User reviews

I pretty much despised this movie. A couple of obnoxious, bumbling idiots yell over each other for nearly 2 hours. They're addicted to gambling, but otherwise there is no plot whatsoever. There is no conflict outside of trying not to get in the hole financially due to gambling losses. There are no intriguing themes or character arcs to keep you interested, unless you connect with these types of annoying humans that never shut up, or are that into gambling yourself? These characters remind me of the type of people that I cannot stand being in a room with for longer than 5 minutes. They never stop talking for a second, even if they have nothing worth saying. It feels like it's supposed to be a "buddy film" but if both of the "buddies" are unbearable, then it's hard to make an enjoyable film out of it. It's ok for a film to be plotless if it has a unique or effective atmosphere or mood, but the only mood this movie conjures is irritation.

I read that California Split was the first film to ever use an experimental eight-track sound system for the audio mix, which Altman used to go all the way in with the overlapping of dialogue. Well, it was effective, but only in the sense that it makes you want to turn the volume way down or turn the movie off completely. This all reminded me of last year's UNCUT GEMS, which was the only movie in the history of my 35 years of existence to ever make me nauseous, which was primarily a result of the exact same style of dialogue, only for 2 hours and 20 minutes rather than 1 hour and 50 minutes. The main difference is that UNCUT GEMS had a lot of redeeming values whereas this film has almost zero. Aside from a few goofy jokes from Elliott Gould here and there, some spacey women with good vibes, and a fun scene where a restroom fight interrupts an innocent man just trying to take a poo, there was absolutely nothing that I enjoyed about this movie.

I recently watched Robert Altman's newly restored 1972 film. IMAGES, and fell completely in love with it, so I figured I would explore more of his works from the same era. This one was streaming free on Amazon Prime and had a pretty high rating on IMDb so I figured I'd give it a shot next. I can definitely say it is my least favorite Altman film I have seen. I'm a huge fan of 3 WOMEN and IMAGES. I remember loving THE LONG GOODBYE but I haven't seen it since film school (that was 16 years ago). I really dug THE PLAYER and SHORT CUTS. NASHVILLE and GOSFORD PARK didn't do anything for me. This is the first one I have straight up DISLIKED...and strongly.