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The Grand (2007) - ★★★★☆



I don't know how to play poker. I assume it's kind of like Yahtzee, which I also don't know how to play. I don't think poker has the only fun looking part of Yahtzee, where you shake the dice in the red cup and it makes a loud noise. Both of them are about numbers (I think), which means I do not care about them.

Actually, since I last blogged on here, I passed an important life milestone, which is that I finished the last science class I'll ever have to take in my life. I finished the last math class of my life a year ago, which means that my life is now officially STEM free. I can now give my mind entirely over to purer pursuits—stuff like wishing I could be a seamstress one hundred years ago, wishing I had a Nintendo switch so I could play Lego Harry Potter, and of course, Woody Harrelson. I'm actually on a quest to scourge my mind of all math/science related "knowledge" (knowledge, I ask you, according to who?). It's working pretty well. I don't think I could do a multiplication table if you asked me to, and I'm looking into becoming a flat earther (I've said it before, I'll say it again, Big Science is as bad as Big Oil or Big Corporations). 

All that being said, The Grand certainly achieved its most important task—not focussing so much on its math-adjacent aspects that I couldn't like it on a matter of principle. They put pictures of cards on the screen, and I'm assuming a real poker head would be able to know what was going on, but I just ignored them. There was always helpful dialogue to let me know who was winning.

This is a pretty classic role for Woody—I think that aside for the police man/soldier role, the Las Vegas cowboy type is one of his most common characters. And that's okay! Why mess with a good thing?

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