BEFORE: The linking has taken me all the way back to 1996, and the first feature directed by Paul Thomas Anderson - the guy who directed "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia", not the other Paul Anderson who made all those "Resident Evil" films. PT, as I'm sure his friends don't call him, came by the theater where I work when we were screening "Licorice Pizza" on 35mm a couple of Oscar seasons ago. He did a Q&A with Cooper Hoffman and that girl from the Haim band that starred in that film, and I got to stand near him and cue him when to go on stage. Good times - February of 2022, if my Flickr photos are correct.
Samuel L. Jackson carries over again from "Rules of Engagement". For my linking purposes this is going to count as a SLJ film, even if he doesn't have top billing, I need enough films to fill the gap between here and Easter.
THE PLOT: Professional gambler Sydney teaches John the tricks of the trade. John does well until he falls for cocktail waitress Clementine.
AFTER: Yes, I was right, Samuel L. Jackson only has a small role in this film, but of course he does a lot with a little bit of screen time. His character is very integral to the last 1/3 of the film. Mostly this is a vehicle for Philip Baker Hall and John C. Reilly, who I think were both in those other ensemble P.T.A. films I mentioned above. Also Melora Walters and Philip Seymour Hoffman were in those movies and tonight's film, hell, everyone was in "Magnolia", go ahead, try to name one actor who wasn't in "Magnolia". Can't do it, can you?
I think you can see glimmers of greatness here in Mr. Anderson's first feature, and like "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia" it seems to focus on people who are failing, or doomed or circling the great cosmic drain somehow, even if they aren't aware of it. Hell, watching this makes we want to drop everything and go watch "Magnolia" again right now, all three hours of it. That film should be like "Pulp Fiction", if I see that it's currently airing, I should turn to it ASAP and watch it until the end, not matter how early in the film I learned that it was ON. Seeing everything in that film fit together so finely, so completely, so outrageously, it's worth a re-watch whenever I have the time, which unfortunately isn't very often.
But man, if you can get Samuel L. Jackson to play a shady character who does security work for casinos, then you GET Samuel L. Jackson. Across the board, 100%, the casting is impeccable here, if Philip Baker Hall is available, when then you give him THIS role. If you can get John C. Reilly, well, come on, you know what you have to do, and if you can get Gwyneth Paltrow to play a cocktail waitress/hooker, duh. All of these people went on to bigger, greater, higher profile roles, they were all on the upswing in 1996, as was Paul Thomas Anderson. He MADE John C. Reilly a star!
This was based on a short film he made three years before, called "Cigarettes & Coffee", which showed how five people were connected through a $20 bill that changed hands. Obviously he expanded the story greatly to turn it into a feature, but it still riffs off the theme that everyone is connected somehow, or knows something about other people's pasts, or they could be more connected in the future, and we mere humans can't really see all of the connections because we're stuck living in the present and also, not everyone shares all the details of their pasts when they meet people. There's an important connection or two that doesn't get mentioned at the start, but prove to be quite important by the end of the film.
Sydney, an older gambler, meets an apparently homeless man outside a diner in Nevada, and offers to buy him a coffee and give him a cigarette. (We know this film is a little old because people are smoking in diners and later casinos, and after this such things went the way of the dinosaur...). Sydney assumes/guesses/knows that John has lost money gambling in Vegas, because it's the city where you arrive by plane and leave by bus, or hitchhiking. John was trying to win $6K to pay for his mother's funeral, and Sydney offers him a better system than trying to hit it big at blackjack without counting cards, which I guess is darn near impossible. Now my first assumption was that Sydney was going to teach John how to count cards, but no, nothing here is really that simple. Sydney offers John $50 to go back to Vegas with him and learn a better system.
Honestly I didn't really understand what Sydney taught him, it involved John playing the slots a little bit and then cashing out, then getting his "rate card" stamped, then buying more chips/tokens and gambling a little bit more, then cashing out again, so according to this "rate card" he'd won or lost over $200, but in reality only lost about $20, and still got the casino to offer him a hotel room and comped him, because they thought he was some kind of high roller. I can't imagine this would fool the casino systems today, because now everyone uses these high-tech loyalty rewards cards that electronically track how much you've bet over time. But I didn't start gambling in casinos until well after 1996, so I really don't know how this all worked back then.
John does win some money on the slots, though, and Sydney works with him to get that funeral paid for, though we don't learn exactly how. Do they keep pulling this "rate card" scam, or does John eventually learn how to count cards at blackjack? Not sure. Anyway John meets that shady security guy named Jimmy and they become friends, John also is attracted to Clementine, a waitress who Sydney learns also works as a prostitute once her shift at the casino is over. Sydney plays the part of a matchmaker here, once it's clear that he's not interested in Clementine himself.
Eventually things take a weird turn and Sydney finds John holding a man hostage in a hotel room because he had sex with Clementine and refused to pay for her services. This is a rather dicey situation, John proves himself rather inept at being a kidnapper, and someone trying to collect ransom from the hostage's wife. Sydney is able to defuse everything and kind of resembles the fixer character that Harvey Keitel played in "Pulp Fiction", but maybe that's just because he's a guy who's seen it all, remains calm under pressure, and knows what has to be done. When he learns John and Clementine got married, he sends them on a long drive honeymoon to Niagara Falls while he sets up the release of the hostage and removes the evidence from the hotel room.
There's more that happens after the couple leaves town, but no spoilers here. Damn, but this could have been an early Tarantino movie if it had a little more cursing and a lot more shots of women's bare feet. As a first film from anyone, it shows a lot of promise over what's to come, even if it doesn't answer every question or deliver a ton of plot twists - instead there are probably just enough to think about. I've never understood the game of craps, and honestly maybe it's better that way, I just play the slot machines, the ones with real wheels if I can still find them.
The tagline on the poster reads "If you stay in the game long enough, you'll see everything, win everything, and lose everything." It sounds like one of those Yogi-isms that doesn't seem to make any sense at all, except that it totally does if you've lived that. I'm just thinking about how this phrase relates to my animation career as of late - and I definitely stayed in that game too long.
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson (director of "Licorice Pizza")
Also starring Philip Baker Hall (also carrying over from "Rules of Engagement"), John C. Reilly (last seen in "Year of the Dog"), Gwyneth Paltrow (last seen in "Great Expectations"), Philip Seymour Hoffman (last seen in "A Most Wanted Man"), F. William Parker (last seen in "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge"), Nathanael Cooper, Wynn White, Robert Ridgely (last seen in "Melvin and Howard"), Kathleen Campbell, Michael J. Rowe, Peter D'Allesandro, Steve Blane, Melora Walters (last seen in "Eraser"), Xaleese, Jean Langer, Andy Breen, Renee Breen, Jane W. Brimmer, Mark Finizza, Richard Gross (last seen in "Swiss Army Man"), Cliff Keeley, Carrie McVey, Ernie Anderson, Wendy Weidman, Jason Cross.
RATING: 6 out of 10 Keno cards
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