1995 sequels not sequels to defining films by high profile directors, featuring james woods: CASINO VS NIXON

clem, I get your complaints. But Stone is in on the joke. I've said this on the JFK thread: the lingering shot on X's face after he reminds Garrison he doesn't have a choice anymore and the truth is on your side, bubba -- he examines Garrison with an appraiser's eye and finds him wanting.

jfk i love more thinking about it than actually watching it (kinda like casino!), nixon i love more watching it than thinking about it - look there's haldeman! look at kissinger being a prima donna! this brezhnev is disappointing!

i can't remember exactly how ppl reacted to hopkins performance at the time, i can imagine reasons ppl wouldn't have liked it but i think it works (obv the definitive film nixon plays 'not bebe rebozo' in this movie).

Stanley Kaufmann and Siskel & Ebert were the big ravers.

and Alfred Soto, in his college newspaper review.

Casino is a bit underrated because of how good Goodfellas is, so I'll side with that one

haha

xp

UK crits liked AH in Nixon plenty iirc. voted Nixon. i hate Casino.

I love Casino. Even more than Goodfellas (*ducks*).

you're referring, i believe, to chairing the special operations division, as vice president. as you know, that was unique. not so much an operation as an organic phenomenon. it grew. changed shape. developed... appetites. it's not unusual in such circumstances for things not to be put down on paper! that could be very embarassing. i myself made sure my name was never connected with any of these operations. dien. trujillo. lumumba. guatemala. iran. cuba. it's a shame you didn't take similar precautions, dick!

^^^ you think this'll be the peak of this scene's melodrama but then sam waterston has no pupils and is reciting the second coming

I could never really get on board with Stone's Nixon. It felt too, stately in its paranoia? I loved JFK (still do) despite Costner, and I wanted something that would follow the lurid trajectory from that SNL praying scene. I'm in no way a Coen Brothers-stan, but I'll bet they could make the definitive Nixon movie. There's a used-car salesman element to him that all the other movies missed.

When I had satellite, Casino would be on about every two weeks. Would always watch it no matter how long it had been on for.

featuring james woods

Too bad Stone couldn't have worked Don Rickles somewhere into Nixon.

I saw nixon when it was first out on video and I liked it a lot though it also felt like stone's 'new jersey'. casino might feel like that too some but idk I think it's pretty incredible. pesci's such a particular type of performer that it might seem like he's just redoing tommy from 'goodfellas' but I really don't think that's the case, he's def a different type of dude. pen stabbing scene aside maybe. the last few scenes are all brutal, that is one dark film. Like just super corrosive and bleak. Goodfellas is basically a slapstick comedy next to it (and occasionally actually is a slapstick comedy!)

a friend pointed out that the most unStonelike moment of political clarity in Nixon is when the girl at the Lincoln Memorial campout says to Dick about the war "You probably couldn't even stop it if you wanted to."

the closest i've come to throwing up watching a mainstream movie is the baseball bat scene. surely, easily the most violent scene in a movie that's made more than $100M at the box office?

I love Casino. Even more than Goodfellas (*ducks*).

― Johnny Fever, Monday, July 21, 2014 2:49 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Me too, though only slightly. Casino was Scorsese's Ascension to Goodfellas' A Love Supreme.

a friend pointed out that the most unStonelike moment of political clarity in Nixon is when the girl at the Lincoln Memorial campout says to Dick about the war "You probably couldn't even stop it if you wanted to."

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, July 21, 2014 6:42 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

followed immediately by some very Stonelike horsebeating: "it's the system! the system won't let you stop!" like yes, i follow. i do however not at all mind "an eighteen-year-old kid, bob. she called it a wild animal."

the closest i've come to throwing up watching a mainstream movie is the baseball bat scene. surely, easily the most violent scene in a movie that's made more than $100M at the box office?

― piscesx, Monday, July 21, 2014 1:46 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ummmm, this gentleman would like to have a word with you.

yeah i mean the baseball bat scene is rough for being so straightforward and for the focus on it being pesci's character forced to watch his own brother being beaten to death before he himself is (rather than the focus being on his own beating.) there are obviously more grisly scenes but i think the total violence of it is just almost impossible to watch.

Casino was the first Scorsese I saw in the theater, I still have a soft spot for it

...On either side of my skull.
...Where the vice goes.

I just love the lurid fall of the characters through the years. It's a lot more soapy than Goodfellas but there's something about the relationship between DeNiro & Pesci that I find really compelling

Joe Pesci's accent in Casino is the object of study for anthropologists worldwide [5]

Blue-eyed Pesci vs brown-eyed Hopkins

lol VG

i appreciate that pesci went for the chicago accent in this film, albeit only occasionally and mostly in the narration

not sure i ever got all the way through casino (sorry but multiple narrators for over an hour omgggg) and i doubt i could get all the way through nixon again

I got no reason to lie to you. I'm already in jail!

will always love how nixon ends like an awards ceremony, stone ranting in the mic while the score and credits play him off

also how the after three hours of hopkins' walter matthau-meets-nosferatu shtick footage of the real nixon makes him look like a frisky guy

Casino has my favorite wall-to-wall soundtrack ever. The recurring use of "Toad," the way the editing is structured around "I Ain't Superstitious," the switch from Ramsey Lewis' "The In Crowd" to Dobie Gray's, the delay/echo on "House of the Rising Son" when Ginger dies...if there's a single reason I prefer Casino, it's the perfectly absurd supercharged ramping-up of Goodfellas' soundtrack ambitions. Best thing Robbie Robertson ever did post-Band.

James Woods is kind of the best thing about both these movies

Don Rickles def shoulda showed up in Nixon

Could've used him here instead of that cheesy CGI:

http://www.newrepublic.com/sites/default/files/u36883/eisenhower-nixon-convention-wrist-grab-021413-inline.jpg

omg

http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/Entertainment/gty_don_rickles_dm_120613_wg.jpg

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

That's great, pplains, perfect fit.

Mr. Mohr: We understand that the power of decision is entirely yours, Mr. President. I just wondered if you could give us an example of a major idea of Vice-President Nixon's that you had adopted in that role, as the decider and final--

Eisenhower: That hockey puck? If you give me a week, I might think of one. And by the way, what's with that new look of yours? You auditioning to be one of the lepers in Ben-Hur?

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

i rewatched Casino for first time since orig release and damn did not remember Stone hooking up w/ Pesci in last act... ow, my eyes!

Alan King plays the Teamsters' pension fund manager btw.

Central weakness is still that de Niro's character is among the least compelling protagonists of his major roles.

that's true, his character doesn't have any motivations or nuances, just problems.

and the Stone/Pesci hookup def felt like an "oh, come ON why is this happening" moment

also forgot Woods, LQ Jones *and* Frankie Avalon are in this

not to mention Steve Allen/Jayne Meadows cameo

is this Woods last decent role?

Virgin Suicides probably

but i didnt see TV movie where he played Giuliani lol

there should be a sequel

four Louis Prima cues in Casino, btw, vs two of "Gimme Shelter"

Re: Casino — Mentioned elsewhere but my dad had a pal in Chicago was a lawyer, and he worked for (with?) Anthony Spilotro, the mobster upon whom Pesci’s character was based (names changed to protect the something something...they also never uttered the word “Chicago” in Casino, they just cued up Muddy Waters and used the “back home years ago” title card). Anyway my dad met him coming out of a meeting with his friend, a guy I met a few times as a kid and I’d ask him about Anthony but he also wound up dead in a trunk in the early ‘90s.

Casino is fascinating, DeNiro’s character is unusual and I appreciate that. The real life guy was just a total genius and just a highly gifted whiz. I heard an interview with him and my remembrance is was just that guy, all numbers and facts and he could remember all of these things. He was probably a bit more on the spectrum than DeNiro played him, but as it stand I think he’s very good. The Stone/Pesci thing works fine for me.

Oh and the movie is just really beautiful to look at, and as a gangster film it foretells a bit what apparently Scorsese is kind of exploring in The Irishman regarding the ultimate cost of the gangster life. The cornfield scene is just such a singular deglamorizing moment of cruelty and emptiness and hopelessness.

Plus come on, the "hammer" scene is classic

always loved Casino. I used to have a manager that stood, scowling with his arms crossed, watching the restaurant, and I used to tell him he was Ace Rothstein.

yeah but a Hugely Talented Bookie is a def gamble as a 3-hr movie protagonist

https://i.imgur.com/u68o88U.jpg

not ashamed to admit I shared that meme on FB last month

lmao

Always loved Rickles roasting Scorsese at the AFI tribute

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RONkAEMduSc

Reading about all the real-life characters in Casino is incredibly fascinating. Some guy really did get his head squeezed in a vice, and after he confessed, the real-life “Charlie M” guy asked to be strangled to death instead of shot so that his wife could collect insurance.

I thought this had been posted here already, The Frank Rosenthal Show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46fA05_eBZg

Judging by his looks, shoulda had Don Knotts play him

Hollywood actors always look way more intimidating than the real gangstas

four Louis Prima cues in Casino, btw, vs two of "Gimme Shelter"

American Hustle is so bad

The gunmen shooting out the windows of a house to Devo (née Stones) going Baby Baby A B A B A B A B A B was good Scorsese doing Scorsese.

When Trump said he was gonna host a fireside chat on TV to read the Ukraine transcript, the first thing I thought of was De Niro’s talk show in Casino.

I’ve never seen Nixon. I’m not a Hopkins fan and the only Stone movie I really like is Salvador. All the others are unintentional comedies.

(from a December 1998 airing of Casino on USA Network) pic.twitter.com/zQJLYs2T4B

— No Context G4 (+ TechTV and NBCUni stuff) (@G4TVNoContext) March 29, 2022

I didn’t even need to click the link, I knew exactly what was coming. God that movie was on cable TV all the damn time.

Didn't "motherfucker" turn into "jag-off" in mainstream broadcasts of Goodfellas around the same time?

Evokes fond memories of the "melonfarmer" dub of Repo Man.

Love this clip of Don Rickles fucking with Robert De Niro on the set of Casino. Who else could get away with this shit? Legend.

pic.twitter.com/o32DV7cx4r

— Super 70s Sports (@Super70sSports) June 22, 2022