What do you get when you mix several of the biggest actor in Hollywood, a filmmaker with distinct vision and commercial sensibilities, and a hair-brained scheme? One of the finest blockbusters ever screened at multiplexes (well, at least according to the host writing this description).

OCEAN’S ELEVEN stars George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Julia Roberts among several other well-known faces (including future Captain America Don Cheadle). It’s actually a remake of the 1960 Rat Pack flick of the same name but has very little in common with it beyond that. Here, the target is absurd — not one, but three casino cash reserves housed in an underground vault — and, often, so too are the motivations. It’s a crystallization of the phrase, “They don’t make ’em like that anymore.”

Allison, a true appreciator of sin, becomes a tour guide i ...