd and financially unsuccessful films as Bubble, The Girlfriend Experience, Che, and Full Frontal having come out in the past ten years, would be baffling if it weren’t for his mostly confident, cool, and singular forays into studio filmmaking. Before December 2001, when his remake of Ocean’s Eleven, starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon, among others, was released, Soderbergh had hit it big at the Oscars, getting two Best Director nominations in the same year, for Erin Brockovich and Traffic, and won, too. But it was the third successful film he made, the one after those two, that guaranteed he could do whatever he wanted. The combination of Soderbergh in studio mode, a remake of a barely remembered heist film, and a huge cast was what did it for the man.

Even more than Traffic or Erin Brockovich, Ocean’s Eleven managed to combine plenty of stylish and flashy camera tricks (all employed by the director himself, who is also the cinematographer), dry humor, and crowd-pleasing action and entertainment. What’s more, aside from the other two films in the trilogy (which also grossed over $100 million each), Soderbergh has mostly avoided studio projects. Since 2001, excluding the Ocean’s films, the highest-grossing movie of his was last year’s The Informant!, which only made $33 million at the box office (and is well worth watching). Still, his vision hasn’t been compromised as it was when he made little-seen indies after his debut film, sex, lies, and videotape. He may not make lots of successful movies anymore, but with big actors willing to work with him, his low budgets, and fervent fan base, Steven Soderbergh can do pretty much anything.

Finding Nemo

I know what you’re thinking. How could a Pixar movie, let alone any Pixar movie after their first, be a carte blanche movie? It’s worth remembering the stories that surrounded the production of Finding Nemo. This 2003 classic was released during the height of the contentious discussions between the Walt Disney Company and Pixar Animation Studios, when there was even the remotest possibility of a Toy Story 3 that was made outside of Pixar (a nightmare that has long since been averted, but still a scary thought). What’s more, the man at the head of Disney at the time, Michael Eisner, thought that Finding Nemo was going to be the one. Yes, he thought Finding Nemo was going to be the first movie that would prove that Pixar Animation Studios was, in essence, human. He thought it would suck. He thought it would fail. Andrew Stanton, who had put so much into the movie, would fall, as the man behind the story.

Putting it mildly, Michael Eisner was wrong. By the time you’re reading this, Finding Nemo is no longer the highest-grossing Pixar film ever made, but with $339 million in the bank domestically, it took the third film in the Toy Story franchise (and in 3-D, too) to top this fishy tale. Finding Nemo was further proof that people like Andrew Stanton may make some mistakes (another famous story about the film’s production is that another great actor who’ll go nameless here had performed as Marlin, but didn’t work out as the lead), but they know what they’re doing. Stanton is now working on the first live-action film from Pixar, John Carter from Mars, and he’s still sizzling off the success of WALL-E. But Finding Nemo was the movie that proved this guy doesn’t get questioned; he gets what he wants, and rightfully so.

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