Rounders [1998]

This film came as a recommendation from my coworker who has good taste in movies and whose girlfriend is a professional dealer at a nearby casino. Normally, something has to go fundamentally wrong to have a film fall into the bad movie category when you have a cast like this. It's basically a who's who of the late 90s: Matt Damon, Edward Norton, Malkovich, Turturro, Bond Girl Famke Janssen. But as we well know, a good cast cannot save a bad movie: only market it. Hell, in this case it was a slight contributing factor. Basically, this film boils down to two sides: the baffling and the hilarious. 

To start with the baffling, the basic plot of this movie is that Damon is a law student and underground poker player who is totally not addicted to the game and has sworn off it after losing a bunch of money to sketchy Russian, Malkovich (put a pin in that). He goes to pick up his high school friend, Worm, played by Norton, from prison to find that he is severely in debt from his own poker playing. Damon agrees to get back into the game to help his friend, which we are supposed to see as noble. The movie absolutely frames every choice Damon makes as righteous even though the fact that he genuinely should seek help is obvious to anyone who has ever known any kind of addict. But see, he was just helping his friend! But see, he doesn't take advantage when his friend cheats! Pay no attention to how his law education is tanking and his rich girlfriend has left him. It's fine. Of course, he eventually beats the Russian at the end, pays off the debts and leaves for Vegas because why cure an addiction when you can monetize it? Oh yeah, and the film dabbles in neo-noir aesthetics with monologuing from Damon and smoky, yellow cinematography normally reserved for racist depictions of South America. 

Now for the hilarious. This movie has two absolutely incredible characters: Damon's law professor and Malkovich the Russian. The law professor was a sneak hit because after Damon helps him win a game against his colleagues, the guy gives a monologue in a bar about how he's the family failure because he became a law professor instead of a rabbi. The moral of the story boils down to "do what feels right to you," an outright encouragement of Damon's gambling habit. Later on his doubles down on his message by lending Damon $10,000 of the $15,000 he needs. Insane.

The other winning character is Malkovich's, a Russian gambler and club owner nicknamed KGB. His accent is the most delightfully strange thing and his mannerisms are an endlessly source of fun. He has a quirk of divination by Oreo cookie that we all started adopting as we happened to have Oreos for dessert tonight. The glorious fate of it all. The one downside is that he is only briefly in the beginning and then wraps us up with about 10 perfect minutes at the end. He should have been in more of it.

In spite of the topic of this movie and its two hour run time, it somehow felt like it had no stakes. At one point Damon and Norton get beat up for cheating, but there are no clear threats from lenders and relatively few consequences given the money they are dealing with. A question we often ask on movie night: who was the film for exactly? As far as we can tell, people who will see anything with a cast like this. And us, Oreo psychics that we are.

Spoon Rating: 4

Xanadu [1980]

This movie musical is often referenced but seemingly seldom remembered. I actually completely confused it for the musical Starlight Express, but it turns out the only similarity really is roller skating. No, this is the one with music by the Electric Light Orchestra starring Olivia Newton-John and Gene Kelley. 

So what's it about? The razor thin plot is about a painter who meets a muse (a literal Greek muse but named Kira and not connected to any art in particular) and a rich guy who owned a club in the 40s who also knew the muse back then when she was a singer in his band. The three of them decide to open a new club called Xanadu after the incorrectly named capital of China (it should be Xangdu, pronounced Shangdu). That's the whole film. 

There are songs and dance sequences, but they have absolutely no purpose. To explain, as a musical theater person, every song in a musical should either A.) move the plot forward or B.) provide and expression of emotions that a character is feeling to better understand them. Because this movie has almost no plot and no character development either, the songs are just songs that feel like they were written entirely independent of the film. The songs weren't horrible or anything, but they were pretty unmemorable outside of the main theme and that's only because they say "Xanadu" 100 times.

Then there's the direction, which is also weirdly bad. Halfway through the film we questioned if this was originally a stage show since the shots were so static it felt like we were in a proscenium theater. Turns out, no. The director just had no idea how to shoot dance sequences in a film. A stage version did apparently run on Broadway in 2007 and from my quick glances, that show had considerably more plot than this film.

The mythology also makes no sense. Kira comes alive from a random mural of the muses near the beach the main character hangs out by? She worked with Gene Kelley before but he somehow both does and doesn't remember her when he meets her again 35 years later? She's not supposed to fall in love, but she does with the bland artist even though neither of them seemingly have any reason to fall in love and know nothing about each other?

If I had to stretch to say something nice about the film it definitely went all out with costumes and sets, even though those sets really felt lifted from a stage show and we never got a good look at them due to the crappy direction. The roller skating thing could have been interesting but it was mostly just that some people roller skated sometimes. There was no further logic beyond that. 

Spoon Rating: 2