Saturday, June 16, 2007

Ocean's 13 Lingo

My notes from the movie. Who takes notes during a movie? I am finding this whole List Posts stage I'm going through very disorienting.

"But there is a lot of that in the Oceans films where they say 'Let's do a Susan B. Anthony or a Sticky Fingers or a Monkey On a Sidetrap, Sling it Down on the Woodshelf, and then put it Oh for Two, Oh For Five' and everyone goes, 'Yeah, yeah let's try that, let's try that.'"
-Eddie Izzard on The Daily Show, Thursday June 7, 2007.

"We have to offer a Billy Martin."
"It's a Reverse Big Store."
Irwin Allen
Wowser
Pancake Eater
The Brody-Prop
Dock the Showboat
Cattled
Cougar-Sponder
Gilroy
Set Up a Cartwheel
Pulled an Audible
Saw a Blitz Coming
Working a Frame
"I've gotta jump."
"So it's back to the Susan B. Anthony again."

I also like the running gag where whenever Pitt and Clooney talk about their girls, they each seem to know exactly what the other one is thinking despite the fact that neither ever finishes a thought or a sentence.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like your list. Have you gone through all the movies? I just watched Ocean's 13, and I was intrigued. I wonder if this all has any root in cockney slang, like in the first one: barney... barney rubble, rhymes with trouble!

I wish there was a list of all these gigs. They could, of course, all be fabricated.

I really love the motto of your site, too. I love referencing things. It's too bad that it doesn't always spawn originality.

ribble said...

Thank you, co! What a nice comment!

A lot of people seem to be landing at this post from google searches, so I thought I should update it a bit with some new links.

Yes, Badger uses a lot of Cockney Rhyming Slang. The others don't - although it's a running joke that although no one understands Badger, everyone understands Yen.

Yes, I have watched the other movies with slang in mind. Ocean's 11 doesn't have as much as you'd think - I think the slang got ratcheted up for 12 because the filmmakers saw how audiences reacted to the slang in 11. 12 went a bit too far with it, IMHO.

And, yes, this slang is made up. It's based on a sort of rat pack-era Vegas culture sensibility I could never hope to understand, but it has no meaning except what we can vaguely infer from how the actors interpret the script. That's the genius of it, after all.

Anonymous said...

His name is Basher, not Badger. Basher Tarr. Really? All that attention to detail and you messed that up? Also, instead of listing a bunch of phrases with no definitions , why didn't you take the time to sleuth and figure out what they meant and post that?

Unknown said...

Not familiar with American slang, I was quite intrigued by the reference to Susan B Anthony in the Ocean's series. I had heard of her only as a feminist/activist. Does the original ratpack movie have these 'make up ' words!?

Unknown said...

The "saw a blitz coming" is a reference to American football. Benedict says "you called an audible" to which Danny replies the above.

It's a reference to a quarterback changing the play at the line of scrimmage if he sees the defense is showing a blitz.