Bad Times at the El Royale

A few weeks ago on the Lambcast, I mentioned this film as one of my most anticipated of the Fall season. That it opened on the same weekend as "First Man" and I still have not seen that film, is a testament as to how great my interest was. It has a compelling cast, an interesting setting and the trailer hints at violence, double crosses and surprises that will delight us. For once the ads don't lie. This movie has a whole set of twists and turns that are character based rather than plot conveniences. The narrative is non-sequential and as a result build tension but releases that tension in very unexpected ways. There was only one moment that did not seem true to the story, and it gets explained in a less than satisfactory manner, but this was a minor quibble in a film filled with unexpected treats.

The set up is slow but it reveals character secrets in a sly manner that keeps us guessing and anticipating. Some characters seem likable to begin with but turn into something else, others are obnoxious but have something valuable to them anyway, and all of them are only connected by the fact that they are at this one particular location. The "El Royale"  may be modeled after the Cal-Neva club in Lake Tahoe. Stradling the border of California and Nevada, the club was a resort for the celebrity class but also an investment by shady characters in the underworld. Frank Sinatra was an owner of the club and some of his friends in the organized crime world had dealings with the gambling and celebrities. None of that comes up directly in the story, but it is strongly hinted that the resort in the film is owned by the underworld, and even though they have lost their gambling license they still have ways to make the investment pay off.

After the arrival of the guests at the hotel, the story slips from a chronological structure to a series of flashbacks centered around each of the occupied rooms at the mostly empty resort. The characters are revealed by room number and the back stories are filled in. There is a criminal seeking a hidden cache of cash that we learned about in the opening of the movie which was set ten years earlier. A vacuum cleaner salesman appears to have a bug problem and there may or may not be a kidnapping taking place. The script, written by Director Drew Goddard, is not unlike his previous film "The Cabin in the Woods". It turns a series of seemingly unrelated character pieces into a whole by the end of the movie. In my opinion this was much more successful at making the twists work because the film is less gimmicky and relies on the characters so much more. Jeff Bridges is the biggest name and his role gives him a chance to stretch a few muscles that he has not relied on in a number of years. While he is playing a grizzled character, it is one imbued with a odd sense of defiant melancholia. Cynthia Erivo plays a down trodden singer who is a lot sharper and world wise than she at first appears. She is also a remarkably good singer who manages to make a couple of scenes work really well as a result. Jon Hamm's character is confusing at first and aside from some potentially insensitive racial comments might be viewed as a good guy in all of this. The film is set approximately 1970 but as I said, it trails back at times to story threads from a decade earlier.

Dakota Johnson keeps her clothes on in this film and is reasonably well cast. This movie mixes the gangster story with a horrifying twist on a late sixties nightmare of a Manson style cult. Such a cult requires a charismatic center who seems to make sense but is even crazier than the world he thinks himself to be, enter Chris Helmsworth. It's not hard to believe that lost souls could fall under his spell and when we get to the question of real evil in the story, he leaves no doubt where it resides. The director wisely lets us imagine some things about the back stories which may actually be grimmer than what we see on the screen. If there is a revelation of an actor in the film, it is young Lewis Pullman,  who as a bell/captain manager of the hotel, has secrets he is actually desperate to reveal. If any of the stories are under developed, it might be his, but I only think that in hindsight because I suddenly want to know more, not because I need to know more.

Comparisons to Tarantino films are inevitable because of the crime milieu, the non-linear story telling and the sometimes humorous dialogue that the characters exchange. There are sudden moments of violence and characters that we have come to connect with may turnout to be mistakes or to be short for this world. I think it was all well balanced as a story but it kept me off balance as a viewer. The casino setting and the time period are great ways to make the story feel more real since characters like this have to exist in another dimension anyway, but it still has to be one that is familiar. It also then justifies the use of a whole lot of great music as background as well. This is a show piece for all concerned. The actors get to sink their teeth into characters that will be completely memorable, and the director gets to show off his style while entertaining us and keeping us in suspense. As far as I'm concerned, it was a "Good Time" at the El Royale.

Lambcast 446 The Predator Franchise

A little late in posting this link. The next show may be up today as well.

A Star is Born (2018)

Frankly, I may not be in much of a position to give this film a fair and objective evaluation. There has been a huge amount of upheaval in my life in the last month. My emotions are very heightened at this time and as a result, my reactions could be influenced by my state of mind. With that caveat in your head, let me say that the emotional journey this film takes you on is likely to be one of the most satisfying in many a year. This is a third retelling of a story that is very well known now, but it manages to get a lot of mileage out of the romance and heartbreak of a love story with a blossoming career and a exploding one as background.

First time director Bradley Cooper has managed to not only get a naturalistic performance from his first time star Lady Gaga, he has directed himself in an honest and mostly low key performance which is filled with examples of both their talents. "A Star is Born" is an adult story with enough bells and whistles to make a less introspective audience happy as well. While it does have some modern sensibilities like brief nudity and frequent use of the worlds most over indulged adjective, it still maintains many of the traditions and touches that the older films have. Hell, the font for the title could easily have been used for the 1954 version of the story, and the placement of the star in that title frame is all about the notion of an emerging star as envisioned by audiences in four different decades before.

You know that Lady gaga can sing. She has a powerful voice and a great range that she uses with much greater subtlety than most of today's divas. The first song she does is a rendition of classic era tune that is primarily French. The subsequent moments as her talent emerges in front of the eyes of Country Rock Star Jackson Maine, are heartfelt modulated nearly folk performances. The chanteuse that will arrive in the second half of the film, identified with a single name like "Cher" or "Madonna", is much more contemporary pop icon, but as the reticent songwriter who is falling in love with the bad boy singer, Lady gaga emulates a striking but contained sort of performance. Her songs fit the audience she is thrust in front of and her voice matches those expectations. Cooper as Maine also manages an amazing range of vocal performances. For a guy who is not really a singer, he sings really well.

When this story moved from backstage Hollywood to the concert stage in the Streisand version, we got a chance to see the talent of the male lead instead of merely having it talked about. Kristofferson was well cast and effective, but Cooper manages to project a real artist on both the stage and in the love story. The success of this film is largely due to the fact that the lead actor's story is finally presented as an equal plot thread as opposed to something merely for the lead actress to react to. The duets and collaborations here go much deeper than other versions which makes the romance more effective. Ally is not a milquetoast woman standing by her man and quickly overlooking his flaws. Lady Gaga gets some real hurt in her eyes at some of the events that happen in the story. The screenwriters have set up some of that personality but she is the one who manages to carry it off.  Even when she does seem to simply be loyal to Jackson despite a humiliating public experience, she does so in a way that suggests the kind of fed up tolerance that someone in love really feels.

Gaga doesn't have to worry about another female drawing away from her role, she is largely the only woman in the main cast. It seems a little unfair that the star part has to be supported by so many men, but let's say that it is a pretty great set of men. The always welcome Sam Elliot gets to be the rationale voice in the head of Jackson's character, even when his character ends up estranged from the singer. Ally's Dad is played by none other than Andrew Dice Clay, who continues to show that he has talent as an actor, dismissing any criticism of his long time role as stand up provocateur. Dave Chappele and Eddie Griffin ditch their funnyman backgrounds as well and step up as minor characters in the most romantic sections of the film.

There are a dozen great songs in the film and another dozen that are wholly satisfying without necessarily being great. "Maybe Its Time" "Shallow" and "First Stop Arizona" were the standouts for me, but the gut punch end song "I'll Never Love Again" resonates too much for me in this time of my life for it not to be my favorite. Maybe I have always been too sentimental for my own good, but when I hear the words to that song and think of my own life, I wept. This film may have flaws that will be more noticeable on second and third viewings, but at least you are going to want a second and third viewing. 

Lambcast 445 : Whatcha Been Watching

Jay thinks I let things get out of hand, you decide. 

The Predator

Catching up with the film that will cap off the Franchise look back on the next Lambcast. These films have a varying array of quality and entertainment value, but we will be discussing rankings and the other movies on the show. For that you have to download next week. Right now it's time to take this Shane Black directed episode and turn it inside out. Or rather, I'm going to yank it's spinal cord out, hold it up for examination and then display the results here as a trophy.

"The Predator" is basically a stand alone film that aims to create a continuing story line. The events of earlier films are only marginally referred to. If you had not seen any of the other films you could easily slip into this one and have a perfectly fine time, at least for the first two thirds of the movie. The final act has some issues but I will get to those in a minute. Basically, one of the Predator species has escaped a band of fellow Predators who are in some way different, and crashed on Earth with a Macguffin that ends up in the hands of a wet ops Army Sniper. He in turn, passes the material to a P.O. box but of course, it ends up in the basement of his house where his autistic ten year old son begins to discover the secrets of alien weaponry.

The set up is the start of the weaknesses of this film. This is so much more complicated than any of the other films which are almost entirely focused on the confrontation between men as prey and aliens as their hunters. This movie is a political pamphlet on Predator evolution and genetic manipulation. Oh, and just to insure that it is contemporary, Black and his co-author have included the most worn out trope in modern science fiction. That's right, Global warming is what precipitates all of the mayhem. So in addition to bullying, PTSD, drug wars, and Asperger's syndrome, we have the specter of climate change as a boogeyman to accompany our alien hunters. You would think those would be enough antagonists to keep the story going, but wait, the secret military intelligence unit charged with discovering the alien technology is also an evil organization that randomly kills people that they perceive as a threat.

Although the plot is quite convoluted, it is set up with reasonable efficiency in the opening act, and the main characters are all introduced. A psychotic A-Team is drafted to try to save the little boy and hopefully end the current threat. The characters in this group all have unique quirks, designed to make them sympathetic or humorous. Thomas Jane and Keegan-Michael Key get the lion's share of jokes while Trevante Rhodes gets all the personality that tough guy lead Boyd Holbrook lacks. Olivia Munn is a biologist who goes from being a critical part of the investigation of the Predator aliens, to a nuisance targeted for elimination for no reason what so ever. Sterling K. Brown heads up the secret team and he twirls his mustache just fine, with a sense of entitled superiority that is never justified by his cleverness as a character.  The chase by the escaped Predator, with the team coming together over bad jokes and ass kicking, makes up the most entertaining part of the movie. However, once the trailing eleven foot Predator shows up, the movie becomes something less effective than most of it's predecessors. Translating alien language so that the Predators communicate is a mistake. The mano a mano showdown featuring CGI effects, gets a little tiresome, and the plot line gets completely screwed by the resolution.

I enjoyed this movie while I was watching it, but it also irritated me with the dumb choices that it makes about character and story. If the whole point of the movie is correctly identified at the end of the film, than the middle third makes no sense. The opportunity to create a united front against the Predators is squandered by the usual government conspiracy mistakes. The element that makes young Jacob Trembly's character important, is largely shunted aside and turned into a device to create short cuts in the story rather than enlarge the story as it should have. The climactic battle on the alien ship looks like it was added to make the movie feel "big" and it is something of a snooze. It's the individual confrontations that work, unfortunately they are not very consistent. 

Movies I Want Everyone to See: A Shock to the System

[This article originally appeared on the Defunct Web Site "Fogs Movie Reviews", in the Fall of 2013]

To be fair, I'm about to cheat a little bit because no matter how long this commentary runs, the reason to see this film ultimately comes down to two words "Michael Caine".


This film is not long, it's not complicated but it is clever and it features an actor that may well be in a third of the movies I plan on writing about. "A Shock to the System" is a bit like "American Psycho" without the lurid blood and the guessing game over what is real. The stories both take place in the same setting, the New York corporate world. They center around career climbing lead characters and each leads a double life. "A Shock to the System" is the more traditional film but that does not mean it lacks some surprises or a wicked sense of humor.

Caine plays Graham Marshall, a middle aged executive at a large advertising agency on Madison Avenue. His lifeforce has settled into an existence that marginalizes him at home and makes his career goals modest given the times. He and his wife have always counted on his uncanny ability to reach out and get what they want, but Graham feels that his magic is diminishing. When he ends up being passed over for the job that everyone including himself thought was his, a sinister form of the magic he once had takes over and he is determined not to end up disappointed again.

The film is very sharp in observing the interpersonal power dynamics of the executives in the company. As Graham was rising, he was catered to by his colleagues and respected by the office staff. One of the clearest indicators of status in the company is the lighting of a cigar.
Grahams boss, who is being moved out into forced retirement, and held the position that Graham thought would be his, had given Graham a lighter many years earlier, so he knew he would always have someone to give him a light. Just as Graham thinks he is to step into the exulted position, the executives below him confirm that status by performing the same task for him. The lighting of a cigar becomes a ritual like bowing in Japan, one that has nuance and meaning that is unspoken but clearly there. Once the dream comes crashing down, it doesn't take long for the pack to recognize a new alpha in the form of the younger Robert Benham, played by Peter Riegert.


Having leaped over his former superior, Benham does not take long to consolidate his position by reducing Graham's stature in very obvious ways. Each slight seems designed to bring Graham to the point of insubordination, which is where he could then be fired. It is as this process begins to build that Caine's character chooses to try the dark version of his quickly vanishing mojo.

Internalized narration of a lead character is a tricky thing to pull off. In a movie, where it is all about "showing ", narration runs counter to the strength of film art by "telling". The voice of the lead character in narration is often an indicator of the weakness of a film makers story telling skills. In this case however, the narration is cleverly timed and the phrasing is spoken in such a way as to reveal the self image of the character. We know what his presenting self is, the narration tells us his perceived self and it is fascinating. Graham had seen himself as a sorcerer, able to work magic on others to solve his problems. The loss of the promotion becomes the catalyst to redefine the characters in his life and to begin to cast new spells. We hear him decide that his wife is a witch, who has dampened his ability. The calculated way he proceeds is chilling but also humorous. At each moment he has chosen to execute one of his devious plans, he waves his fingers as if he where a magician, making a spell fly out of the ends of his digits to perform his will.

Of course it isn't magic, it is murder. The plans he hatches are relatively simple but like a Columbo mystery, he carefully sets up an alibi to cover his culpability. The giggle he lets out when he makes a pun over one of the deaths reveals his new cold blooded nature. As wrong as it might be, the audience is likely to identify with him and enjoy his success and worry about his mistakes along the way. Caine has a great time demonstrating his power to contain his true nature but he does let the mask slip occasionally and we are treated to a couple of those great rants that Caine is capable of delivering with gusto. His bitterness and righteous indignation get released on a coworker and his new boss and they are scenes that will make us all remember how tart the human voice can be.

Graham sees himself as a sorcerer and he takes an apprentice in the form of lovely and smart underling Stella Anderson. Elizabeth McGovern plays Stella as a confident working professional who suddenly begins to see who her boss and new lover really is. The detective investigating the deaths of those close to Graham seeks to turn her against him and the last act entails the consequences. The main weakness of the film is the trail that feckless police Lt. Laker follows to try and pin the deaths on Graham. The absence of dust on a piece of electrical tape is enough to raise the hair on the back of his neck. Will Patton is not responsible for the script he is following, but he looks lost despite his supposed cleverness. The key piece of evidence that might implicate Graham comes up in the Lt.'s radar for no discernible reason. It is never clear why a car rental by another character would ever be looked at by the police. To be fair, this movie is a social satire not a police procedural, but that one element does detract from the otherwise excellent script by Andrew Klaven from the book by Simon Brett. I have not read the novel but it apparently ends quite differently than the film so Mr. Klaven deserves credit for the biting sting of the last couple of moments in the movie.


Everyone does a fine job in this film but the movie probably feels a little small because it is limited in violent incidents and builds so slowly. Riegert plays the kind of insolent know-it-all his character in "Animal House" might have grown up to be if he were ambitious. McGovern ends up sad after starting off so sexy and confident. Stella turns into another victim of Grahams magic and the effect is disturbing. As I watched the credits, I saw the name of Samuel L. Jackson but I did not notice him in the film. When I scrolled back, he had about two seconds of screen time as a three card Monte hustler on the N.Y. City sidewalks. This had to be one of his earliest roles in films. It turns out this is one of seven films the prolific Mr. Jackson appeared in during the year 1990. Ultimately, no one else is going to be remembered for this film except Michael Caine. He has often played bad men but this time he seems to relish the role so much more. If you are a fan, and have not seen this, it is not just a movie I want you to see, it is a Movie You Have to See.


Richard Kirkham is a lifelong movie enthusiast from Southern California. While embracing all genres of film making, he is especially moved to write about and share his memories of movies from his formative years, the glorious 1970s. His personal blog, featuring current film reviews as well as his Summers of the 1970s movie project, can be found at Kirkham A Movie A Day.

Showgirls MOTM on the Lambcast #443

I did my duty and helped wrangle this show. The Vern actually hosted, but Jay said I had to go it alone as the Co-host. Still it was fun.