BEFORE: This is the film I was trying to watch on an Academy screener, only it sort of temporarily disappeared, forcing me to alter my schedule. That could be a good sign, though it may just mean that someone else was just as curious about it as I am. Anyway, it turned up, and once it did, my boss practically begged me to borrow it, because apparently it's not worth paying $5.99 for, and she forbids me to do so. OK, that's probably NOT a good sign, but either way, those are just people's opinions, and I have to watch it myself to find out what's what.
Also, ZERO Oscar nominations for this one? What gives? The studio must have still been obligated to send out screeners...did they seriously think J. Lo would get an Oscar nom for playing a stripper? You know they only give those to people who play social workers, abusive mothers or characters with mental illnesses, right?
Usher Raymond carries over from "Killers" to play - get this - himself in this one.
THE PLOT: A crew of savvy former strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.
AFTER: Unlike other films last week that were based on novels, "Hustlers" is based on a New York magazine article - and "Killers" is based on an imaginary James Bond cartoon. But the article was about real-life strippers who were targeting rich Wall Street executives in bars, drugging them via laced drinks, and taking them to strip clubs, where they ran up inflated credit card charges, and the club owners would cut the girls in for a percentage. The theory was that none of the marks would file charges, because then his wife or girlfriend would find out that he partied with three or four women in a bar. Plus the men could probably afford to drop a few grand and not miss it, or it came from their expense account so who cares. Finally the spree came to an end when one man went to the police - but he wasn't trying to turn them in, he'd been drugged and ripped off by the beautiful women three times and he was trying to track them down for a fourth night of fun.
I've seen several films about the financial crash of 2008, like "The Big Short" and docs like "Capitalism: A Love Story", but we just don't hear enough about how the crash hurt the secondary Wall Street economies - the car dealerships, the fancy restaurants and the strip clubs that all counted on the financial weasels continuing to keep inflating the economy and shorting stocks to cash in. When you talk about "trickle down" economics, you have to realize that a lot of that trickling down is in the form of small bills being, umm, re-distributed in the clubs. But the trickling only continues as long as the people at the top are still successful, and after the crash, no more trickle. If only there were a way for strippers to save some of their money for the lean times ahead - but I realize that's crazy talk. As this movie seems to delight in pointing out, there are always more SHOES to buy! And handbags! And fur coats! And, I don't know, their kids' education or their boyfriends' legal bills, but who wants to hear about that?
Plus, that's not why you came to the movies, right? You wanted to see J. Lo pole-dancing, and there's a bit of that here. Five minutes or so at the beginning, but part of that is her going through the moves as she teaches someone else. Honestly it feels like J. Lo just learned all the names of the moves herself about five minutes before, and she was just parroting the lessons. That's probably only because she did.
Look, I'm all for taking down the patriarchy, but this just isn't the way. Stealing from rich men, even if their assholes, is not the way that you level the playing field. And all this brings up some equality issues - like, are strippers drugging men any better than Cosby (et. al.) drugging women? No, ladies, you're supposed to be BETTER than men, this is not the way to do that! Your gender fought and fought for decades to get equal rights, and this is not helping! But I guess that maybe this is the whole point of a female empowerment film, that woman can be just as ruthless and scheming in their efforts to get ahead as men can be, only I still maintain that they should aim higher. However, that's what sets this film apart from just an average male fantasy film about strippers, I suppose.
NITPICK POINT: If you're trying to get the right blend of ketamine and esctasy for your drugs, and you have no idea what you're doing, would you just start mixing in your kitchen, hoping to land on the correct process? The odds would seem to be against getting the ratio and the process right - wouldn't you think somebody would crack open a book, or even just look on the internet to find out how to do this?
Still, I can probably state with some certainty that this is the best film about strippers ripping off rich guys that you're likely to see. With a $20 million budget and a worldwide gross of over $150 million, I'm willing to bet that we'll see more films like this, just give it a couple of years. You want to talk about a profitable racket? Just get a major celebrity to play a stripper in a film and watch the money roll in. "Striptease" with Demi Moore was profitable, so was "We're the Millers" with Jennifer Aniston (and she didn't even really strip!). "The Wrestler" with Marisa Tomei, and "Closer" with Natalie Portman - both profitable. About the only box-office bombs that followed this formula were "Showgirls" and "Dancing at the Blue Iguana", but at least one of those became a cult classic. And it's not just the ladies, "Magic Mike" made $167 million with a budget of just $7 million - that would make any studio executive dance.
We've lost too many fat funny people over the years, like John Candy, Chris Farley, Ralphie May, John Pinnette, and I'm probably missing a few. OK, yeah, fat guys are jolly and funny, except when they're not, if they're crying on the inside and trying to eat away the pain, which doesn't work. If you wait too long to get help you find yourself in the situation my mother is in, with mobility issues, and then you can't lose weight unless you exercise, and you can't exercise safely until you lose some weight. You'll get stuck in a Catch-22 (and probably some revolving doors also). So let's drop this "body positive" nonsense and work toward making some changes. Diets don't work, I get that, but I managed to get my doctor off my back by intermittent fasting - eating only two meals a day, within an 8-hour period, which maximizes the time spent NOT eating, including the 8 hours when you're sleeping and not eating (umm, unless you're sleep-eating on Ambien) and really, it's just math. But then of course I went to Vegas for a week, and I do love my buffets, so I'm probably back where I started. But that just means it's time to start again, hope springs eternal, unless you're backing the "body positive" moment, which I think is tantamount to giving up.
Look, we're the only country in the world that can simultaneously have a child hunger problem AND a childhood obesity problem. (And despite the fact that I'm a first-hand expert on childhood obesity, nobody seemed to like my proposed solution, which was to let the hungry kids steal food from the fat kids.). Similarly, the same news organizations that run that footage of fat people walking down the street (but only seen from the neck down) while discussing the surging heart attack rates in America will then go on to interview Lizzo or Chrissy Metz during their entertainment segment, and they've been instructed not to address the elephant in the room (so to speak). Enough coddling these people, they can surely take a portion of their album sales or TV network contract money and hire a nutritionist and a trainer, so why don't they? We larger people need tough love, even if we don't want to admit it, before it's too late to fix the problem - and it IS a problem, no matter how many Instagram followers you have. My advice, if you're a high-profile plus-size person and a social influencer, is to follow Oprah and Marie Osmond's lead, and jump on that Weight Watchers or Adkins or even Keto train when you get the call - you can probably get in their program gratis, lose some weight, and maybe even get paid as a spokesperson, plus you'll be sending out a better message to the kids about the importance of eating better and getting healty - it's a win-win all around.
I've got my (by now) usual complaints tonight about the non-linear structure, this one uses a magazine interview in 2014 as a framing device, from there it flashes back to 2007, the salad days for strippers, then progresses forward through the crash of 2008, the lean years and then the scheme that Ramona puts together and operates for a number of years. I think the flashbacks progress more or less in sequence, but still, the framing device hardly seems necessary then.
Also starring Constance Wu (last seen in "Crazy Rich Asians"), Jennifer Lopez (last seen in "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"), Julia Stiles (last seen in "Mona Lisa Smile"), Keke Palmer (last heard in "Ice Age: Collision Course"),Lili Reinhart, Lizzo, Cardi B, Mercedes Ruehl (last seen in "Heartburn"), Trace Lysette, Wai Ching Ho, Mette Towley, Madeline Brewer, Frank Whaley (last seen in "I.Q."), Paul Nielsen (last seen in "Sisters"), Jon Glaser (ditto), Dov Davidoff (last seen in "The Comedian"), Brandon Keener (last seen in "The Guilt Trip"), Steven Boyer (last seen in "Bridge of Spies"), Gerald Gillum, Devin Ratray (last seen in "Rough Night"), Rhys Coiro, Jovanni Ortiz, Big Jay Oakerson.
RATING: 5 out of 10 slivers of chocolate cake
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