Categorie archief: Films

Casino (1995)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld


‘No one stays at the top forever’

Directed by:
Martin Scorsese

Written by:
Nicholas Pileggi (book and screenplay)
Martin Scorsese (screenplay)

Cast:
Robert De Niro (Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein), Sharon Stone (Ginger McKenna), Joe Pesci (Nicky Santoro), James Woods (Lester Diamond), Frank Vincent (Frank Marino), Pasquale Cajano (Remo Gaggi), Kevin Pollak (Phillip Green), Don Rickles (Billy Sherbert), Vinny Vella (Artie Piscano), Alan King (Andy Stone)

With Casino, director Martin Scorsese has made another powerful statement about the gangster lifestyle, but like its setting Las Vegas, it is way flashier than its New York based predecessor GoodFellas. Scorsese regular Robert De Niro portrays Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein, an overly serious professional gambler, who is sent to Las Vegas by the Midwest Mafia to run the Tangiers Casino. This task is handled superbly by control freak Rothstein (“an equal amount of blueberries in each muffin”), but as Rothstein’s protector, gangster Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) explains in voice-over: “In the end, we fucked it all up”.

It is easy to see why Scorsese wanted to tell this real-life story, written by Nicholas Pileggi (who also wrote the book Wiseguy on which GoodFellas is based). There is some real poetry in this tale of greed and power. Rothstein, who plays every bet as safe as possible, takes a real chance by marrying the unstable hustler Ginger (Sharon Stone). He also miraculously survives an attempt on his life by an amazing coincidence. Two very interesting occurrences for a man who doesn’t believe in luck.

Visually, Scorsese takes Casino further than any of his previous movies. There are loads of terrific shots and camera moves. The fifty million dollar budget is well spent on beautiful seventies Vegas settings and to portray Rothstein’s and Ginger’s flamboyant lifestyle. The greed of this desert city is also visualised in what must be the largest amount of dollar shots in cinema history.

Pesci delivers a chilling performance as a psychopathic mobster. His Nicky Santoro is less of a loose cannon than his Tommy De Vito from GoodFellas, but he’s possibly even scarier and more violent. No surprise then, that Santoro is the biggest contributor to the extremely harsh violence Casino portrays. The infamous vice and baseball bat scenes are very unpleasant to look at, but many of the other killings are repellent and nasty as well.

Stone’s Ginger brings some balance to the business oriented and almost documentary-style story of the Mafia’s Las Vegas. Although some scenes of her drug problems and failing marriage with Rothstein feel repetitious, they are never dull. Stone, like De Niro, delivers a flawless performance. Some minor flaws don’t detract from Casino’s status as an absolute gangster classic.

Rating:

Quote:
NICKY SANTORO: “You called my friends a faggot? You told him to go fuck himself? Is that what you did? You told him to go fuck himself? You fuckin’ hick! You fuckin’ hick you! Come here!”

Trivia:
Among other Las Vegas regulars, veteran comedy headliners Alan King, Don Rickles, and Dick Smothers appear in major, non-comedic roles.

The Gumball Rally

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Charles Bail
Written by: Charles Bail, Leon Capetanos
Cast: Michael Sarrazin, Norman Burton, Gary Busey, Raul Julia

Year / Country: 1976, USA
Running Time: 102 mins.

In the seventies, the classic ‘Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash Run’ took place. One long run from New York to Los Angeles, organized by Brock Yates who later wrote a movie script about it. This became The Cannonball Run, a 1981 comedy starring Burt Reynolds. Two films about this race preceded it; Cannonball! and The Gumball Rally, both released in 1976.

This movie is the best of the three. It beats The Cannonball Run because it lacks the corny jokes. It is actually pretty funny at times and features some great characters. Most memorable are Gary Busey as a crazy mechanic and Raul Julia as the overly romantic Italian driver Franco. There are female drivers as well. One of them is a young Susan Flannery AKA Stephanie Forrester from The Bold and the Beautiful. Yes, really!

Besides the effective use of humor, the driving action beats that of Cannonball!, because you get an actual sense of high speed. Especially during a spectacular sequence in New York, where the race begins and in which the contestants drive through the city with at least 100 miles per hour. All the drivers use amazing cars, including a Cobra, Ferrari, Porsche, Dodge, Rolls, Mercedes, Bentley and Camaro. One guy, Lapchick the Mad Hungarian, even drives a Kawasaki bike. An awesome sight for racing fans as this movie is to the fans of this movie genre.

Rating:

Biography: Charles Bail AKA Chuck Bail (1935 – 2020) has an impressive show business career that spanned from the fifties up until the nineties. He basically did everything from performing to directing and being a stunt coordinator. He started his career as stuntman and guest star on many famous western shows. After that, he directed episodes for famous television series such as Knight Rider and Dragnet. He also directed several films, such as the blaxploitation classic Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold. Bail is currently retired and lives in Texas.

Filmography: Black Samson (1974, short), Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold (1975), The Gumball Rally (1976), CHiPs (1981-83, TV episodes), Manimal (1983, TV episodes), Knight Rider (1985/86, TV episodes), Choke Canyon (1986), Dragnet (1989-91, TV episodes), Adam 12 (1990/91, TV episodes), Baywatch Nights (995/96, TV episodes), Street Corner justice (1996)

Crime Guys (2005)

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld


‘The true story of the original Kings of Cool’

Directed by:
Trevor King

Written by:
Trevor King

Cast:
Ray Wise (Sam), Andrew Divoff (Eddie), Jay Acovone (Molina), Trevor King (Rick), Shadoe Stevens (Steve Skylar), Nick Di Brizzi Jr. (Joey), Harry Karp (Ralphie), Bob Bennett (Jerry), Michelle Pierce (Dawn Skylar), Jenna Lee (Mrs. Skylar)

I picked up this DVD because I am a gangster film completist, not because it looked particularly good. It defied my expectations…in the worst possible way.

The main character is Sam, a charismatic performance by Ray Wise (Robocop, Twin Peaks, best thing about the movie). He is part of an unlikely idiotic gang of criminals, who come up with the plan to kidnap the daughter of a gameshow host.

Then Sam gets the unexpected visit from Rick, his son from an unmarital affair he had. He takes an immediate interest in father-son bonding, which seems peculiar for a sociopathic gangster who we’ve just seen eating a pizza after murdering a police officer. When Sam involves Rick in the kidnapping plot, things get really ridiculous really fast.

How come Rick is given all the crucial jobs in the kidnapping scheme just to name one thing? He has to seduce the target Dawn (who was gonna do it before Rick joined?) and he has to play a detective to convince the gameshow host to pay up. And how come these guys are so immensely stupid? They make those black robbers from Snatch look like criminal masterminds. There are way too many mistakes to list them all.

The actor who plays Rick is writer / director Trevor King. It is a miracle he got funding for this failed Reservoir Dogs rip-off, which is also known as Sharkskin 6. That aside, how did he get a cast and crew? Did nobody read the script and ask some critical questions? This movie should only be viewed as a curiosity. Trust me, it is U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-E.

Rating:

Quote:
JOEY: “You sure this guy is not an undercover cop? I’ve seen that shit on Reservoir Dogs.”

Trivia:
Ray Wise’s daughter makes a cameo appearance in the film as one of the store robbery witnesses.

Four of the Apocalypse

Posted on by Jeppe Kleijngeld

Director: Lucio Fulci
Written by: Ennio De Concini, Bret Harte (Story)
Cast: Fabio Testi, Lynne Frederick, Michael J. Pollard, Harry Baird

Year / Country: 1975, Italy
Running Time: 104 mins.

Lucio Fulci delivers a stylish and accomplished entry into the spaghetti western genre with this gripping tale of survival and vengeance. The story begins in a Utah jail cell, where four unlikely companions find themselves thrown together: card shark Stubby Preston, a pregnant prostitute named Bunny, a perpetually drunk Clem, and the enigmatic Bud, who claims to see spirits.

Their uneasy camaraderie is soon tested when masked men unleash a massacre in the local saloon, forcing the quartet to flee into the desolate frontier. Along the way, they encounter the sadistic bandit Chaco (played with chilling intensity by Tomas Milian), who subjects them to harrowing acts of brutality. As they navigate this land of the damned, their journey transforms into a desperate search for salvation – and ultimately, revenge.

Once banned in the U.K. for its purportedly extreme violence, the film’s shock value seems relatively restrained by today’s standards, particularly within Fulci’s notoriously graphic oeuvre. However, it still stands out as one of the maestro’s finest works, largely due to its compelling narrative and strong performances from the ensemble cast. Fulci expertly balances moments of stark brutality with a hauntingly subdued atmosphere, enhanced by the light yet unsettling musical score.

Rather than approaching this film for its controversial reputation, viewers should appreciate it as a showcase of Fulci’s skill when paired with the right material. For anyone doubting his craftsmanship, this is a vivid reminder of his ability to tell a gripping, multilayered story with style and conviction.

Rating:

Biography: Lucio Fulci (1927, Rome – 1996, Rome) originally studied medicine but quickly turned to filmmaking instead. He started his film career with directing comedies, musicals and spaghetti westerns. Later he turned to Italian shock horror films and made a name for himself as the goriest director ever. His international career came off the ground in 1979 when he directed Zombi 2, an unofficial sequel to George A. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, which had been released in Italy under the title Zombies. Fulci died from diabetes in 1996.

Filmography (a selection): The Thieves (1959), The Jukebox Kids (1959), Getting Away with It the Italian Way (1962), The Strange Type (1963), The Maniacs (1964), 002 Operation Moon (1965), How We Stole the Atomic Bomb (1967), The Conspiracy of Torture (1969), A Lizard in a Woman’s Skin (1971), Don’t Torture Donald Duck (1972), White Fang (1973), Challenge to White Fang (1974), Four of the Apocalypse (1975), Silver Saddle (1978), Zombi 2 (1979), City of the Living Dead (1980), The Beyond (1981), The New York Ripper (1982), Evil Eye (1982), The New Gladiators (1984), Dangerous Obsession (1986), Zombi 3 (1988), Demonia (1990), Door to Silence (1991)