Movies and Dinner

We saw Oceans 13, which was a pretty good movie to me because I liked Oceans 11 and 12. The photography, the occasional plot twist and of course, Las Vegas. My mother in law had not seen Oceans 11, so my husband was explaining the general premise to her when Al said, “Oh Patti (South Indian word for grandma), it’s a heist film.” Now how many ten year olds know what a heist film is, much less would use the phrase heist film to describe it, but moving right along.

This caper takes place because of the double crossing of Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) by Willy Bank (Al Pacino). Bank basically leaves Tishkoff to die. Of course, somebody has to pay, literally, which is where the group comes in. Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) is even called on to provide some capital, as he has an axe to grind with Bank. Of course he also has no shortage of axes to grind with Danny Ocean (George Clooney), so his involvement could prove problematic. Another obstacle presents itself in the form of the security system for Bank’s casino, the Greco. It has the ability to think, reason and analyze floor action in the casino for unconscious vital indications of cheating.

I really enjoyed the use of that O lady in the film. I think that Ellen Barkin’s character could have developed more. I know that the women in these films are a good part window dressing (which makes my watching this series of films sort of like my sour straws addiction a few years ago – sort of the thing I wouldn’t want my associates to know about, yet they lingered at the bottom of my briefcase… it was an ugly time, y’all). This is supposedly the last one, so maybe there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

After the movie, we had reservations at a Thai restaurant called Typhoon. Original name, I know, but the food was some of the best Thai I’ve had. It’s located in a hotel that appears on Conde Nast Travel’s gold list, but we just wanted to go because we had heard about the quality. I thought it was really great that their highly acclaimed chef is a woman. The decor was more modern than zen, but the ambiance was really cool.

We had steamed veggie rolls and I had the summer curry (served in a pineapple) over jasmine rice. Hubby had pad thai. It was really great. We also had some exotic cocktails. His was made with green tea and mine with coconut vodka and muddled lime. I’m glad I bypassed the white wine I was originally looking at. There’s a tapas-ish place next door which has some really interesting dishes, too.

Overall, a really nice evening, and a great date to take advantage of the fact that our sun doesn’t go down until almost ten o’clock.