Upon learning that we're driving to Las Vegas and Henderson on Wednesday afternoon, I extracted Lucky You from my completely full DVD binder (The other still has a few empty pages left) last night to refamiliarize myself with those streets I've missed so much, those views I've been away from for too long.
Lucky You was filmed in 2005, but not released until 2007, and The Aladdin, which is seen in the opening credits shots after Huck drives away from the pawn shop, became Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino by then.
Right when the movie begins, when Phyllis Sommerville, who plays the pawnbroker, is adjusting the earrings on that sheet of felt, "Las Vegas 2003" appears at the bottom of the screen and I immediately feel this hard pull of wanting to know what happened in Las Vegas in 2003, what it was like, what events there were, what changes there were, what whales gambled in the casinos ("Whale" being what casinos like because it means big profits for them, which is why they always offer comps to those usually very rich guests), what attractions opened, what attractions closed, even what the weather was like throughout the year. In 2003, I was visiting Los Angeles with my family, a mere four hours from Las Vegas, completely clueless about the riches it offers, even when you don't gamble. Understandable, since I was trying to figure out exactly what the hell Los Angeles was, this seemingly endless sprawl that you could spend years trying to find your place in, and still not have all that you're seeking.
That line at the bottom of the screen always reminds me of the history of Las Vegas and Henderson and Nevada itself that I still want to study. In fact, I have to put my research for Mayday! Mayday!: The Making of the Airport Movies on hiatus for this week. Today's going to be busy, figuring out what I want to wear while I'm there, if I can get away with a white Fruit of the Loom t-shirt under one of my designed t-shirts (I'm thinking of one or two Big Lebowski t-shirts), and then a jacket over all that, even though I've never been to Las Vegas in January. Today would also be the day to pack a few things, with the majority of the packing tomorrow. It's not much anyway. Just clothes for Thursday and Friday, and Meridith and I are sharing a duffel bag and so are Mom and Dad. Two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks, two pairs of jeans, two shirts (I've looked at the temperatures which are quite cool, and am still thinking about if I should bring my blue sweatshirt. We'll be inside mostly, wherever we go, and our car will be a rental, so the heat will be quite reliable in there. I'm still not sure), and one pair of velcro sneakers. It's enough for me.
Tomorrow, just to get even more in that mood and feel some of that atmosphere through writing (Besides watching most of Lucky You again after I sign off), I'm thinking of plucking a few books from my Las Vegas stack. I could read through some of the books I have for my research, and the making-of movie books I have for guidance and inspiration, but I know that Wednesday will come up fast, and I want to be completely submerged in everything that I love, everything that I'm totally ready for.
Also in Lucky You, there's that shot after Huck (Eric Bana) has met Billie (Drew Barrymore), and he's riding his motorcycle down the Strip, past Caesars Palace, I think, with all those softly-glowing street lights lining the sidewalk. I'm not sure what street that's on. I still have to develop my navigational skills for Las Vegas and Henderson, but I repeat street names like Decatur and Tropicana, Sahara and Las Vegas Boulevard, Lake Mead Parkway and Boulder Highway, like the mantras I know they are.
Then Huck walks into the Bellagio poker room as the guy overseeing it is ordering breakfast over the phone for one of the players, and after the guy says to Huck, "Why don't you rest up a bit? You know we never close," there's a shot of one poker table where one of the players is eating a bowl of cereal. I look at that bowl and the dish under it, and I wonder where that bowl will go next after it's washed in the kitchens. What will that bowl be filled with and who will get it? I also think about the sheer enormity of the operations of these hotels and casinos and it's utterly fascinating to me. There are so many stories to witness and to write about. There's a reporter named Sonya Padgett in the Las Vegas Review-Journal who writes those stories. In July of last year, for example, she wrote about the MGM Grand's laundry facility in North Las Vegas. She lives the Las Vegas I love to learn about. It stems from monorail drivers knowing us when we went to Walt Disney World every weekend and parade performers stopping by on their route to say hello to us when I was a tyke. I knew that there was another side to Disney, that which was always in motion to keep visitors happy. It wasn't long after that that I learned about the Utilidors, the tunnels underneath WDW property, which is why you don't see Stitch walking through Frontierland. That's where the laundry facilities are for the park, costume shops, banks of computers for all the audio-animatronics in all the parks, and a whole lot more. That's why Las Vegas fascinates me in much the same way. I like the cocktail waitresses dressed in those pleasingly skimpy outfits at Caesars Palace, my favorite out of all the casinos, even those I haven't been to yet, but I also like to learn about what the custodians do to keep the casinos clean. It's always been who I am.
Oh, and there's also the scene where Roy (Charles Martin Smith), who wants to back Huck in the 2003 World Series of Poker, walks with him past slot machines at Bellagio, and I know that atmosphere so well, and I love to walk by and look at all those slot machines, quick glances at those playing at them. I always feel at home because I'm surrounded by so many different kinds of pleasure. What may not work for me works for someone else, but the option to have it if I ever wanted it is always appreciated.
This road trip to Las Vegas on Wednesday will be a relief. It's not just because I've been cooped up in Santa Clarita for so long that it's basicallly an "anywhere but here" feeling. It's also because I read the Las Vegas Review-Journal every day, and I visit the Las Vegas Weekly website at least twice a week. I want to hold actual copies. I want to read it in print. I want to get to know my local newspaper, to be very happy that I'll finally have a newspaper I know I'll read from beginning to end. I haven't had that since the Sun-Sentinel in South Florida. I don't read the Los Angeles Times because I don't relate to it.
It's also because I've seen those roads in Lucky You, and I know those roads we drove on previous trips, and I want them again. I want to see the traffic flow, I want to enjoy smoothly-paved roads, and I want to study them for myself, to begin thinking about routes for myself. What's the fastest way to go from here to here if there's a concert I want to get to in later years, say, Shania Twain when she arrives at Caesars Palace for her residency? What's the best route to take to get to my favorite restaurant? Even better, how close is the nearest library to our apartment complex? These are questions I can't answer in only two days, as this trip will be, but I can re-establish that base and work my way from that. I want everything that Las Vegas and Henderson mean to me and I know I'll get all of it.
Showing posts with label lucky you. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lucky you. Show all posts
Monday, January 16, 2012
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The Most Accurate Movie about Las Vegas Feels Mostly Wrong
Hollywood likes to speed up Las Vegas, portraying it as exciting, fast-moving, with such an overwhelming feeling of luck that it's possible for anyone to make it big, and those who don't are merely entertaining side characters.
Las Vegas is exciting, and depending on who you are, where you are, it can feel fast-moving, especially if you frequent its myriad nightclubs. And if you've got some really good hands going, then there can be an overwhelming feeling of luck. But Hollywood's Las Vegas is not the real Las Vegas. It doesn't move that fast. It takes time to get there, to settle in briefly before you head out on the Strip, to take in all that's around you, all the zippy colors, all the sounds, all that evidence, such as a smaller-scale Eiffel Tower that marks the beginning of Paris Las Vegas, that shows you will not find all of this anywhere else. And what you experience here is purely yours. You may be a gambler, or you may simply be content walking through the various casinos and eating at some of the buffets they offer. You may like to see some of the shows, such as Donny & Marie or Celine Dion or Elton John, or, who knows, you might be interested in the interior designs of Vegas bathrooms. Whatever it is, no two experiences are alike.
There is only one movie made by Hollywood, Warner Bros. specifically, that portrays Las Vegas with 100% accuracy. It doesn't seem like it's of Hollywood, since it was shuffled around so much on the calendar before eventually opening in a little-faith slot against Spider-Man 3 in May 2007. It's Lucky You, starring Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore, and Robert Duvall, with supporting roles filled by Debra Messing, Horatio Sanz, Saverio Guerra (Remember Bob on Becker?), Danny Hoch, and a cameo by Robert Downey, Jr.
Before I go further, I saw a lot of bad movies, and was ticked off by many of them when I wrote movie reviews for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Teentime pages (in the back of their weekend Showtime section every Friday) when I was in middle and high school, and for Film Threat (http://www.filmthreat.com/). The memories of what teed me off about those movies are gone. I can find my old reviews on the Film Threat website, and I can probably remember briefly why I was so mad, but that full-on feeling is gone.
There is one particular anger I remember vividly, though. I always went for novel experiences in moviegoing, especially advance screenings, which usually included movie theaters a bit of a drive from Pembroke Pines, one of which was AMC Aventura 24 on the third floor of the Aventura Mall. There was one Saturday morning screening there of Pokemon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back about two weeks before its release on November 10, 1999. I don't know why I went, but I think it was one of the first invitations I'd received to an advance screening, so I wanted to see what this was about, what great fortune there was in regularly writing movie reviews. Being on a Saturday morning, the audience was made up entirely of kids, and parents who would rather be anywhere else. Some had won their tickets on the radio, but I had no trouble finding a seat since there was a row roped off for press, which meant me and a few other critics. But it didn't matter. I was angry after it was over. I couldn't understand how movies like this could be made for kids, movies without thought. I was 15, and had been a huge fan of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and had liked Pogs, so I hadn't thought about the gobs of cash to be made by the studios that released these movies, Warner Bros. in this case.
After leaving the auditorium the movie had shown in and the theater itself, I went to the box office and found out on the digital showtime board there that The Straight Story was showing. This was also being featured at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, and I was thinking of asking my parents to take me there to see it. But here it was, no film festival crowd involved. Upon meeting Mom and Dad at the Johnny Rocket's across the way, I asked them if they could wait a little over two hours more so I could see The Straight Story. Then at least, Dad didn't like to spend a lot of time anywhere, so it was big of him to say yes, and Mom did too, and I got more money, and off I went.
The chance to see a movie about an old man driving his tractor from Laurens, Iowa to Mt. Zion, Wisconsin to see his estranged brother, because he could not drive a car anymore, was not one I was going to let pass by, especially since it was directed by David Lynch, never known for such gentleness in filmmaking. And it was so worth it. It completely washed away the ill will I had toward Pokemon: The First Movie. It's why the anger I had then is faded today, dull. I remember it, and then it doesn't matter.
I feel a kind of anger toward Lucky You that will never go away. I know Las Vegas, and though I haven't yet been to all the casinos, give me time when I finally have the time and much closer proximity as a resident. Lucky You is the Las Vegas I know, especially in one shot. The camera focuses on the Eiffel Tower at Paris, then pans diagonally down to the waterfalls at Bellagio before settling on Huck (Eric Bana) and Billie (Drew Barrymore). There is no music accompanying the shot. It is the pure atmosphere of Las Vegas. It is exactly what it feels like at 9 p.m., at 10 p.m. There is an underlying nervous energy, but it's very faint. Where do you want to go? What do you want to experience? But there is also such pervasive peacefulness. This is where you belong. Stay here. Take in the waterfalls. Listen. Listen. Look. Listen.
Lucky You is set in 2003 Las Vegas, and is about Huck, who wants a spot in the World Series of Poker, who, in the opening moments of the movie, is trying to pawn off a presumably untouched digital camera, still in the box. His monologue in trying to convince the grizzled pawnbroker (Phyllis Somerville) to take the camera is brilliant. He seems to have a confidence that shimmers around him, and yet, it's the egregious fault of the screenplay by Eric Roth and director Curtis Hanson that there isn't a great deal to him beyond what you see right there. However, the pawnbroker is one personality you're likely to see in the real Las Vegas, so that begins the movie's accuracy. When Huck drives his motorcycle to the service entrance of a casino on the Strip, that is the real Las Vegas around him, but there are no tricks to try to make it faster than it appears. Hanson seems to know intimately what Las Vegas feels like, and so it's quiet all around, save for the music during these moments.
Charles Martin Smith plays Roy, Huck's chief backer in his attempt to get into the World Series of Poker. Currently, he's better known as the director of Dolphin Tale, also released by Warner Bros. Roy wants this investment to pay off, and says to Huck at one point, "You want sympathy? You'll find it between "shit" and "syphilis" in the dictionary." You don't have to know anyone like Roy around Las Vegas, and yet you can sense people around you that are like him. They're around. Vegas births them.
There's also Saverio Guerra as Lester, who's known for oddball bets. Before the end of the movie, he takes on a bet that he can live in the men's bathroom for 30 days at Caesars Palace without leaving it. Lester is quite possibly the most entertaining character in Lucky You. The real Las Vegas is undoubtedly stocked with Lesters. They're as numerous as the Roys.
It's always nice to see Drew Barrymore in any movie, but she's saddled with so little to do as Billie Offer, who's moved to Las Vegas to try to be a singer. She meets Huck and gets involved with him, despite her sister (Debra Messing), likely an ex of Huck's, warning her off. I don't know if there's anyone like Billie in Las Vegas, not yet, and I wouldn't actively seek them. There probably is, but surely they're not saddled by the silliness the screenplay forces Barrymore to work with, such as when Huck is teaching her how to play poker. Despite my fondness for Barrymore, more moments with Lester and Roy would have been more welcome.
Huck's chief antagonist is his father, L.C. (Robert Duvall), though L.C. isn't the antagonist type. He just wasn't much of a father, and also happens to be the greatest poker player in the world, and shows it against Huck, but that's just how the game is. In Las Vegas, you have your money, you have whatever luck you're dealt, and for poker players, that depends on what cards you get. That's just the way it goes. But there's so many scenes between Huck and L.C. like this, resentment included, that it becomes tiresome.
Lucky You is so thoroughly squandered on the dealings between L.C. and Huck, and Huck and Billie, that sometimes the real Las Vegas is lost. The golf course scenes that include Horatio Sanz as the one who bets Lester that he can't do this or that (such as the Caesars Palace bathroom bet) don't feel anything like Las Vegas. Yes, there are golf courses in Las Vegas, but this feels disjointed. And yet, Las Vegas is still there somehow. The moments are fewer and fewer as it goes on, but you can still feel it. But then, maybe that's the intent. For a visitor to Las Vegas (which Huck isn't, but in the span of this movie, we are), it is so vivid when we get there, and we appreciate it as the days go on, but when we leave, there are only bits of it that cling to us. We can remember fondly what we did, but on that last day, it's time to pack, time to go home. We have to get back on the road, have to catch that flight.
Ideally, my kind of Vegas movie would have the scenery and atmosphere as Curtis Hanson has captured it, so close to the real thing that you could jump into the screen and be there if that were possible, combined with the Las Vegas segment in My Blueberry Nights, with Natalie Portman as a poker player too, who knows more about the odds and tells than about people as they are, whereas Norah Jones sees people as they are.
I'll always somewhat like Lucky You for finally getting Las Vegas right where so many others have gotten it wrong, but loathe it because of those missed opportunities for a better story. With the exceptions of Roy, Lester, and Robert Downey, Jr. holding down a telephone psychiatry service and other businesses across many phone lines at a bar, you can find more interesting characters at Serendipity 3 outside of Caesars Palace, known for its frozen hot chocolate.
But until you can get to Las Vegas, this is as close as you'll get to it in a movie. For the most part, this is exactly right.
(I thought about Lucky You while at Walmart today, walking from the bakery with a few free samples back to Mom and Meridith at the refrigerated yogurt case, and also wondered if I should get it on DVD for the scenes I like, or buy it from Amazon Instant Video to watch online whenever I feel like it. It's cheap enough both ways, a little over $3 from the sellers at Amazon Marketplace, though a bit bumped up for online viewing at $5.99. I know those scenes well enough, but what do I need them for? Is it because I want those good feelings about Las Vegas that I get when watching it being accurately portrayed? But surely I'll be there one day to experience it again, and again, and again. I'm conflicted, and then I'm not. And then I am again. Yes. No. Or maybe I'll stick with the Henderson Press for now, downloading all the back issues from the website and reading them, paying full attention to where I'll actually be, with Las Vegas comfortably nearby.)
Las Vegas is exciting, and depending on who you are, where you are, it can feel fast-moving, especially if you frequent its myriad nightclubs. And if you've got some really good hands going, then there can be an overwhelming feeling of luck. But Hollywood's Las Vegas is not the real Las Vegas. It doesn't move that fast. It takes time to get there, to settle in briefly before you head out on the Strip, to take in all that's around you, all the zippy colors, all the sounds, all that evidence, such as a smaller-scale Eiffel Tower that marks the beginning of Paris Las Vegas, that shows you will not find all of this anywhere else. And what you experience here is purely yours. You may be a gambler, or you may simply be content walking through the various casinos and eating at some of the buffets they offer. You may like to see some of the shows, such as Donny & Marie or Celine Dion or Elton John, or, who knows, you might be interested in the interior designs of Vegas bathrooms. Whatever it is, no two experiences are alike.
There is only one movie made by Hollywood, Warner Bros. specifically, that portrays Las Vegas with 100% accuracy. It doesn't seem like it's of Hollywood, since it was shuffled around so much on the calendar before eventually opening in a little-faith slot against Spider-Man 3 in May 2007. It's Lucky You, starring Eric Bana, Drew Barrymore, and Robert Duvall, with supporting roles filled by Debra Messing, Horatio Sanz, Saverio Guerra (Remember Bob on Becker?), Danny Hoch, and a cameo by Robert Downey, Jr.
Before I go further, I saw a lot of bad movies, and was ticked off by many of them when I wrote movie reviews for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel's Teentime pages (in the back of their weekend Showtime section every Friday) when I was in middle and high school, and for Film Threat (http://www.filmthreat.com/). The memories of what teed me off about those movies are gone. I can find my old reviews on the Film Threat website, and I can probably remember briefly why I was so mad, but that full-on feeling is gone.
There is one particular anger I remember vividly, though. I always went for novel experiences in moviegoing, especially advance screenings, which usually included movie theaters a bit of a drive from Pembroke Pines, one of which was AMC Aventura 24 on the third floor of the Aventura Mall. There was one Saturday morning screening there of Pokemon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back about two weeks before its release on November 10, 1999. I don't know why I went, but I think it was one of the first invitations I'd received to an advance screening, so I wanted to see what this was about, what great fortune there was in regularly writing movie reviews. Being on a Saturday morning, the audience was made up entirely of kids, and parents who would rather be anywhere else. Some had won their tickets on the radio, but I had no trouble finding a seat since there was a row roped off for press, which meant me and a few other critics. But it didn't matter. I was angry after it was over. I couldn't understand how movies like this could be made for kids, movies without thought. I was 15, and had been a huge fan of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and had liked Pogs, so I hadn't thought about the gobs of cash to be made by the studios that released these movies, Warner Bros. in this case.
After leaving the auditorium the movie had shown in and the theater itself, I went to the box office and found out on the digital showtime board there that The Straight Story was showing. This was also being featured at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, and I was thinking of asking my parents to take me there to see it. But here it was, no film festival crowd involved. Upon meeting Mom and Dad at the Johnny Rocket's across the way, I asked them if they could wait a little over two hours more so I could see The Straight Story. Then at least, Dad didn't like to spend a lot of time anywhere, so it was big of him to say yes, and Mom did too, and I got more money, and off I went.
The chance to see a movie about an old man driving his tractor from Laurens, Iowa to Mt. Zion, Wisconsin to see his estranged brother, because he could not drive a car anymore, was not one I was going to let pass by, especially since it was directed by David Lynch, never known for such gentleness in filmmaking. And it was so worth it. It completely washed away the ill will I had toward Pokemon: The First Movie. It's why the anger I had then is faded today, dull. I remember it, and then it doesn't matter.
I feel a kind of anger toward Lucky You that will never go away. I know Las Vegas, and though I haven't yet been to all the casinos, give me time when I finally have the time and much closer proximity as a resident. Lucky You is the Las Vegas I know, especially in one shot. The camera focuses on the Eiffel Tower at Paris, then pans diagonally down to the waterfalls at Bellagio before settling on Huck (Eric Bana) and Billie (Drew Barrymore). There is no music accompanying the shot. It is the pure atmosphere of Las Vegas. It is exactly what it feels like at 9 p.m., at 10 p.m. There is an underlying nervous energy, but it's very faint. Where do you want to go? What do you want to experience? But there is also such pervasive peacefulness. This is where you belong. Stay here. Take in the waterfalls. Listen. Listen. Look. Listen.
Lucky You is set in 2003 Las Vegas, and is about Huck, who wants a spot in the World Series of Poker, who, in the opening moments of the movie, is trying to pawn off a presumably untouched digital camera, still in the box. His monologue in trying to convince the grizzled pawnbroker (Phyllis Somerville) to take the camera is brilliant. He seems to have a confidence that shimmers around him, and yet, it's the egregious fault of the screenplay by Eric Roth and director Curtis Hanson that there isn't a great deal to him beyond what you see right there. However, the pawnbroker is one personality you're likely to see in the real Las Vegas, so that begins the movie's accuracy. When Huck drives his motorcycle to the service entrance of a casino on the Strip, that is the real Las Vegas around him, but there are no tricks to try to make it faster than it appears. Hanson seems to know intimately what Las Vegas feels like, and so it's quiet all around, save for the music during these moments.
Charles Martin Smith plays Roy, Huck's chief backer in his attempt to get into the World Series of Poker. Currently, he's better known as the director of Dolphin Tale, also released by Warner Bros. Roy wants this investment to pay off, and says to Huck at one point, "You want sympathy? You'll find it between "shit" and "syphilis" in the dictionary." You don't have to know anyone like Roy around Las Vegas, and yet you can sense people around you that are like him. They're around. Vegas births them.
There's also Saverio Guerra as Lester, who's known for oddball bets. Before the end of the movie, he takes on a bet that he can live in the men's bathroom for 30 days at Caesars Palace without leaving it. Lester is quite possibly the most entertaining character in Lucky You. The real Las Vegas is undoubtedly stocked with Lesters. They're as numerous as the Roys.
It's always nice to see Drew Barrymore in any movie, but she's saddled with so little to do as Billie Offer, who's moved to Las Vegas to try to be a singer. She meets Huck and gets involved with him, despite her sister (Debra Messing), likely an ex of Huck's, warning her off. I don't know if there's anyone like Billie in Las Vegas, not yet, and I wouldn't actively seek them. There probably is, but surely they're not saddled by the silliness the screenplay forces Barrymore to work with, such as when Huck is teaching her how to play poker. Despite my fondness for Barrymore, more moments with Lester and Roy would have been more welcome.
Huck's chief antagonist is his father, L.C. (Robert Duvall), though L.C. isn't the antagonist type. He just wasn't much of a father, and also happens to be the greatest poker player in the world, and shows it against Huck, but that's just how the game is. In Las Vegas, you have your money, you have whatever luck you're dealt, and for poker players, that depends on what cards you get. That's just the way it goes. But there's so many scenes between Huck and L.C. like this, resentment included, that it becomes tiresome.
Lucky You is so thoroughly squandered on the dealings between L.C. and Huck, and Huck and Billie, that sometimes the real Las Vegas is lost. The golf course scenes that include Horatio Sanz as the one who bets Lester that he can't do this or that (such as the Caesars Palace bathroom bet) don't feel anything like Las Vegas. Yes, there are golf courses in Las Vegas, but this feels disjointed. And yet, Las Vegas is still there somehow. The moments are fewer and fewer as it goes on, but you can still feel it. But then, maybe that's the intent. For a visitor to Las Vegas (which Huck isn't, but in the span of this movie, we are), it is so vivid when we get there, and we appreciate it as the days go on, but when we leave, there are only bits of it that cling to us. We can remember fondly what we did, but on that last day, it's time to pack, time to go home. We have to get back on the road, have to catch that flight.
Ideally, my kind of Vegas movie would have the scenery and atmosphere as Curtis Hanson has captured it, so close to the real thing that you could jump into the screen and be there if that were possible, combined with the Las Vegas segment in My Blueberry Nights, with Natalie Portman as a poker player too, who knows more about the odds and tells than about people as they are, whereas Norah Jones sees people as they are.
I'll always somewhat like Lucky You for finally getting Las Vegas right where so many others have gotten it wrong, but loathe it because of those missed opportunities for a better story. With the exceptions of Roy, Lester, and Robert Downey, Jr. holding down a telephone psychiatry service and other businesses across many phone lines at a bar, you can find more interesting characters at Serendipity 3 outside of Caesars Palace, known for its frozen hot chocolate.
But until you can get to Las Vegas, this is as close as you'll get to it in a movie. For the most part, this is exactly right.
(I thought about Lucky You while at Walmart today, walking from the bakery with a few free samples back to Mom and Meridith at the refrigerated yogurt case, and also wondered if I should get it on DVD for the scenes I like, or buy it from Amazon Instant Video to watch online whenever I feel like it. It's cheap enough both ways, a little over $3 from the sellers at Amazon Marketplace, though a bit bumped up for online viewing at $5.99. I know those scenes well enough, but what do I need them for? Is it because I want those good feelings about Las Vegas that I get when watching it being accurately portrayed? But surely I'll be there one day to experience it again, and again, and again. I'm conflicted, and then I'm not. And then I am again. Yes. No. Or maybe I'll stick with the Henderson Press for now, downloading all the back issues from the website and reading them, paying full attention to where I'll actually be, with Las Vegas comfortably nearby.)
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