The Lottery

This week, let's go out of the norm. I'll be reviewing The Lottery today. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about the Shirley Jackson story (although I will say that the woman TOTALLY had that stoning coming to her.). I'm also not talking about a specific state's lottery or anything like that. No, this is a review of The Lottery as a concept.

BACKGROUND
Let's just say that the background on this one will be pretty self-evident as we proceed.

THE RUNDOWN
Lotteries took off in this country around the mid-to-late 1980's. For decades, America generally kept gambling to select areas and completely out of sight. Then a movement swept across this land to legalize gambling wherever possible. It was a great way to increase government revenues without increasing taxes, and usually some sort of promise to give money to education was thrown in. Of course, nobody realized that the people who were selling states on gambling were the same people who MAKE A LIVING CONVINCING PEOPLE TO GIVE UP THEIR MONEY FOR NOTHING.

Personally, I don't gamble. Even when I go to a casino, my limit may be $200 bucks. I have no delusions that someone will just hand me money because I saw some guy on TV get a huge cardboard check. I also hear about a guy who fell from an airplane without a parachute and lived - that doesn't mean I'm about to go jump from an 747 because I'll just bounce harmlessly off the ground.

While I don't gamble, plenty of people do. Generally, those people who partake in the lottery aren't exactly mutual fund managers either. I'm not sure who first called the lottery "a tax on stupid people", but they definitely had something.

If I'm stopping in a 7-Eleven, I'm probably just there to pick up something quick ... that's why they call it a "convenience store." There's a good chance I just need to pay for my gas, or pick up a drink, or grab some chips or something to tide me over as I skip lunch. If it's 7:15, I'm on my way to work, as are 95% of the people in the store.

That being said, why is there ALWAYS somebody holding us all up so they can buy 10 new scratch-off tickets with the $10 they just won? It's ALWAYS apparent that these people aren't on their way to work. Either they clearly don't work at all, or they're retired, or nobody would even care if they managed to show up to whatever joke they consider their "job". I'll be stuck in a line of 10 people waiting on one guy so he can let the machine tell them if his Powerball tickets won (because looking up that information and figuring it out would be too complicated).

When I go to buy my 2 Diet Dr. Peppers and a bag of Baked Lays, it literally takes me 45 seconds or less to complete the transaction. Hell, if I go to buy a basket full of stuff at the grocery store, it may take me 5 minutes at most to check out. Why, then, does it take the average scratch-off person 30 hours to buy their stupid tickets? I'm running late to get to work, but I have to wait 3 years while some brain-dead moron tries to decide which brightly colored piece of cardboard will make her rich, and which one is worthless. (Just a tip, ma'am - they're ALL worthless.) And then they'll sit there and scratch off the dumb things at the counter, oblivious of the endless line of people behind them. Actually, that's the most accurate description for most of these people ... OBLIVIOUS.

But don't worry, dear reader ... my occasional conflicts won't influence my standard, impartial review.

THE GOOD PARTS
Well, there's the obvious. If you're blindly lucky, you'll be given an opportunity to be financially secure for life. Of course, it's an opportunity - that's all. If you spend it all on pick-ups and Moon Pies, you'll be just as broke as when you started.

Now if we focus on just those scratch-off games, there's another positive that I just recently discovered. Joan Ginther, a woman here in the Lone Star State, has won a total of $20.4 million in scratch-offs over roughly 15 years. You might think she's the luckiest person ever, or the worst ever at covering up her deal with Satan. Then again, it helps that she's a former mathematics professor with a PhD in statistics.
You see, games with the ping pong balls like Powerball are truly random. The results from yesterday have zero impact on today. You could theoretically have the exact same numbers drawn 15 days in a row. Truly random events have no discernible pattern.

Scratch-off tickets, though, are different. There's a certain number that are printed which win the big bucks. That number isn't random ... it's a set percentage. The Texas lottery people also make the mistake of trying to replicate random behavior without recognizing some of the pitfalls.

You see, if I ask you for 5 random numbers, you'll try to select 5 numbers that "seem" random. You'd never pick 1-1-2-2-1 or 1-2-3-4-5 ... you'd look like an idiot. True random behavior, though, has this all the time ... that's why casinos are made with so much gold and marble. I've made the mistake of assuming that the roulette ball MUST come up black, because it's been red the last 30 times. Sure, eventually it will hit black, but that may be 2 weeks from now.

Computers aren't any better at coming up with random numbers either. A computer, at its most basic, just performs math. There's no math operation that "makes things random." Any kind of randomizing program is merely a long formula that starts with the date, or the position of Jupiter, or some digit of Pi. The key word in that long rambling, by the way, was "formula".

That's right - the State of Texas spent who knows how much money to generate a program that told them when to print the big money tickets, where to send them, etc. If you're REALLY good at math and have enough data (like, for instance, a decade worth of news stories on lottery winners), you can reverse engineer that formula. Then, all you have to do is enter the new information, and WHAMMY ... you'll have a road map that tells you when and where to get your lottery on! Frankly, that's a more stable investment than real estate or mutual funds right now.

THE CRAP PARTS
The problems with the lottery are easy to spot. First of all, let's go back to the reason the lottery exists in most places ... education. When was the last time you went to a public school? Did you see the rocket cars or monorails or teleporters? How about a mass spectrometer for the chemistry lab, or a music studio for the band? Yeah, I didn't see one either.

If legalized gambling provided what it promised, you wouldn't be buying textbooks or paying lab fees after you've already paid taxes to cover that crap. Based on my completely unscientific sampling, a large chunk of lottery players are retirees or people who receive some form of government financial assistance. So, whatever money 1 government agency makes gets immediately spit back to the same people by another agency. If these citizens weren't throwing away money on worthless tickets, maybe they wouldn't need as much governmental help to live. Once that happens, maybe my school could finally get a jet pack or two.

Apparently, it's not even that great to win the lottery. Sure, we've all heard stories about lottery winners who burn through all of it. The bigger headache, though, is that every person you've ever met comes out of the woodwork to get a piece of the pie. If you give everyone what they want, you'll be more broke than you were when you started. If you don't, feel free to have all of your friends completely turn against you - or even worse, try to steal from you. Your run-of-the-mill rich guy doesn't have to deal with this, because they've always been rich - his friends have always known him as rich, so there's no change to the relationship. Besides, his friends are probably just as wealthy as he is.

But when you've never been rich - maybe you're even coming from poverty - then it's a completely new dynamic. You didn't know your cousin Beth was a complete gold digger because she never had an opportunity. You always thought you could trust your friend from across the street, but that's because you never had anything worth stealing. As a certain Mr. Wallace would tell you, you're supposed winfall has given you "mo problems."

FINAL JUDGEMENT
Yes, the lottery sucks. Obviously, no other possible review that makes since. The more interesting point, I think, is why it sucks. Specifically, it doesn't go far enough.

Most of the time, I'm more libertarian than anything else. If people want to spend money on stupid things, that's there problem - so long as they actually have to deal with the consequences. And if this thing is a way to reduce taxes, so be it. My point is, we need a better lottery. In fact, we need the Optimized Lottery.

Picking numbers is an unnecessary step. If the whole things is random, why are we bothering to let people get involved at all? If you want to play the lottery, just send us a form. Then, just make a weekly or monthly payment (If you have a governmental check from which you want to debit, we can do that as well.) Then, if we determine you won, we'll just send you a check.

But what if you like scratch-off games? That's easy too. We'll just send you a selection of those to scratch in the privacy of your own home. If you win, don't worry about redeeming it. A phone number is included (toll free of course) that you can call with your special code from your winning ticket. We'll then immediately send you out an equivalent number of free tickets for you to scratch off as well. By eliminating the redemption step, we simplify the whole process. I mean, we all know she would just spend it on more lottery tickets anyway.
Think this is stupid? Well, right now, the odds of winning only $100 at Powerball are about 1:13,644. Contrast that with the fact that the odds of a randomly selected individual being able to speak Cherokee is 1:15,000. Essentially, if I bet you $100 that the next person who walks through your door speaks a dying Native American language, that's only a slightly worse bet than if I buy a Powerball ticket. Clearly the people who support the lottery aren't real astute at making financial decisions, so you can't convince me that the Optimized Lottery won't work. Look at all the overhead I just eliminated. The revenue stream just grew, because we've made it easier and easier for dumb people to send us money. And most importantly (for me, anyway) it gets a public nuissance out of the way of the general 7-Eleven shopping public. Seems like a win-win-win to me!

Anyway, my final verdict is: real lottery - a blight on our landscape. Optimized Lottery - serious potential!

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Another announcement ...

I've had a change of heart. I'm going to go on a regular weekly schedule instead of bi-weekly. I just realized that the long layoff made it too easy for me and the rest of the world to forget.

Also, I still haven't received any suggestions for reviews. If you have something that requires my keen eye and attention to detail, shoot me an e-mail at TheLowestExpectations [at] gmail.com.

Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

To start this endeavor, let’s begin with a review of a film so disappointing that it’s hard to even put forth the effort to discuss it - 2007’s Before the Devil Knows You're Dead. It stars Marissa Tomei, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke, and Albert Finney. If you’re counting, that’s 2 Academy Award winners, and 2 other nominees. It actually was named by the American Film Institute as one of 2007’s Ten Most Influential Films. Ebert called it “superb,” and gave it four stars. Given all of this, the question can be raised: How have I never heard of this thing? Well, the answer is simple … it’s DREADFUL!

BACKGROUND
As part of their big corporate restructuring, Blockbuster has closed at least 2 stores right by our house. At a “Going Out of Business” sale, I picked up something like 10 DVD’s for $1 each. Of course, the great films were long since picked over by the early birds, but there were still some things that seemed worthwhile. Seeing the cast and critical acclaim, I decided to take a flyer and spend a $1 on this one. Blockbuster clearly came out better on this deal!

THE RUNDOWN
The first thing the viewer sees is a title card with the old Irish saying from which the title is taken. My first thought was ... really? Was this necessary? Who are the 14 people left on the planet who haven’t seen that saying at a bar or hanging on some little plaque somewhere? Seriously, we understand the title. It’s not that clever. Little did I know this would be the most well-written part of the script.

The film then takes a significant upswing, as there’s a rather “frisky” scene between a topless Tomei and Hoffman. True, you’re getting a lot of mostly-naked Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and that’s not good for anybody. Still, though, things seemed promising. Alas, this was the last time I cared about anything on screen.

Then … that’s about it. There’s a ridiculous plot about some slimeball brothers who try to rob their parents’ jewelry store. It’s edited so that it skips back and forth in time, so you have to fight through that. Hoffman's character is a prick who does cocaine and heroine in his free time, although we aren't sure why. Hawke is his loser brother who can’t pull together enough money to pay his child support. Tomei is … well, I’m not sure what we're supposed to think of her. That lack of certainty, by the way, is the calling card of this film. Motivations, insight, anything approaching a realistic personality … these are the things that were deemed unnecessary. Hoffman's man-boobs ... let's get plenty of those!

THE GOOD PARTS
Marissa Tomei always looks good, so there’s that.

Seriously, though … there was some really good acting in this mess, I guess. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is incredibly convincing as a conflicted, narcissistic jackass. Ethan Hawke is great in portraying the struggling loser who’s just trying to do what he can, but can’t do anything right. Albert Finney is always a commanding presence.
The individual greatness of the performers is too strong to be completely disguised. If these performances were isolated or scenes somewhere else, maybe they would work.

THE CRAP PARTS
The problem is, the whole is MUCH weaker than the sum of its parts. Somebody just took a bunch of good actors, threw them together, and then went to Applebee's for a Pomegranate Margarita. Do scenes need to be united by a cogent plot? Nah! What about a narrative that makes sense, or is at least relatable? Nope. How about the slightest reason to care about these people? No thanks ... too much work!

As I mentioned earlier, you also have to fight through the editing. Not that long ago, filmmakers would occasionally use nonlinear timelines to augment the narrative. In Memento, it helps give you the same sensation of constant confusion as Leonard experiences. Tarrantino uses it all the time to bring a whodunit feel to what are essentially straight-forward action flicks. Even Lost went back and forth in time to great effect.

Narrative device, however, is not a substitute for narrative! Remember how M. Night thought that The Sixth Sense was great because of the twist ending instead of just understanding that he had made a fantastic ghost story. Now every M. Night movie is supposed to have some contrived ending, and 98% of the movie is irrelevant.

Memento, Annie Hall, Kill Bill, Lost ... those stories are really great no matter how they're told. The nonlinear storytelling just augments what's there. I feel like the makers of Before the Devil realized they had a big sack of nothing, and decided to hide it with jump cuts and confusing editing.

FINAL JUDGEMENT
AWFUL! It’s an artsy, character film that has zero characters. That is to say, I guess it was a character study ... the writing is so weak that I have no idea what the point was for any of it. They didn’t even bother to create ONE character that could elicit one emotion - love, hate, anything - from the audience.

So why the critical praise? Uber-artistic but-kissing, that’s why! It just feels like an artsy movie, with all of these supposed "deep" emotions and “real” people. When you make a movie like that, and then fill it with A-list stars, critics eat it up. Look at the praise for Magnolia – then go watch that piece of crap and tell me how it was released to the public without some sort of public health warning.

Often, movie critics are like NBA refs. True, they try their best to be impartial, but they’re only human. While a ref can get swayed by the home crowd, the majority of critics will follow the torrent of opinion, regardless of how wrong that opinion may be.

Here's a better analogy ... it's The Emperor's New Clothes. No smart, sophisticated critic wants to be the guy who didn't understand the smart, edgy movie, so they decide they better love it or else be found out as a brainless hack.

Or maybe I was just in a bad mood when I saw this. Who knows?

My final judgment – AVOID THIS LIKE THE PLAGUE.

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Just a couple of announcements before we close this out.

First of all, I’m going to post every other week until I get back into writing regularly, or until I get considerably better at this. Let's go with Sundays as my deadline.

Also, if you have anything in particular you’d like to see reviewed on the site, shoot me an e-mail at TheLowestExpectations@gmail.com. I’m bound to run out of ideas almost immediately, so keep ‘em coming.