And on the 28th day, FLYmeatwad said let there be logic, and there was logic, as well as a new episode of The Suite Life: On Deck. That last part didn't happen, but there will be logic.
I would tend to agree that the films attempt to meld two genres together, but unlike my friend sam I think that both directors do one Hell of a job blending the lines between their respective genres. In a way both films establish themselves as forces conscious of their existence as films. The monologues in My Own Private Idaho serve as a way to take the audience out of the film, I think there is little coincidence that Van Sant decided to use Shakespeare in order to tell this story, there's hardly anything more theatrical, in the average viewer's mind, than good old Billy. As for the effect this had on the film, I felt that it heightened the surreality of the film and makes the viewer disjointed to better engross us in the disconnected world that River's character is supposed to exist in, though I may be spot off, tell me otherwise I suppose.
With that said, I think the disjointed nature of Out of Sight simply exists for Soderberg to have fun with, he toys with the convention of both genres and gives the audience just enough to build the tension that the goofy heists and inexplicable romance are unable to provide on their own. I think this is very apparent in the exact times when the cuts to the flashbacks are made and how brief the time we are allowed to see at the prison occurs. The driving force, I would argue, is not the romance nor is it the heist, we are practically told at the beginning of the film exactly how things are going to end up, the driving force is the back story and why the characters interact with each other the way they do, and in that respect I think the choice to make the film so clearly different works spectacularly.
Actually, I think that both films are more about the characters and their interactions with each other than they are really about the plots as the cyclical nature of My Own Private Idaho really sets up the contrast between River's character with and without Reeves.