OCEAN'S ELEVEN with Marissa Tandon

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Picture yourselves amidst the glitz and glamour of a perfectly executed heist, where wit meets action, and camaraderie seals the deal. That's where Marissa Tandon and I take you in our latest episode, where we explore the captivating world of "Ocean's Eleven." Together, we pull back the curtain to reveal what truly makes a heist crew tick—beyond the shiny veneer and into the heart of nuanced character dynamics and storytelling finesse. Marissa, with her delightful blend of humor and insight, brings to life her childhood misconceptions and ponders how F1 drivers might fare in a filmic getaway, creating a vibrant tapestry of discussion around this cinematic masterpiece.

We delve into the emotional heart of "Ocean's Eleven" and its depiction of the relationships that are the film series' true heist. Reflecting on how these bonds mirror our lives, we consider the weight of loyalty, the currency of trust, and the sacrifices we make for those in our innermost circle. Whether you're a film buff or just a seeker of heartwarming tales of friendship, this episode promises a kaleidoscope of perspectives on how cinema intertwines with our personal narratives and the cherished ties that bind us all.

Notey Notes:
Grid Chat
You Are What You Love

Transcript

Clip: 0:23

Because the house always wins. Play long enough. You never change the stakes. The house takes you, unless when that perfect hand comes along, you bet big and then you take the house. Been practicing this speech a little bit. Did I rush it? It felt like I rushed it. That was good, I liked it.

Marissa Tandon: 0:42

This movie is one of the first movies that I was able to kind of understand how magical a story can be. Ocean's Eleven is the movie that I show people and if they don't like it, there's generally something that's like not great about our relationship moving forward. Actually, like, if you can't find something that you like about this movie, we just are so misaligned in taste Doesn't have to be your favorite movie, but it does have to like strike some sort of chord.

Taylor D. Adams: 1:13

Hi, I'm Taylor and welcome back to the Film Nuts podcast, a show about why we love what we watch. So if you were going to rob a casino, let's say who would be in your crew. Don't say it out loud in case the feds are listening, but in general, you're probably not going to bring anybody into your crew that you don't get along with, right? Maybe it's a few of your closest friends and maybe it's some folks who have a very specific skill set and who have a trustworthy reputation, and there's probably a wild card or a newbie in there somewhere. Just to round things out, whoever you bring on, you gotta have great chemistry if you want to be successful. Ocean's Eleven, starring George Clooney and Brad Pitt, showcases a prime example of the chemistry that I'm talking about. This revamp of the 1960s heist film of the same name spouts quick and clever dialogue that keeps pace with the heist action itself. Through all of this, ocean's Eleven conveys that level of bonding that happens between people with shared experiences, which, for my guest today, is a major highlight.

Taylor D. Adams: 2:22

Marissa Tandon is a podcaster, content creator and writer who was captivated by Ocean's Eleven from an early age. Since then, she has basically memorized every line of dialogue in this movie and examined the ways that storytelling works best. Marissa has applied what she's learned to Tandon Productions, which produces fiction and nonfiction podcasts, including a show about F1 racing called Grid Chat and a show called you Are what you Love, which, if you're a fan of what we have going on here at Film Nuts, you will love that. Marissa was even kind enough to have me on an episode of you Are what you Love, talking about one of my favorite TV shows, psych. But today on our show, marissa and I chat about the value of close relationships, the appeal of heist movies and which F1 driver would make the perfect getaway driver. It's a ton of fun, so get your crew together. Here's Marissa Tandon talking about Ocean's Eleven on the Film Nuts podcast.

Marissa Tandon: 3:23

I will say a fun fact about this movie is that because I saw it so young, I thought for years Don Cheadle was British Dude when I tell you I forgot he had a British accent in this movie and he started talking.

Taylor D. Adams: 3:36

I was like Don, what are you doing?

Marissa Tandon: 3:39

He's British and to this day actually less than a month ago I talked to someone who thought Don Cheadle still was British. I was like you know, he was in like he's been in a ton of movies they were like, yeah, I thought he was doing an American accent. Yeah, I was like great yeah, uh, that's my fun fact about that.

Taylor D. Adams: 4:00

You have your own, is it? Is it a podcast production company? Is that what you specialize in?

Marissa Tandon: 4:05

Yeah, we specialize in audio, so it's a? Um. You know, we've been doing it since 2018, which every time I say that I'm like oh gosh, it's been so long. Um, we're coming up on six years in September, so awesome Congrats. Thank you yeah.

Taylor D. Adams: 4:22

And what? How did you get started doing that? I'm always curious people that pivot into it's almost like a pivot sometimes into podcasting, like I don't think a lot of people start off like I'm going to be in podcasting.

Marissa Tandon: 4:33

I don't think. I think this coming generation there may be people who feel that way, like where they, you know that's what they want to do. They want to be a podcaster or or write specifically for audio. But I think this will be, in my opinion, the first generation that will really feel that way, like it's been a thing long enough mainstream wise, um for me. I went to school for film and TV writing, um, and yeah, it was, you know, fun, I guess.

Taylor D. Adams: 5:01

Where'd you go to school?

Marissa Tandon: 5:02

I went to Emerson in Boston.

Taylor D. Adams: 5:04

Um yeah.

Marissa Tandon: 5:08

So I was like, let me leave, you know, the town where they make all the movies and TV shows go to the coldest place on earth, and then maybe I'll come back to do the thing that I go to school for. So, um, you know, real logical at 18. Uh, hey it's some.

Taylor D. Adams: 5:23

Sometimes you just need to change the scenery. Man, I get it too.

Marissa Tandon: 5:25

Yeah, and it's just. It's just long enough to make you certain that, like snow's not for you. You know what I mean.

Taylor D. Adams: 5:29

Like oh, okay.

Marissa Tandon: 5:30

I hate it, Um, but yeah, I went. So I went to Emerson, I moved back to LA. I was working in TV development, so I I always kind of look at it. I was like I had like the dream internships and Cartoon Network my last semester oh, awesome, Very cool. Um, and so it was like at MTV, the last season of. Teen Wolf, which was like the show that made me want to work in at MTV.

Clip: 5:54

It was like yeah, um so it was great.

Marissa Tandon: 5:57

I had really great mentors. I worked in development for a little bit, um, and then it's sort of, I think, the same story that everyone has when they go independent, which is like once you work on the network side of things, you work where they're making all of the business decisions. You get frustrated because you're just sort of watching the decisions getting made. And then you're trying to put your own scripts out there and you're realizing, like, how much of it is like business decisions and there's nothing wrong with that because that's what's required to be able to make art. You know, someone has to make those business decisions.

Marissa Tandon: 6:31

But at a certain point I sort of felt like I see why certain things aren't getting made. Um, and it's frustrating ultimately just to like be on this side, like I want to be a writer, I want to take the things that I've learned how to do and maybe tell the stories that they're saying no to in the room, um, because they don't feel so profitable, um. So I went to the Austin film festival the last year that I was working in kind of traditional television, um, for the script competition, and that was the first year they had a fiction podcasting competition. Oh cool, yeah. So I learned a lot there. And then I had a couple of scripts that people were like this would make a really good podcast, um, and it's sort of like that age old story, like when you're young and you get your friends to kind of work with you and do things as quickly as you can, um, so we made our first podcast super ordinary and that went really well.

Marissa Tandon: 7:22

So at that point it was like, can we find a way to do this seriously? And and so I left uh, I left my development job to start the company and, um, we've been going ever since.

Taylor D. Adams: 7:34

That's awesome, that's really cool. Uh, yeah, it's as someone who also runs a small business like, yeah, it's tough to tough to stay afloat, but that's that's really cool. I'm super excited for y'all. Thanks, yeah, it was really fun. So you know, there's good days, there's bad days, but yes, Um. So, yeah, one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on the show was you were gracious enough to have me on your show. Uh, you are what you love, which is a very similar concept to what we're doing here at film nuts, but could you please give us the elevator pitch, for you are what you Love.

Marissa Tandon: 8:06

Yes, you Are. What you Love is a nonfiction podcast. It's a talk show podcast, just like this one where I have guests on to talk about the piece of media that changed their lives for the better, for the worst. It depends on how you feel, but whichever piece of media, I think that I always say, if you look at it and you say this is the one, that if I hadn't seen it, things would be different.

Taylor D. Adams: 8:32

That's the best way to determine which piece of media that you're going to talk about. Yeah, I uh, yeah, during that interview that last question, the one you just said I thought that was really good and I stole it and I used it on Scott Pilgrim that just came out and I thought it went really well. Um so, thank you for that. Um so, I guess, like because of that show, the, the concept of it and the concept of this show as well Uh, I'm very curious why you wanted to talk about oceans 11.

Marissa Tandon: 9:01

Oh boy, um. So you know, I think it's so hard when people say, like, what's your favorite movie, which is why I ask people that every week, um, so it's so hard to like kind of narrow it down. But oceans 11 is. I was, when you asked, I was very torn between oceans 11 and space jam. Oh, wow, very different. Yeah, very different films obviously, but those are the first two movies I remember like I have a core memory of seeing. But Ocean's Eleven I have seen so many times that when I went to college we had like our you know script library and one of them was the Ocean's Eleven script that had been donated and I could tell you which parts were changed in filming from the original script by the dialogue lines and it was like the final script. It was just like I know the ad libs that well you guys are pros, the best.

Clip: 9:53

I'm sure you can make it out of the casino, of course, lest we forget, once you're out the front door, you're still in the middle of the fucking desert. You're right. He's right, ruben. You're right. He's right, ruben. You're right, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs. That's exactly what it is Pure ego. Yeah, yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah. Thank you for lunch. This one was delicious. Sorry, we bothered you. Look, we all go way back and I owe you from the thing with the guy in the place and I'll never forget it. That was my pleasure. I've never been to Belize.

Marissa Tandon: 10:25

So I saw that movie when it came out in theaters, so I was too young to go there, but I went with my dad and I love that movie. I think it is a perfect example of perfect dialogue relationships where you know everything about the characters without any of them telling you anything about their relationship. There's very little exposition in that film and it's just. It's like the type of movie that, when you think about really really good demonstrated relationships, I think it's one of the ones that does it the best and the most economically.

Taylor D. Adams: 11:03

Yeah, I honestly I had never really thought about that Like, to me it's always existed as the fun heist movie and I'm like, oh yeah, heck, yeah, I'm gonna watch that movie and then I'll watch 12 and 13 and then I didn't watch any of the others that came after that. Um, but I don't. It's funny. I think I've only seen this movie like once really. Yes, but when I was re-watching it I was like I like I remembered everything and just you know, there's like memeable stuff that's kind of like just existed within the ether since it came out. But this was a movie that it was just like firing on all the cylinders, like I didn't realize how tight it was. When you said you talked a little bit about you. You went to see it for the first time. You, you were not eligible to go see it, so your dad took you. Um, talk to me, do you remember, like, what that experience was like as a kid? Like were you recognizing the relationships of it, or was there something else that you remember that really caught your attention?

Marissa Tandon: 12:04

Well, so that movie came out in 2001. So I would have been, oh gosh, five or six when that movie came out. So I don't know that I can say that at five years old or six years old, I was watching the movie and I was like those guys really have a great emotional dynamic, but I, I used to go to the movies with my dad, with my dad, like that's been our thing since I was old enough to like not fall asleep through a movie. Um, so I've seen, I saw the matrix, I saw, I saw so many movies that you like shouldn't see as a child, because they were what my dad wanted to go see and it was what was out.

Marissa Tandon: 12:43

Um, and so I don't necessarily remember like, obviously, like breaking down the, the film itself, but I remember loving it a lot, um, and then the it, I became very obsessed with it, in the way that kids become very obsessed with things. Um, and obviously back then you, you have to wait for the movie to come out on DVD, and so once that did, I could you know I could see it over and over again. Um, and I know we'll get into this later, but obviously there's that scene where they're at the Bellagio water fountains Um, and the first time I went to Vegas as a kid, my dad obviously took me to see the fountains, cause I was obsessed with the film. Um, and also you take any kid to go see the Bellagio water fountains, um, but it was the first time I saw something that I had seen in a movie in real life, um, and so it was like this moment where I was like, oh man, like it's. First of all, it's so much bigger than it is in the movie.

Marissa Tandon: 13:41

Cause I was, I was little so it's uh, yeah, it was, it was really cool. It's like I have a very core memory of like standing in the same place that they stand when they film that scene and being like movies are real, movies are magic, um. So yeah, it was a little sappy, but that's. That's the thing.

Taylor D. Adams: 14:00

Yeah, don't well don't excuse the sappiness at all. I think that's really cool. I don't think I've heard that kind of experience often of seeing something in a movie and then you know, not necessarily like experiencing the movie, but going to a place where you recognize it from the movie and being like, holy shit, I'm here seeing that thing. Um, so yeah. So you went to see a lot of movies with your dad. Do you continue to do so if you can?

Marissa Tandon: 14:29

yeah, yeah, my dad and I, and my sister as well, that's like our thing. It's whenever we're together we see a movie, we all have amc stubs, so we're uh, you know it's. If it's out, if it's a movie and it's not a horror movie, we'll go see it okay is.

Taylor D. Adams: 14:44

Is it the horror movie? Is that your version or his?

Marissa Tandon: 14:47

mine, I hate. Okay, hate hates a strong word, I think it's like you know what it is. It's like there's very few. There's a couple that have worked really well for me but, I don't like the like.

Marissa Tandon: 15:01

I think movies are about escapism a lot of the time and so it's hard for me to want to escape into a movie that has like a real life potential fear attached to it. So like movies where they're like home invasion or, um, you know, like the purge or all these little things that you're like this could really happen to me. I don't feel relaxed or like I don't enjoy it.

Taylor D. Adams: 15:22

It's not cathartic for me, um you're wearing a jaw shirt, though, so yeah, but you know what I mean.

Marissa Tandon: 15:27

That's so different. It's like when was. When was the last time a giant shark took over?

Taylor D. Adams: 15:33

a town. Yeah, the odds, the odds are, you know, it's a little less likely to happen. So when you've, obviously you've seen oceans 11 more than once is there, and also going with how you are working in the entertainment industry is there something that you've noticed or appreciated more the more times you've seen it?

Marissa Tandon: 15:56

The dialogue. I think the dialogue in Ocean's 11 is something that, like, I really strive to be able to write as, um, when you look at, I think a lot of people, when they talk about dialogue, like the first name that comes to mind is, like Aaron Sorkin. There's like fast paced, like really good speeches and that type of thing, and that's one type of dialogue. But the thing about Ocean's Eleven's dialogue is that every line feels like something a real person would say, and I think there's always this perfect balance that you have to strike of feeling like the characters that are talking, feel like people you would talk to, but without all the boring parts, um, but without making you realize that we cut out all the boring parts. There's a. It's a really hard balance to hit and they do it perfectly.

Taylor D. Adams: 16:44

Yeah, uh, one of my, one of my favorite scenes from it just going with dialogue is when George Clooney and Brad Pitt's characters are at the bar.

Clip: 16:55

Saul makes ten. Ten ought to do it, don't you think? You think we need one more. You think we need one more?

Taylor D. Adams: 17:08

All right, we'll get one more so that's an in-depth conversation with stakes and rewards. Happens with only one person saying something yep, it's I.

Marissa Tandon: 17:16

That is the scene I point to when anybody asks like what is the best pete? Like what's a really great three second scene where you know everything you need to know about two people, and that is one of them. Again, he doesn't say yes, he doesn't say no, he blinks and that's the end of the scene. It's like you, you watch that and that scene tells you okay, these two guys have been friends for so long, they've worked together for so long that they know what the right answer is without talking to each other. But rusty knows that danny's gonna get there on his own. He he doesn't actually want Rusty's input, he just wants to hear himself talk. He wants to walk all the way through it. And why should he dignify with a response when he's going to come to it anyway?

Taylor D. Adams: 17:55

Yeah, yeah, it's really stuff like that. It's just it's clever, like it's something we don't really notice because I think we just caught, get caught up in the fact that it's working and so we're just like experiencing and having fun with it. But if you compare it with, you know, other movies that will kind of wear everything on its sleeve, just dialogue wise it's. You know, it's okay, it happens, but there's a like a I don't want to use use the term artistry, because you know it's got like high flute and whatever, but I think it. But it feels it feels a little more like, uh, elegant and fluid and fluid and organic and it allows, uh, I think it allows the audience to kind of laugh in the silences, like because they kind of they understand the audience knows what's happening right now. Yeah, um, so I think that's really cool, uh. And speaking of audiences, so and you mentioned escapism earlier why do you think audience audiences love heist movies?

Marissa Tandon: 18:50

that's a good question, I think.

Marissa Tandon: 18:53

I think heist movies give you a couple of things that you hope for in life, which are are big adventures, right, like some, everybody wants something cool to happen to them without you know the consequences of something cool happening to you. So I think there's that. I think there's by nature of a heist. There's always a nature of like a friend group, which everyone sort of wants. And also, I think in a heistist movie, each person is really good at one thing, um, and so it's easy to find and pick the character that you are most attached to, because you feel like that would be the thing you'd be good at. So you know you can. Uh, don cheadle's character is great at explosives and that's all he does, and so if you want to be the explosives guy you love, don cheadle for the rest of your life all right, chaps, hang on to your niggas I think it gives you that like easy way to connect to someone, kind of in the same way like superhero movies do, where you can very clearly pick that one representative characteristic.

Taylor D. Adams: 20:03

No, so in in the heist movie that you're in, what's your skillset?

Marissa Tandon: 20:09

Oh, it's a good question. Um, unfortunately, I've thought about it way too many times.

Taylor D. Adams: 20:13

I so when you go to Vegas, you're scoping the joint. You're not going there to look at the fountain.

Marissa Tandon: 20:20

Oh gosh, I want to say that I we should not say that online. They're going to put me on every camera. Um, every time I walk in they're going to be like isn't that that girl from the podcast? She's thinking about heisting all the time.

Taylor D. Adams: 20:31

If we make it that big, great.

Marissa Tandon: 20:35

Um, yeah, no, I think I always am like oh, I want to be a rusty, but I think I am a Danny. I think like in your core, but I think that's a.

Taylor D. Adams: 20:45

Everybody wants to be rusty you know, I mean, everybody wants to be able to make eating look that good.

Marissa Tandon: 20:52

So true, so true.

Taylor D. Adams: 20:58

I don't know what I mean. I hate to say that it's just Brad Pitt, so whatever he's doing looks good. But like I watch, I was watching him specifically eating. I was like why can't I stop?

Marissa Tandon: 21:10

watching him eat like he's just like eating chips or doing whatever, and he's flawlessly delivering his have in the film is when Rusty is talking to Linus in the lobby of the Bellagio about Tess's or about, you know, the? Oh my God. I just blanked on his name, the villain, the one that Andy Garcia and.

Clip: 21:32

Benedict, oh my goodness who those?

Marissa Tandon: 21:35

That was scary for me.

Taylor D. Adams: 21:38

Am I losing my mind? I've seen this movie so many times um.

Marissa Tandon: 21:41

So when they're talking about benedict's schedule, he's been tailing him.

Clip: 21:44

Uh, rusty's eating shrimp cocktail that portfolio contains the codes to all the kate stores in two minutes after they've been changed. He's got him in his hand. I'll tell you, you guys really can't pick. This guy is as smart as he is ruthless. The last guy they caught cheating in here he not only sent him up for 10 years but he had the bank seize his house and then he bankrupted his brother-in-law's Brother-in-law's tractor dealership. I heard he doesn't just take out your knees, the guy goes after your livelihood and the livelihood of anybody you ever met.

Marissa Tandon: 22:19

And in one angle he's eating it from a cup and then it switches to a plate. So it's uh, they, it's like a you know script. He missed it right yeah, the one flub that's in the film. So I it made me think about how many things they had to make sure in each take he was. If he's eating every time, do you know how many like times they're like no, take a new burrito. Like, oh my gosh yeah, I would there.

Taylor D. Adams: 22:36

I'm sure there's some kind of behind the scenes on the diet of Brad Pitt for the movie, cause I know a lot of uh. The one thing that I know about, uh, when actors are eating ice cream, they don't eat all the ice cream that's on their spoon, like. It's just something I've always noticed, like you'll see it, they'll bite it, but like half of it is still on the spoon when it comes out of their mouth.

Marissa Tandon: 22:59

How interesting.

Taylor D. Adams: 23:00

Yeah, and I was like, why is it? And then I learned I was like if I'm doing a scene for three hours, I'm not going to eat ice cream for three hours.

Marissa Tandon: 23:06

So true.

Taylor D. Adams: 23:08

So sorry for the interruption, but I will be brief. I am so grateful that you decided to listen to the Film Nuts podcast today. If you are enjoying what you're hearing, please consider supporting the show on Patreon. With a small monthly amount, you can get access to behind the scenes goodies, early access to full episodes and you can vote on what movie we watch the first Monday of every month on the Nuthouse Discord. The Nuthouse itself is free to join and is full of other film and TV lovers, so you'll fit right in. You can check out info on all these things in the show notes.

Taylor D. Adams: 23:39

And if all of this sounds like a bit too much, that's totally okay. But if you want to keep up to date on all of our episodes, please be sure and subscribe on your favorite platform of choice. And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, go ahead and leave a rating and review so we can get in front of other awesome people like yourself. Okay, enough of me rambling back to the good stuff. Okay, so I'm super fascinated to learn. Amongst the plethora of podcasts you produce and host, you have an F1 racing podcast. I need to know where that came from. Like, where your fascination came from and like, tell me about the show itself.

Marissa Tandon: 24:16

Yeah, so, uh, grid chat is, um, all motorsports. So we actually cover F1 IndyCar and specifically F1 Academy, which is the all female kind of um feeder series that they're doing for formula racing. Yeah, um, so it's super cool. My kind of obsession with motorsports uh, started because one of my really good friends from high school got into it, and what I'll say about F1 is that I think it's the perfect sport for anyone who's been a fan of fandom-related behavior in life. So I've been a sports kid my whole life. I played basketball growing up. I love sports.

Marissa Tandon: 24:59

Um, I didn't start talking about this, about sports on the internet, until the strike actually last year when we weren't allowed to talk about TV or film, so I guess we're talking about sports now, um, so I started talking about sports at that time, which was great. But I started watching formula one and, uh, my friend was like you're just, you have to, you're going to love it. It's just high stakes, there's so much drama, there's so much, um, sort of like gossip involved in the sport as well. So, if you, if you're ever getting into it, there's a Netflix made a docu series which I think has really popularized the sport in America. Yeah, um, called drive to survive. So a lot of people watch that Um, but yeah, I just I got super obsessed with it because there are so many layers to it, because there's only, uh, 20 drivers um in the entire grid, so like 20 worldwide.

Marissa Tandon: 25:49

Um, there is no separation of gender, so, technically, women can compete at the highest level without um having to compete in another league or something like that, uh, and so that's one movement that's been really big. They're really starting to focus on bridging that gender gap, because we haven't had a woman in the sport for a really long time. Um, but there are so many like personalities, there's so many things where you feel like there are these big hero stories or big narrative points that play out so well in Formula One, and I love it. I think it's so great so I started doing a podcast about it because I do a lot of short form media.

Marissa Tandon: 26:30

So TikTok and Instagram about sports, which really started as just geared towards people who feel left out of sports spaces, which can be like film nerds, can be fandom girls you know, Um, so explaining it in a way that like felt welcoming and building that community for people, Um, and people really have started to to enjoy it, so I was like I'd like to talk about it for more than 90 seconds at a time. What if we did a podcast.

Taylor D. Adams: 26:59

That's really cool. We can talk sports off mic because I have a lot of stories and stuff in common with what you're doing right now. But anyway, so to tie F1 back into this movie, all right, I don't know anything about F1. I know it exists. I know cars cargo fast.

Marissa Tandon: 27:18

All right, I don't.

Taylor D. Adams: 27:18

I don't know anything about F1. I know it exists, I know cars cargo fast, but, like, can you tell me what F1 driver would be the perfect wheel person in Danny's crew, should they? Should they need it and also explain why? Cause, like I said, I know nothing.

Marissa Tandon: 27:29

So there's, this is a great question. That would be very inflammatory in a group setting of different fans, I think, because you're always going to say your favorite driver, right?

Taylor D. Adams: 27:40

But I can't wait for the comments.

Clip: 27:42

I know everyone's going to be like oh, she's so obvious.

Marissa Tandon: 27:45

Whatever, I don't care. I Lewis Hamilton is my favorite driver, but I also will say he's the only driver with film experience, so he knows how to be in a movie.

Marissa Tandon: 27:55

Um so he is. Lewis has been. He's a seven time world champion. He's been in the sport for a really long time. There's only one driver who's been driving longer than him. Um, but also the thing about Lewis that I'm going to say would be relevant and make him the most suited, because I know people are going to be like Max Verstappen he's faster, whatever. Um, the truth of the matter is Lewis Hamilton is the only one on the grid who has the level of cool that would be necessary if he needed to become a part of the heist, like as a forward facing individual. Um, he's got charm, he's got wit, he's got personality, he's got connections. I think he'd be able to do it.

Taylor D. Adams: 28:36

You mentioned. The name of your podcast is Grid Chat, and you said the term grid earlier on. What do you mean by grid?

Marissa Tandon: 28:42

Oh sure, so the grid is literally like when you line the cars up, there's like spaces, right? So you're on the grid. So we refer to like drivers on the grid. There's 20 spots on the grid. Okay, so we're chatting about the grid. There's 20 spots on the grid. Um, so we're? We're chatting about the grid.

Taylor D. Adams: 29:01

Got it Okay. I love it when I learned something, so this is great. Um so, okay, Going, I'm going to do a hard pivot to the one of the other podcasts that you do, the one that I've been on, I'm going back to it. Uh, so if you had to guess what the favorite piece of media is for Ocean's 11 characters, I would love to know. So I'm going to start with Danny Ocean.

Marissa Tandon: 29:29

Okay, this is hard, but actually maybe it's not hard. Danny Ocean is like not even a closet romantic. He's very visibly like it's really his fatal flaw is romance, and so I think he is like he has to be the type of person who cries at the notebook. You know what I mean.

Taylor D. Adams: 29:55

Oh, oh, that's a great answer. I'm just. I'm picturing George Clooney just weeping watching Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.

Marissa Tandon: 30:01

I'd buy it. You know what I mean.

Taylor D. Adams: 30:04

That's great. Okay, what about Rusty?

Marissa Tandon: 30:07

Rusty is a Top Gun guy, I think. That's like the movie that he was like that's me. I'm changing my life. I'm getting the mustache. The aviators that's my guy.

Taylor D. Adams: 30:17

That's solid. Oh, that's really good. I love that. You didn't hesitate with that either. You're like that one. Top gun, that's the one.

Marissa Tandon: 30:23

I know it in my heart.

Taylor D. Adams: 30:24

And then Julia Roberts's character.

Marissa Tandon: 30:27

Ooh, julia Roberts's character. That one is hard because I think, as much as I love this movie I love it we don't get so much about her, and oceans 12 is the worst film and of the three, um, and so it's like that's more of the time that you get to see her, but it doesn't really feel like right. So it's hard to say, but I do think she probably has some sort of like art documentary that she makes everyone watch.

Taylor D. Adams: 31:02

You know what I mean. Makes everyone watch.

Marissa Tandon: 31:04

Yeah, it's like one of those things where she's like have you seen this? It'll change your life. And it doesn't change most people's lives, but like the people who you learn something about her watching it. I don't know if about enough about art documentaries to point to one, but I know there's one. She's got she's a documentary gal. Okay, got she's a documentary gal. Okay. Like um exit through the gift shop. I don't know that it's so mainstream as banksy.

Clip: 31:28

You know what I mean, I think she's.

Marissa Tandon: 31:29

There's something like maybe, um, I don't know if you saw that movie where they did uh, I can't remember the name of it, but it's the entire, um, the entire thing is painted frames and it's about vincent van gogh. Van gogh, I know you're talking about.

Taylor D. Adams: 31:40

Yeah, like something like that where it's about Vincent Van Gogh. I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

Marissa Tandon: 31:42

Like something like that, where it's like she can tell you every little craft and tell you what was right and wrong in the history of it.

Taylor D. Adams: 31:49

Okay, I like that. I like that. That's really good. Uh, so we talked a little bit earlier about some favorite moments or scenes from this film. Um, is there one that is also a favorite that you haven't mentioned so far?

Marissa Tandon: 32:01

scenes from this film? Um, is there one that is also a favorite that you haven't mentioned so far? Oh, good question. Um, I love this movie across the board, so there's a lot of really good moments. Um, but I also think like the scene with Ruben, rusty and Danny when they're talking about um, the different heists that have been pulled.

Clip: 32:37

Better not know you're involved, not know your names or think you're dead, because he'll kill you and then I'll go to work on you. That's why we have to be very careful, very precise, well-funded. Yeah, you got to be nuts too, and you're going to need a crew, as nuts as you are.

Marissa Tandon: 33:09

And then we roll into, like the thing everyone remembers of meeting every character. So I love that setup. But I also love that it ties that core relationship into Ocean's 13 where Rub Ruben becomes. For anyone who hasn't seen it it's not really a spoiler, it's just the opener of the movie. But the core issue in 13 is that Ruben and Al Pacino, of all people, decide to open a casino together and Al Pacino kind of screws him over, which Ruben has a heart attack and is in a bit of a you know he's in a coma and all of the guys kind of come back together one more time.

Marissa Tandon: 33:46

Um, and Ocean's Eleven is a remake of Rat Pack film and the Rat Pack film was only one Um, so they had to find these ways to like give you an emotional center to make two more movies. And the second one is really um, I don't think it works as well. But the third comes back to those core guys and that core relationship. And if you don't have that scene which hints at this previous relationship, it doesn't tie you back, you don't come back for it in the same way for so this movie, as well as 13 that you talked about.

Taylor D. Adams: 34:17

You you're really stressing kind of the uh, relationships or the, the importance of relationships at the centers of these. Um, it's a vague question, but is is that something that's important to you, like in your life, and was there a point where you realized that needed to be an important part of your life?

Marissa Tandon: 34:37

Oh sure, yeah, I mean I think you know my family has always been really important to me.

Marissa Tandon: 34:41

My dad, uh, and my sister have just always been my core um family unit, and so that is really important to me.

Marissa Tandon: 34:50

Um and friendship is really important to me and, like I think I mentioned earlier, like this idea of a group of friends who support each other in that way, um has been sort of a core tenement of my life in general. So, yeah, I think relationships and like what I would say in terms of the film relationships versus like real life personal relationships the thing I love about the relationships portrayed in these movies is they are the type of people that leave each other for a long period of time, come back and understand each other for a long period of time, come back and understand each other, no matter what Um, and that's my favorite type of relationship in general, whether that's like someone that you grew up with and you come back home and you see and it's like you never left, or it's someone that you meet and you feel like you've known them for your whole lives, like that's, I think, like the core type of connection you can have as a human.

Taylor D. Adams: 35:42

Do you think that there's something to be learned from that? Like? Do you think somebody watches a movie like Ocean's 11 and goes I need to be nicer to my friends, or I? Need to like keep them closer to me, or something along those lines.

Marissa Tandon: 35:56

I don't know that it's a conscious thought, like I don't know that you leave it in the theater and you go gosh, I wish I were nicer to the guys I knew in high school, type of thing. We could have been robbing banks, um, but I think it's the same way. I think a heist movie is very similar to kind of like a larger scale, uh, genre film, and I think both of those movies or those types of movies do the same thing, which is they let you look at real life problems on a scale that are so much larger than real life that you are able to kind of process your own emotions and your feelings about things without having to acknowledge that they're your own, versus movies that are much closer to reality or are dealing with, like big human issues that are very clear, and something like A24 is Civil War that just came out right. That's much more like. Here's the issue. It comes from the current state of life and these are the things you should be thinking about. I think genre you go to the movie you sit down to watch Ocean's Eleven or the first Avengers similarly has these types of relationships we're talking about. You sit down to watch Ocean's Eleven or the first Avengers similarly has these types of relationships we're talking about, um, you sit down and you watch it and you go to watch you know a heist people. You're not sitting there to learn something about yourself or the world, but generally I think a good movie makes you connect with one character because you see something of yourself in that character, um, and then, whether it's conscious or unconscious, you do process something about yourself.

Marissa Tandon: 37:22

So I think, depending on which character from Ocean's Eleven you see yourself in, you probably in some way have learned something about yourself. You just may not want to admit it. Depending on which character it is. Um, like, if you're Danny, like you look at Danny and you say, like, oh, that's me.

Marissa Tandon: 37:38

Like, okay, are you allowing yourself to choose relationships over your own, you know, to your own detriment? Is love the most important thing to you? Um, is it more important than other people? Because, uh, danny's character doesn't just sacrifice himself for romantic love, he sacrifices himself for the love of his team as well, um, and while he doesn't say, like man rusty, I really love you, like you're my best friend, you do know from the very opening of the film to the very end of the film that this is something that he's done more than once. He gets himself caught to keep other people from getting caught. He serves the time and everybody's waiting for him when he comes out. Um, so it's like you know you can. You can learn those things about yourself without necessarily sitting down and journaling about them or talking to your therapist about them, but film is giving you that ability to be a little therapized.

Taylor D. Adams: 38:30

Would you sacrifice yourself for anything or anyone?

Marissa Tandon: 38:34

I think, yeah, like I think my family, my sister, my dad, like I think that's definitely a situation where that's something I put, I put very high. If you're in that core circle, I think that's sometimes. That's what it's about.

Taylor D. Adams: 38:47

Yeah, so you, you would do the time, as long as they got away with the money.

Marissa Tandon: 38:51

Yeah, as long as they're holding it for me when I come out. You know what I mean Perfect yeah.

Taylor D. Adams: 38:55

There's gotta be some level of accountability. I understand.

Marissa Tandon: 38:57

You're going to have to pick me up at the jail, okay.

Taylor D. Adams: 39:03

I have to twist it on you. Okay, what kind of person do you think you would be if you hadn't seen this movie?

Marissa Tandon: 39:09

That's a great question.

Taylor D. Adams: 39:11

I know because you came up with it.

Marissa Tandon: 39:12

I know I guess a really smart person wrote that one down. I think Ocean's Eleven. Ocean's Eleven is the movie that I show people, and if they don't like it, there's generally something that's not great about our relationship. Moving forward, actually, and I think it's one of those movies where I'm like, if you can't find something that you like about this movie, we just are so misaligned in taste. It doesn't have to be your favorite movie, but it does have to strike some sort of chord with humor or style or things like that.

Marissa Tandon: 39:47

Um, so I think, having seen this movie as young as I did, I don't know that I can say like, oh, I wouldn't have been a filmmaker, right. But I do think this movie is one of the first movies that I, first unconsciously and later consciously, um, was able to kind of understand how magical a story can be. Um, and also, I think, for me, those films being these types of movies versus movies like not to pick on it, but just because we I mentioned it earlier versus a 24 civil war which is out now, um, I've noticed, for me it really has changed the way I want to tell stories. So, oceans 11, when I've, like, had a bad day. That's the movie I turn on, um, and so I find a lot of comfort in watching these 12 guys do the same thing over and over again um, and to choose each other each time. And I think so. I think there's that. I think there's like a level of understanding kind of relationships in film and relationships in life through this movie. Um, it's a comfort piece for when I have a bad day and it's also definitely something that, like I look at it, and it's the way I want to tell stories, which is, I think I've talked a lot with people about how relationships between women on screen and relationships between men on screen are treated very differently.

Marissa Tandon: 41:17

When we're talking about, like platonic relationships, and when we see two men on screen, they never have to like objectively say how they're feeling, like they're never. We're never expecting two male characters talking to each other to say like I love you. I hope we make it out of this alive. I'm scared, you know, let's talk about it. They never. They never do those things. Um, and women female characters, I think very often in in film are expected to put that out there. They're expected to say the things that that either the man that they're talking to won't say or that they feel more open to say to women.

Marissa Tandon: 41:54

And for me, I've never felt very comfortable putting my you know emotions out there, like just on the on the plate, um, and I think the dialogue becomes more interesting when you try to write it in that way, when you write around what you're trying to say, as opposed to directly to what you're trying to say. There's these little moments throughout these films which I think have taught me like the way that you can make storytelling better is by trying to write it the way that you would try to say it if you were getting it out there without having to say it. Um, they do goodbyes really well in this movie. So I think, I think that I think I think I would really not have the same level of understanding of like communication in in this film that you have, um, and also I think I try to write women the way that I would write men in these movies, like.

Marissa Tandon: 42:45

I think one of the reasons oceans eight, for example, didn't work for me is that they really tried to do something very different with the way these films work. It wasn't the same type of snappy dialogue talking around things, and it's a. It's a very different style and it felt like the only reason it was different was because they chose to make the heist women Um, and they didn't really think through what that meant. So, yeah, I think I write. I think I write very differently because of this movie.

Taylor D. Adams: 43:13

Yeah, I think that that's great. I think one of the things that you're really touching on is this kind of like sometimes lost art of subtext, like you can say you can say the things you want to say without actually saying them. Yeah, as long as you're like taking advantage of the medium, and I think that's uh, when that gets noticed and appreciated, and then like like done again in like later movies, I think that's a really powerful thing for a lot of people to really witness.

Taylor D. Adams: 43:40

Yeah, agreed marissa, this has been great. Thank you so much for coming on and talking about Ocean's Eleven with me. It was really fun to read, as it was movie.

Marissa Tandon: 43:47

Yeah, thanks for having me, Taylor, this was great.

Taylor D. Adams: 43:52

I think it's healthy to have goals to strive for or behavior to emulate. I know that's not a hot take, but here's why I think it's cool. It can be part of this kind of influential cycle. Danny Ocean had the goal of stealing $160 million. Marissa saw this story and took the way it was written, which she liked a lot, and applied it to her own work. Then my appreciation for her work led me to invite her onto the show and now, maybe after this episode, there's something you can take from it to apply to your daily life, like how to plan the perfect heist. A huge thanks to Marissa for coming on the show today and $160 million worth of thank yous to you for joining us. I mean, if I had that much, I'd probably keep some of it for myself, you know, for like bills and whatnot. But seriously, thank you all so much for joining us. If you want to check out some of Marissa's work and I highly suggest you do peep the show notes below for links to that and be sure to subscribe to her show. You Are what you Love, so you can see an appearance from yours truly. New episodes of her show drop Wednesdays, starting in June. If you enjoyed the show today. Please go ahead and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform of choice. It really would mean the world to me. And if you happen to be listening to this on Apple Podcasts, go ahead and leave a rating and review. That helps us get in front of more awesome folks like yourself. If you wanna really support the show and help it grow and maybe get something back in return, please consider becoming a patron of the show. You can find links to that in the description or check out patreoncom slash.

Taylor D. Adams: 45:28

Film nuts Our theme this season is brought to us by the deep end. Our artwork is designed by Dungua Sipohudi and all episodes of the film nuts podcast are produced and edited by me, taylor D Adams. If you want to get in touch, you can email film nuts podcast at gmailcom or follow us on Instagram, tik TOK and Twitter at film nuts podcast. And don't forget to join the nut house discord community Absolutely free, by checking out the link in the show notes as well. Thank you all again. So much for joining us today and until next time, stay out of Barney Like rubble, like you know. Trouble, barney. You know whatever. Don Cheadle did a better job of explaining it.