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Casino
Year: 1995
Director: Martin Scorcese
Cast: Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods
Plot: Samuel "Ace" Rothstein(De Niro) gets a chanceat running a casino in Las Vegas, Nevadaand albeit reluctantly,for that is his naturetakes it almost immidiately. He has his "bodyguard" Nicky Santoro (Pesci) at his side in the begining, but soon things start to get out of control, as Nicky wants to take over the entire town (and does so, at least for a while). Another problem is Ginger (Stone), a beautiful woman hustler, who is in fact seriously mentally dearranged, of which Ace takes no notice at first (or he does, but cannot resist her charm and beauty) while making the mistake of his life (and completely out of character) by marrying her.
I remember, it was winter of 1996 and, after a lot of consideration, I finally decided not to go to the cinema. I was really in a pittyfull state then. But enough about me. This is one of my ABSOLUTELY favorite films of all time, and I even dare to put it on the same pedestal as Goodfellas. I'd rank 'em as 5a and 5b. They are simmilar: Martin said it finally ended his crime movies serial which started way back in 1973 with Mean Streets. Both are long (2h 30mins Goodfellas, 3h Casino, both feature narration (Liotta and Bracco in the former, De Niro and Pesci in the latter) and both are in the hundreds f*, where Casino tops even Goodfellas. Where do I begin? The story, like in Goodfellas (even though there are time gaps) is linear - one simply gets the feeling it goes gradually, slowly, but surely from start to finish. It's quite unlike, say, a Tarantino movie, such as Pulp Fiction with its scrambled time line. Again here we have what is absolutely the key feature in both movies: the Scorcese genius of incorporating songs into a film. The directing is, of course, exceptionaly dynamic and exciting. I call him "Anti-Kubrick". Here the choreography shines as well, with suits, dresses, and all kinds of garderobe. The acting needs no comment, just look at the cast. Here we have Bobby playing a highely calculated, rational, intelligent, smooth, calm, un-emotional and, well, a very normal (apart from the obvious) human being in form of a Jewish enterpreneur. I'm sorry, but Sharon is so beautiful, it's hard for me to concentrate on anything else, except I think this is in fact her best role. She does an insane woman so well, I get a feeling she herself is insane. Joe is at or at least close to the level of Goodfellas, but he unfortunately does not shine so menacingly, maybe because it's doing the same thing over again. James is one of my all time favorite actors (allegedly his IQ is 180! And he was even at one point considering studying math) and every time when he's with Sharon (oh yeah, btw hers is 154, and that's confirmed (Einstein is "only" 163)) he seems to be her one weakness, like in The Specialist. I don't know why is it so, but her character in The Specialist seemed even afraid of James'. Maybe because he's smarter?
Nah, I don't really believe that, women really are smarter than us. 
So, I'll start at the beginning. After the Universal logo is gone, we see Ace walking out of a building, in a fancy red and white Las Vegas kind of suit. Then the narration begins and he explodes. (Not like a thermonuclear bomb, mind you, he walks into a car which had a device designed to kill him). So, again, like in Goodfellas we have a key scene at the start, taken completely out of context. I love when Martin does that.
We gradually get introduced to all the main characters, one by one, and this is where Pesci begins cracking me up again (OH man, boy do I ADORE Pesci!) I can't help but to give away right at the start my favorite one, when he took "control" of the city.
If a guy would slip on a banana, they'd take me in for questioning!
He begins to tell a story about the graveyard what has become of the desert surrounding Vegas. If you kill someone, of course you'll burry him there! Very convenient. And at night.
Except you gotta do it right. I mean, we're talking about half an hour to three quarters of an hour of digging. And before you know it, someone else comes along, doing his own dig, so you gotta wack him too.
A favorite scene for me is, of course, when Sharon enters.
So, it was love at first sight. That's always fatal. At least when you're dealing with a femme fatale, which Sharon certainly is. And now the graduation begins. After a while and very soon, while she seemingly was helping him getting money from just about everyone who gets into Vegas (while all the time she was planning to take it all for herself, of course), he proposes in his eloquent and rational way. After just a inny tiny bitsy bit of "resistance" from her, or hesitation, she agrees. The first sign when it was already absolutely clear he's dealing with a nutter is when she took an overdose of his painkillers for panchreatis or whatever.
I take half of one of these, and that's when I'm in an extreme pain!
While she was totally out of it in a Zombieland wriggling around in a bed.
From bad to worse. Nicky wants to take over. He finally proposes while they were driving in a car. But Ace can't actually do anything, so he agrees. We have to remember that all the time the actual bosses, as Joe time and again refers to them as "the booooooosses", and Martin shows a 2 secs of fat old f* querelling at a huge table, are while and away safe from all of that. Before I forget, I should mention my funniest character, as Joe describes him:
...who was a f* degenerate gambler and NEVER got his cards right.
And then the guy goes, looking at his cards and throwing them away:
Maaache cazzo!
Ace:
Nicky had a very efficient method of working casinos. It wasn't very scientific, but it worked. If he won, he collected. If he lost, he told them to go and f? them selves. What'yre gonna do? Muscle Nicky? Ha! Nicky was the muscle.
Before i forget, another hilarious scene was when feds were flying over in a plane while joe was playing golf and they ran out of gas.
Then of course there's two more famous scenes. When Ace took over a casino, things changed. One couldn't just come in and cheat:
- Are you right-handed or left-handed?
- Right-handed.
Then he just nods his head to his subordinate who hits the poor guy's hand several times with a hemmer to make an example.
And the over the top scene when Joe finally establishes himself as the new boss of LV, because the word got around how tough he is, when he overpowered a tough Irish guy with a mace:
Eventually of course, ginger leaves him and takes the kids, but that's only just the beginning of the end.
She took refuge in Nicky and even did it with him, but no one wants a sad pathetic looser drunk junkie cheat like that, so even he in the end throws her out:
Finally, she pays Ace one final visit. The autopsy showed she was so overstoned, it makes Hendrix look like a celibate monk.
So, in the end it all came down. The bosses have had enough of Nicky. Ace, being the only relatively normal one, came out of that car accident alive and found another fine job.
And why mess up a good thing?
Year: 1995
Director: Martin Scorcese
Cast: Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, James Woods
Plot: Samuel "Ace" Rothstein(De Niro) gets a chanceat running a casino in Las Vegas, Nevadaand albeit reluctantly,for that is his naturetakes it almost immidiately. He has his "bodyguard" Nicky Santoro (Pesci) at his side in the begining, but soon things start to get out of control, as Nicky wants to take over the entire town (and does so, at least for a while). Another problem is Ginger (Stone), a beautiful woman hustler, who is in fact seriously mentally dearranged, of which Ace takes no notice at first (or he does, but cannot resist her charm and beauty) while making the mistake of his life (and completely out of character) by marrying her.
I remember, it was winter of 1996 and, after a lot of consideration, I finally decided not to go to the cinema. I was really in a pittyfull state then. But enough about me. This is one of my ABSOLUTELY favorite films of all time, and I even dare to put it on the same pedestal as Goodfellas. I'd rank 'em as 5a and 5b. They are simmilar: Martin said it finally ended his crime movies serial which started way back in 1973 with Mean Streets. Both are long (2h 30mins Goodfellas, 3h Casino, both feature narration (Liotta and Bracco in the former, De Niro and Pesci in the latter) and both are in the hundreds f*, where Casino tops even Goodfellas. Where do I begin? The story, like in Goodfellas (even though there are time gaps) is linear - one simply gets the feeling it goes gradually, slowly, but surely from start to finish. It's quite unlike, say, a Tarantino movie, such as Pulp Fiction with its scrambled time line. Again here we have what is absolutely the key feature in both movies: the Scorcese genius of incorporating songs into a film. The directing is, of course, exceptionaly dynamic and exciting. I call him "Anti-Kubrick". Here the choreography shines as well, with suits, dresses, and all kinds of garderobe. The acting needs no comment, just look at the cast. Here we have Bobby playing a highely calculated, rational, intelligent, smooth, calm, un-emotional and, well, a very normal (apart from the obvious) human being in form of a Jewish enterpreneur. I'm sorry, but Sharon is so beautiful, it's hard for me to concentrate on anything else, except I think this is in fact her best role. She does an insane woman so well, I get a feeling she herself is insane. Joe is at or at least close to the level of Goodfellas, but he unfortunately does not shine so menacingly, maybe because it's doing the same thing over again. James is one of my all time favorite actors (allegedly his IQ is 180! And he was even at one point considering studying math) and every time when he's with Sharon (oh yeah, btw hers is 154, and that's confirmed (Einstein is "only" 163)) he seems to be her one weakness, like in The Specialist. I don't know why is it so, but her character in The Specialist seemed even afraid of James'. Maybe because he's smarter?
Nah, I don't really believe that, women really are smarter than us. So, I'll start at the beginning. After the Universal logo is gone, we see Ace walking out of a building, in a fancy red and white Las Vegas kind of suit. Then the narration begins and he explodes. (Not like a thermonuclear bomb, mind you, he walks into a car which had a device designed to kill him). So, again, like in Goodfellas we have a key scene at the start, taken completely out of context. I love when Martin does that.
We gradually get introduced to all the main characters, one by one, and this is where Pesci begins cracking me up again (OH man, boy do I ADORE Pesci!) I can't help but to give away right at the start my favorite one, when he took "control" of the city.
If a guy would slip on a banana, they'd take me in for questioning!
He begins to tell a story about the graveyard what has become of the desert surrounding Vegas. If you kill someone, of course you'll burry him there! Very convenient. And at night.
Except you gotta do it right. I mean, we're talking about half an hour to three quarters of an hour of digging. And before you know it, someone else comes along, doing his own dig, so you gotta wack him too.
A favorite scene for me is, of course, when Sharon enters.
So, it was love at first sight. That's always fatal. At least when you're dealing with a femme fatale, which Sharon certainly is. And now the graduation begins. After a while and very soon, while she seemingly was helping him getting money from just about everyone who gets into Vegas (while all the time she was planning to take it all for herself, of course), he proposes in his eloquent and rational way. After just a inny tiny bitsy bit of "resistance" from her, or hesitation, she agrees. The first sign when it was already absolutely clear he's dealing with a nutter is when she took an overdose of his painkillers for panchreatis or whatever.
I take half of one of these, and that's when I'm in an extreme pain!
While she was totally out of it in a Zombieland wriggling around in a bed.
From bad to worse. Nicky wants to take over. He finally proposes while they were driving in a car. But Ace can't actually do anything, so he agrees. We have to remember that all the time the actual bosses, as Joe time and again refers to them as "the booooooosses", and Martin shows a 2 secs of fat old f* querelling at a huge table, are while and away safe from all of that. Before I forget, I should mention my funniest character, as Joe describes him:
...who was a f* degenerate gambler and NEVER got his cards right.
And then the guy goes, looking at his cards and throwing them away:
Maaache cazzo!
Ace:
Nicky had a very efficient method of working casinos. It wasn't very scientific, but it worked. If he won, he collected. If he lost, he told them to go and f? them selves. What'yre gonna do? Muscle Nicky? Ha! Nicky was the muscle.
Before i forget, another hilarious scene was when feds were flying over in a plane while joe was playing golf and they ran out of gas.
Then of course there's two more famous scenes. When Ace took over a casino, things changed. One couldn't just come in and cheat:
- Are you right-handed or left-handed?
- Right-handed.
Then he just nods his head to his subordinate who hits the poor guy's hand several times with a hemmer to make an example.
And the over the top scene when Joe finally establishes himself as the new boss of LV, because the word got around how tough he is, when he overpowered a tough Irish guy with a mace:
Eventually of course, ginger leaves him and takes the kids, but that's only just the beginning of the end.
She took refuge in Nicky and even did it with him, but no one wants a sad pathetic looser drunk junkie cheat like that, so even he in the end throws her out:
Finally, she pays Ace one final visit. The autopsy showed she was so overstoned, it makes Hendrix look like a celibate monk.
So, in the end it all came down. The bosses have had enough of Nicky. Ace, being the only relatively normal one, came out of that car accident alive and found another fine job.
And why mess up a good thing?
