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This is one of those movies I added to the Netflix queue for no real specific reason, as in several reasons, none of them particularly strong, and in that way the film itself was about what I expected, which is to say, better than it should have been for such a mediocre bit of trash.
That said, under my skin, in all sorts of ways. First was the sudden and accute awareness about a minute and a half in that a man I used to date had assuredly seen this film and identified with the main character aggressively. In fact, had he seen this film at the time we were dating, he would have asked me all the time if I thought he reminded me of Jack and if I thought Jack was cute, and if I thought he was clever and cool like Jack and if he'd look like Jack of he just lost his little bit of gut and did I like Jack better black-haired or blond and on and on. And then he probably would have said something crappy and racist on account of the main character being South African too.... It's very weird watching a film and realizing exactly how a conversation would have gone. Made me glad we're not together anymore, because really, if I could go through all that without him, why go through it with him?
And then there was Clive Owen, who apparently still makes my skin crawl because of that stupid nightmare I had a couple of months back. Well, at least it should be out of my system now before Closer opens.
And then there's the fact that it's about casino things. I say I love casinos and I love gambling, which is really only partially true. It's more than I feel comfortable there, and sly, which is I suppose how the lure in the people they can't lure in with bright shiny object monotony. But as a kid, my great grandmother lived in a nursing home in Atlantic City, and my grand aunt (or is it really true that great aunts and great grandmother's are oddly not actually in the same generation? I've never been clear on the nomenclature) and her husband and my cousins all lived there. Cousin Steve worked in a casino.
My memories of Steve are stupid and childlike and from the 70s; I think he lives in California now. When my parents and I went to AC he stayed on the couch in the den (if he was home at all) and I slept in his room and snuck looks at his collection of Playboys and stared at the ugly drapes he had and thought about how he had to have those be be manly. My aunt would cut the turkey dinner with an electric knife that had a green handle and would sort of cube the turkey, and I would sit in their incredibly Brady Bunch-esque kitchen licking the icing from Tastee Cake Butterscotch Krimpets off the wax paper they were folded up in back then, and then all day I sat around with their black cat who liked to sleep on my head and played Battling Tops all by myself. I could never get enough of the krimpets though, and secretly, they're still one of my favourite vices.
Gambling, if you're going to do it right, is a lot like drinking. Which is to say most people are morons about it, some people have an illness surrounding it, and if you just like it -- no one ever really knows if they should believe you. My grandfather taught me to play poker as a small child and always talked about the horse track and the dog track and when I was twelve my mother dressed me up and put me in heals and makeup and took me to the casino with her and my father. They liked it when I was a grown up when it was only pretend.
Anyway, Michael's the one who taught me about bar culture, made me learn how to talk to strangers, when to tip, how to tip, how to toast and how to be friends and not friends with the bartender, the patrons and the drunk guy who random insults you in the name of advice and all that sort of bullshit that's either lying to yourself or lying to someone else, and it's just fine when everyone knows it, which everyone usually doesn't. But casinos? I've always just known, because it was just an ordinary bit of the fabric of my childhood. Mom always won buckets of quarters at slots and dad just watched her, and everyone just taught me how to shuffle because they thought it was funny, me with my little hands, and my father worrying that I'd rough them up maybe, because he used to say I could be a handle model (since I couldn't be a regular model or a basketball player, which were his first two ideas). And I guess a five year old girl who can deal is cute. When she's twelve? I'm pretty sure that's terrifying.
When I went to Vegas for work I won a few hundred, and laughed at my coworkers and their little blackjack advice books, and I got carded, idly playing a Wheel of Fortune slot on the edge of the casino -- I was about twenty-seven I guess? But I look young, and the edge is always where people try to sneak in.
Yeah, so Croupier is mediocre, has a damn voiceover besides, is too clever and also poorly written in all sorts of ways (it also tries to comprehend the writerly sort -- vomit), but it couldn't be anything but exactly how it is. I'm glad I saw it but I can't imagine why anyone else has ever cared.
That said, under my skin, in all sorts of ways. First was the sudden and accute awareness about a minute and a half in that a man I used to date had assuredly seen this film and identified with the main character aggressively. In fact, had he seen this film at the time we were dating, he would have asked me all the time if I thought he reminded me of Jack and if I thought Jack was cute, and if I thought he was clever and cool like Jack and if he'd look like Jack of he just lost his little bit of gut and did I like Jack better black-haired or blond and on and on. And then he probably would have said something crappy and racist on account of the main character being South African too.... It's very weird watching a film and realizing exactly how a conversation would have gone. Made me glad we're not together anymore, because really, if I could go through all that without him, why go through it with him?
And then there was Clive Owen, who apparently still makes my skin crawl because of that stupid nightmare I had a couple of months back. Well, at least it should be out of my system now before Closer opens.
And then there's the fact that it's about casino things. I say I love casinos and I love gambling, which is really only partially true. It's more than I feel comfortable there, and sly, which is I suppose how the lure in the people they can't lure in with bright shiny object monotony. But as a kid, my great grandmother lived in a nursing home in Atlantic City, and my grand aunt (or is it really true that great aunts and great grandmother's are oddly not actually in the same generation? I've never been clear on the nomenclature) and her husband and my cousins all lived there. Cousin Steve worked in a casino.
My memories of Steve are stupid and childlike and from the 70s; I think he lives in California now. When my parents and I went to AC he stayed on the couch in the den (if he was home at all) and I slept in his room and snuck looks at his collection of Playboys and stared at the ugly drapes he had and thought about how he had to have those be be manly. My aunt would cut the turkey dinner with an electric knife that had a green handle and would sort of cube the turkey, and I would sit in their incredibly Brady Bunch-esque kitchen licking the icing from Tastee Cake Butterscotch Krimpets off the wax paper they were folded up in back then, and then all day I sat around with their black cat who liked to sleep on my head and played Battling Tops all by myself. I could never get enough of the krimpets though, and secretly, they're still one of my favourite vices.
Gambling, if you're going to do it right, is a lot like drinking. Which is to say most people are morons about it, some people have an illness surrounding it, and if you just like it -- no one ever really knows if they should believe you. My grandfather taught me to play poker as a small child and always talked about the horse track and the dog track and when I was twelve my mother dressed me up and put me in heals and makeup and took me to the casino with her and my father. They liked it when I was a grown up when it was only pretend.
Anyway, Michael's the one who taught me about bar culture, made me learn how to talk to strangers, when to tip, how to tip, how to toast and how to be friends and not friends with the bartender, the patrons and the drunk guy who random insults you in the name of advice and all that sort of bullshit that's either lying to yourself or lying to someone else, and it's just fine when everyone knows it, which everyone usually doesn't. But casinos? I've always just known, because it was just an ordinary bit of the fabric of my childhood. Mom always won buckets of quarters at slots and dad just watched her, and everyone just taught me how to shuffle because they thought it was funny, me with my little hands, and my father worrying that I'd rough them up maybe, because he used to say I could be a handle model (since I couldn't be a regular model or a basketball player, which were his first two ideas). And I guess a five year old girl who can deal is cute. When she's twelve? I'm pretty sure that's terrifying.
When I went to Vegas for work I won a few hundred, and laughed at my coworkers and their little blackjack advice books, and I got carded, idly playing a Wheel of Fortune slot on the edge of the casino -- I was about twenty-seven I guess? But I look young, and the edge is always where people try to sneak in.
Yeah, so Croupier is mediocre, has a damn voiceover besides, is too clever and also poorly written in all sorts of ways (it also tries to comprehend the writerly sort -- vomit), but it couldn't be anything but exactly how it is. I'm glad I saw it but I can't imagine why anyone else has ever cared.
