Out of Sight (1998)

It's awfully tempting to call this a career best for literally everyone involved. Maybe not quite, but it's up there with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang for your crime film with brains.

As you say, amazing support: I'd single out Albert Brooks, in particular, but then I'd be overlooking Keaton, Cheadle, Farina...

Not being a fan of doctor shows, the first time I remember seeing Clooney was in From Dusk To Dawn. This was the next, and the combination of the two made me decide the guy was pretty much awesomeness personified; I haven't completely backed off that position.

BTW, though it wasn't even in the same ballpark, I thought that Gugino and Forster were well-cast in the TV series sequel.

The hotel room sequence with Clooney/Lopez, with Soderbergh using their conversation as voice-over and cutting between the two is aces. I can't recall a recent film with such big stars that had that much palpable on-screen chemistry.

"This your first time being held up? You're doing great."

If you were to make a list of the best star-making performances -- hell, scenes -- of the last 20 years, this would be very near the top of the list.

This film has been on my mind a lot. It gives you the feeling of being a throwback without being overtly so with it's male lead who is actually a man - so rare these days. Clooney and Lopez are amazing together, making it even more of a shame that Lopez chose the career path she chose. I hate making lists, but if I had to make one for the top 10 sexiest fims of the past 20 years, I'm pretty confident that Out of Sight would make the cut.

Now here is a movie I need to rewatch again. Anyone remember when the actress Jennifer Lopez started to make weird pop songs? I by now we know that it was rather the other way around.

One of the things that makes Out of Sight a stand-out Leonard adaptation is that it sounds like him. Most Hollywood adaptations of his work either make them action flicks or comedies. They don't get that Leonard doesn't fit a mold like that. Out of Sight, like Get Shorty and Jackie Brown, has a weirdness that still manages to be gritty to it that makes it great. Out of Sight is its own thing at times, but it never stops sounding like Leonard.

You know how everyone's got their go-to movie, the one they automatically recommend to friends who ask for something good to watch? This is mine, and it's been that way for more than a decade now.

If you don't dig this or KISS KISS BANG BANG, I probably don't want to have much to do with you.

Props to the genuinely intimidating Cheadle for his use of the term "high potentiality for the common motherfucker to bitch out".

And for this: "The man don't have to die, Foley. He could hurt himself falling down on something hard. Like a shiv. Or my dick."

I don't know what to make of this either. I do sense uncertainty in the placement of scenes, probably related to Scott Frank having to restructure the script's chronology. A transition from Karen recovering in the hospital to Snoopy entering a prison library is irksome; the latter scene is nothing that Karen witnessed nor (presumably) has any knowledge about, yet it's introduced almost as if she were recollecting.

Well, not exactly. The Karen Sisco character was inspired by a newspaper photo Leonard saw of a very attractive federal marshal holding a shotgun. Think movie star attractive. Foley is much older -- and not meant to be so handsome -- but in the sequel Road Dogs Leonard makes a few none-too-subtle hints that he's now writing Foley as a guy who looks, talks and acts like George Clooney.

This movie has my favourite sex scene ever in a movie, if you can even call it a sex scene, since we don't see any actual sex. I usually find sex scenes boring to watch, but the way Soderbergh cut between the conversation and the preparations in the bedroom was so classy. I've never seen preparations for sex ever rendered with so much lushness and visual sheen. I can't add much that wouldn't just be echoing what's already been said...I agree that the performances and dialog are mesmerizing too.

Soderbergh is one of those directors I'll always consider myself a fan of no matter what he does, because between 1998 and 2000, he made "Out of Sight", "The Limey", and "Traffic". I actually like the other two even more than "Out of Sight", which shows how great he is, because I think "Out of Sight" is genius.

I like that the Sisco character's tough without being irritating. It's nice to see a female lead who can pretty much handle all her own shit.

If you listen to the DVD commentary between Soderbergh and Scott Frank, they touch upon this scene transition as well and how they realized that some might find it confusing to have Jack refer to an incompetent boob like Glenn and then Buddy shows up. So I think it wa a bit unintentional on their part, unless someone who has listened to the audio commentary more recently knows otherwise.

I finally re-bought the DVD for this pretty recently after losing my original copy god knows how many years ago. I think I'll be giving it a spin in a little while this evening as soon as I'm done with Suspiria.

I really loved Don Cheadle in this. I always liked him even in what other movies I caught him in here and there prior (Devil in a Blue Dress, Boogie Nights, Bulworth which was right around the same time as this, and so forth), but I remember this movie in particular being the one that made me especially stand up and take notice of him as "one to specifically watch for".

But yeah, this was pretty damn great for just about all parties involved. I even loved Jennifer Lopez in this; a rarity for me, as I'm generally not into her at all whatsoever. I've liked a few other movies she was in besides this one also, but I think this may well be the only movie she's ever done (that I can think of offhand anyway) where I specifically really liked her in particular for her performance and her general contribution to it, as opposed to her just coming bundled along with a movie that I like for various other reasons that don’t really relate all that much to her participation.