Holidays are an excellent time for watching movies. And for gathering with families and friends, and for gifts and for snow and fireplaces (sadly, not so much for me personally, but I hear tell), and some people claim for football, and for celebrating your winter faith of choice (I prefer the one where the hot Wiccan chicks dance naked in the moonlight, could I but only find them). And, of course, for lots of empty calories.

Ocean’s Twelve marks a good confluence of the first and last items on my list. Fun movie, devoid of any real content at all. Despite that, Soderbergh still managed to put a new spin on the heist caper, above and beyond the work of beauty that was the pure heist of his 2001 remake.

I say spin, but he basically turned it on his head. Danny Ocean’s merry band of thieves who steal from the rich and give to themselves are at it again, planning a heist that never seems to occur to stave off a vengeance that never quite materializes, and somehow it still works. It’s a little more jokey and a little less nuts and bolts, and every bit the cure for the end of the year Oscar-ridden wasteland.

A good time will be had by all who don’t think that Julia Roberts looks like a horse, and this time they also added in Catherine Zeta-Jones for those who (like my father) do. He stayed at home and slept through it, sure, but that’s not the point. Just the fact that he would have had an alternative proves my point.