BEFORE: Got back from Atlantic City yesterday afternoon. It was cold out on the Boardwalk, and there wasn't much to do outside of play the slot machines and eat at the buffets. Fortunately, that's why we went there. I had plenty of luck the first day, but all of it was bad luck. I was probably $160 in the hole, but what was I supposed to do, stop playing? I only stop playing when I'm ahead - that's the saying, right? "Quit while you're ahead"? Trouble is, then you have to get ahead so you can quit.
Seriously, though, I do cash out from a slot machine whenever I'm up over the $20 I put into it. Doesn't matter if I'm only ahead a dollar, as soon as I'm up, I need to cash out. Because I think the mistake most people make is getting a small win, feeling good, feeling lucky, and then feeling as if they will win more if they continue. However, I feel the reverse is true - as soon as I get a small win, I think I need to cash out because that's the best I'll get from that machine, and if I keep playing, I'm going to end up losing it all. But I can slide over to the next machine and start with a new $20 bill.
My betting system is a little more complex, it's a pattern that tells me when to bet 1 coin, when to bet 3 and when to bet 5 - but clearly it's not foolproof. After a couple hours on the slots I usually have enough small wins to add up to a nice profit. Not this time, though - but the system started to work at the end of Day 2. I hit for 6 times in a row on the <
Linking from "Whatever Works", Ed Begley Jr. also provided a voice for Bill Plympton's animated film "Hair High", and so did Zak Orth (last seen in "Vicky Cristina Barcelona") - and I should know, because I was a producer on that film.
THE PLOT: Sally's parents' marriage breaks up when her father undergoes a mid-life crisis and impulsively weds a prostitute as Sally's own marriage also begins to disintegrate.
AFTER: The title of this film is something that you might expect a fortune-teller to say, and that's key. One of the characters takes advice from a medium, and it guides her actions, or at least makes her more comfortable with the bad things that have happened to her, since it gives her the belief that things will get better.
Woody's poked fun at mediums and fortune-tellers before, of course, most notably in "New York Stories" and "Broadway Danny Rose". I don't think he gives them any more credence than he gives to religious institutions, which is to say, none - but it's a chance to similarly depict people who have faith in something, even if that faith is misplaced and they are essentially delusional.
Life's just a big crapshoot anyway, right? (See what I did there, tied it back into the gambling...) You have to pay to play, and you have to be in it to win it, or so I hear. Some of our ventures are going to pay off and some are not, some of our relationships are going to last and some are not, and some of the risks we take will reveal us for the frauds that we really are.
In this case, most everyone in the film (those not guided by psychics, anyway) tend to make universally bad decisions - like a man dumping his wife and falling for a call girl, or a woman leaving a secure job working for an art dealer to open a new art gallery, or a woman falling in love with her married boss. These all seem to be decisions made in the moment, based on the characters' immediate experiences, without taking into account future ramifications or regrets.
I can't really say, "Oh, people don't live like this," because quite clearly some people do. People make risky business moves or end relationships all the time, and then they have to live with the consquences. Not taking any risk is in itself a potential risk, because you could get to an old age and regret the fact that you never took that big step, you never finished that novel, you stayed with one partner too long. I guess every person has to decide for themselves how much risk they want to have in their lives, and that can become a constant cycle of self-doubt.
But then my question becomes, how enjoyable is it to watch a film with everyone not only agonizing over their affairs, which is quite typical material for Woody Allen, but also with everyone believing in a mentality where the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence? Isn't anyone, anywhere, satisfied with their life?
Also starring Naomi Watts (last seen in "J. Edgar"), Josh Brolin (last seen in "Melinda and Melinda"), Anthony Hopkins (last seen in "The Bounty"), Gemma Jones (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2"), Antonio Banderas (last heard in "Shrek Forever After"), Freida Pinto (last seen in "Immortals"), Lucy Punch (last seen in "Bad Teacher"), Ewen Bremner (last seen in "Match Point"), Pauline Collins, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Anna Friel (last seen in "A Midsummer Night's Dream")
RATING: 4 out of 10 exercise machines
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