I drove up north to Santa Clara County over the weekend for a few reasons. One was a party for a soon-to-be-married good friend of mine: he can describe that better than I, so I'll let him do just that. One was to get my teeth checked by my dentist of choice: I doubt you want to hear about that. But the third was that it was Father's Day weekend.

For Father's Day (and a belated Mother's Day) I treated my parents to dinner and a movie. Surprisingly, I was able to get both for a single movie; Mom actually enjoys heist/caper movies if they don't go crazy on the sex and violence, so I thought Ocean's Thirteen was something all three of us could enjoy. I was a little concerned given that Twelve had been a relative stinker... but Thirteen was rating a decent if not stunning 70% on RottenTomatoes.com, so I figured it was worth the risk.

Anyway, what I like most in a caper movie is a coherent plan, where the details are hinted at but you don't hear all of them until you see them in action. And, of course, some last minute but clever adjustments when things don't go as flawlessly as hoped. I got plenty of both, more so than even in Eleven. (And way more than in Twelve, which revealed that the entire plan from day one was a screen for the real one we never saw a hint of until the end. That's what we call "god-modding," dude. "Oh, you think you foiled me, and so does the audience, because we've been acting foiled for days even when there's no one to see us, but no! We've been victorious from the start, because...!")

But enough ranting about Twelve. Thirteen was good. I liked it; so did both parents. Silly in places, sometimes their resources and gizmos seemed ridiculous (though we've seen these guys pull hundred-million dollar heists, so maybe not so ridiculous after all), but hey, I like Bond movies and the Mission Impossible series too. Let's send a bunch of guys in to have fun being sneaky. Watch it. Enjoy it.