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

I only just realised Howard's surname is Ratner. Possibly a reference to the infamous jeweller who buried his own company by declaring his products to be shit...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ratner

People say, "How can you sell this for such a low price?", I say, "because it's total crap."[6]

He compounded this by going on to remark that one of the sets of earrings was "cheaper than an M&S prawn sandwich but probably wouldn't last as long."

or the nyc real-estate dude who bought the Nets - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Ratner

and took a similar attitude towards them tbh

haha when I started watching the film I thought it was going to be about Gerald Ratner for a moment there.
The 'Ratner effect' is in general parlance here iirc

finally saw this today

I really liked it. But god SO fucking stressful!
Mr Veg was more underwhelmed, he just thought Howie was a dope & didnt care much what happened to him, lol.

I think I just like movies about hubris & ppl making bad decisions? all the stress of robbing peter to pay paul alone while making insane bets and having a mistress and a family and maybe colon cancer. like you could kinda tell within the first 30 minutes that he was gonna end up dead some way or another.

but the verité of being right there in his life was pretty genius. and so many great characters, just wall to wall like a great gritty 70’s crime movie.

the intensity felt kinda Dog Day Afternoon for me? not the story but that feeling of real-life actual panic. and as the audience you just get airdropped into that diamond showroom like aghfuuuuck jesus get me out of here

I think I just like movies about hubris & ppl making bad decisions?

have you watched the safdie's Good Times yet because ohhhhhhh man

hahah otm

I really liked Good Time

I mentioned in another thread that I wasn’t crazy about the obsession with men's jewelry, the NBA, and gambling in Uncut Gems. The milieu overwhelmed the plot for me

In retrospect it was memorable though, and Adam Sandler was good

I think I just like movies about hubris & ppl making bad decisions?

otm

I mentioned in another thread that I wasn’t crazy about the obsession with men's jewelry, the NBA, and gambling in Uncut Gems. The milieu overwhelmed the plot for me

― Dan S, Saturday, May 30, 2020 10:02 PM (thirty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i think this is a fair criticism. good time has a little bit more to say as far as rob pat's character justifying doing whatever he wants as an act of caring for his brother.

I loved Good Time!!

as much as uncut gems caters brilliantly to some of my interests, i do think good time is a slightly better movie

agreed cad

i think it’s easier to root for RPattz’s character, for sure. plus his brother adds some human stakes

whereas Howie’s whole stort hinges on a lot of material stakes that could easily leave a lot of ppl cold

*story

the end of gems, when you are locked in howie's world and watching the bet play out, is superlative filmmaking and an amazing payoff for the stress of the movie.

gems has a quality of getting lost in its own plot a little, who owes what to who and why, whereas ime good time flows effortlessly from one point to the next

yeah totally agree with that

i really liked how Uncut Gems was so immersive

I significantly prefer uncut gems if only because it's much funnier

it is but good time has the indelibly funny moment of

SPOILER

breaking the wrong guy out of the hospital

first time seeing it I didn't think Uncut Gems was very funny

now I wanna watch good time again

i keep thinking the nba should replay the celtics playoff game from the climactic seen on nba tv and make a big deal event of it, like pop ups tracking howard's bets and such, hey nba marketing people this was my idea plz be in touch with my representatives

lol 2nded

first time seeing it I didn't think Uncut Gems was very funny

― Dan S, Saturday, May 30, 2020 11:29 PM bookmarkflaglink

Sandler getting the results of his test and asking why Jewish people get colon cancer, "we're supposed to be the chosen people", while Lakeith Stanfield is in the process of wreaking havoc in his office....

I love the honest contradictory opinions I still keep hearing from people who didn't necessarily know what they were in for. Stuff like "I get why it's a great movie, but I hated it" or "the acting was amazing, but I never want to see it again," stuff like that.

maybe if Sandler did Billy Madison voice more

Uncut Gems is on Netflix but I’d much rather spend 2 hours watching @timheidecker do his Adam Sandler impression pic.twitter.com/LROaD3jdi1

— 🤘💀 ♡ (@tweetcamey) May 25, 2020

maybe if Sandler did Billy Madison voice more

I wasn't expecting him to do "comedy voices," but I was expecting him to actually sound like a New York diamond district Jew, which to my ear he didn't. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this movie, but the "darkest Africa" opener was pretty ugh, and then we're literally up Sandler's ass? I only lasted about 20 minutes in all. I bailed during Kevin Garnett's first visit to the showroom.

I almost get a Gaspar Noe vibe from it, between there always being 2-3 people talking at once and the BGM cranked up its like the movie is trying to give you a migraine. My wife’s reaction: “that wasn’t a movie, it was 2 hours of people screaming at each other”

I want to say that was my wife's verbatim reaction, though I think she recognized it as a movie. It made her physically ill, a la "Dancer in the Dark."

noe comparison otm

tap out moment for her was the scene in the shop an hour in where you've got KG's people, Arno's people, plus side plots with the doctor & Julia all at the same time, she was like "Jesus Christ does this movie have any quiet scenes at all?"

one issue I had with this was the large bet at the Sun, I am pretty sure a young woman can't just waltz into a sportsbook and place a 6-figure bet that pays a million bucks, they would automatically flag that as sharp money coming from someone they'd banned previously. Harlabob used to talk about this a lot, back when his action was either banned or severely limited at nearly every book in Vegas.

There’s no sports book at the Sun either, as I think was discussed upthread. A concession to the plot.

frogbs remember when you won the board over by explaining why deathdr0ne was an insanely bad poker player

hah I haven't thought about that guy in years. kinda wonder what he's been up to, seems like he's gone completely dark since that SA thread 'outed' him

noe comparison wildly offtm

I guess both are loud/energetic but that's literally all they have in common imo

i was thinking more of the creeping physical dread

and the blinkered, obsessed protagonists too i guess

happy to talk more about dog day afternoon too, though, which i prefer to any of noe's movies

The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie is definitely a mood these Safdie's are going for imo

hah I haven't thought about that guy in years. kinda wonder what he's been up to, seems like he's gone completely dark since that SA thread 'outed' him

https://archive.4plebs.org/x/thread/21349396/

it looks like he developed (already had?) some fairly serious mental issues. i remember playing with him a half-dozen times or so at foxwoods way back when (speaking of CT casinos), and my abiding memory of him is that he smelled terrible even by poker player standards

The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie is definitely a mood these Safdie's are going for imo

yes! cassavetes still the high water mark of woozy eldritch venality

just saw Heaven Knows What over the weekend. is there a thread for it? it was abysmal in the extreme. ilya is a great villain. my girlfriend and i hated him from the first shot of his stupid face. safdie bros seem to specialize in abjection. i would recommend watching if you want to see a pretty good depiction of junkie desperation and can stomach something very depressing. safdies wring very believable performances from everyone in their movies--awesome directors imo.

also, i remember reading kobe turned the part in Uncut down because he also wanted to direct?! lololol

he would have been great for the part - more threatening than garnett who just can't help being adorable imo

my comparison to Noe was more about how they deliberately try to make the viewer feel uneasy through means other than dialogue, set design, and lighting. leading the movie off with an hour straight of people talking over each other, for example