I watched Atlantic City (dir. Louis Malle) this weekend, starring Susan Sarandon and Burt Lancaster. I believe it was recently released on DVD for the first time, and since this came out in 1980 (when I was just six), I never saw it before. It starts off very avant garde and slowly comes together with some kind of semi-cohesive plot. Susan plays Sally, a waitress and aspiring casino dealer who dreams of working in a casino in France. Sally meets Lou (Lancaster) and they engage in some creepy flirtation/manipulation together, each getting something they need from the other. Lou used to be a big shot (I think he's a metaphor for the city itself), Sally is trying to be a big shot, Lou windowstalks Sally as she rubs lemons on herself to clean off the smell of failure, drugs are bought and sold like candy bars out in the open. It's all so very. However cliché, the real star here is the city itself and the criminals who run it, the decrepit town that once was a gem in its hayday. It's quite a rundown snapshot of a forgotten moment in time. Definitely worth watching.
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