Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

It is 1959.  A man checks into a motel and commences to rearrange the furniture, pull up the carpet, remove the floorboards, and drop a bag into the resulting hole.  He then neatly replaces the boards, reinstalls the carpet, and puts the furniture back in place.  Then there is a knock on the door.  He opens the door and let's the other man in.  The man shoots him and searches the room but fails to find the bag.

Ten years later, several people arrive at the El Royale, a motel near Lake Tahoe that happens to be right on the state line.  Half the rooms are in California, and half are in Nevada.  Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges) appears to be absent-minded but is quite friendly.  Laramie Sullivan (Jon Hamm), a vacuum salesman, has stayed at the motel before and offers some background while they wait for the mysteriously absent motel staff.  Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo), a singer, clearly wants to have no interaction with the others.  Lastly, a woman with attitude (Dakota Johnson) arrives and refuses to give her name.  Miles Miller (Lewis Pullman), the motel's only employee, finally appears in a disheveled state.  He offers a description of El Royale that is mostly a repeat of what Laramie offered.  After that, each person is given a key to various rooms.

When the action kicks off, the story is told from the point of view of each character, often referred to by their room number.  This always involves overlapping, so that the same event might be viewed several times from different points of view.  Also, the switch from character to character often begins with a flashback that explains what happened prior to arriving at the El Royale.  Though there was trouble enough with those already at the hotel, Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth) and his band of goons arrive.  One of the people at the motel crossed him and he has arrived to settle that account.

Of course, the coincidence that all of these people should arrive at this motel on the same day is ludicrous.  Also, based on what we learn when Miles' backstory is revealed, earlier events don't make sense.  Likewise, the actions of some characters are obviously stupid as that is what the plot requires: I'm looking at you, Jon Hamm.  I guess that goes for Jeff Bridges too; you couldn't wait until tomorrow to just rent the other room yourself?  What's the hurry?  The point of view filming allows characters to misinterpret events and take detrimental action, thus triggering bad times.

Overall, an entertaining movie.  Good popcorn fun.

South Carolina and Nevada

Trump (32.4%) has another victory and all the Palmetto State delegates too.  Jeb! (7.9%) has finally admitted what has been obvious for months and suspended his campaign.  Where will his sliver of voters go now?  I doubt they will go to Trump, as Trump has been particularly abrasive toward Jeb.  It is pretty clear that it is a three way race with only Trump, Rubio (22.4%), and Cruz (22.3%) having enough support to reasonably stay in the race.  Kasich (7.6%) had over a hundred town hall meetings in New Hampshire to achieve a distant second; Santorum used the same strategy to win Iowa in 2012 but it gained him little traction thereafter.  Kasich and Carson (7.2%) will be the next two to suspend their campaigns, perhaps after Nevada but pretty certainly after Super Tuesday.  Trump will be best served if both Cruz and Rubio are still in the race after Super Tuesday so that the anti-Trump wing of the party can't coalesce around one of those two.  It is also possible that as the last 'establishment' candidate, Trump and Cruz will serve to split the anti-establishment vote and give Rubio his path to victory.  Interesting days ahead.

 

Meanwhile, Nevada chose Hillary (52.7%) over Bernie (47.2%), thus providing Hillary her first solid victory from the voters.  It could hardly be more appropriate that the land of gambling and prostitution chose Bill Clinton's wife rather than America's anti-capitalist scold.  Hillary is likely to win South Carolina as well.  Despite her apparent unpopularity, she has the Clinton network to manage her ground game.  Young voters prefer Bernie - much as they preferred Obama in 2008 - but turn out has been down among Democrats this year.  That's bad news for Bernie.  Low turnout tends to benefit the establishment.  Nevada participation was down by a third from 2008, showing the voters are less interested in the Clinton - Sanders race than they were in the Clinton - Obama race.

 

On the issue of turnout, the Republicans have had tremendous participation so far.  If the relative voter enthusiasm holds to the general election, this could be a Republican landslide.  As I said in an earlier post, the presidency almost always switches parties after a two term presidency.  Lacking a roaring economy only makes it more likely to flip.