If the end of Jessica Jones has created an empty #Showhole, Gianna Jun's 2012 heist flick The Thieves might briefly pull you out of it

I love the heist genre so much that whenever I encounter a serious article about racial inequality, I like to always take that article and envision it in my head as a crowd-pleasing heist flick where mistreated characters get revenge on the ones who mistreated or subjugated them by stealing their enemies' shit. For instance, that happened while I read "Not All Nerds," Christopher T. Fan's terrific 2014 New Inquiry critique of the ways Silicon Valley handles its diversity problems.

A heist flick where a crew of Asian American men and women sticks it to the racist and corrupt Silicon Valley tech world they used to work for has been playing in my head for a long time. It started out as a story idea I called Robbery in Progress (it included Quincy Jones and the Don Elliott Voices' "Money Runner," the primary theme from the 1971 heist flick $ [Dollars], as a song I wanted to feature--"Money Runner" is, by the way, now playing on AFOS--and it would have revolved around a much smaller, much younger crew of three inexperienced Asian American thieves getting even with the racist small town they live in and receiving robbery lessons from a criminal who's the cousin of one of the three teens). If such a heist flick ever gets made, and maybe by someone else, I hope it turns out to be as satisfying as something like Set It Off or 2012's even better The Thieves.

In South Korea, Assassination director Choi Dong-hoon's heist flick, about a crew of Korean thieves and a crew of Chinese thieves that unite to steal a diamond at a Macao casino, is currently the fifth highest-grossing Korean film of all time, sitting right below Bong Joon-ho's The Host. But over here, the solidly made 2012 blockbuster is a bit under the radar and well worth discovering on Amazon Video or via Netflix's DVD rental service.

Critics frequently compare The Thieves to Ocean's Eleven because of the starpower of the multilingual film's Korean and Chinese actors and the casino setting, but the casino and a healthy dose of humor are all they have in common. Unlike both the 1960 and 2001 Oceans, the thieves are constantly double-crossing each other, which makes The Thieves more like a glamorous and comedic Friends of Eddie Coyle, plus it's no sausage fest.

A lot more women are involved in the heists, and, as Star2.com reviewer Seto Kit Yan noted in 2012, "they are not there as mere distractions or love interests." Without giving too much of The Thieves away, most of the film's juiciest material, both story-wise and performance-wise, involves the female characters, including Pepsee (Kim Hye-soo), a safecracker who's just been released from prison, which makes The Thieves a perfect chaser after marathoning the entire run of Jessica Jones, Marvel and Netflix's similarly female-character-heavy but much more dark (and wonderfully subversive) neo-noir drama.

You'll enter The Thieves being familiar with only one or two of the huge, Furious 6-size ensemble (in my case, the only stars I recognized were Simon Yam as the Chinese team leader and Angelica Lee, the star of the original version of The Eye, as Pepsee's safecracking counterpart on the Chinese team), and then you'll come away wanting to see more of the work of many of the film's other stars, particularly Gianna Jun, who's a comedic standout as Yenicall, a beautiful and snarky cat burglar. Yenicall is basically two different Leverage teammates, Parker the pickpocket/acrobat and Sophie the grifter, in the same body. Even though some of the ensemble gets killed off, a Thieves sequel is inevitable, and I'd like to see the surviving thieves mix it up with criminals and cops from a much different corner of Asia: are the likes of Deepika Padukone and Hrithik Roshan available?

Yenicall from The Thieves, illustrated by Rizky Nugraha

The Academy's snub of the Attack the Block score is such bollocks, innit?

HitFix's Kristopher Tapley considers the Attack the Block score by Steven Price and Basement Jaxx to be the year's best original film score and is bummed that it's not one of the 97 scores that are eligible for consideration in this year's Best Original Score category. I'm bummed too--the cutting-edge score from British comedian/filmmaker Joe Cornish's enjoyable inner-city-vs.-outer-space thriller is one of my favorites of 2011--but I'm not surprised that the Academy would exclude it.

The Academy rarely nominates the scores I like the most (not one bloody nod for any of Irish DJ/composer David Holmes' Ocean's scores during the '00s?). Plus, Price and Basement Jaxx's (and Holmes') sounds aren't middlebrow and tweedy enough for the Academy. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross aside, cutting-edge things tend to frighten and confuse them.

There's one upside to the snub: I don't have to be subjected to a lame interpretive dance to "The Ends" from Attack the Block.

Eee-O 11/11/11

As someone who's unemployed and has been part of the 99 Percent for a long-ass time, Sammy Davis Jr.'s "Eee-O Eleven" from the original Ocean's Eleven is like the story of my life ("I nearly had me that chauffeur/And that block-long limousine/Eee-O Eleven...").

What does that song title mean? Some people think the phrase is a reference to the game of craps. Hey, Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, the lyricists behind "Eee-O Eleven," would know. Too bad they're dead. Reeeal dead.

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Neil Richardson, "The Riviera Affair"

Song: "The Riviera Affair" by Neil Richardson
Released: 1970
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: When I first saw Ocean's Thirteen, I dug the old-sounding Warner Bros./Village Roadshow logo music.



I wasn't aware that the logo graphics and music were a reference to '70s and '80s TV, in keeping with the film's nostalgia for things like '60s and '70s caper flicks and the camaraderie of the Rat Packers who starred in the original version of Ocean's Eleven (as heard in "You shook Sinatra's hand," the film's frequently repeated line to Al Pacino's villainous character about how much of a backstabbing asshole he's become). I didn't grow up in New York, so I learned on YouTube that the swanky Ocean's Thirteen logo music--"The Riviera Affair," a library music cue written by British composer Neil Richardson, who died in October at the age of 80--was the same instrumental that used to open and close the "4 O'Clock Movie" broadcasts on New York's WOR.



Steven Soderbergh's shout-out to the WOR movie broadcast graphics is the director's way of saying, "Ocean's Thirteen is just like those old, breezy caper flicks that used to turn up at 4:00 on WOR."

Richardson's instrumental was left off the Ocean's Thirteen soundtrack album, but it's part of 1996's Sound Gallery '60s and '70s library music instrumental compilation. An Amazon.com user review of The Sound Gallery sums up "The Riviera Affair" well. "Picture David Janssen and Diana Rigg cruising in a turquoise convertible along the open highway with the wind in their hair and the glorious possibilities of the future before them," says the reviewer. "This will give you just a small idea of how glorious and transcendent this tune is!!"

True, although when I hear "The Riviera Affair" and picture nearly the same thing--a relaxed playa cruising in a turquoise convertible along the open highway with his woman by his side--the twitchy star of the original Fugitive TV series doesn't exactly come to mind.

In 2009, another one of Richardson's loungy library music instrumentals was used to great effect when director Michel Hazanavicius gave ample screen time to Richardson's "Rio Magic" in the French spy spoof sequel OSS 117: Lost In Rio.

All the other "Rock Box" Tracks of the Day from this week:
Iggy and the Stooges, "Search and Destroy"
Raekwon feat. Inspectah Deck, Ghostface Killah and GZA, "Guillotine (Swordz)"
Dinah Washington, "This Bitter Earth"
Earth, Wind & Fire, "Reasons"

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: The Motherhood, "Soul Town"

Song: "Soul Town" by The Motherhood
Released: 1969
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in Ocean's Thirteen.
Which moment in Ocean's Thirteen does it appear?: The closing credits (right after my favorite ending in the three Ocean's films: Brad Pitt's way of apologizing to David Paymer for what he and the crew had to put him through as part of their revenge plot against Al Pacino).

Of the three Ocean's soundtracks, my favorite has to be the third and final one, because of how much music supervisor David Holmes' score music had evolved since Eleven, as well as his taste for obscure tracks like Puccio Roelens' cover of "Caravan" and the breezy and badass "Soul Town" instrumental by the Krautrock band The Motherhood. (Plus, Thirteen opens with future "Rock Box" Track of the Day "The Riviera Affair" during the studio logos, and it doesn't contain a certain Elvis track I grew sick of hearing after it got overplayed and horribly remixed by Junkie XL).

The Motherhood was a fusion band led by German saxophonist Klaus Doldinger, the composer of the scores to Das Boot and The NeverEnding Story. I can hardly find any info about this phase of Doldinger's career or "Soul Town." I like how the tune kicks off with a slightly out-of-place piano solo straight out of Ramsey Lewis' "The 'In' Crowd."

"Soul Town"'s a comin'.

"Rock Box" Track of the Day: Puccio Roelens, "Caravan"

Last Monday, I started a series of weekday posts about each of the existing songs that are streamed during the "Rock Box" block on A Fistful of Soundtracks (4-6am, 9-11am and 3-5pm on Mondays and 5-7am, 9-11am and 3-5pm on Fridays). Each post provides info on a different track from the "Rock Box" playlist and points out the movie or TV series moment where the track shows up and is utilized to great effect.

Song: "Caravan" by Puccio Roelens
Released: 1971
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's featured in Ocean's Thirteen.
Which moment in Ocean's Thirteen does it appear?: The sequence where George Clooney and Brad Pitt sabotage David Paymer's hotel room so that Paymer can give Al Pacino's hotel a bad review (the above photo is from this sequence).

I love this little-known cover of the 1936 jazz standard that was unearthed by Ocean's Thirteen music supervisor and score composer David Holmes. It sounds like a source cue straight out of Diamonds Are Forever--another Vegas movie. Ocean's Thirteen's inclusion of "Caravan" is a callback to the use of Arthur Lyman's version of "Caravan" in Ocean's Eleven.

Hotel room vandalism never sounded so chill and slick.

Bernie Mac (1957-2008)

Hulu has a Bartload of Fox-owned shows that can be streamed at its site, from current studio cash cows like The Simpsons to forgotten oddities like Nanny and the Professor. But Hulu's Fox library is missing some essential Fox-owned shows, particularly The Bernie Mac Show, which introduced the Def Comedy Jam/Original Kings of Comedy fixture to an audience outside the stand-up circuit and briefly reenergized the stale family sitcom genre.

After I learned that Mac died from pneumonia earlier this weekend, I was hoping to find some of my favorite Bernie Mac Show episodes on Hulu. Its absence on Hulu is another example of Fox's rather shabby treatment of the show. In the second season, Fox shitcanned the showrunner, a pre-Daily Show Larry Wilmore, because they didn't think the show was funny enough (?), and Fox Home Entertainment has released only the first season on DVD. (I doubt Fox will release the rest of the series run, due to what I assume are music rights issues. The show had an old-school soundtrack that UBM would love because it was often less predictable than the Right Stuff CD label would have us believe.)

On the big screen, Mac stole scenes in the Ocean's series and Bad Santa and in lesser films like Chris Rock's Head of State. Because no clips of The Bernie Mac Show can be found on Hulu and the few clips of it that are on YouTube are sure to be removed any time soon, here's one of Mac's dopest scene-stealing moments, the Head of State montage that introduces Mac's character, a hilariously frank bail bondsman-turned-vice-presidential candidate ("I don't know nuttin' about Nato!").

(Did Obama know what he was getting when he invited Mac to perform at a fundraiser? He clearly didn't see Head of State.)

The Bernie Mac Show is worth catching in syndication--if you can find it these days (FX will make the show easier to DVR when it adds it to its daytime schedule this fall). The show was such a breath of fresh air when it premiered in 2001. It didn't have an annoying laugh track or studio audience (it was one of several early '00s sitcoms that ditched the canned laughter and multiple cameras, due to the breakout success of Malcolm in the Middle--of those shows, only Scrubs is still on the air). The series' brash, warts-and-all take on parenting and its knack for "keeping it real" were long-overdue antidotes to sitcoms where either Dad's always right (The Cosby Show) or Dad's a retard (According to Jim).

The show allowed Uncle Bernie to make mistakes as a parent, but he wasn't a total dumbass. Unlike Bernie, the typical bumbling sitcom dad wouldn't last in a room with Vanessa, Jordan and Bryana. The best episodes of The Bernie Mac Show often placed the shrewd Bernie in a match of wits with his equally shrewd nieces and nephew--this constant gamesmanship made the show less like Cosby and more like the delightfully un-cuddly It's Your Move (which was a weekly battle of wills between Jason Bateman's teenage scam artist and his favorite mark, Mom's new boyfriend) and the equally un-cuddly King of the Hill. Another great un-cuddly touch was Mac's threats to the kids ("I'ma bust your head 'til the white meat shows"), which were hardly as profane as what he blurted to the kids in his Original Kings routine, but the watered-down threats were still shocking to some viewers. As Verne Gay noted in his Newsday blog post, the series excelled at showing that "the daily business of taking care of kids was messy, complicated, difficult, full of anxiety, but - most of all - full of joy."

Here's another thing I like about Mac, and it's another reason why he's already so missed: unlike his prime-time "Uncle Bernie" alter ego, the proud Chicagoan couldn't stand L.A. It's nice to know not every comedian or celebrity believes L.A. is the center of the universe.

New AFOS episode: "All This Has Happened Before"

Because Battlestar Galactica's fourth season is finally in full swing, episode WEB93, "All This Has Happened Before," will feature highlights of Bear McCreary's terrific music from the show, and it will begin streaming Tuesday, April 15 (midnight, 4am, 10am, 3pm, 7pm and 11pm). I wish all the tunes on the episode's playlist could be Galactica score cues, but because the Internet radio airplay laws only allow me to put four McCreary tunes on the playlist, I had to pad it with selections from scores to other remakes (Ocean's Eleven, 3:10 to Yuma).

All the Galactica score cues during this ep come from the show's season finales. WEB93 will conclude with McCreary's intriguing cover of "All Along the Watchtower" from last season's stunning cliffhanger, "Crossroads, Part II." (McCreary discusses recording the "Crossroads, Part II" score here.)


During WEB93, I mention that the Galactica producers didn't want the music during their remake to sound like what Stu Phillips wrote for the previous incarnation of Galactica. As Galactica miniseries composer Richard Gibbs said in the liner notes for the miniseries score CD, he avoided typical space opera score elements like a "sweeping, swooping orchestra, strong melodic themes, incredibly detailed flourishes," and it's an approach McCreary emulated when he took over as composer in season 1. What I like most about the music of the current Galactica is that it still manages to sound exciting even without orchestral bombast (example: the powerful taiko and strings combo in the "Prelude to War" theme from "Pegasus"). McCreary seems to understand that minimalism doesn't mean you have to turn the score into musical wallpaper, which is what happened with much of the original music on the Rick Berman Star Trek shows.

McCreary's score for the latest Galactica ep, "Six of One," was really good, particularly during the officers' farewell to Apollo on the port hangar deck. Frak! I wound up with a lump in my throat. (The next Galactica will feature something equally sob-inducing--a naked Dean Stockwell. Great. It's like we're being punished for seeing Grace Park dance around topless this week.)

Also during this AFOS ep about scores from remakes, I snark about Hollywood's creative bankruptcy. Speaking of which, a Ben-Hur miniseries is apparently in the works. I'd rather watch a remake of the SCTV Ben-Hur.

Next AFOS episode: The feature film score music from Galactica's tonal opposite--Star Trek.