11:45 AM Century City (Los Angeles). Will try to post tomorrow night.

It came out around the same time as California Split, which got most of the publicity, but The Gambler is definitely the superior film. Caan was superb. Even more memorable, for me, than the look on his face after the 3 hit, was the final shot of him, in some ways comparable to the final shot of Chaplin in City Lights. No small compliment.

Great call! This is a must-see for anyone who is a sports bettor (although the whole movie isn't about sports betting). James Caan is fantastic as the degenerate gambler and his reactions to wins and losses is so spot on to many I've known and yeah ok I can relate a bit as well. And the ending with is so nerve wracking to watch - you can feel the literal life and death situation emotions for Caan's character.

Really cool documentary on Netflix called "The Short Game" about a group of 7-8 year olds competing in world golf championships for kids. Won an audience award at Sundance. Great movie and you don't have to like golf to enjoy it - it's really about the kids, and the kids they focused on were awesome. One is tennis star Anna Kournikova's younger brother and he was hilarious.

I'd compare it to the doc Spellbound (about the kids in the national spelling bee) although it seemed a little more light-hearted and humorous.

will def check this out. spellbound is my favorite documentary ever, and one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time.

yeah, the ending was powerful and strange. it seemed as though the film had come to its conclusion, then it just veers off into a bizarre and dangerous coda.


marky mark is gonna crap so hard in the remake. ugh.

some more thoughts on american hustle...

the clothing and hairstyles by themselves are worth the price of admission: christian bale's elaborate combover and toupee; jlaw's up-do; bradley cooper's perm; dresses cut down to amy adams's navel. the 70s have never looked more ridiculous and glamorous at the same time.

if the amazing art direction isn't enough, how about louis ck getting pummeled by a desk phone? how about de niro bringing a tense and intimidating presence to his cameo role? (when he's trying, still no actor can get as scarily threatening without ever raising a hand or even his voice.) i mean, there are so many things to enjoy in this flick, and especially given how much garbage is routinely churned out by hollywood, i'm completely baffled as to how anyone (read: thecroshow) could think that it's "painful" and "dull" and "terrible."

Very nice review. Took me a bit to find out it was the 1974 version, for this is quite a few versions of The Gambler out there... Thx for the review!

Inside Man might be my favorite bank robbery movie of all time. (speaking of Spike Lee)

OK, will watch. Have you seen Rififi?

Inside Man is awesome

i have yet to see a movie with clive owen i didn't enjoy.
he has a similar effect as denzel on me (tho denzel is slipping a bit after 2 guns which was an abomination, however i give him a pass since he's the GOAT).

check out i'll sleep when i'm dead, pretty cool understated english flick with clive.
also if anyone hasn't seen croupier, thats a must.

Like Inside Man, but have to disagree with you there... Reservoir Dogs is probably my favorite with The Town, Killing Zoe and Heat not far behind...

i loved inside man but don't see how it can be compared to heat.

heat was ****ing epic.

I thoroughly enjoyed Flypaper and How to Rob a Bank as relatively unknown bank robbery films. Both have low imdb ratings though so im probably wrong

You're reading a bit too much into an off-hand remark. However you bring up an interesting point so I'll take a stab here.

Times change. Habits and tastes change, and they change whether or not we think about them. So you'll see George Clooney try to bring slapstick screwball back with Leatherheads and fail in part because people just don't dig that style anymore, consciously or otherwise. Will Farrell over Groucho Marx these days, and it takes no arm-chairing to notice that. "Old style" movies like Casablanca and LoA are viewed differently because they are different from cinematic styles of later years, and were created from a different cultural tempo and plane.

Hell, something as simple as the delivery method of content is changing peoples tastes and viewing habits. Being able to start and stop a movie whenever I want, having gotten it on a whim, changes my appreciation for sitting down and viewing an extended piece of art. Youtube era artistic expression is causing an active effort to fight the urge to flip away after a few seconds of uninterest. This and many other factors impact ones viewing of a movie, especially one like LoA. This is neither blind, nor clouded. It just is.

I'll grant you that many times people are pushing their personal experience onto the movie and then blaming it for a manifested failure, but that's just one part of many which affect appreciation for a film. There is simply no way to remove one's personal experience from an appreciation for art. I'd even argue it's one component to appreciating the arts away from being film historians watching movies rather than experiencing them.

Today's movie plans: Walter Mitty, Wolf Of Wall Street, Inside Llewyn Davis and possibly Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.

Wow that's a lot in one day. I can marathon hours of a good tv show in a day but with movies I feel kinda burnt out even watching a second one in a short space of time.

Each to his own I guess. I look forward to your reviews.

Ju-On
Watched it with my 11yo. Least scary horror movie ever. Not terrible. Not great. Held our attention, though maybe sometimes for the wrong reasons (campy). 6/10.

It was nice once when my kid, who is really into Japanese stuff, knew the Japanese better than the sub-titles. (Someone said 'Konbonwa' and the subtitle was 'Hello', but 'Konbonwa' is said in the evening and there was no other clue at the time in the movie that it was evening.)

At a recent film festival I set a personal record, 7 films in one day. I love this ****. My cousin is the same way. He tells me he could never watch two movies back to back but he'll power through TV like nobody's business. All about preference.

Does The Town get placed on lists with Reservoir Dogs and Heat for a lot of people?

I thought it was a good popcorn flick but not an elite movie.

Heat >>> Reservoir Dogs

They aren't really similar though.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using 2+2 Forums

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

If you've seen Goodfellas, you don't need to see this movie. It's entertaining, but you're going to have deja vu all over again. Jonah Hill (excellent performance) is Joe Pesci; Rob Reiner (excellent performance) is Paul Sorvino; and Leonardo (not compelling) is both Robert De Niro and Ray Liotta. He even sounds like Liotta.

It's entertaining. It's long, but doesn't feel all that long. Substitute sex for violence and it's almost exactly the same movie as Goodfellas. Some good lines. Meh.

Scorsese made an all new gangster film and I ****ing loved every second of it.

BTW, Jean DuJardin is also in the movie and is terrific. I'm a DiCaprio fan, but he's just not as compelling an actor as is (was?) De Niro and therefore the movie isn't as compelling as Scorsese's De Niro vehicles.

On a personal note, a friend's daughter played the Dominatrix in the candle up the ass scene--yes there's a candle up the ass scene--which was a little disconcerting, since we knew here when she was an infant, but such is life . . .