Went to see The Italian Job last night, since rehearsal was cancelled, and it was right up the street. The Davis Theater is good for those movies I sorta want to see, purely because it's convenient, and tickets are still only $7.50. On the other hand, it's not terribly conducive to big action or sci-fi flicks, which benefit greatly from big screens, stadium seating and state-of-the-art sound systems.

Anyway, the movie was good. Not great, but entertaining. Trailers had me skeptical of the movie-as-commercial for the Mini Cooper, but they wound up integrating the heavy use of the tiny cars, which are apparently less than six feet wide, into the plot of the movie. The cast is made up largely of people I like, particularly Edward Norton, Seth Green and Charlize Theron. Also, Charlize Theron. And did I mention Charlize Theron? I don't know that I've seen her in many movies, so at the end of the day, I don't really have a good idea of how well she can actually act. But you know what? Don't care.

I noticed this when I finally saw the remake of Ocean's Eleven, but I like caper movies. There are so many intricacies, not so much to the plot, but to the scheme, that it's fun to watch the pieces fit together, and there are generally so many of them that you can let go of the ones that don't make sense without having to worry about it. And it was a goofy piece of pop culture reference, but having come from the online music biz, the Napster references were funnier than I thought they'd be when they first introduced them.

One quibble, though. There's a remake of Pink Floyd's "Money" that's used throughout the film, and it's pretty terrible. Turns out it's the reconsituted rhythm section of Guns-N-Roses (Slash, Duff McKagan, Matt Sorum) with former Stone Temple Pilots and current inmate Scott Weiland singing. They did, at least, have the good sense not to alter the guitar solo, but wow, it wasn't very good otherwise.