Molly's Game (2017)

Molly Bloom could have been a lot of things.  She could have been an Olympic contender, but an accident during trials prevented that.  She could have been a lawyer, but a year off school led to assisting with high-stakes poker.  Had it not been for an arrest, she might still be the best poker host that no one had ever heard of.  Alas, it apparently wasn’t meant to be.

Molly’s Game, as you might expect, is about poker games run by Molly Bloom.  When she takes a year off from law school, she lands a job that turns into assisting her boss with his games.  She picks it up well enough that when her boss tries to withhold her paycheck from the day job, she splits.  She takes his clients with her, allowing her to set up her own games.

You may be wondering if this is legal.  Molly asks the same question of a lawyer.  As long as she doesn’t take a cut of the pot, it’s just this side of legal.  Instead, she’s to rely on tips to build her bank account.  She even declares all of her income to the IRS.  She has a few setbacks, but is able to hold her own…for a while.

One of Molly’s dealers convinces her to start taking a rake.  It isn’t long before drugs and alcohol make their way into her life.  She even attracts the attention of the Russian mob.  (She denies knowingly being involved with them, although she does receive a visit from a rather large man who beats and robs her.)

There are several things that I hate seeing in a movie.  One is where the movie is told as a flashback.  Here, the movie starts with Molly’s arrest and subsequent search for a lawyer.  We have the story leading up to the arrest interspersed with her trying to defend herself and get money back that was seized by the government.

Another thing I’d consider cliché is the downward spiral.  It’s not as pronounced here as I’ve seen in other movies, but Molly Bloom is an ambitious woman.  She makes some bold decisions that cause her to make some bad decisions.  Those that have power not only want to hold on to it, but often want more.  Had she not started taking the rake, which is forbidden by law, she would probably have fewer problems.  Then again, we wouldn’t have a movie.  (I’m sure for every person like Molly, there are many others content to stay in the shadows.)

The whole aspect of changing names is to be expected.  Even with a story based on truth, I expect a certain amount of fictionalization.  Michael Cera plays Player X, who is supposed to be a composite of several other actors.   Naming a name like that could be problematic from a legal standpoint.  The movie also shows Molly Bloom refusing to do so for moral reasons, as all she has left is her integrity.

This is one of those movies I probably would have waited for on DVD or streaming had I not had MoviePass.  The movie wasn’t particularly exciting.  If you’re looking for an exciting gambling-related movie, there are others out there to be had.  The movie comes across more as a 140-minute cautionary tale.  Then again, there weren’t too many surprises.  I’d say this is a movie where you could easily judge your interest by the coming attractions.

IMDb page

Field of Dreams (1989)

WARINING:  I’m going to give away details of the movie, including the ending.  If you haven’t seen the movie, you might want to wait before reading the review.



I’ve had the urge to watch old movies again.  I saw Field of Dreams many years ago.  When it became available on Netflix, I wanted to see if the movie would change with perspective.  I remembered a lot of it, but I wondered if the context had changed.  Is there anything that I’d pick up on now that I wouldn’t as a teenager?  The short answer is no.

For those that haven’t seen it, Field of Dreams is a movie about Ray and Annie Kinsella.  They buy a farm and live there with their daughter, Karin.  One day, Ray hears a voice telling him, “If you build it, he will come.”  Ray has no idea what it is supposed to be.  He’s given a vision of a baseball diamond, which he builds.  Apparently, Ray and Annie are hovering around the break-even point with their farm.  They have to clear their cash crop for the diamond, which will most likely bankrupt them.

They do it anyway.  Months pass and nothing happens.  One day, Shoeless Joe Jackson shows up in the diamond and asks if he can play there.   Jackson even brings the other players involved in the 1919 Black Sox Scandal.  Ray then gets another message from the voice:  Ease his pain.  Who’s pain?  Ray and Annie eventually come to the conclusion that the voice is referring to Terence Mann, an author who didn’t have an easy time with fame.  Mann also wanted to play baseball when he was younger.

Ray visits Terence in Boston.  The two eventually go to a baseball game, where Ray receives another message:  Go the distance.  He also sees stats for Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, who had played in just one game.  When Ray and Terence visit Minnesota to find Graham, they find that Graham had died years ago after becoming a doctor.

Ray is able to go into the past and meets Graham, who explains what the one game was all about.  Graham refuses Ray’s invitation to come back and play baseball.  Ray returns to the present and eventually goes back to Iowa with Terence.  On the drive back, they pick up a young hitchhiker names Archie Graham.  When they arrive on the farm, young Graham joins the players for a game.

The next morning, Annie’s brother, Mark, arrives to urge Ray to sell the farm, which he’s been refusing to do.  (Mark can’t see the baseball players.)  Ray knows that any subsequent owner will likely not maintain the baseball field.  An accident with Karin forces Graham to walk off the field, becoming the man that Ray saw in the past.  He helps Karin, then walks off into the corn field.  Mark is then able to see the players; he urges Ray not to sell the farm.

After seeing the movie again, I found that there wasn’t any special message hidden away.  It’s simply about a man who listens to a mysterious voice’s vague messages.  The one thing that had me wondering is how one baseball field would bankrupt the farm.  Granted, they were on the brink, but it looked like they Kinsellas had a pretty decent sized property.  I don’t know how selling corn works.  Are you able to get several crops during a season?

How would such a small part of their corn crop cause them to miss several mortgage payments?  I’m kind of wondering if this was done to give Ray something to worry about.  There’s no clear antagonist, so they had to have Mark try to get Ray to sell the farm.

I didn’t think the movie that great.  It’s not a story of conflict like you’d find in other movies.  The only real threat Ray has is the mortgage, which he deals with by ignoring.  Ray doesn’t seem to do much to earn additional revenue until the end of the movie, when it’s implied that he could charge admission.

Ironically, the actual diamond used in the movie still exists.  I’m not sure what kind of burden this placed on the actual farm, although the property has been sold at least once, according to Wikipedia.  There’s no fee for admission or parking, although there is a souvenir shop.

The movie is based on a book, although I’m not sure how true the movie is to the source material.  There do seem to be some differences, though.  In the book, Ray has a twin brother.  Terence Mann was actually J. D. Salinger.  (The name change was due to Salinger implying he’d sue if the character made his way to an adaptation.)

I’m not really sure what to make of the movie.  It’s enjoyable, but it’s not the kind of thing you’d watch over and over again.  It’s the kind of movie they might play in a waiting room.  It’s safe for most people.  It’s rated PG, mostly for some language in one scene.  (A woman accuses Terence Mann of masturbation and calls his work pornography.)  There’s also some cursing.  The only four-letter word is spelled out at PTA meeting.  Other than that, it’s mostly damn and hell.  It’s basically a great movie for streaming.  Unless you’re a baseball fan, I’m not sure if you’d want to buy it on DVD.

Hidden Figures (2016)

A lot of things happened before I was born.  I’ve always known small computers that could do calculations at a rate impossible for a human.  Before iPhones, there were machines that would fill a room.  Before those machines were human calculators like Katherine G. Johnson.  She, along with Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, worked for NASA when NASA was trying to put a man in orbit.

Everyone knows John Glenn.  He’s the man that America put into orbit.  Not everyone knows the team that put them there.  There were buildings of scientists trying to figure out the math necessary to not only put John Glen in orbit, but get him back safely.

There was a very narrow window with which they had to work.  Too steep and angle and he’d burn up on reentry.  If his descent was too gradual, he’d bounce off the atmosphere and go back into space.  There was also the issue of making sure he landed in the ocean.  Given the magnitude of what they were doing, the smallest of errors could be catastrophic.  This is assuming they can even figure out the math necessary to do the calculations in the first place.

Being that the movie is based on historical events, I’m not ruining anything by stating that John Glenn completes his mission safely.  Being that it’s a movie, I don’t think I’m giving away anything by stating that some liberties were taken.  Yes, Glenn specifically requested that Johnson be the one to verify the computer’s calculations.  Word is, though, that this was actually done well before his mission.  You don’t risk someone’s life like that unless you’re certain.

The movie isn’t so much about the history that everyone knows.  It’s about the people that never really got the credit that they deserved.  Johnson was both a woman and a person of color when culture didn’t favor either.  It still doesn’t necessarily favor either, but the movie shows Johnson having to run to a separate building to use the ladies’ room.

Jackson wanted to become an engineer, but had to go to court just to be allowed to take the courses necessary to even be considered.  Likewise, Vaughn was trying to become a supervisor.  She was already doing the work of a title that she was repeatedly denied.  She also saw the writing on the wall when the IBM computers were being installed.  She took it upon herself to learn FORTRAN for the job security.  (She also took it upon herself to get the machines working.)

All three women have to go above and beyond just to get noticed.  They are all fortunate to have superiors that eventually listen to reason, or at least recognize that the women are correct.  Vaughn might not have been taken seriously had she not actually gotten the computers to actually work.

The movie, like the women, walked a tight rope.  In several scenes, they have to curtail their anger.  Instead of getting mad, they get better.  There are moments when they’re told no, but they’re also eventually told yes.  They do make permanent progress, not only for themselves, but for others.  The one scene that may best exemplify this is Jackson telling a judge that she wants to be the first female engineer, just as he was first in a lot of respects.  The judge is impressed enough to grant her request.

I’d recommend watching it if only to learn who the people were.  I find it odd that it took more than fifty years for a movie to be made about this.  The Apollo and Gemini missions have been shown in film.  Those instances have usually focused on the people who went up into space.  There’s so much more to the story.

IMDb page