Josh and Benny Safdie's UNCUT GEMS starring Adam Sandler as a jewelry dealer with a gambling habit

this film is nuts

these guys really know how to convey stress, I’ll say that

the scene where Sandler’s character making a play at putting things back together with his wife and we see his version of a remorseful expression staring into her eyes from her perspective and he just looks like such a goofball, only for her to voice that exact reaction.... perfect

haven't seen Eric B in eons, used to go to all his solo shows in the '80s

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Friday, December 27, 2019 5:10 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Can’t believe Morbz liked a president

― Οὖτις, Friday, December 27, 2019 5:18 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2018/10/22/23/5297288-6304711-On_the_phone_At_one_point_Sandler_is_seen_glancing_at_his_phone_-a-95_1540246947677.jpg

Jesus god this movie got my blood pressure up.

Sandler totally nails the gambler's high!

Also glad for once they did the sports betting part right. OG Bad Lieutenant was infuriating how he kept betting "double or nothing", like even illegal sportsbooks won't do that shit

I'll have to take your word for it on the stakes, but holy shit was he making some weird contrived bets

Lol I'm glad that bookie could understand the cunt - I was a betting shop manager for years and didn't have a fucking clue what types of bets he was making!

He was doing crazy parlay betting where each of the three events (opening tip, Celts winning straight up, Garnett hitting certain threshold of points plus rebounds) had to all occur or else he would lose the bet.

Opening tip probably the riskiest cos of how random it can be.

So is there a porn called Uncut Jims yet

— Jason Isbell (@JasonIsbell) December 28, 2019

Good movie

This was less stressful than the stage play of The Prince and the Pauper I cringed through as a child though.

Things I noticed about the characterization: Howard never gets high, I don’t think he has a drink and he’s not drunk, only Arnold’s thug has a gun.

the first parlay he tried & wouldve hit w/ francesa i think wouldve had longer odds than the later one but i can't entirely remember

& i dont care abt this but you cant bet on sports @ mohegan sun in connecticut (currently even, & def not in 2012)

Didn't live up to the hype but came pretty fucking close. The movie had a physical effect on me. Someone I was with left an hour in because they were having heart palpitations. It just NEVER lets up, similar to After Hours in a way, and I find the ending really beautiful in a way. He died at the absolute happiest moment of his life, completely unaware he was about to get shot in the face. He'd be chasing the high of that 4 day (?) run for the rest of his life. And his kids, wife, and mistress are safe (for now). Fucking great movie and a real step up from their previous work, which was very good. Altman comparisons are completely earned, unlike PTA. This really did feel like a 2019 Altman movie, made by two people culturally incisive and conveying a specific milieu of the American underground. Deeply unpleasant to watch but stunning all the same.

What scenes did you find unpleasant? I was grinning constantly.

Howard Ratner is Tevye for our new dumb century

Um, EVERYTHING. An enormously stressful movie that builds tension so gradually that by an hour in you realize you're fidgeting and cheering for points Garnett scored and I mean the ENTIRE movie is building up to him getting shot in the head at the absolute happiest he will ever be. It's a masterpiece of pacing.

It's possible to find every scene unpleasant and like the film -- or admire it.

For sure, I guess I just never felt the tension in my gut the way I sometimes do, or I was having too much fun to notice.

At some point I sensed that nothing bad could happen to Howie, and, indeed, nothing really does.

It's the constant yelling and overtalking plus persistent feeling of imminent fisticuffs

Some of you aren’t Jewish!

the last scene of sandman & kg where hes conceiving the bet & trying to pump garnett up was maybe a fav of mine

It was good, felt like a thesis statement, also exceedingly Jewish

Loved the throwaway gag of the bookie haranguing a stoic line cook about how to make a Caesar salad

Killer NYC movie too, like I said this was like an east coast Altman movie

"All that plane wine got me all fucked up"

So excited to see this. In the meantime, I'm in a Sarasota theatre about to see "Little Women" and some retiree with dyed black hair just loudly declared to a friend that "Uncut Gems" was "the worst movie I've ever seen!" "That's funny," said the other old guy, "my son told me it was one of the best movies he's ever seen."

lol silby

there’s a certain element that seems over the top to me, but it’s very much a smaller city midwestern tempo surrounding me in the theater juxtaposed with the noisy, overtalking rush on the screen

I feel like the basic energy level and peacocking in NYC is much higher, and with reason. You’ve got to really push it to stand out

I'm in a Sarasota theatre

hi!

I kinda wish I found this more stressful than I did but maybe it's because Howard seems to have a kind of "grace" as someone said above. His speech to KG near the end was the key for me because this is a movie about a person with an admirable sense of self-knowledge. He knows exactly who he is and no part of his life, even his transparently phony attempt to win his wife back or breakdown in his office seems different than he'd like it to be. He's not a tragic figure.

this film is nuts

― 💠 (crüt), Saturday, December 28, 2019 12:33 AM (twenty-one hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

these guys really know how to convey stress, I’ll say that

― babu frik fan account (mh), Saturday, December 28, 2019 1:09 PM (nine hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes

the last scene of sandman & kg where hes conceiving the bet & trying to pump garnett up was maybe a fav of mine

― johnny crunch, Saturday, December 28, 2019 6:09 PM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

really yes

Those who’ve seen it: I met this man Ara (who plays in the film) at the craps table the night before shooting (i couldn’t fall asleep). I convinced him to be in the film — see the time stamp on my first text to him — and he was perfect. https://t.co/cJXeInzIB9 pic.twitter.com/kMuyEULyOK

— SAFDIE (@JOSH_BENNY) December 27, 2019

Loved the throwaway gag of the bookie haranguing a stoic line cook about how to make a Caesar salad

A hilarious moment. A real stretch to see Mike Francesca play a hollering blowhard who doesn’t know what he’s talking about - listen closely and you can hear him mispronounce croutons as “crow-tons”.

I am not totally sure how to articulate it but I am turning over in my mind how the end of the movie is “some goy fuckhead is enraged about being locked in a vestibule for four hours by a Jew”.

Adding Lakeith Stanfield to my “should be in every movie” list

wowowow this was something else. made me really regret not catching Good Time in the theater.

otm Lakeith Stanfield is so so good.

yeah, agreed

Howard never gets high, I don’t think he has a drink and he’s not drunk

His primary vice is chasing that adrenaline dragon. And the audience watching gets a contact high. I'd probably agree with the "dirtbag Altman" assessments if I remembered seeing any Altman other than M*A*S*H.

The costume and set designers must have had a blast going all-in on the blingiest that time and place had to offer.

the safdies are really cornering the market in movies about desperate men making a series of terrible choices huh

thought this was great, sandler is really genuinely fantastic

think overall i preferred good time tho - I was not prepared for its sweaty dirtbag nightmare energy and it hit me like a train and the slightly more refined version on display here didn’t quite hit the same high

and yeah lakeith stanfield is always a pleasure, and always different - love that guy

I don’t see how these guys have anything to do with Altman outside of them both making a movie about gambling addicts. Maybe overlapping dialogue? Still a stretch imo.

Altman's rhythms are less caffeinated.

Have you seen the new one? I don't think it applies to their previous three films. This one though, completely different story... their first movie shot anamorphic afaik, certainly the overlapping dialogue, the roving authorial eye of the camera, the keen observation, the incisive and remorseless analysis and critique of a particular American milieu, using a familiar and worn out genre as a frame to hang so much else on. as in Altman, there's a paradoxical feeling of glazing over a world AND being completely immersed in it.

I realized the thing their four films have in common: characters in extremely stressful time sensitive situations that they created that will likely kill them and/or their loved ones (even Daddy Longlegs - those sleeping pills!)

xp

I think the reason this was extra stressful at times to me was it triggering my old gambling addiction memories.

Now, mine was minor, and way less stakes than what he was betting, but man does watching a sporting event feel like life and death when you put an assload of money on it

I dabble in small gambling - just between friends and family, usually just on elections and Oscar winners - and yeah this movie really does convey a gambler's high. not only conveys it but transfers it so masterfully to the audience. I find the ending so beautiful, the gambler's fantasy. I completely agree with Ryan above, he's not a tragic figure at all.

Oh Howard is the ultimate dumpster fire of a human being.

Yet he still got someone to tattoo his name on her butt