The Cooler

Saw The Cooler with Gwen yesterday. Good movie. William H. Macy has made a good career out of playing the nice-guy schnook, and he does so here in a role that has a little more meat than those roles usually do. Alec Baldwin is perfect as the tough-guy casino operator who is, in his own way, more pathetic than his schnook employee.

The story is a little disjointed–the interlude with the long-lost son is just sort of plunked down without really fitting in, and some of the backstory is never filled in–but it mixes the fantastic and hard-bitten reality in a way that I like, and kept me guessing how it would turn out until the end (which you might say is more because of my suspension of disbelief than anything else).

The movie is about gambling and luck: Macy’s character Bernie Lootz has such impossibly bad luck that any table in a casino he walks past instantly starts losing, making him an asset to the casino that employs him.

After the movie we threw some trout and veggies on the grill. I’ve never been much of a gambler in the customary sense, but I think barbecuing is where I give vent to my gambling urge: there’s always an element of chance with a grill, and every time a meal turns out well, I feel like I’ve beaten the odds.