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

I drank a glass of wine and a mug of coffee while watching, a gastronomic choice reflecting...the film's rhythm.

This and Climax are the movies of the year and I'm clearly dancing willfully on the edge of oblivion.

looking forward to seeing it

Doing an advance screening/live Q&A with the Safdies this Thursday at my local Alamo (still tickets left if anyone's interested, but not that many).

Well!

Watched this on screener at home and enjoyed it, but picked up a ticket for a Christmas evening screening 'cause I need to see this thing with an audience.

still mad I skipped seeing good time on a big screen, not gonna make the same mistake with this one

burying the lead that Kevin Garnett is in it apparently!
went to must watch status

he's in it *a lot*

(role was apparently originally attached to Kobe, Embiid and Amar'e)
https://www.si.com/nba/2019/12/12/kevin-garnett-uncut-gems-adam-sandler

absolutely UNREAL levels of Tri-State Guy emanating from this interview. incredible. https://t.co/KG5p0RFovc

— Max Read (@max_read) December 16, 2019

he looks like the dumpster woman from mulholland drive

otm

This is like a sports movie if the sport was gambling

Listening to the soundtrack. It's great but how on earth is this going to work in context?

It doesn't -- unless you imagine the soundtrack as the aural equivalent of Sander's fried neurons.

Hm. Well that works in Punch-Drunk Love.

(role was apparently originally attached to Kobe, Embiid and Amar'e)
loved this tidbit from the new yorker piece:

Stoudemire was not cast, partly because he declined to shave his dreadlocks, which he did not have in his playing years.

dvdscr of this has leaked.

The use of the music is very striking, it doubles down / gets almost comically louder in scenes where you'd expect it to ease off

kg was great, i wouldve loved to see how kobe wouldve been ~ script wouldve had to change quite a bit

I thought this was much better than their last one, and just as much in thrall to the gritty neo-noir aesthetic of Chinese Bookie/Eddie Coyle - which is a good not bad thing imo.

this is the only time I will link to an SNL clip, vintage or otherwise

https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/wfpas-monsters-of-monologue-94/2872689

saw this at 11pm in an empty theater on xmas night, great way to blow off holiday stress.

Didnt like this as much as Good Time just bc GT felt like a bolt from the blue, but thought it was great. Only thing I didnt like was the music, which I thought was extremely bad & ridiculous in all the wrong ways, and actually ruined what should have been a couple of the strongest scenes imo. KGs performance was legit good & much better than I was expecting.

Saw this in a basically sold-out Christmas evening screening. A couple walkouts and at least one "this is so stressful!"

It has that in common with Little Women.

lol, my little women viewing was punctuated by irregular bouts of sniffles/weeping around the theater. people take their fantasies seriously!

Saw this same day as Star Wars ; both excruciating but this had more cathartic ending and more deft use of CG. Music felt like 70s after-school special scolding, which I guess this was?

Kevin Garnett’s force awakening was really done much better in this movie.

decision to make Rey the granddaughter of Amar'e Stoudemire a major misstep imho

Julia Fox gonna be everywhere before long.

this was fantastic, upped the walking-a-tightwire-over-the-void tension of good time even further

the stressful cacophony of overstimulation, the weird grace of a dirtbag juggling scams. see also killing of a chinese bookie, california split

This is like Requiem for a Dream, but with gambling (and but good).

Also, love that Eric Bogosian has this role and the completely different Bernie Sanders-type role in Succession in the same year. Thought we had lost him to Law & Order.

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

Can’t believe Morbz liked a president

Same here, and watched Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll not long ago. This year seems like the first time in forever that he has memorable roles.

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.

yeah i cant imagine anything worse for a hangover short of a blacksmith convention lol

trump rally

I liked this overall. Better than Good Time. Some serious flaws. By 20-30 minutes before the end I had just completely given up on Howard as a character so I kind of stopped caring what happened. It just stopped being fun or interesting watching a very stupid and simple man remain lost in his delusions. Also a flaw in Adam Sandler's performance I think, he ran out of tricks.

I didn't mind the "jewish stereotypes," tbh, the world and the people felt real and human enough to me. I mean, those kinds of lowlifes exist in this world, and some of them are Jewish.

I think it helped to watch this on fairly low volume on my laptop -- I couldn't have handled it in a theater.

OTOH I guess it works in that way as a portrait of a compulsive gambler. Because you know it doesn’t even matter if someone like that wins their million dolllar bet, they’ll find some way to squander it and get into trouble again.

yeah I thought the way it portrayed his addiction was pretty effective

I liked this overall. Better than Good Time. Some serious flaws. By 20-30 minutes before the end I had just completely given up on Howard as a character so I kind of stopped caring what happened. It just stopped being fun or interesting watching a very stupid and simple man remain lost in his delusions.

Lol, you and me are opposites. When I stopped caring about the character is when I started enjoying the movie.

A lot of really compelling performances though, including Sandler even though I thought he ran out of steam before the end. Lakeith Stanfield seems like the most underrated/unsung standout in the film, Idina Menzel almost too real as the fed up wife

KG was great as a just very slightly alternate universe version of himself

I didn't even realize that was Judd Hirsch until I just googled btw, another great one

I thought KG was passable for most of the film but that scene just before howard places the big bet where they really gave him a shot to spread his wings was kind of a miss for me

julia fox was the revelation of the movie. the safdies have brought out pretty killer performances by first time actresses a couple of times now

I watched GOOD TIME a couple of months ago and after re-watching this one last week I do think this is the superior film, but both are great. pattinson probably with the best performance in all their work tho

still can't believe the main goon was a first time actor

At a certain level of abstraction this was them making Good Time again but better.

yup

Much better than Good Time because it's a more fully realized film. I rewatched it today, and definitely holds up.

one of my best friends watched it and kept texting me during it, stuff like "he's already crazy and we're only 40% into the movie!"

The manic pace of the first act is really something, it actually kind of slows down slightly after that.

The moment when he first shows the gem to KG really moved me this time.

I could happily watch this a couple times a year for....a while

yeah same

It def occurs to me that I want to watch this again, less so with Good Time

Kind of hard to say, given that I've never seen the 90s remake of Night in the City (but I am aware of its reputation), this movie feels like the proper way to update that film. I almost didn't watch this--haven't seen their previous film (but will now), and the Sandler-in-a-real-movie hook doesn't interest me--so I'm surprised and delighted at how much I enjoyed this.

That first sentence is missing a conjunction somewhere, but hopefully you know what I mean.

definitely see GOOD TIME

RIP

RIP MARSHALL GREENBERG you were loved. pic.twitter.com/I1uQ1YOxMY

— Elara (@ElaraPictures) February 17, 2021

Aw :(

Greatest actor of all time

Taking vigs from beyond

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/benny-safdie-solo-the-curse-smashing-machine-1235859184/

is this the thread for discussing THE CURSE!?

bc it's really good and i am on ep 4 after starting this afternoon (it's my day off, fuiud)

Nathan For You

oh ok! thanks
related to Uncut Gems also -- I started listening to Julia Fox's autobiography (as audiobook, read by by the author) and it's also great. there's something about her story that reminds me of Penelope Tree.

So much yelling. And in the one quiet moment, you telling me that she didn't hear the *ding!* on his cellphone when she texted him from 14 feet away?

yes, that's what they're telling you