[ANNPRMEOW] Hard Eight

[Mike]

Do it. But take down Phoebe's too. I'm on board for that.

[Kyle]

I'm not taking anyone's down just yet. But from now on- the price of admission is watching the movie.

[Phoebe]

Once again I have no idea whatsoever what I did wrong!

[Mike]

Nothing really, but the rules of the thread say you had to have watched the movie in the last few weeks. Your post implied it was an old favorite seen many times, but not necessarily recently.

If that's not the case, then I have used your name in vain--mostly in an effort to distract from my own more serious transgression which I just keep adding to.

[Kyle]

I'm not going to delete posts for this here. But in the future, if you haven't watched the movie in the last couple of weeks- don't post. Or better yet, watch it again-- especially if it's a favorite!-- and then post about it. The whole point is that we want people with a recent viewing and a fresh perspective. In future threads, I will delete posts from people that haven't had a recent viewing. Again, the price of admission is watching this 90 minute movie. If you're not willing to follow the rules and do that, then find other delightful posts on NPR and participate in those. There's plenty of fun stuff here to go around!

[Phoebe]

Well, that is a relief because I thought at first I had posted something offensive/wrong! I'm sorry if my comment somehow implied that I was breaking the rules, but again, it's a relief to know that's what you were concerned about, since my posts have oft-offended for content-based reasons I don't understand, which is more concerning to me.

[Mike]

This didn't work for me. I get that this is Sidney's movie. He's an enigma who gives away very little, and we have to unwrap him by his subdued interactions with those around him. And in the end, I get him. I even like him. Phillip Baker Hall acted this role perfectly.

But he's only half the screen time of this film. I thought John C. Reilly and Gwyneth Paltrow were just adequate. And I get their motivations: stupid people doing stupid things because they're stupid. And I get why Sidney feels obligated to take care of them and how that's important for revealing his character, but they were just tedious. Sam Jackson acted the shit out of a very typical and stereotypical role for him. He's good at that bit, but 20+ years later having the only black character in the film be 2 steps away from wearing a pimp hat while also being the only major character prompted solely by evil motives is just not a good look anymore.

And I was thrilled to know that Philip Seymour Hoffman was in this movie, and then sorely disappointed in his actual role. Then it was super sad that when I realized that 1996 was before he had wide recognition as an amazing talent and then realized how short his career was.

I am really glad to have seen this, but it was overall disappointing.

[mimekiller]

Hey finally had a chance to watch this film. October was a wild month yo.

So I enjoyed this film it's good, more INTERESTING than anything else because of course its Paul Thomas Anderson first film. Even the chica stayed awake for 30 minutes of this which is essentially a five star review. Some thoughts I had during the film.

- Philip Baker Hall is of course amazing(and still alive how about that) with his puppy dog eyes and direct to point verbiage. Dug that part at the end when he's ready to BLAST Sam Jackson and he's almost fidgeting in his seat, like huh I remember how to mostly due this but its been so long...like a kid waiting for his prom date or something

-And Speaking of Jackson, I mean holy shit what a decade the 90s were for him, working with SPIELBERG, ANDERSON, and TARATINO is certainly something he can hang his hat on. I didn't think his character was a cliche, just a bottom feeder in a city filled with bottom feeders who saw a chance to make a relatively small score.

One thing I didn't get is do you think the romance between Paltrow and John C was arranged by Hall? Trying to set up something that he at least think will work? Give him a family to make up for taking away his family? Or is it just incidental?

A SOLID *** 1/2 out of *****

[Mike]

Yes

[buckett]

[Phoebe]

Definitely assumed that Sydney arranges that relationship, or at least is trying to give it a little kick in the pants. The excessive rapidity with which it then develops, shall we say, seems to surprise him and illustrates his own naivete, which is one thing you would not think he has much of left. It's a blind spot that in theory could have been the primary way he screws up John's life while trying to fix John's life, had things not worked out favorably. I think he wants it for them especially because the relationship seems like a fast fix for loneliness, which Sydney obviously feels acutely, and upon encountering two other lonely characters who need help, maybe he thinks he can resolve his own loneliness even further while helping to resolve theirs.

Like Mike, I am bothered by the way our one black character is presented. I wonder if he would have written that character differently today, because there was no need to make him a more convincing villain in order to explain why Sydney is going to kill him. Sydney is a bad man who's trying to do some good things, and it's interesting that a bad man can live by a moral code, but he's still bad. So it wouldn't have been a problem for Jimmy to have his own complex mixture of good and bad, or at least a history that opened those possibilities. Jackson does an amazing job giving depth and interest to Jimmy, but at the end of the day all of these people have a similar moral flaw: they want something for nothing, even if it means that other people get hurt. Sydney is trying to atone for that flaw in himself the best way he knows how, but that's the only mode of living he really understands.

It's interesting that part of his moral code revolves around the treatment of women, which is set up as a bright line here to differentiate the good and bad. It makes Sydney's blind spot where Clementine is concerned all the more important, as his attempt to have some rules of decency backfires when he sees and sympathizes with the good in Clementine without also seeing how her bad qualities might completely screw things up for John (whose ironic name is mildly amusing in this context).

I didn't think Clementine and John were stupid so much as unable to see past their own short-term gratification. They desire to obtain good things in what seems like the easiest way (money, love, etc) to fill some emotional void or even boredom in themselves, even though that turns out to be the riskiest and most imprudent way to do it. I feel like that's the point of the hard eight, though I know it wasn't the original title. Sydney is trying to be prudent, and seems like the only person competent enough to function here. He knows from bitter experience that any type of hard eight, in craps or whatever context, is a stupid way of doing things, but at the end of the day he's willing to murder to protect his secret, unwittingly reaping the profit of the same hard eight bet he lost before and knew was dumb. He is still left needing, literally, to cover over the stain of it all, and still ends up lonely.

[Kyle]

[mimekiller]

I enjoy that Syndey has this strict gambler code that's only rankled by a absolute buffoon goading him into making the "hard eight" bet that of course never realistically works. Jimmy mentions he SAW Sydney make a similar bet and I wonder if he was the catalyst that time to encourage such a reckless and self sabotaging bet.

[Zombie]

An antagonist doesn't have to be a villain in the same way a protagonist isn't always a hero. That seems to be the case here. Jimmy is a great antagonist because he attacks Sydney's one weakness, his past. It would be one thing if he was some irrelevant pimp that didn't serve a purpose. But he's an internal security worker for casinos. His job is to dig up information on the casino's clientele. This is in stark contrast to Sydney, who conceals information, particularly the one piece of information that could break apart the new family he has built. That conflict is how you create tension and is integral to the story.

Yes, Jimmy objectifies women (he's not the only one to do so). I don't think that has anything to do with race, or to make us hate Jimmy so that we feel okay with Sydney killing him at the end. It goes back to helping the audience understand Sydney. We know that Sydney is sensitive to the treatment of women. We see it with the keno scene, his discussion with Jimmy, and the interaction with Clementine when she offers to sleep with him. We also know Sydney has two kids that he never talks to hinting at transgressions with women in his past life. So Jimmy not only is important for conflict, but he's our only window into Sydney's past. There's shame there, and Jimmy is a constant reminder. This is excellent protagonist/antagonist conflict relevant to plot and theme.

In the end, Sydney pulled the trigger so that he could protect the future, and bury his past.