Last movie you saw?

[Stadler]

He and Dustin Hoffman both strike me exactly the same:  when I watch them on screen I have in my head their voice shouting "I'm ACTING here! Watch me, I'm ACTING!"  I keep using the analogy and it's losing it's luster, but "Yngwie" pops into mind; even when he's doing something different, it's like he NEEDS you to know it's him under all the layers.   Like the almost surely improvised move of taking Roy Scheider's plate and saying "anyone eating this?" and starting to eat.  It's ostentatious in a way that the role didn't call for.   

[El Barto]

I knew Richard Dreyfuss by name, but never saw "Jaws" and didn't see "Close Encounters" until years after it came out.  My introduction to him was "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" back when I was young and impressionable, and I thought he was brilliant.  Then over the years, I saw Dreyfuss in different things, and it always felt like the same character, like he was just playing Ken Harrison over and over.  Eventually I realized that he was just playing Richard Dreyfuss over and over.  He always acts and sounds exactly the same to me.

That's all well and good, but the important question is was he believable in those roles? I never thought to myself "Hooper doesn't seem like the right sort of marine biologist to me." I did think that Roy Neary was exactly the guy I wanted to see haunted by a UFO, though. I've got no problem with an actor being himself, so long as he's credible.  Sometimes the writer makes that an easy thing to be, Spielberg twice in this case. Sometimes he doesn't and it's up to the actor and that's where you see if he's actually worth a damn.

[Orbert]

I thought he was believeable in "Close Encounters", even if it was just Richard Dreyfuss in a different situation.  As I mentioned, I've never seen "Jaws" so I can't comment on that one.  So I guess "believeable" is just whether or not I'm engrossed enough to forget that it's Richard Dreyfuss and just accept him in the role.  In other words, stop seeing the actor and instead see the character.  Sometimes Yes and sometimes No.  In stuff like "What About Bob?" and "The Goodbye Girl" he plays the annoying, prissy, fussy character, which I hate anyway.  Those are people I avoid in real life; why would I choose to spend two hours watching them?  And yet those are totally believeable characters.  I just don't like them.

That's why I say whether or not I find it believeable, or whether the actor in question is displaying amazing acting skill or just making it look effortless, or whatever criteria one might have, is really irrelevant.  It just comes down to whether or not I like them in that role.  That's all that matters to me.  It could be the greatest acting performance of all time, but if I don't like the movie or the actor or whatever, it doesn't matter.

[MirrorMask]

Last movie seen: 7 Years in Tibet.

An ideal "sequel" to The Last Emperor, in the sense that after having seen through the eyes of Pu-Yi the fall of the chinese dinasty and the rise of a republic and then of a communist regime, we can now follow how China settled internal business conquering Tibet.

I must confess I didn't really know much about the movie, working from home I have additional time to spare, I knew it was famous, I knew I would get nice views of Tibet, I thought "well, why not". I didn't know it was set in World War II.

Excellent movie, maybe a bit long, but it was very good. You gotta feel for the protagonist: he's an austrian, Nazi Germany annexes his nation, he goes to the Himalayas and gets both imprisoned and divorced from afar, and eventually winds up in Tibet. He finds peace and a new purpouse in life in a breathtakingly beautiful landscape, an isolated heaven on earth........ and then China comes to annex Tibet with violence. What an ultimate bummer. It's like escaping city life by finding a cabin in the woods, only to find out that they're gonna built an highway and a commercial centre near that cabin. Multiplied tenfold with the horrors of war and death.

I also got my dates mixed up a little and it took me a while to figure that THAT Dalai Lama was THIS Dalai Lama, the current one. I knew he's old but I didn't realize how actually old he is, and that it was him as a child back then.

So I saw two movies in a row where a figurehead, be it political or religious, loses their status or at least the possibility to live in their own palace because of the chinese revolution. Bummer!

[Stadler]

I knew Richard Dreyfuss by name, but never saw "Jaws" and didn't see "Close Encounters" until years after it came out.  My introduction to him was "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" back when I was young and impressionable, and I thought he was brilliant.  Then over the years, I saw Dreyfuss in different things, and it always felt like the same character, like he was just playing Ken Harrison over and over.  Eventually I realized that he was just playing Richard Dreyfuss over and over.  He always acts and sounds exactly the same to me.

That's all well and good, but the important question is was he believable in those roles? I never thought to myself "Hooper doesn't seem like the right sort of marine biologist to me." I did think that Roy Neary was exactly the guy I wanted to see haunted by a UFO, though. I've got no problem with an actor being himself, so long as he's credible.  Sometimes the writer makes that an easy thing to be, Spielberg twice in this case. Sometimes he doesn't and it's up to the actor and that's where you see if he's actually worth a damn.

I generally agree with this, but it's like anything else: the sum of all the parts.  Spielberg movies aren't generally character-driven studies; Jaws was the first big "summer blockbuster" and was about the shark.   I want to see Close Encounters again before I comment on that.   But Orbert has a point; there are situations where that "actor being himself" in context is annoying.  Maybe it's supposed to be, that's fair, but it's all about the total, um, picture, pardon the pun.  Dreyfuss worked in Jaws because a) he was believable as the shark guy, but b) he also was the perfect foil for Shaw as Quint.   Shaw wrote (largely) and delivered that soliloquy on the boat (a retake after trying it "drunk" to fit the character and the scene, by the way) but I don't think it's a stretch to say that scene doesn't happen without Dreyfuss setting the stage with his college-boy "my scar is bigger than your scar" antics that Shaw injected a shit-ton of real life into with his story. 

[gmillerdrake]

Watched District 9 again for the first time in a few years last night with the kiddos. I really like that movie. A quick search online suggests that a sequel is still in the works but no real timeline.

[El Barto]

I knew Richard Dreyfuss by name, but never saw "Jaws" and didn't see "Close Encounters" until years after it came out.  My introduction to him was "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" back when I was young and impressionable, and I thought he was brilliant.  Then over the years, I saw Dreyfuss in different things, and it always felt like the same character, like he was just playing Ken Harrison over and over.  Eventually I realized that he was just playing Richard Dreyfuss over and over.  He always acts and sounds exactly the same to me.

That's all well and good, but the important question is was he believable in those roles? I never thought to myself "Hooper doesn't seem like the right sort of marine biologist to me." I did think that Roy Neary was exactly the guy I wanted to see haunted by a UFO, though. I've got no problem with an actor being himself, so long as he's credible.  Sometimes the writer makes that an easy thing to be, Spielberg twice in this case. Sometimes he doesn't and it's up to the actor and that's where you see if he's actually worth a damn.

I generally agree with this, but it's like anything else: the sum of all the parts.  Spielberg movies aren't generally character-driven studies; Jaws was the first big "summer blockbuster" and was about the shark.   I want to see Close Encounters again before I comment on that.   But Orbert has a point; there are situations where that "actor being himself" in context is annoying.  Maybe it's supposed to be, that's fair, but it's all about the total, um, picture, pardon the pun.  Dreyfuss worked in Jaws because a) he was believable as the shark guy, but b) he also was the perfect foil for Shaw as Quint.   Shaw wrote (largely) and delivered that soliloquy on the boat (a retake after trying it "drunk" to fit the character and the scene, by the way) but I don't think it's a stretch to say that scene doesn't happen without Dreyfuss setting the stage with his college-boy "my scar is bigger than your scar" antics that Shaw injected a shit-ton of real life into with his story.

The bolded is exactly my point, though. Certainly there are examples where it doesn't work because the actor is shoehorning himself into the part. Nicholson in The Departed was a fine example. Really, though, my point was simply that an actor just playing himself isn't necessarily a bad thing, and is occasionally a very good thing. You'll see another example soon with Terri Garr. She made a name for herself playing the same part over and over, but if you need a put-out housewife there really wasn't a better choice.

And speaking of Nicholson, this playing himself thing is a much bigger problem for actors with such distinct personalities. People who you can't help but to see as Nicholson, or Pacino, or Hackman. Dreyfus always seemed to me more like an everyman sort, and that goes a long way to resolving the problem. It's probably why he was believable as the shark expert. Pacino is no doubt a better actor, but try casting him as Hooper and see how it goes.

[Orbert]

Watched District 9 again for the first time in a few years last night with the kiddos. I really like that movie. A quick search online suggests that a sequel is still in the works but no real timeline.

I love District 9!  Saw it in the theater with my son, and we both thought it was awesome.  A different twist on something of a standard sci-fi trope.  I liked the use of news media bites to provide the backstory quickly and set the tone for the movie, and how it came back occassionally to provide the "neutral" version of what was happening.  I know some people had trouble with the obvious parallels to Apartheid in South Africa, something I was aware of but which I honestly didn't give much thought to, so that didn't bother me.

[MirrorMask]

A storm came about and the evening was dark and gloomy, so I felt like picking an horror movie. Browsed randomly through some recent ones, and I stumbled upon Ready or Not, which I'd call 70% horror and 30% black humour, about an initiation rite that a bride has to go through marrying into a very rich family.... namely, surviving a game of "hide and seek" in which all the family actively hunts her down through a bigass mansion.

It looked like something stupidily clever - or cleverly stupid - that was worth a watch, and I was not disappointed. For such an absurd premise, it's explained very well in the movie, along with the characters motivations. We all have seen countless times the mandatory kickass girl fighting against zombies and monsters, this time around a bride running from a wealthy family is a bit of something different.

Nothing to write home about but surprisingly nice (and with some legit laughs) for a movie that has the premise of "You marry into this family? cool, you have to survive until down while we hunt you down however!".

[gmillerdrake]

Train to Busan.  Really cool zombie flick. If you’re in to that genre I’d recommend checking it out.

[Stadler]

I did finally watch Close Encounters last night.   Good movie.   El Barto was spot-on about Teri Garr (and she's a looker, to boot).  I liked Dreyfuss far better in this for all the reasons everyone else said.    He was a little less... hammy in this, but his Dreyfuss enthusiasm was perfect for the role.   

Now the debate ensues between my daughter and I as to whether we should watch the various Director's Cuts (as I understand it, there are three versions of the film now).   

[El Barto]

I did finally watch Close Encounters last night.   Good movie.   El Barto was spot-on about Teri Garr (and she's a looker, to boot).  I liked Dreyfuss far better in this for all the reasons everyone else said.    He was a little less... hammy in this, but his Dreyfuss enthusiasm was perfect for the role.   

Now the debate ensues between my daughter and I as to whether we should watch the various Director's Cuts (as I understand it, there are three versions of the film now).

This is one movie where the director's cut is the only version to watch. The original release left some good stuff out to save time, and the "special edition" put some bad stuff in. Which version did you guys watch? My hunch is that any of the modern DVD/BR releases were the director's cut.

Always near the top of my list. It's the perfect Spielberg adventure movie. Great story. Great acting. Perfect John Williams score. Some of the best cinematography you'll ever see. It's damn near perfect at what it is.

[Stadler]

I did finally watch Close Encounters last night.   Good movie.   El Barto was spot-on about Teri Garr (and she's a looker, to boot).  I liked Dreyfuss far better in this for all the reasons everyone else said.    He was a little less... hammy in this, but his Dreyfuss enthusiasm was perfect for the role.   

Now the debate ensues between my daughter and I as to whether we should watch the various Director's Cuts (as I understand it, there are three versions of the film now).

This is one movie where the director's cut is the only version to watch. The original release left some good stuff out to save time, and the "special edition" put some bad stuff in. Which version did you guys watch? My hunch is that any of the modern DVD/BR releases were the director's cut.

Always near the top of my list. It's the perfect Spielberg adventure movie. Great story. Great acting. Perfect John Williams score. Some of the best cinematography you'll ever see. It's damn near perfect at what it is.

It really was a good film.  It's hard to believe it was put out almost 45 years ago.   

I believe it was actually the original theatrical cut.  It wasn't the Special Edition, since we didn't see the inside of the Mothership.   I don't recall the discovery of the ship in the Gobi Desert, though they did find the airplanes at the beginning, so it may not be the Director's Cut.  I don't know how else to tell the difference.   

[El Barto]

I did finally watch Close Encounters last night.   Good movie.   El Barto was spot-on about Teri Garr (and she's a looker, to boot).  I liked Dreyfuss far better in this for all the reasons everyone else said.    He was a little less... hammy in this, but his Dreyfuss enthusiasm was perfect for the role.   

Now the debate ensues between my daughter and I as to whether we should watch the various Director's Cuts (as I understand it, there are three versions of the film now).

This is one movie where the director's cut is the only version to watch. The original release left some good stuff out to save time, and the "special edition" put some bad stuff in. Which version did you guys watch? My hunch is that any of the modern DVD/BR releases were the director's cut.

Always near the top of my list. It's the perfect Spielberg adventure movie. Great story. Great acting. Perfect John Williams score. Some of the best cinematography you'll ever see. It's damn near perfect at what it is.

It really was a good film.  It's hard to believe it was put out almost 45 years ago.   

I believe it was actually the original theatrical cut.  It wasn't the Special Edition, since we didn't see the inside of the Mothership.   I don't recall the discovery of the ship in the Gobi Desert, though they did find the airplanes at the beginning, so it may not be the Director's Cut.  I don't know how else to tell the difference.

The freighter in the Gobi Desert is definitely a director's cut thing. The other big change was with Terri Garr's character, based on the circumstances of her taking the kids and leaving. I'm not sure if the scene with Roy sobbing in the bathtub is in the original or not, but the sequence between the mashed potatoes and ripping up the flower beds plays out differently. I think they wanted to make their separation a bit more substantial since Roy is essentially abandoning his family when he takes off with the aliens. It needed to be more than just a minor spat.


edit: And I was actually intending to tell you to make sure and watch the DC version when you said it was up next. I think I decided that's probably the only one you could find. Sorry I didn't point it out anyway.

[Stadler]

Nah, that's fine, though I appreciate the interest. I think we'll watch both and spot the differences.  I don't think my daughter has experienced that before; I think her experience is that a film is a film, and it never changes. 

[Cool Chris]

I was pretty underwhelmed when I saw Close Encounters the first time. It was so long ago, I don't recall what my issues with it were.

[Orbert]

I remember that Close Encounters was a big, big deal back when it came out, but I never saw it in the theaters.  A while later, it was on TV, and they made a lot of noise about the fact that it was the extended edition or whatever, and we're going inside the ship at the end.  This must've been back in the early 80's.  We all went over to my friend's house who had a big TV, we all got baked, and we started goofing around and stuff during the movie, then at some point someone yelled "Hey, look what's going on!" or something, and on TV, we were inside the mothership for like a second, then it was over.  We'd managed to miss it! 

[MirrorMask]

Another rainy night, another horror: Us.

Had a creepy premise and there's a lot of symbolism and social commentary in the movie, but I found that the explanation fell kinda flat. I enjoyed way more Ready or Not, which was silly and knew it, than this.

[lordxizor]

I thought Us was kind of overrated. Decent, but tried to be more than it was.

[gmillerdrake]

American Assassin. Fun little action flick, nothing special though

[gmillerdrake]

Underwater.   Given that I loved the old school 'Deepstar 6' and 'Leviathan'......and of course 'The Abyss'.......me and the kiddos watched this one last night. It wasn't horrible but it wasn't all that good either    Retread of the 'Deepstar 6' story line with slightly better visuals. But even as my middle son pointed out.....they did nothing to make you feel anything for any of the characters so when one died it was like.....oh well, who's next?

[MirrorMask]

BlacKkKlansman, about a black policeman who infiltrated the KKK back in the '70s. I saw it labeled as a "black comedy" and I figured it would have highlighted the sheaningans of a black cop trying to pass off as a white supremacist, and the utter idiocy of those KKK morons to fall for it, but someone should edit the Wikipedia description because I can't find anything in it that can be qualified as black comedy, the movie is damn serious. Still, I liked it a lot, I watched it because the idea of a semi-comedy about a black guy fooling those idiots sounded good, but I found myself watching a compelling movie that, 2-3 years from now, people will be very surprised to discover that it's from 2018 and not filmed after the current USA events.

[gmillerdrake]

Terminator: Dark Fate.    Watched this one with the kiddos last night and honestly, I liked it. I think it's the 3rd best Terminator movie we've had. Outside of the original and Judgement Day the other efforts up to this film had been pretty weak. You could certainly pick it apart as it has some flaws but all in all we had fun with it.

[MirrorMask]

Slumdog millionare. Surprisingly moving! now I get why it was so famous and won an Oscar back then.

[Evermind]

Frailty

Someone recommended me this one a long time ago, and I don't remember who and don't remember why, probably because Matthew McConaughey is in it. I didn't like it at all. The ending was fairly good and I kinda want to rewatch the first hour just to see what I've missed now that I know how it ends, but otherwise I thought it was pretty bad.

[KevShmev]

Finally got around to seeing Almost Famous for a second time after seeing it for the first time a long time ago.  I liked it a lot, but what bothered me about it the first time bothered this time as well: Kate Hudson's mediocrity.  She just wasn't believable in that role (and nothing else I have ever seen her in has convinced me that she can act).

[Adami]

Finally got around to seeing Almost Famous for a second time after seeing it for the first time a long time ago.  I liked it a lot, but what bothered me about it the first time bothered this time as well: Kate Hudson's mediocrity.  She just wasn't believable in that role (and nothing else I have ever seen her in has convinced me that she can act).

I thought she was actually good in the role, it just depends on how you define it. I always saw her character as really deep under an extremely thick layer of superficial eccentricity which needed to be liked by everyone all the time. So for that role, I thought she played it well.

But I love that movie. I have a giant poster of it right near me on my wall. 

[KevShmev]

Finally got around to seeing Almost Famous for a second time after seeing it for the first time a long time ago.  I liked it a lot, but what bothered me about it the first time bothered this time as well: Kate Hudson's mediocrity.  She just wasn't believable in that role (and nothing else I have ever seen her in has convinced me that she can act).

I thought she was actually good in the role, it just depends on how you define it. I always saw her character as really deep under an extremely thick layer of superficial eccentricity which needed to be liked by everyone all the time. So for that role, I thought she played it well.

But I love that movie. I have a giant poster of it right near me on my wall.

Agree to disagree. 

Again, despite my view of Hudson, I liked the movie a lot.   Frances McDormand was great as always.   

[El Barto]

Patton. Very good. With all of the talk about actors who can't escape themselves, George C. Scott might top the list. It's impossible to forget that you're watching George C. Scott, no matter what character he plays. And yet so long as it's the right character for GCS, it always works, and by all accounts he was a perfect GSP. (Aside from the voice--Patton was high pitched.) There was never any issue seeing him as Patton. Beyond that, it was excellent both as a war movie, and as a character study of a fascinating guy. He excelled, got smacked down hard, crawled his way back up, excelled again, and got smacked down even harder. And one of the fascinating things about it was that even when he was in Ike's doghouse he was still causing grief for the Jerries, who were too spooked by the guy to believe that he wasn't always terrorizing them somewhere. This is certainly a big reason why the phantom army at Calais was so convincing; Patton was "commanding" it.

Only thing I didn't really like about it was the speech at the beginning. As iconic as it is, it was about as coherent as a Trump speech. It seemed like random quotes strung together with no real message. I can certainly see why Scott won an Oscar (which he refused to accept, and sent back when it was accepted for him), but the scene that people associate with the role just didn't work.

[Cool Chris]

Patton. Very good. With all of the talk about actors who can't escape themselves, George C. Scott might top the list. It's impossible to forget that you're watching George C. Scott, no matter what character he plays. And yet so long as it's the right character for GCS, it always works, and by all accounts he was a perfect GSP. (Aside from the voice--Patton was high pitched.)

Going point about Scott, and if you have long associated his voice as the voice of Patton, it is a bit of a "whoa" moment when you hear Patton's voice. Regardless, as you said, "There was never any issue seeing him as Patton."

Beyond that, it was excellent both as a war movie, and as a character study of a fascinating guy.

I have not seen this in a long time, but I recall my takeaway at the time as that it was a great war movie and character study, but not an excellent one of either. Though that would be a tall order for a movie trying to be both and not one or the other.

Regarding the speech, I know it wasn't taken verbatim, but wasn't it essentially a fair representation of a speech (or speeches) he did give? My dad has a book on Patton and i swear I read that the movie portrayed the contents of the speech accurately. I couldn't tell if you were criticizing the speech in the film, or the actual speech he gave that it was based on.

Also, did you see the Ike movie with Tom Selleck, and if so, what did you think of Gerald McCraney's Patton in that?

[El Barto]

Patton. Very good. With all of the talk about actors who can't escape themselves, George C. Scott might top the list. It's impossible to forget that you're watching George C. Scott, no matter what character he plays. And yet so long as it's the right character for GCS, it always works, and by all accounts he was a perfect GSP. (Aside from the voice--Patton was high pitched.)

Going point about Scott, and if you have long associated his voice as the voice of Patton, it is a bit of a "whoa" moment when you hear Patton's voice. Regardless, as you said, "There was never any issue seeing him as Patton."

Beyond that, it was excellent both as a war movie, and as a character study of a fascinating guy.

I have not seen this in a long time, but I recall my takeaway at the time as that it was a great war movie and character study, but not an excellent one of either. Though that would be a tall order for a movie trying to be both and not one or the other.

I didn't seen any deficiencies in either. In terms of the war movie, it successfully portrayed combat in two completely different theaters. Three if you differentiate between Summer and Winter in France. I thought the battles in Africa were just as good as the battles in the Ardenne. Plus, it covered the campaigns he was best known for. Certainly his sweep across lower France, and then his turn back to relieve the 101st in the Battle of the Bulge are the stuff of legends.

Interestingly, one critic thought the exact same thing as I did. In making a movie about Patton what they demonstrated was that the real hero in all of this was Omar Bradley.

Regarding the speech, I know it wasn't taken verbatim, but wasn't it essentially a fair representation of a speech (or speeches) he did give? My dad has a book on Patton and i swear I read that the movie portrayed the contents of the speech accurately. I couldn't tell if you were criticizing the speech in the film, or the actual speech he gave that it was based on.

There are different opinions on that. Some say he made that speech all the time to new recruits to his III Corps. Others say that Copala just picked a lot of famous quotes (and he had plenty to choose from) and made a speech out of it.  Truth is, I watched a couple of real speeches from him last night, and he actually did meander a lot. I believe you posted a picture of John Gill from Star Trek somewhere recently, and their patters of speech are actually similar. 

Also, did you see the Ike movie with Tom Selleck, and if so, what did you think of Gerald McCraney's Patton in that?

Never seen any other movies regarding Patton. Seems like anybody that plays him will be compared to Scott, though. I can only imagine people seeing textbook portrayals and thinking "that doesn't sound anything like Patton!" I did see that GCS returned to the role twenty-someodd years later in "The Final Days of Patton." Really, he didn't survive very much longer after Patton ended. He'd already been relieved of command of III Corps. The only thing they didn't show was the car crash and a few months of anger and regret. Still, it'll be worth checking out for what will undoubtedly be a great performance.

[Harmony]

So when the whole Covid thing looked to be an on-going thing, a group of our friends proposed a movie club - like a book club - and we'd meet via Zoom every 2 weeks to discuss.  5 couples, each person got to choose 3 movies and then we let Random Number Generator choose the winner.  The only hitch was that movies had to be available on platforms like Netflix or Amazon which we all had access to.

The movie this last week was Manchester By the Sea.  Ugh.  The most depressing movie after one of the most depressing weeks of news EVER.  I don't recommend it.  Unless you want to see a family in complete turmoil who have no ability to cope or come together during the winter in a small town in Mass.   .  Yeah, I guess Casey Affleck did a fine job of being morose. 

Any way - next up is Ferris Bueller's Day Off which I've seen about 20 times.  Talk about a change up!  At least it's going to be good to laugh.

[Stadler]

Watched The Mule Saturday night, and Casino again yesterday. 

I liked The Mule.  I thought it was well done on all fronts.  SPOILER ALERT HERE.  I'm glad that it didn't veer toward a hero flick at the end (I have this image of Eastwood with a shotgun mowing people down, but that must be from a different film, because it wasn't this one), but even though the ending was a little pat and morose, it seemed to fit.  One question, though:  I didn't quite get the blood on him; in the court they accused him of murder, so I assume he got into a fight with the two gangmembers, even though they gave him a pass to finish his run?  Is that because he knew he would be dead anyway after the drugs were delivered?

That latter movie might be a perfect movie.   DeNiro really walking the line between the excessive control of Rothstein while making his "blindspot" for Ginger believable.   Stone was FANTASTIC in that movie.  Pesci did his usual schtick without it coming off as schtick, which is an achievement in itself.

[El Barto]

That latter movie might be a perfect movie.   DeNiro really walking the line between the excessive control of Rothstein while making his "blindspot" for Ginger believable.   Stone was FANTASTIC in that movie.  Pesci did his usual schtick without it coming off as schtick, which is an achievement in itself.

Watched this for the first time in ages a few weeks ago. Really, it only suffers for not being Goodfellas. It's very good, but Goodfellas is a perfect movie. And to be honest, while I thought DeNiro did a fantastic job, I really didn't like Ace very much. He was inflexible to a fault, and he was a dipshit for putting his trust in Ginger. One thing I did find interesting about it was that Pesci played essentially the same character in both movies. At first I thought it was kind of cheap. Then I read about Antony Spillatro, and it turned out that Pesci was perfect for him. Tommy Devito was just Pesci paying a gangster. Nicky Sontoro was a perfect representation of a real life person who just happened to be a lot like Tommy Devito.

[KevShmev]

I’d agree with that assessment. Tommy and Nicky were extremely similar. Stone screaming her head off for like 15 minutes straight near the end of the film isn’t very rewatchable, but Casino is otherwise a movie I never tire of watching.