Film Review: Ocean’s 8

Old-fashioned fun is the real mark in latest Ocean’s film

Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock, l.)  assembles a crack team of eight (from l., Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna, and Helena Bohman Carter) to plan a foolproof heist.

You don’t need to have seen the previous three Ocean’s movies (that would be 11, 12, and 13 for the uninitiated) to enjoy Ocean’s 8, the female-helmed companion film that opens today; it stands alone as a highly enjoyable, old-fashioned heist movie. But those who are loyal fans of the original series will be rewarded with a few nods to the previous films, as well as a couple of cameos that I won’t reveal here, but which will no doubt please the films’ devotees. Breezy and fun, writer/director Gary Ross’s entry into the Ocean’s universe retains the brisk confidence of the original pictures, while providing a welcome freshness by changing the stories’ traditional casting.

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Film Review: Into the Woods

The cast is great/The film is good/Into the woods/To go to the movies!

The Baker (James Corden) and his Wife (Emily Blunt) venture Into the Woods.
The Baker (James Corden) and his Wife (Emily Blunt) venture Into the Woods.

Director Rob Marshall, who was nominated for an Oscar for his film version of the musical “Chicago” back in 2003, returns this holiday season with another big screen adaptation of a Broadway hit musical. This time he takes on Steven Sondheim’s storied (pun intended) 1987 mega-hit Into the Woods, an extraordinarily entertaining mishmash of several of the Grimm Brothers classic fairy tales. Produced by Disney, the film had been the subject of widespread speculation that the darker edges of the Sondheim/James Lapine fantasy might be smoothed too much. Purists need not worry, however; Marshall’s version retains the mature themes and disquieting tone of the original, and has the added benefit of a terrific cast.

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