The Rewatchables - ‘Casino’ With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey

Episode Date: January 25, 2022

That’s the truth about The Rewatchables. We’re the only winners. The listeners don’t stand a chance. The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey revisit Martin Scorsese’s 1995 film ‘Casino,’ starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Sharon Stone. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, if you love the rewatchables, I'm pretty sure you're going to love the prestige TV podcast. We'll recover all the big TV shows. Right now, we're doing Euphoria, Ozark. We're doing Hall of Fame episodes. The shows like The Sopranos and Lost and as more prestige stuff comes over the course of 2022. We're going to be there, like that Lakers HBO show. Yeah, Prestige TV Pod. Check it out on the Ringer Podcast Network wherever you get your podcast.

But preferably on Spotify. This episode is brought to you by Adobe Firefly, the all-in-one, creative, with AI powered image and video generation. Built for today's creative process, Firefly helps you generate, edit, and experiment fast. Because the asks aren't getting smaller. And the timelines? Ooh, yeah, still tight.

With all the best creative AI models in one place, Firefly brings your ideas to life. Learn more at adobe.com slash Firefly. This episode is brought to by Whole Foods Market. Spring is here, so celebrate it with fresh, juicy, seasonal produce and some very tasty limited time flavors. New Whole Foods, Market Peach, Apricot, Rose, Italian soda. Perfect for a picnic or brunch, as is their trending mango Yuzu chantilly cake. But if you're on the go, new 365 strawberry pretzels make a great

sweet snack. That sounds delicious. Get savings with yellow sale signs storewide and everyday low prices on 365 brand items. Enjoy the fresh flavors of store. spring save at Whole Foods Market. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast network where you can find the big picture with Sean Fennacy, who's on today, where you can find the watch with Chris Ryan, who's on today, where you can find the Bill Simmons podcast with me and a whole bunch of other great stuff. Coming up on this podcast, we're going to talk about Casino.

Wanted to mention, we taped this, didn't realize there was an issue with Chris's mic. So his audio is a little off. it's not like super annoying, but it's not our usual high standards here on the rewatchable. So I wanted to flag that. We apologize. It's my fault. We taped this at my house.

I thought I had all the mics set up. And of course, the lesson is always, I'm not an engineer. But hey, we did our best. This is a great podcast. Remember, there's three ways of doing things around here.

The right way, the wrong way, and the way I do it. Casino is next. I was a hell of a handicap. I had it down so good that I ran one of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas for Tangiers. They had it all. They ran the show, and it was Paradise while it lasted. Pagy!

Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, a Martin Scorsese picture. You realize what you can do, you can get us all shoot! Casino, rated R. Starts Wednesday at theaters. All right, here with Fantasy and Chris, we're going to talk about casino, a movie that was not beloved when it came out. Let's be honest. People liked it. People were interested in it, but they didn't love it. I think it took a while. This was a slow burn. This is why we have a podcast like The Rwatchables. This had a long life on cable, DVD,

Blu-ray. You could dive in. It had a Netflix front, right? It just blossomed. I'll start here, Chris. In a weird way, as a rewatchable, casino foreshadows the rise of Vegas. in the mid-90s, late 90s. And it's a completely different viewing experience now because all the stuff he says at the end, it's so much more poignant now where it's like they're showing Treasure Island with the pirate ship.

And it's like, oh yeah, Treasure Island. There's been like three different iteration eras of new casinos since Treasure Island. But it may be nostalgic for this old version of Vegas, which by the way was just rife with corruption and crime. Yeah. I mean, this movie actually does feel like Vegas to me in a lot of ways.

Like it starts out. It's like all these really cool zoom in shots of you and your nice clothes. And then the next thing you know, you're in your underwear and a hole in the ground somewhere. Nebraska. And somebody's going, oh, no, Dominic. So, I mean, it does a really good job. As Scorsese is probably the best filmmaker of all time to do this, of showing the attraction of excess and also the come down from it. Yeah, I feel like it's the.

very, very pointed follow-up to Goodfellas where he's responding to anyone who thought he was glamorizing the criminal lifestyle and he's like, you think this is glamorous? What about your head in a fucking vice? This life is hard and it sucks and it's mean and it's nasty and you're probably going to die at the end.

And I think that's part of the reason why it was criticized before when it first came out and now is understood as like part of this bigger mission that he's had over 40 years of movie making. But it also, as usual, features cool, beautiful people

with a lot of money doing fascinating illegal things, and there's something sexy and intoxicating about that, too. Are you old enough to remember your exact reaction when you saw this movie for the first time, Chris? I remember being like, that's not good fellas. And I also remembered thinking, like, I have to see that like five or six more times to even discern a plot, you know,

because, like, so much of the information is delivered in expository voiceovers. I mean, is there a scene that's longer than a minute in this movie, like, except for maybe what he goes and sees? Sharon Stone when she's like rolling around in bed after the Jimmy Woods thing like I mean I think like most of the scenes are about 30 seconds at the most so it's like I have a list here of 22 most rewatchable scenes they might just beat like two shots and yeah like something that Joe Pesci says so to see that the first time I remember and you're coming on I think this always happens with filmmakers too where you bring all these expectations into a movie after you've seen something classic like a masterpiece like good fellas I know he's got some stuff in between but like going into this, I think that I wasn't really prepared for the chaotic filmmaking style. It almost makes Goodfellas seem like classical and it hits depiction, you know? Chris and I were just talking about Euphoria, the TV show.

Yeah. And I was trying to figure out what Euphoria is ripping off. And we were talking about Boogie Nights. And of course, Boogie Nights is kind of ripping off Scorsese, but Euphoria is really ripping off Casino. Yeah. Because this like crazy antic whip pan, Zoom, needle. drops every five seconds characters doing these crazy debauched things that like this movie has a huge impact and influence on a lot of stuff that comes after it too and so that's the other thing is like

there's the vaguest part of it there's gambling there's iconography of the movie stars there's corsese's career but mostly it's like this sets the template for this hyper-addle like kind of coaked out style of movie making tv making that is clearly still resonating right now too a lot of people put this in a trilogy with and rightly so with goodfellas and irishman But I think cinematically, it's in a trilogy with Wolf of Wall Street and Departed. Like, that's what he's doing in Casino is what he would go on to do and departed and go on to do maybe the best version of it is Wolf, where it's just like, there is just a thousand things happening every second. There's songs coming left and right. You're cutting all over the place.

And the storytelling itself is not this conventional like scene, cause and effect. Here's something that is foreshadow. I mean, there are things that happen in casino where they're like, oh, yeah. that's Anna Scott. And then Nikki had to kill her. And that's why the entire thing fell apart. You're like, who's Anna Scott? Right?

Like, this character gets introduced, like, randomly in the middle of the movie and why it's being the turning point. Well, what was your reaction when you saw it? Because you were a little bit older than we were. Disappointment. It was really long. The Goodfellas hangover, you're just expecting the next Goodfellas. And it's a different kind of movie.

And there were parts of it that felt like Goodfellas karaoke. Like, I, and we'll talk about it when we do Pick a Nance, but even the way he used the stones and the way it used, give me shelter. It was like, really, we're doing this again? And it clouded me a little. It was also, you know, the expectations were there. The reviews at that point, there were reviews that came out that were kind of like, good, but not his best.

So you go into it with, and it took me a couple years with this one. And I also really love Goodfellas. So part of me was instinctively wanted to be like, prove to me this was worth doing. I also didn't really know that much about Vegas yet. I've been in Vegas once in my life. So now I have this whole quarter of a century plus history with Vegas, and I really get it, and I really care about it.

So those pieces didn't resonate with me at all in 1995. There's no audience avatar character, like there is in Goodfellas with Henry Hill, kind of like getting introduced to this world and being an outsider and rising up. Ace is essentially like a bean counter. Like he's out here being like how many blueberries are in this muffin. That's not Jimmy Conway. They smoke different. Yeah.

He's not cool. He's not cool. Yeah. And there's differences between Nikki and Tommy. There's differences between Karen and Ginger. Like, it's not, there's no real romance to casino in a weird way. There's something bigger happened. You really have to, the 1995 is just crazy how it plays out where casino opens fifth place at the box office that weekend.

Toy Story also opened that weekend. And Toy Story obliterated everything. And that was all people talked about. You also had Golden Eye, the Bond movie, which was already out. You had Ace Ventura, which was already out. And there's this whole Jim Carrey dialogue happening. Like, wait a second. What's happening with this Jim Carrey thing?

You had Money Train with Woody Harrelson and Wesley Snipes, which that weekend, I ended up seeing both that weekend because I had nothing better going on. I might have even seen both of them in the same day. Yeah, but I was equally excited for that just because I love both of those guys. you also had heat that came out three weeks later. And heat, different experience, going to the theater and just being like, my life will never be the same. When are you guys going to do heat on this show? There's a reason we've done heat three times and we have no casino yet.

But I feel like Heat did steal some of the mojo and the thunder from this. It has De Niro. It has these two signature De Niro parts that are two of his best of the decade. They're totally different. and he's just a cooler movie that's more satisfying the first time you see it. And I do feel like it stole some of the thunder. And the way when this came out,

like it only got nominated for one Oscar. It's really crazy to look back and we'll go through the Oscar stuff later. But yeah, there was a weird sense of, did we totally need this? That I don't have it all in that way. I think we all really love this movie. Do you remember how many times?

Late 90s. And it was just like what on cable and you're like, God, this movie is so good? It's like when, And, you know, he, like, the first time they meet when they're having the secret meetings and he's in there and he's like, who the fuck, you know, what does he say? Who the fuck? Who's the rope?

John Barrymore? He's wearing fucking John Barrymore? Cigarette hole there, your pink robes. It was stuff like that where you're like, this movie's amazing. But, you know, it took a while. It's three hours. It was long. It starts with De Niro getting blown up and then he doesn't die.

And, you know, there's just a lot going on. Well, he, Scorsese, from the very beginning was like, this movie doesn't have any plot. It's not about plot. That's not the point of the movie. The movie is like, and one of the reasons why it's a perfect fit for this pod is it's a montage movie. Every scene is a montage and it's all of these little explanatory little tidbits through the first 90 minutes where you're like, this is how you break into this building.

This is how you count cards. This is how you cut someone's hand off in the event that they count cards. The skin is like the whole thing. It's all processed in the beginning. And so that stuff is like fun to unpack and look. It's much more like a David Fincher Martin Scorsese movie in the first half than it is a Martin Scorsese movie. It's good point.

Then he moves into the ginger story and the melodrama of it. But all the little, it's a great, like, what's my favorite YouTube scene movie? You know what I mean? Like, you can just bang in, like, casino scene and just have fun with it in that way. It's great to catch in the middle. It's great to catch at the beginning. That's part of the reason why it lasts, I think. I had, I think it's four movies.

And that's why it took a while to get a hold on it. How the casino business became huge is basically the first, half hour of the movie, right? How the wrong woman can screw up your life, which we've seen in other movies, but this movie can dribbles down on it. How friendship can go wrong, which is a recurring theme in Scorsese movies. And then this isn't even like a lesson thing like that, but just Scorsese having fun with sleaze bags, which is one of his favorite things, right? It's like, oh, cool. Some more sleeves bag characters, new actors. He doesn't really repeat any actors other than Frank Vincent in the two leads. But for the most part,

part, it's all new people. It's not like... There's a couple of fellow's faces in there, but yeah. But like he could add Lorraine Bracco as Chopecci's wife. He could have had Paul Sorvino as... Right. It's definitely not like a Christopher guest ensemble where it's like... Really? The only could play Tony Dogs.

Yeah. Right. But it's trying to do all these different things and it's three hours and I think it needed to marinate a little bit. I just think that putting De Niro as the like cool straight man and Pesci as the hot head, people were always going to hold Goodfellas against it no matter what. Just putting them back in those archetypes, even though Conway is different from Rothstein and Nicky is different from Tommy. It just, on the poster, it looks the same.

You're talking about going to Vegas and how you didn't have an appreciation for the place. It's like, I do think actually I haven't visited there beyond like, oh, now I know what it's like to be like up at 4 in the morning in Vegas kind of thing. the place where shit kickers, Mormons, mobsters, all kind of meet, you know, like, and that's, that's a huge theme in this movie is this, there's this cowboy culture in Nevada, there's also this Mormon culture in Nevada,

and there's these gangsters who moved from out east and in the Midwest and took the place over for a few decades. And these people who were, very different moral worldviews, kind of trying to make paradise, in the desert is like it's really, really amazing how he depicts that, but it's, it's kind of hidden in the subtext because it moves. Well, that's so they had the cool shot of the plane near the beginning going over Vegas

versus what that shot is like now when you go over Vegas where it's all lights, but I don't know how he did that because I don't even know how we had the technology back then for him to just have the lights around the strip and a little bit extended Vegas. And then it's just dark, which is what it used to be like. Yeah. When we fly there from Boston and I used to love when, you know, and the point. plane would clap when you landed. It was like just, now Vegas is like a cliche in a lot of ways.

But back then it was like really special to go there and it's like, we're going. Yeah, it does feel like the movie is a little bit of an ode to whether it's real or not real, like a time when things were just a little bit cooler and more untouched. But on the other hand, like Chris is saying, the people who were living in Vegas before the mob came in the 50s were like, that was when it was cool and untouched when it was mine when I was in charge of it, you know? My cousin was the judge. Exactly.

Yeah, and the rap pack where it's like the only celebrity is coming in. I would say this is the ultimate you really need to get along with your girl and your best friend movie. I was trying to think of other ones over the years that have been like this. But this is like, ultimately it's about those three people and his inability, first to make the right choice with who he settles down with. And then his inability to navigate this friendship that he's this guy that he's been friends with forever. And then, of course, when they start hooking up, now it's like we have the toxic baltough cocktail of all time. It kind of reminds you a little bit of Mean Streets. And Keitel and the relationship that he's having and this woman who's related to a friend of his and this like tension between this like little power trio.

And, you know, like most Martin Scorsese movies are basically just soap operas. But they have so much style and so many big themes baked underneath them. Yeah. That like, as long as you're using the basic building blocks, which is like beautiful. woman, aspiring guy who's not good enough for this woman, and then the crazy friend. And you're like, it's all there. That's like, it's all you need, you know? It's the recipe. But you could, you could get the same thing on the young and the rest list. You know, it's like it's the same format. It's just he is so much more gifted stylistically and creatively. Honestly, that's the

plot of last temptation of credit. It is. Any color of money. Yeah. How'd you feel about De Niro as a Jewish guy? I have some, some questions about some of the ethnic choices that we get in this movie. It's one of the biggest ethnic stretches we've ever had in a movie. I would dare say there's maybe four, I say this is a half Italian, maybe four actors ever who are like more Italian than Robert De Niro. Probably the most Italian actors we have. So it's just weird. Like this is Ace Rostin when Pesci is, you know, yelling all the anti-Semitic stuff at him.

It's like, that's bouncing off the Nero. He's the most Italian guy possible. site, it's always in the back of my head when I watch it. Yeah, there's a couple of times where he says, like, you Jew, and I'm like looking in the rest of the scene, like, what are you talking to De Niro? Also, when you look at the picture of Lefty Rosenthal, the real ace, you're like, that's a Jewish guy. You know, like, that is, that is who Ais Rothstein is. But he keeps doing this.

I mean, Jimmy Conway is half Irish. That's why he can't get made. He's in a movie called the Irishman in which he plays the Irishman. Robert DeNero is not an Irishman. So why does Scorsese keep trying to cast him as not an Italian American? The guy who said they put no vices is like. He's like, and he was one tough Irishman. I'm like, this is not an Irishman.

Oh my God. That guy looked like he was from Sicily. So De Niro's 95. The casino and heat three weeks apart, I just can't get over it. Pretty wild. I just can't believe that that's how it played out. This was kind of the tail end of this phase of De Niro. Pre-comedy.

Yeah, we start shifting toward, it would have been inconceivable for him to be in Jackie Brown, I think, before these two movies. and I don't know whether he felt like he was aging into a different thing or he wanted to stay relevant or whatever. But all of a sudden, Jackie Brown, meet the parents. By the end of this decade, it's kind of over. Now we move into movies that they're really paycheck movies for, which I don't feel like he was doing before this. I felt like he had a bigger aspiration.

It's clear he gets a lot more interested in real estate in New York in becoming the king of Tribeca. Funding, funding real estate. A lot of funding stuff. becomes like a little bit more politically active, becomes a little bit more interested in like the Tribeca Film Festival and becoming like a patron of certain things, you know? Yeah, and so like he's definitely taking jobs for money

because he likes money and he thinks he can do cool things with it. Do you know the next movie he made after the Casino Heat combo? It's not the Bullwinkle movie. I was going to say Rocky and Bullwinkle. It's the fan. Oh. Tony Scott. He goes, the fan, sleepers, not in it that much,

Marvin's room, which is in a box. combination. Copland, which he's not in that much. Incredibly underrated and arguably my favorite line delivery of all time, which is when Stallone goes back and he tries to get his help about halfway through the movie. And he's like, I gave you a chance and you blew it. It's like the lines Sean is said to be more than anything. Is this an audition to be on the Copland pre-watched most?

First of all, Copland is good. It's very good. Copland. I love Copland. But he is money in Copland. So he does Jackie Brown, wag the, dog. Starting to get weird.

Great expectations. Ronan covered in the rewatchables. Then boom. Analyze this. Flawless. Adventures of Rocky Bullwinkle. Man of Honor. Meet the parents.

15 minutes. The score. And it's showtime with Eddie Murphy. And all of a sudden, the wheels kind of came off. Wow. Showtime is tough. Showtime's tough.

I would just love to know like what was the... Money. Yeah. He cashed in. Unbelievable run. One of the greatest actors of all time. And he was like,

you know what? I don't have enough money. It's time. I pitched on a pod recently that we should have an Oscar for best, at least two great performances in a year. So like if you were in two movies and you were really good. Oh, it's like a new Oscar. Yeah. So like for Bradley Cooper, it's like Nightmare Alley and Lickrish Pizza this year.

He gave two great performances. There should be a category where if people have two roles in 95, heat and casino, how can you beat it? He's the fucking leads. Like Bradley Cooper, he was filmed for two days. I know. This is like, I didn't, they must have, I don't know, they couldn't have filmed these right next to each other. He looks different in casino than heat. When you guys finally do heat, you can figure that out.

For the four heat, we're going to have to figure out the timing. He has a... We have Martin Scorseseo on for heat. After this, how many movies do you think... It's a great fiction. How many movies do you think he made over the next five years? De Niro. 96 through 2000.

Seven? Eight? 13. That's a lot. 2.6 a year. This is easy. Does he open Nobu right here? Like what happens?

Yeah, stuff's going on. So the film was based on the 95 nonfiction book, Casino Love and Honor in Las Vegas. Nick Pledgey. Co-wrote the screenplay with Scorsese. Scorsese kept everything all facts as much as he possibly could, except for the names. They had to change the name.

So Ace Rostin was actually Lefty Rosenthal, who ran Stardust, Fremont, Marina, Hacienda, all these different ones for the show. Chicago outfit. Nikki Santoro was Anthony John Aunt Spillotro. Spillotro. Ginger was Jerry McGee, a real person.

Kevin Pollock's character was based on Alan Glick, who owned the corporation that borrowed money from the Teamster funds to buy casinos. And then the Tangiers was the Stardust. And then Pilegi read a 1980 report from the Las Vegas Sun about a domestic argument between Lefty and Jerry saw that she was a topless dancer and decided

there's something here. And the rest was history. It's kind of crazy that this is about one guy running one casino, but Lefty ran four casinos at one time in the heyday of 1970s, Vegas. Four casinos he was in charge of. They really make it seem like he's only in charge of one. In the movie, it is. It's just the Tangiers. Four is like insane. It's crazy. So one supporting actress nom for Sharon Stone, that's it. We got to litigate this because I think it's important. Scorsese shut out as best director. Now, this is a really good movie year.

I think if we did 95 over again, there would be a lot of different stuff. This is the Braveheart year? Braveheart wins both. Best director, Best Picture. Apollo 13 Best Picture. Babe Best Picture. El Pasino and Sense Insensensibility. Best director.

Chris Noonan for Bays. I'm not totally against that. Tim Robbins, dead man walking, Mike Fagas, leaving Las Vegas, and Michael Radford, Opistino. And Sean Penn and Susan Sarandum win, right? Yeah, they do. No, Cage wins.

Sean Penn loses. Dreyfus, our guy, Dreyfus, got nominated for Opus. Opus. Opa, I don't even call it, Mr. Rondland. You didn't even call it Opus during the Opus pod, but now it's just Opus.

Are you guys going to do a second Mr. Holland's opus pod called Grand Reopis? Just Opus. The second symphony. Best supporting actor, Spacey wins for usual suspects. Nobody from this movie gets in. I mean, you could argue.

We could have squeezed Pescian over Ed Harris and Apollo 13? Good performance. I don't know, Tim Roth and Rob Roy. Anybody writing home about that these days? I love Tim Roth, but, I mean, come on. And then Sharon Stone loses for Best Actress. I think this is the crime. Loses to Dead Man Walking.

which is rough. Elizabeth Shoe lost that year, too. She would have been good. And Middle Street lost for Bridgett's, right? Yeah. And Emma Thompson's sense and said, Billy. The rare good best actress category, we usually don't have five.

I don't really get the best director thing. Tim Robbins for Deadman Walking, Mike Figgis for leaving Las Vegas, and Michael Radford for Il Postino and Chris Noon for Babe. It's just weird that Scorsese wasn't like LeBron where LeBron's an automatic top five MVP vote unless he gets hurt.

And Scorsese, it's like, he released a movie, like, prove to me this can't be in there. Look at this movie if you're in the academy. And it's like, this is a three-hour movie that didn't make any money and has a guy's head explode in advice. Like, it's not exactly Oscar Beat. Yeah. But like, is leaving Las Vegas Oscar Beat? Well, it's an acting showcase, though. You know, this was really when narratives became so important with the Oscars, because that whole infrastructure was in place at that point that we always talked about, the premiere magazine, all this different things.

Pre-internets. So you couldn't. And the Nicholas Cage theme became a thing. It's like, is this guy our next great actor. And then Elizabeth She was like, wow, the girl from the karate kid is now this hooker and leave, oh, my God, amazing performance. And it just got momentum. Deadman Walking really was Tim Robbins directing.

He was married to Susan Saran, and Sean Penn's in it. And it just felt like it had pedigree with the arrow pointing up versus Casino was like, eh, Ben here had done this. all these actors. Yeah, exactly. But if you redo it, it's clearly one of the best. I wonder if the late Senator Harry Reid sort of stamped out casino's Oscar Chitz.

You want to explain that for anybody? Okay. $43 million budget made $116.1 million, so it didn't buy them. Well, we talked about this on Goodfellas, but after Goodfellas, like, he made Cape Fear in between these two movies big hit. This movie was big hit. Oh, so this movie did do okay.

I thought it came in, it didn't have a great, opening weekend. It did very well internationally. It made $70 million overseas. They love Marty overseas. I guess, do they? Yeah, the French. Sure, okay.

In retrospect, maybe don't come out during this same weekend as Toy Story, which was one of the all-time phenomenons of that decade. That might have been a mistake. I'd have moved it back two weeks. I do always enjoy when a movie about pure human evil

comes out around the holidays. It's fucking hilarious. It's Thanksgiving, celebrate, by getting your head stuck in a vice. Yeah, it should have been like a, a simple thing. September, October movie. I don't know why.

And I also don't know why they wanted to put it so close to heat. You guys wanted to gather up the family and go see Casino and watch Sharon Stone do Coke in front of her daughter. Our guy, Raj. Yeah, he loved it. Fucking came through. Roger's on an absolute hot, he's on a tear with the rewatchables. This is a big disagreement for them for Siskel and Uber. Siskel had one of the most negative reviews of the movie that came out.

Not sure I'm on Siskel's side. Counterpoint, Roger and Scorsese are buddies. by this point. Yeah. So there's a little bit of like, was he ever going to give him a bad review ever again going on with Rogers and Scorsese?

So worth me a little skeptical, but a four-star review, I think, in the face of most of the critical response, is surprising. He said, unlike his other mafia movies, Scorsese's Casinos is concerned

with history as with plot and character. I agree. Learn some stuff during this movie. You sure do. Four stars, I got there with the four stars, but I, Three and a half, I think, would have been fair.

It really depends on what you're comparing it to. If you're comparing it to Goodfellas, it's hard. It's different. You know, it's like, in the moment, a movie critic probably wouldn't be able to imagine what it's like seeing casino a dozen times over 20 years, you know? I think something that gets held against a lot of these movies that Scorsese makes about real-life figures is that they're too much like stylized documentary. That they're just, like, info dumps with really exciting setups. And this one is like the pinnacle of that. And I think a lot of the criticism wasn't just,

it's not as good as Goodfellas, which felt like an opera. But that it just is like info, info, info, info. And that doesn't seem hard to people, but like literally no people alive can make a movie that looks, feels, and sounds like casino. So we tend to take that stuff for granted, I feel like, with him. There was some stuff too when it came out about the costumes and the jewelry and just how expensive this was for a Scorsese movie, you know, that this was...

You think that was held against it? No, I just think that... I'm trying to remember, like, what the narratives were coming out about this. And, you know, it's basically like Scorsese's back again with De Neron Peschi was basically the theme where I'm sitting there going, this is great. I wish they made a movie every year. But I think some other people were like, eh, been here, done this. And then Vegas just wasn't cool the way it is even five years later.

I think the other thing, in addition to Cape Fear, that he made between these two is the age of the innocence. Yeah. The age of innocence. And critics loved that movie. Yeah. And they were like, this is a new direction for him, all this stuff. And this felt like reversion. Well, people got what they wanted.

You didn't work with De Niro again until the Irishman. That's right. And by then we were ready. By then we were like, I've been waiting 25 years for them to do another movie together. So we, age of innocence. Hold on. Age of Innocence. Yeah.

Cape Fair Age of Innocence Casino, yeah, that was it. And then does he do condo it after this? Yeah. One of your faves. There was also, he was listed on the Michael Jackson video greatest hits for his story for the bad video. Which he really dined on.

Such a great video. He's really. Elaine. I don't know if you guys know. I just saw the bad video. Did you see some of the stuff I did in that one? All right, we're going to take a break. Coming up, not only the category.

I'm going to do some lessons from casino. Yeah. This podcast is brought to you by Carvana. Selling your car should feel like one less thing on your list. Not one more. With Carvana, it is. Just go to Carvana.com, and to your license plate or VIN

and get a real offer down to the penny. No back and forth, no surprises, just an experience you can trust. Like your offer? Accept it. Schedule pickup, and we'll come to you with a check in hand. Your car, your timeline, your terms.

Visit Carvana.com to sell your car today. Carvana. Pick up fees may apply. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptitide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity or some adults with overweight who also have weight related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Zepbound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 or 50. Millegram injection. Zepound contains terseptide and should not be used with other terseptide containing products or any GLP1 receptor agonist medicines. It is not known if Zepound

is safe and effective for use in children. Don't share needles or pens or reuse needles. Don't take if allergic to it, or if you or someone in your family had medullary thyroid cancer, or if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2. Tell your doctor if you get a lump or swelling in your neck. Stop Zepbound and call your doctor if you have severe stomach pain, or a serious allergic reaction. Severe side effects may include inflamed pancreas or gallbladder problems. Tell your doctor if you experience vision changes before scheduled procedures with anesthesia if you're nursing pregnant, plan to be, or taking birth control pills.

Taking Zep bound with a sulfonal urea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-99-79 or visit you. visit zepbounds.lily.com. All right, before we get to the categories, the lessons of casino. All told, we did.

I'm doing this a little differently. It's all actual quotes from the movie that have life lessons. This is like one of your old columns. Yeah. Only my fingers don't work. When you love someone, you've got to trust them.

There's no other way. You've got to give them the key to everything that's yours. Otherwise, what's the point? that's lesson number one this lesson doesn't really apply to Ace it was one of the worst decisions I don't first of all I don't know if that's true

I'm just saying it's a lesson from Casino I don't know if I agree with that lesson Is it possible to do what's age the worst now and just every decision that Ace makes related to Ginger? Yeah I had that later next one it's in the desert where a lot of those

problems are solved but you got to do it right I mean you got to have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Good lesson. Don't go out to the desert with the body, but not having dug the hole yet, Chris. Every time I hear this voiceover, I'm like, oh, it's like a metaphor.

They's like, because you got to dig the fucking hole. Right. Oh, you mean literally like Barry Guys in the desert. For guys like us, Vegas washes away your sins. It's like a morality car wash. I have the exact opposite relationship to Vegas. It's a big. I would say New Orleans in Vegas, I'm with you.

It's the opposite. I would say Vegas pulls your sins out. But hey, it's a lesson for this movie. We're just for Carl Ross where Sean wins $80 off the guy with a trophy. Right. Yeah. Playing a whole of six hours. Who's eating chicken fingers, getting them all over the chips. My ninth core is light, and I'm just grinding them out.

This next one is real, though. The truth about Las Vegas, we're the only winners. The players don't stay in the chance. That's good advice. Is that delivered during the whale scene? Yeah. In Vegas, everybody's got to watch everybody else. Players are looking to beat the casinos.

The dealers are watching the players. Boxmen are watching the dealers. Floor men are watching the boxmen. Pit bosses are watching the pit bosses are watching the pit bosses. The casino manager is watching the shift bosses. I'm watching the casino manager. And the eye in the sky is watching us all. Nobody can hide in Vegas.

This is now a metaphor for like Facebook and the NSA. You know, it's just like, be watched it all times. In casino, the Cardinal rule is to keep them playing, keep them coming back. The longer they play, the more they lose, and we get it all. It's absolutely true.

They just want to keep you there. The percentages are in the casino's favor. Also a metaphor for social media. Yeah. There's three ways of doing things around here, the right way, the wrong way, and the way I do it. Do you subscribe to that?

Yeah. That's how I ran Grant Land and the Rings. That's how we come up with the birdmester. And then the last one, which isn't a quote, but if you're a control freak kind of a guy, maybe don't date the hot grifter who's not in love with you would be a good rule. That's probably a homicidal maniac.

Yeah, maybe not have the best friend as a killer. Control certain aspects of your life, those two things are inevitably going to be like. Along those same lines, maybe don't put $2 million in a security deposit with her as the only key is some sort of test. Because odds are probably going to take the $2 million. Does that check out factually to what left he did? Did he really leave $2 million vulnerable? That didn't check that.

That was a lot of money back then. In the 70s, that's like $10 million. Can I add one more lesson? Please. It's off the top of my head. Personally, I just would never date anyone with an ex named Lester. It's great. Do you think there's ever a situation where it's like, ah, that's my ex-Lester?

He's like, ah, he seems like a great guy. Lester. He should coach our kids' little league team, you know? It's like if Sean had his son, like, what did you name your son, Sean? Lester. Lester fantasy. This is my oldest son, Lester, and my youngest son, Adolf. My daughter, Ginger.

My daughter, Ginger. All right, most rewatchable scene. Trying to narrow this down. As Sean said, it's tough. But so Ace explaining how Vegas works in the first big long scene. And along with making us legit comes cash. Tons of it. I mean, what do you think we're doing out here in the middle of the desert?

It's all this money. This is the end result of all the bright lights and the comp trips of all the champagne and free hotel suites and all the broads and all the booze. It's all been arranged just for us to get, Your money. That's the truth about Las Vegas. We're the only winners. The players don't stand a chance.

And their cash flows from the tables to our boxes, through the cage, and into the most sacred room in the casino. The place where they add up all the money, the holy of holies, the count room. Everything's designed for people to lose. And you have this multi-state system. We get to go behind where the money is. We're going, the guy coming.

The guy leaves with a suitcase, slips the guy 100. Now all of a sudden, we're in Chicago where they're bringing the money. And it's some of the best Scorsese stuff ever. So cool. So amazing how he does it. Did he ever do anything like that in another movie where he's basically doing expository to teach you the world we're in? Yeah, there's a little bit of it in Wolf of Wall Street and like some of the penny stock stuff. And then moving quickly through that world like Chris was saying.

Yeah, you get the shot of like the headquarters for the, what is it, Dinat Tech or whatever? Right. The medical stock that he's selling. Gangton, New York, when going behind the scenes with the butcher shop. Yeah. I haven't seen them moving 20 years. I didn't like the movie. Next one, the Ichikawa gambling scenes.

He bet $1,000 a hand instead of his usual $30,000 a hand. To the bank was a natural aid over a five. But I knew the trick with whales like Ichikawa was that they can't bet small for long. He didn't think of it as winning $10,000. He thought of it. but is losing 90,000. So he upped his bets until he dropped his winnings back and gave up a million of his own cash. This is the whole like he's just thinking about how he's leaving 90,000 on the table when he wins 10.

Yeah. Well, first of all, they... Him getting them getting built for two million. This guy's killing him. It always seems like Baccarat is where the casinos are the most afraid of. It's a little too volatile. But they sabotage the private jet, got Don Rickles, some great Don Rickles. just, oh, I'm so sorry.

Bringing him back, knowing that the guy's going to bet small, but he won't be able to resist because he's doing the math of how much he would have won on each bet. Have you been in that position before where you're like, I got to go back down to the tables, but I'm going to limit myself and then you got out of control. I'm good at getting up. The problem for me is that I really have to get.

You're good at getting up? I'm good at getting up because the people are vacuuming under my feet, and it's five in the morning. I've never seen you get up. Well, when they start vacuuming under my feet, that's when I know it's starting to go. Also, with my contact. are stuck to my eyeballs.

Like, I can't see it anymore because my contacts. When house is like it's time to get morning gumbole? Oh, house is the worst. He's the worst. He's the worst. House is gone at like 130. He's the worst or the best? No, the worst to game with because he's out. The best was my friend Hopper, who now lives in Norway.

But it was a huge loss. Sounds like he's trying to escape. Light a left to avoid me. A Nikki figure. He's in the black book? Next rewatchable scene. Sharon Stone's first scene. Unbelievable.

Meeting Ginger? Yeah. What's it matter? What do you mean? What's the matter? Made a lot of money for you. I want my cut. What money?

I've seen you're stealing from me. What money? Look at the stack of chips. Don't give me that shit. I want my end. I've been watching you all night. Don't give me that shit. I want my money.

Please stole. I'd steal anything from you. Get lost, Ginger. Get lost. Yes. Get lost? Yes. Well, how about that?

Come on. Come on. We didn't talk about her yet, but I'm saving it. But in Vegas for a girl like Ginger. Love costs money. Ginger's throwing the chips in slow motion. When she tips the dealer, she goes, take chances and drive fast.

So good. I want to save Sharon Stone for what saves the best. But it's a very, very, very important piece of this movie. Strong work by whoever that man is who is playing, like her partner escort. He looked like Fred Armisen in like a fat suit with a wig or something. Yeah. Ace spots the card counters. It's just unbelievable.

Look what they did to my hair, man. All right, I'm going to give you a choice. You can either have the money and the hammer or you can walk out of here. You can't have both. What do you want? I just try to get out of here. And don't forget to tell your friends what happens

if they fuck around here. You understand? I'm sorry, I made a bad mistake. You're fucking right, you made a bad mistake. Because if you come back here, we catch either one who are going to break your fucking heads and you won't walk out of here. You see that fucking saw, we're going to use it.

You don't fuck around in this place. You got it? Yeah, get out of it. I think it's one of the single greatest. sequences in his entire career. So this is where I guess we can announce that we will be having a rewatchable spinoff called Cheaters

Justice. It's a new podcast. Coming next week. One of the three of us is wearing a wire. We find out who it is. The guys are perfect. The way De Niro handles it is absolutely perfect where he's just like he's got that weird De Niro kind of. Can you handle your

checks with your left hand? Looking at him. That sequence opens with the line that you were talking about, about the eye in the sky. So compared to what starts playing. And that song's like, God damn it. And then their faces start appearing, all the guys in the frame. And then he starts explaining the mechanics of how everybody watches each other in the casino. And then genius storytelling. It's like, here's how this works. And here's an example of it happening. And him doing what he goes to the phone and he's like, I need Mr. Happy loud. And they come in and start doing happy birthday. Well, I love when he goes out with Rickles.

And he's just kind of watching everything. And then he finally dropped something and he goes down. But it's just like the best Niro. It's the Nero at the peak of his powers. It's so good. All of them. It's also like who I don't, I definitely did Nando and Don Rickles could do this kind of acting.

Look what they did in my hand, man. Also, there's a taser and a hammer in that scene. Yeah, yeah. And it seemed like it was going to be a saw. The guy just walks up. over and does just a quick taser. So when my deal with you is up, will you say you can either have the money in the hammer

or you can walk out of here? That's absolutely what I'm saying. Next rewatch, we'll see. Nikki finding out he was banned from every casino. Nikki was grabbing everything he could. Nobody out there was expecting a guy like him. To Nikki, Las Vegas was the fucking Wild West.

I just got a shoot kind of diamonds for me, is right? What the fuck they expect for me? I had it earned, didn't I? Scorsese every once in a while just turns it up, just for us, where he has that outside scene of the cameras going left to right, and Pesci's all of a sudden to defame,

and it's got the, can't you hear me knocking? Yeah, it's the gold rush. And then he's like, for Nicky, Las Vegas was the Wild West. I'm like, and, again, we're playing all the Scorsese hits, but that's one of the better moments of it. It's a little, it's almost like

a parody of the I'm going to go get the papers scene from Goodfellers where he's like, and then there's like Johnny Gargano over here, he's a great safe cracker, and then this other guy over here, and he's like explaining, but he's kind of like half-acidly doing it. Yeah. Is that the guy? Yeah. Do they have the

gold rush at Gower Gulch across from our old office? Basically he's the same place. The next one. Most rewatchable. Ace surprises Ginger and Lester. in the diner.

She's my wife. Look at me. You did know that, didn't you? You knew to choose my wife. Huh? Hey, look at me. Yeah, yeah. I know that.

You're done, yeah? If you ever come back again, ever to take her money, next time bring a pistol. That way you got a chance. Be a man, don't be a fucking pimp. We'll save the James Woods conversation. That's probably when A should have cut bait. right there.

When he saw Lester and he was like, really, this guy? Yeah. I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. Imagine, I'll ask you both this. You know something's going on with your wife, your wife. She's asking you for money.

She's asking for $25,000. You're like, this is no point out. You follow where you have her track down to a diner. And there's Lester. And her pimp ex-boyfriend is sitting across from her at the table. she's giving him money. What are you doing? You're done. Unless it's

down, then you're like, I can save this. You're digging a hole in the desert? The crucial thing is that Lester was a golf pro. I would wonder if Lester could fix my slice. How badly did we need this scene with Lester tutoring somebody in the driving ranch? It's like, honestly, the criminal act of this movie is we don't get Lester on the course.

We get Pesci. I know, but like... You know why? Because in the research that said, Woods only had two days. Right. So they had to cram all the scenes together in two days. So they couldn't fit the driving range scene with Woods doing somebody's,

with somebody's Guamar trying to teach her a five wood. You'll be able to get to the bottom of it, though, when you make Diamond Man, the Lester Diamond story that's like a casino told through the eyes of Lester. And Jimmy Woods now, you and Jimmy together make it. Next one. First Ace Nicky argument. Looks bad? I'm going to tell you what looks bad.

Every time you're on television, I get mentioned. That looks bad. What the fuck happened to you? Will you tell me? What happened to me? What happened to you? You lost your controls. I lost control.

Yes, you lost your control. Look at you. You're fucking walking around like John Barrymore. A fucking pink robe and a fucking cigarette holder? I lost control. You know, I don't want to bring this up, but you've been treating a lot of people with a lot of disrespect, even your own wife.

My wife. Yeah. Now, what does she have you? We mentioned this earlier, but I lost control. Look at you. You're fucking walking around like John Barrymore. A fucking pink robe and a fucking pink robe and a fucking. fucking cigarette holder.

I lost control. So good. Peschis has like seven of those in this. How do you feel about his Chicago accent? I was fine with it. Were you guys against it? At the time, and I don't know if this exactly lines up, but I did have like George Went, like the bears in my mind.

A little, yeah, smigel. And he's really, like, pushing it, but, like, in retrospect, it's awesome. It's pretty good. I like it. It's nice to get it different than the New York accent. said that he has. All right, I still still have six scenes left. I know this is probably Sean's either favorite scene or top three. Scorsese's mom and the wiretap at Tuscanos. Very funny. Vinnie Bella. The mom is unbelievable. The F-bombs or she's just, like just

freaking out every time there's something. And the guy who plays Tuscano is great. So funny. Just bitching about everybody and I realize that there's a camera. I love that scene. The second Ace argument in the desert. Do you remember what I told you? Back up. Back up. A fucking minute here. One minute. I asked you, when the fuck did I ever ask you if I could come out there? Get this through your head, you. Get this

through your head, you Jew motherfucker you? You only exist out here because of me. That's the only reason. Without me, you personally, every fucking wise guy still around, I'll take a piece of your fucking Jew ass. That way you're going to go.

Your fucking warrant, don't ever go over my fucking head again, you motherfucker you? No, go 100 yards past where we normally meet. The ace is like, oh my God. 99 out of 100 times, I'm fine. I think this is fine, but... That's the one when he's like, the only reason you're out

here is because of me, that fight. Yeah, it's like if it wasn't for me, every wise guy would be taking a piece of you. Wait, wait, wait, back up, back up a fucking minute here. I asked you, when the fuck did I ever ask you if I could come out here? He has a whole monologue. That's like a long paragraph. You're fucking warned. ever go over my fucking head again, you

motherfucker you? I love how Pesci's just adding motherfuckers into the script. All the dialogue in this movie is improvised. You know, it's like that you can tell sometimes. I don't know how Pesci pulled off being as tiny as he was and being that menacing. It's pretty rare. You buy it though. Yeah, you totally

buy it. The Lester finger freakout session which includes, I'm sending this kid to Bolivia in a fucking box. when she's like, I want to see the elephant man. Lester and the stepdaughter could have been its own movie.

That's going to be so good in Diamond Van. We're going to be in your hair. Lester and the daughter is probably the inspiration for Little Miss Sunshine or some weird indie movie with some terrible parents. That is also, I freeze-framed this last night with this subtitle on. So I want to like just memorialize this. There's a, you know, Lester's like snapping his fingers of ginger. And she's doing lines in front of her daughter.

And she goes, don't do this. It's great. The daughters seem to have a good head out of shoulders about everything. Yeah. I think Amy turned out all right. Well, in the true story. Amy didn't turn out right? No, the real-life Ginger had an 11-year-old when she married Rosenthal.

And the father was Lester. So some complications there. next one is the Peschi stone scene kind of disgusting it's so good from an acting standpoint the one the one when she finally when he finally gets her to blow him

it's so good from an acting standpoint it's really like talking about the fight they had at the leaning tower well you could include either of those I just have the next I don't even know it just says everyone gets whacked just have that as a montage murder scene a little note next to it. Billy Bats finally getting his revenge.

Right. The cornfield. Yeah. But it was like there's other murders around there and it's just everybody's start time. The guy from Kansas City having a heart attack. Yeah, that guy. That's really funny too. The cornfield is to like, trust me, you don't want to live this lifestyle. This is the worst way to die ever. You think it's gone as far as it's going to go and then you have shirtless Peschi just being bloody dragged through and thrown into the fucking thing.

Yeah. It's pretty brutal. And then I have the ending. The town will never be the same. The town will never be the same. After the Tangiers, the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates,

mommy and daddy dropped the house payments and junior's college money on the poker sluts. In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it's like checking into an airport. And if you order room service, you're lucky if you get it by Thursday. Today it's all gone. You got a whale show up with $4 million in a suitcase, and some 25-year-old hotel school kid is going to want a Social Security number.

After the Teams has got knocked out of the box, the corporations tore down practically every one of the old casinos. And where did the money come from to rebuild the pyramids? junk bonds To watch that last monologue with the end of Goodfellas is just like if you need to know what Scorsese actually thinks of these

these like scenarios just listen to those things but think of like the last think of like the key lines in all these big De Niro and Scorsese movies that he made right? It's like this movie ends with DeNiro's saying and that's that

like that's it that's life that's the end of me That's the end of everything. That's the end of all this time, effort, death, money, glamour. The immigrant culture that came over here. Yeah, exactly. Same with the Irishman. It's what it is.

You know, like, he has these like little tiny, almost bland mottoes for these movies. And now just a schnuck. Exactly. Same thing. Adam Neiman wrote about this movie for The Ringer. And he was writing about today, it looks like Disneyland, that line. And he said, quote, the point is not that the place has gone legit, but that it operates at the leisure of white collar corporate overlords instead of hard-edge capos, if there's an allegory in there about an

increasingly centralized and coldly profitous movie industry, i.e. the kind that could marginalize as virtual as an artist as Martin Scorsese, so be it. Are you buying that? I thought it was an interesting idea. It's an interesting reading of the movie that, you know, Scorsese is constantly commenting. This is not a movie made by Disney. It's a universal movie, but Kundun was made by Disney. You know, there's some connectivity to some of that, too. And Kondo famously was, like, banned in certain places, was not supported as much. And so it's almost like he has a premonition

about how he's no longer, like, at the center of mainstream movie culture, even though, I mean, look, if you're looking at film Twitter as much as I am, every day people are debating, talking about celebrating, analyzing, getting angry at Martin Scorsese. He still is weirdly. He's like the LeBron of. Yeah, the main character.

It should be his golden years where everybody's just like, and yet I think because of his stances, which are pretty milk-toast, honestly, about superhero movies, he's become like every other day they bring up something. And now he gets asked that in every interview. Yeah. Film Twitter sounds terrible. It's pretty bad. I mean, all Twitter's terrible.

It's better than politics Twitter. It's better than Celtics Twitter. You know, I don't spend a lot of time. The Celtics Twitter is just, what can we get? Can we get an all-star for Robert Williams's Twitter? Can I get Ginger's jewelry back for Peter Richard? What rewatchable scenes did I leave out, Chris? I had when Nikki first goes to the sports book, when he first arrives in the...

Oh, I love the... I love how the sports book looks, like that old school... They should just have those again. I was just like... You thought I was laying? Oh, yeah. I thought you were taken. It was like, here.

Yeah. Yeah, that's why you had it ready for me, you motherfucker. Yeah. That tracking shot into the sports book, and it has that, like, kind of beat up Western town look. compared to what the sports book inside the Tangiers winds up looking like. So I had that as one of my favorites. Any other, Sean? What do you got for most rewatchable, Chris?

I think I'm going to go to everybody watching everybody slash the cheaters justice, just because that's like such a cool explanation of like the levels of grift and vice that are happening in that place. That is definitely my favorite scene. A couple of others that I think are great. The wedding and then Ginger calling Lester at the wedding and the phone call that they have. The really quiet Woods thing was like, can you feel me inside of you? He's like, I'm thinking about I'm seeing you for the first time.

You're 14. He's so disgusting. It's unbelievable how gross he is in this movie. He's really, really great. I also really like shortly after that when Ace brings Ginger into the house for the first time and he gives her the fur coat. And she's like, I mean, Sharon Stone is. on fire in that scene.

You know, she's so excited. She's so gorgeous. And that's like, we're in a new world now. You know, like we're in, like, Ace 1. You know, like, he has it all. And we're in the center of the movie. And where's the movie going to go from here? We know it can only go down.

One of a great movie device, just in general, is the hero that we like falling for the girl who we know doesn't like him as much. I don't know if ever quite gone like this. I don't know if it's ever not worked where it's always like, ah, she doesn't like him. I can tell. Yeah.

And by the way, in real life, does usually work either when you have that one friend. You're like, hey, he likes her more than she likes him or vice versa. You always kind of know, oh, he's good for her. He gives her stability. And it's like, oh, they're not going to last. Yeah. It's like a, it's just like an old convention, too. It's just like this dame is no good.

You know, it's like a 1940s movie where it's like she's a femme fatale. She's going to take him down. You can tell the minute, the first time you see her in the movie, you're like, this is trouble. She's committing a crime. Yeah. I mean, she's stealing from somebody. He's any place to judge her. Yeah, true.

Good point. I have for most rewatchable what Chris had. Look what they did to my hand, man. But that whole scene, I just love that the most. I also really like the first 15 minutes of the movie because, especially from a rewatchable standpoint, sometimes you catch this and you're an hour in or 40 minutes in. So I feel like I've seen the beginning of the movie less than other parts.

So anytime I watch the beginning, I'm always so fascinated by how he lays out. just every piece of the casino industry. How much, like, of a debt do you feel you owe to lefty Rosenthal? I mean, he really, like, he really did kind of create and modernize a lot of the things that, like, we're a part of, you know, sports betting. Ace as high as the original BS report. I think, I actually think Vegas is kind of underrated as, like, an incredible achievement. Oh, yeah.

It doesn't make a lot of sense. Like, it could have been anywhere, right? They could have done that in freaking anywhere anywhere where gambling was leased. but it could have easily been, I don't know, North Dakota or it's not like it had to be in Vegas, but they just kind of figured it out and expanded on it. And it's close to LA, I guess location-wise, it has some advantages. Well, you could bring show business out there, right? Yeah.

In some ways, it makes all the sense in the world, right? Because it's just this, like, completely unconstructed open terrain. On the other hand, like, we've all been there during Summer League. It's freaking hot, man. It's 180 degrees. Yeah. It's so goddamn inconvenient in the way that it exists. So it's this really, it's a contradiction.

We're going to take a break. Then we'll do what's age the best. Mommy. A Lego duploset is a gift that always clicks. And clicks. And clicks. For all the kids who love to stack and play, choose a Lego set.

A gift that always clicks. All right. What's age the best? It's time. Sharon Stone. To the great performances of the decade by an actress. At least from a memorable standpoint, basic instinct, a one of one. Nobody else could have played her.

I feel pretty close with Stone and Casino. Because you have to be smoking hot. You have to be a good actress. There has to be something dangerous about you. So that's already a short list. You take people from different eras. Like you could take Kathleen Turner in like 1980s. and this could have worked with her.

And I'm sure there's some people now. But like this couldn't be like Emma Stone. There has to be like a something dark about you. And I mean dark in the way of that woman's going to break my heart. But I can't stop gravitating toward her type of thing. No vanity in this part. Like she's beautiful. And Ginger is obviously who she is.

But like she is willing to like debase herself to like show herself how to get dragged. nervous breakdown. It's like complete and total commitment to the party. Yeah, yeah. I mean, she has to be so stunning that the red flags turn white. I mean, she's a walking red flag. Well, you can see when Pesci sees her for the first time and he just, he's like awestruck. Yeah. You know, which I, so you have to be that good looking to even pull that off. Yeah. And also, you know, Sharon Stone, like, I know you know this better than anybody because you are her biggest fan. But like, she is so charismatic. I mean, she just has like. Her personality is a tractor beam where you're like, even if this is trouble, this is such fun trouble that we're about to get into together.

So you believe that Ace would get stuck on it. But also, like, she wasn't that, she was like 37, 38 when she made this movie. She wasn't like Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook where you're like, this woman is so young and so vital. And it's a different kind of a thing, you know, like, Lefty is an older guy. These are like slightly older people that are getting into a different phase of their life here too. So you need somebody who seems like they've been around the block. you know, that they've lived a little bit. And Sharon Stone had been a working actress for like 15 years

and never totally quite getting there until she hit that mid-90s period. She has the disadvantage of not getting really... I don't think she has any voiceover in this movie or if she does, it's very brief. So she doesn't get to tell Ginger's story that much, not the way that Nikki and Ace do. So all of it is basically like she's obviously under Lester's spell

and this completely fucked up dependent, you know, traumatic relationship she's got with him. And then she obviously has to like broadcast that like as she gets as Ginger gets older, she loses control of Coke and drink and pills to the point where she's tying up her daughter so that she can go out to the bar for a couple of hours to hang out with Nikki. She does it all while still being kind of like, yeah, I can kind of see why you would want to go for her. Like I can kind of see why you would want to stay married to this person.

She's basically got the Henry Hillark. She starts out as this shining, you know, princess of the desert. And then by the end, it's basically got bags under her eyes. And it's like the helicopters are going over. It's a little Fyfer and Scarface a little bit, too. Where the unattainable eye candy, basically, that you know, you, you know. I read that she was up for this and turned it down, Fyfer.

I don't think she would have been right. I don't feel like there's that dark side. One actress who wasn't old enough yet, who I think would have been really good if it was like the early 2000s version is my girl Diane Lane. I think she could have done it. because there's some damage that she can pull out in movies that I think would have worked. But for the most of the time this part goes wrong, most of the time it's like Jennifer Lopez, or it's like Julia Roberts going against type, or it's like Merrill Streep, you know,

and it has to be, A, you have to be dropped out gorgeous, B, there's got to be some sort of red flag that just emanates from you, which Sharon Stone always had, which Total Recall was another movie that took advantage of it, where it's like, wait a second, are you on Schwarzenegger's side or not? Like Demi Moore, I don't think could have done it. She's an interesting one. She would have tried. Yeah.

But the two movies, I guess, of course, he asked her to watch going into this were Valley of the Dolls and Joan of Arc, which I think are really perfect for Ginger. Like, that's Ginger as a character, basically, is this trashy but tragic figure. Martyr, yeah. It would be interesting, like, 10 years from now,

this, if Margo Robbie could have a part like this. She has to just sweetness about her. I know, but do you have to kind of age out of that a little? Or, you know, that would be, or else she's just going to be pigeonled with everyone else. But this is why, you know, when I'm at my Sharon Stone preaching to the choir meetings with the rest of the Sharon Stoneites. What's that meeting like? I don't know.

It's just a lot of horny single guys. No, I just think she was a one-on-one in a lot of ways. that there were people from the 40s and 50s who there were way more of her back then. Yeah, Barbara Stanwick, Lana Turner. Oh, yeah. All those actresses were, this character is still clearly modeled

on all of those characters. It's weird that those people don't exist anymore. Those movies don't really exist anymore, right? Like, do they make a lot of noir movie, femme fatala noir movies? There was a Sydney movie that came out in 2021 called The Voyeurs. Oh, I saw it.

Yeah, Sydney Sweeney has this. She could do this at some point. That movie's terrible, but I support all Sidney-Sweeney projects. I mean, they're going for that vibe. You know, this woman who's going to get you into trouble. Yeah, Sydney-Sweeney. All right.

Morwood's age the best. So the fact that he trusted De Niro and Pesci at this point, that they're improvising basically everything. He was just telling them where to start and where to end, and that's why there's a lot of back and forth with the dialogue. I feel like any of the, he doesn't take a lot of screenplay credits in his career, but any of the movies where he has a screenplay credit, you hear over and over again that there was more.

improvisation than usual, you know, because, like, I don't think he really cares about writing, like, a beautiful piece of dialogue in the same way. Like, it kind of, it's a testament to this movie, which is, like, so all over the place and moving so fast. Like, it's not about this perfectly constructed three-act play. Yes. It's, it's zanier than that. And it's not, it's not, like, color of money, which Richard Price wrote, where there's, like, a lot of space to, like, regard how good the dialogue is, right? Like, it's moving so fast. So, yeah. I have these next to what Sage the best tied together. The Penn scene, which isn't long enough to be a rewatchable scene, but when the first

time we realized, oh, Pesci is a homicidal maniac. And he's like, you insult my friend. How's that now? You're going to cry like a girl. He's just a lunatic. But I have that tied to just Pesci getting pissed off in bars in general. Yeah, I was going to say, could this just happen to more movies? I would just, if I ever walk into a bar and Pesci and Frank Vincent, we're there.

I'm just like, I'm going to go. Yeah. It would be fun to invite them to somebody's birthday party just to freak people out. I love that no matter how big a guy might be, Nikki would take him on, beat him with fist, comes back with a bat, knife gun,

you better kill him, he'll keep coming. That whole monologue is great. It's perfect. Ginger's strategy in Vegas of taking care of all the little people, underrated, the valets, the guy at the door,

all that stuff. Great stuff. That's a Coke from the valet. Good job, Ginger. I don't want to compare my dad. to Ginger, but that's what my dad does. My dad just gave me a speech on the phone the other day about how you got to take care of your garbage man. And I was like, am I in his course? He was like, every Christmas I go outside and give that guy 50 bucks to say, thanks for everything

you did this year. I'm like, is that, what's the upside there? Like, what are you getting out of that? Maybe it is the right thing to do, but I don't know, where did you learn that from? Did your dad teach you that? It's very Italian. No, the Italians did that. Yeah, it feels very mafioso, you know? I love it when Ginger folds that bill. Like they have that shot of her like folding the bill exactly so that it's in her palm. And then she's like, she can palm the... It's kind of an underrated skill to fold a bill that perfectly. I've never been able to pull off the slide the bill handshake.

Well, and now we've exited the era of cash. So nobody really wants to get dapped up with it at the 20. You do the surprise Zelle. Yeah. Chris gives crypto to the garbage man. So Scorsese created the head in the vice scene. as a sacrifice because he thought it were going to be cut. And he used that as like a

kind of a red herring so that that would be cut, but you get to keep the other stuff. And then the NPA made no objection to it, so he left it in a little edited. It's so crazy. Which crazy is I used to do this at ESPN with my columns, remember? I used to put in like three or four things

that I knew they would cut because I wanted to keep like things five, six, and seven. You might have done this to me a couple of times. I might have. No, at that point, no. I had the most to lose at that point. A couple of times you dropped a few at. I think that other writers have taken some of those lessons from you, though.

I would say I had some experiences where people would do that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I apologize, but I don't. I mean, we even stuck ice picks in his balls. I mean, that sounds horrible. Ice picks in the balls, the guy still wasn't dead? Not ideal.

Definitely. That one scene is just like you just showed this bar. It's shot up. Like, it's such a digression, but it's so great. Tough Irishman, that guy. Yeah. You see that guy around County Quirk a lot, you know? The look of the old Vegas strip, I don't know how he did it in 1995, but it really

looks like the old Vegas strip. And they shot in a real casino. Yeah, they shot. But if they had that wide shot of all the casinos, and it really looks like it's 1973. I don't know how he did it. Can you imagine being, like, your prime working hours, being from, like, 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. in Vegas is when they were shooting on the floor there

for like three weeks. It actually does remind me of Grantland now that I think about it. There was a good piece when the 25th anniversary of this movie. The Las Vegas Review Journal did a piece about different people in Vegas who intersected with this movie, like the couple that loaned their house for the De Niro, they moved out for five months.

The guy who was the stuntman and the vice scene and all this stuff. But it was a lot about like this movie was filmed in 21 weeks. and completely uprooted Las Vegas in all these ways, but it was all late at night when it wasn't interfering with the business. James Woods heard Scorsese who was interested in working with him. He called Scorsese's office and left the following message. Do you know this one?

Yeah, I do. Any time, any place, any part, any fee. That's me when you call about the prestige TV pod. I love that. 1883, episode four, third person. Any fee, any price. I love the Pesci Stone scenes. It's such a weird combo to have some sort of electricity,

but they pulled it off. It's just so bizarre. It kind of makes my stomach turn a little bit. The part, though, where they... That's what I love, though. It's so weird. Like, I'm a working girl, so you know I'm going to get covered on the back end, and he's just like, I respect the hustle. Yeah.

Because Ace is trying to go legit and be like, you're going to be the mother, you're going to be the wife, if you're going to be like my social, like, kind of currency in this town. She's like, I'm a fucking hustler. Like, what you're talking about? And Nikki's the same way. Nicky's like, I'm muscle. Like, I'm not here to like skim a little.

I'm here to rob this place. Yeah. Stone's daughter, annoying Lester. I know we mentioned earlier, but I just loved it. She had a real fun demeanor about her for a kid actor. I don't know what happens to that actor. Stony told their kid to like annoying James Woods. Yeah, it's good. now Sean's going to get uncomfortable.

I don't care. Nikki's love of blowjobs fucking kills me. It's so good. It's clearly Nikki's thing, right? They always showed a couple times. He brings the showgirl onto the car and he's like, no, no, you get out on the side. It just immediately grabs the head,

but it's just such like a funny quirk for a mafia movie. Nikki just loves a good blowjob. How about for what stage? best Pesci and Frank Vincent drinking in a bar again. Yeah. We ran it back, but only this time they're buddies. Yeah. And we talked about them the last time we talked about Pesci and Frank Vincent, but a great, great

combo. Billy Bats gets his revenge of this movie. Chris, what about smuggling diamonds in your girl's beehive hairdo? I love it. Yeah. As a what stage is the best? He's just like, really, cramming. No, there's one more.

There's another fucking one in there. Oh, there was it? After it falls out. And he's like hitting her hair a lot. I bet the emergency golf course landing. Incredible scene. I don't really think, I don't really think the county commissioning gaming board really knew what that meant.

You know what ACE is like, worst possible timing. It's like, would you really know that that's the FBI? You wouldn't know that. Couldn't agree more. Casting. Don Rickles, Alan King.

Are you done with what's age the best? No. I'm just the casting is best, what's the age the best. Don Rickles, Alan King, Dick Smothers, Kevin Pollock. I think the Rickles was such an important casting for this because Rickles doesn't make a single joke the whole time. It's just like they need him for his hang dog face and how small he was.

So did you guys get a chance to see the behind the scenes footage of Rickles with De Niro? No. So there's a scene. Is that on YouTube? It's on YouTube. I can say, I mean, I'll post it. But De Niro's forgetting his lines. Oh, no.

And Rickles is just like. for all the fucking money they're paying you, you can't remember the fucking, look at the fucking index card. It's fucking amazing. And De Niro is crying with laughter. Rickles is just like tearing them apart. Everyone,

everyone says Rickles is like one of the three funniest of all time. Yeah. Same thing with Super Dave, where it's just like whoever's in the room, he's always going to bust their balls and go right at them. It's, I mean,

it's also like putting these guys in this movie is an homage to Vegas. It creates connectivity. like, you know, the Smothers Brothers and Allen King, like these guys all played Vegas for years and years. Aces High for what stage the best, Chris? Of course it has. This is almost what we called The Watch. We ended up calling it The Watch, but it was almost Ais High. But we're relaunching, actually, Ringer Gambling Show as Aces High hosted by CR.

It should have been, that at least should be a show in the Ringgambling Show. There's also a lot of, like, political, like, substack stuff going on with Ais High where he's like, debate me. Why won't you come on and answer that? of my question. It's way ahead of its seven. I have no decency, sir. The Scorsese music choices in this movie, like an A-Minus.

There's a couple misses, but I love Ginger. We get Heart of Stone and Love is the drug back-to-back. Oh, yeah. Where it's just like, heart of stone as the introduction to our femme fatale in the movie

was drunk. There's a few I really like in this one. Yeah. He kind of uses, can you hear me knocking so much in his movies that it becomes like sound design rather than like a song. Yeah, I agree.

But there's a couple of inspired ones that like I had never heard Ain't Superstitious by Rod Stewart and Jeff Beck before this movie. That one's amazing. The one really cool one that he makes is the Devo cover of satisfaction. Yeah. That's like him commenting on himself. It's like it feels just like in Boogie Nights when it goes like 79 to 80. It's almost like this is Vegas going 79 to 80.

It's not about the stones anymore. It's about new wave. I also really love using Gloria. would love while he makes Ginger watch Lester Gilles should be now. That's a good one. That's a good one. Morwood's age the best. It's not his fault.

The count room, I just like when we go to the count room in any movie. Yeah. Always wonder what's going on in there. Then the vicing we mention. Sean, for you, I know you like an equal amount of blueberries in your muffin every day.

I know you've told your wife. What's wrong with this muffin? What's wrong with this muffin, honey? Kevin Pollock's the look on his face when you see that Ace is distracted by the muffins. It's so funny. It's also just such like an old man thing to eat. It's like a blueberry muffin like drowning in butter. There's like, God damn it.

I don't get the real fruit texture out of this. Also the guy who's playing the chef, the baker behind that, you know, in the kitchen, he's just like, you know, how long that's going to take? Yeah. He's like out of like a Bordano show. the opener when he does that you love someone you got to trust him otherwise what's the point for a while i believe that's the kind of love i had great opening line in a movie i'm not sure why did he ever believe he had the love what what was the point when he's like i've won it ginger

i've won her over she's mine i think it's just why did he think that he could be a part of the mafia but go legitimate it's like he's diluted rational confidence guy all right the black jack dealer from rain man love seeing him Although this was, what, seven years later, six years after, it's good to see the call back with him. Scorsese's love of high-tech cocaine shots I have is the wood stage the best. Inside the straw. How many different times has he filmed the cocaine scene

and each time he's been able to innovate in some new way for us to enjoy cocaine vicariously? Yeah, seriously. It's like step back three. The only movie has left is to start with the coca plant. That's right. And then just do the life cycle of the cocaine until it's processed and someone snorts it up. Because when you get into the straw POV, you're really, you're deep-in. Has he gone inside anybody's nose yet and then come out?

I think he's maybe he's leaving that for Fincher. I think when they revive vinyl. Fincher's going to do panic room just going through somebody's nostrils into the cavities of where it hits their brain. All right, last but now, well, do you, I have one more at age the best, but do you have any more before I get to my- Literally what age the best is the age of the hitman who killed Dominic and Nicky. It's just like these old men. The guys in Costa Rica, too, when they're chasing the guy, those guys are old. He's like, come here, you jack off.

He shoots them in the top of the head. The one thing I thought that I really liked is Ace's house. Yeah. You know, and it's very kitsy 70s wall-to-wall carpet. But those mid-century modern desert houses are so cool. There's so many of them in Palm Springs, too. They're beautiful.

That's just, it's like at the end of a cul-de-sac. It's just a really cool suburban house. That's a bookmark for me. The Palm Springs real estate scene. I will never live in Palm Springs. I've no desire to live it, but I love the houses. So I just love when it's like, Bob Hope's old house is now available. Like, oh, cool.

Look at this house. I love looking at it. Oh, my God. I love outside one floor and there's like weird guest houses. Yeah. Yeah. All right, last but not least for what's the best woods. Our guy, Jimmy, go ahead, take the floor, Chris.

Well, I mean, it's just like he's only in three or four scenes. He might be the biggest fucking scumbag in the history of movies. Every single thing he does from his hair to his hand gestures to that goddamn white, full white suit with epaulettes that he's wearing in the diner. And he's just like, I, so like the question is like, do you understand as a viewer why Sharon Stone would keep throwing away her life for this guy? Oh, I understand. Yeah. Huge cock. Tongue like a fucking horse.

That's got that there's no other explanation. That's Jimmy Woods. That's like in real life, right? Real life character, who knows? If the cock fits. Yeah. Anyway, I just remember. It has to be a cock then.

I like how he's not just a pimple. I like how much different stuff. My reading of it was more like he groomed this girl from a young age, you know, that he like, he got his hooks into her very early on. He has been psychologically manipulating. her now whether or not his, his man, and a huge member. Yeah, I mean,

I'm sure that's a factor. This is a really weird time for James Woods. What else does he do it around this time? So, you know, in the 80s, obviously, like Salvador's like a big, big break for him. He's Oscar nominated.

And he makes a bunch of kind of middling, not really well-known movies, the hard way, straight talk, digs town. He has a part in Chaplin. And he's in the specialist with Sharon Stone in 94. And then it goes casino, Nixon, goes to Mississippi,

be contact and then vampires, which is fucking kicks ass. I love vampires. And it kind of feels weirdly like James Woods is at the center of movie culture. It's nominated for Goes to Mississippi. You know, he's taking weird little bit parts in any given Sunday, but he's like kind of the best part of that movie too. You know, turns out, lo and behold, he's clearly a huge asshole in real life. But that's part of the reason why he's so effective in all these movies is he keeps getting castes and assholes. I still think Sharon Stone age the best, but Jimmy Woods, that whole central relationship really gives this movie a

I think it needs. Because otherwise, I do think there is a little bit of, like, De Niro and Pesci improvising, calling each other motherfuckers for two and a half hours. And they have this fucked up Fleetwood Mac kind of energy to it that really, like, gives him a new gear. There's different James Wood stages. I knew him from the Youngenfield, the movie that, don't ask me why, but I saw it when I was 12.

I just watched it like six months ago for the first time. I'd never seen it before. He's amazing in it. He's amazing. and that was the movie that made him like hot young star James Wood. Yeah. And a pretty big movie.

And he's also, again, pure evil in that movie. Yeah. He's really good in it. And then he's an eyewitness two years later, which is a really, really good 80s movie if you're ever looking for something. It's on one of the streaming services. I think it's William Hertz's first movie or second movie,

Scorni Weaver's on X for a while. Yeah. The big break initially for him, was the once upon a time in America. Right. Which was a movie that I think people were more excited about before it came out than after it came out. But as it was coming out, everybody was like, oh, my God.

That has a really famous director's cut now, right? That was like a four-hour cut of it, yeah. And Videodrome, too, the Kronenberg movie was a very big cult movie in the early 80s. But that same year is my favorite James Wood's movie, or favorite James Wood performance against all lots with Jeff Bridges. James Woods is amazing in that movie. That's not a good movie.

It's got Rachel Ward, who's thrown 119 miles an hour. It's got Bridges who's never looked more handsome and more A-Listy. Rachel Ward, I would walk through fire for her. And then you have Woods as like a fucking scumbag. But they had this whole awesome drag race in the beginning of that movie where he's in like a Ferrari and bridges in a Porsche or vice versa. And Woods is just, it's like all macho bullshit, and they just like race through Miami. It's one of those where I still don't know

how they filmed it. I think it was Miami. But Woods is great and that. He turns out to be the bad guy. He always turned out to be the bad guy. So by the time we get to like this part, oh, he left out, what was the one with Brian Dennyhe? Wasn't he in that one?

Maybe not. It was in bestseller. Bestseller. Yeah, yeah. But by the time we got to mid-90s, it was like a cliche for James Woods to be the scumbag. So this was like the last vestige of that. And this was the best scumbagg that he played.

I like James Woods. Not a great reputation. This is a pretty huge scumbag in the history of America, the ghost of Mississippi guy. But as far as like the low rate, like criminals. I meant like fictional scumbach. Yeah. Not a beloved Hollywood guy, James Woods.

Doesn't seem like any more, no. Pretty lit Twitter feed. He's far right. He's like far right conspiracy person at this point. Yeah. what's aged the worst I don't have a long list for this I don't know why this was three hours

Kotak might have cut one of the Stone De Niro fights I don't know if you needed all of them So one of the two is one in the desert where he's like I made you or whatever There's like three Stone De Niro So it's like the Oh Stone De Niro Yeah sorry I'm misunderstood

So there's a $25,000 fight Which is really good You need that There's Then you have the dragging her through the house And she comes back the next day fight And then there's the leaning tower fight, which is when she then goes to Nikki. And Nikki's like, I can't believe, now I'm going to get killed.

Yeah, I probably would have cut the middle fight. But if you're going to be three hours, you might as well. Like the difference between two hours, 50 and three hours. I do like it when he brings her back. And like you think for like one quick second, like it's going to go okay for them. And then he's like, I'm basically, I'm giving you a pager. And you have. Yeah.

When's the one where he calls her friend and is like, what did you know? Yeah. That's another one. Yeah. So it's a lot. Yeah. It's probably my least favorite part of the movie is all the marital discord. Since you're trying to figure out a way to whittle it down, how do you guys feel about dual narrators opposing PO? Because I couldn't really think of very many movies that have ever done

that before. Well, you know I'm anti-narrator. I think this movie needs it. Frank Vincent's got some... He does. He gets a moment too. Like Try Narrator, yeah. Ace's car explodes. You can see it's a mannequin. Or like, yeah, it's tough. Tough one. I don't think Scorsese was anticipating the Blu-ray HD era.

He should do like the, you know, George Lucas going redoing Star Wars, but for all of his movies, you know, just digitally alter all of his explosions. De Niro playing a Jewish guy we mentioned. The Gimme Shelter karaoke montage we mentioned. Joe Pesci, beating up people

is always weird for me. He's never, he's not really athletic. The thing is that at the end, his body's going. They're like, Nikki did so much coke it took him three punches down and knock a guy out. And it's like him like leaping up in the air to punch a guy. It's like, could they really fucking knock a guy out that easily?

Like, he's not exactly like Ken Norton. Right. It feels like people would have just punched him back once. He would have gone fine. The shootings in this movie are weird. Like Joe Pessie, the lady who's going to rat, he holds her head and he shoots. It's like, wouldn't he have shot his arm and he did that? And then when Alan King got shot, they shoot him like six times.

They walk by, they shoot him in the head, and it's like his head's fine. There's a silencer on. And I'm just like, what's going on? Were they afraid of an X rating? You wanted to see Alan King's head explode on camera? If you get shot eight times from two feet away, your head's probably not going to look the same. I think it was a smaller caliber bullet, but I'll take your notes to Marty. Yeah.

Okay. Any other, what stage the worst? Child care. It was pretty bad. I'm trying to think if there's any, I mean, it's weirdly like a very, it's weirdly like a very flawed movie that I have no notes on. Yeah, the flaws are almost need to be in there for the most part.

Casting what ifs. This is from Madonna. It was a Martin Scorsese film and it was between me and Sharon Stone. And Scorsese chose Sharon Stone. The right choice. Good choice. Although there is there is a...

There's other names. There's Nicole Kidman, Melanie Griffith. That Tracy Lords gave an incredible audition. So I saw that too. I had that coming up that she seriously impressed Scorsese with her audition. Again, this is half-ass with some of this stuff. I've seen Tracy Lords act in Melrose Place. I saw it recently because I might have re-watched the first six seasons of Melrose Place.

Tracy Lords had a four-episode arc as a cult member. I find it hard to believe she impressed anybody with her audition. I mean, the flip side of that is that it's not like Melrose Place was directed by Warren Scorsese. How many viewing hours in total of Tracy Lords would you say you've had in your career? The four episodes of Melrose Place. Got it. She's pretty good in Cry, Baby. I mean, she can act.

She has actually had an acting career for the last 30 years. She could not have been Ginger and Casino. I'm just throwing that out there. Here's what I like about the idea. This is great. this is going to be our social breakout. Sean Fantasy thinks Tracy Lord should have been in casino. Headline.

Well, we deep fake it, and Sean's like, I think Ginger had some great ideas about parenting. I mean, like I said before, Ginger is a person who's lived a complicated and kind of hard life. Tracy Lords has been through some stuff. There needs to be some red flags. Yeah, right. Yeah, she's obviously very beautiful,

and it's a little bit strange to imagine her opposites inero, but Scorsese is Scorsese. You throw in some acting talent. You're right there. We never seen Don Rickles do this before. He didn't really act. He just had a hang dog face the whole time. The Blu-ray commentary, Stone said her first two auditions was Scorsese were canceled.

The directors, people contact her to try a third time. She turned them down and went out to dinner. Scroozy tracked her down, shut up at the restaurant. And made a personal appeal. Do you want to do your, you want to power rank your 90s actresses? 90s? Yeah. In what respect?

Yeah, like in just in general. Like, just like biggest crush? Red flaggiest. Oh, red flaggiest. Merrill Street. No more. Yeah. Merrill Streep is Francesca in Bridges of Madison County.

It's beautiful. Red flaggy of red flags. Yeah. What about Susan Sarandon as the nun in Dead Man Walking? The Sydney Sweeney thing is such a great call. She could really, I think, move this direction in the right film with the right director. Every generation gets a sexy actor. She's so good.

If she does, it'll still be like a Marvel movie. It'll be like Sidney Sweeney's going to, like, destroy Hawkeyes' life. Oh, you know another one who had it? Scarlet. Yeah. Yeah. I think Scarlet. Matchpoint era.

Yeah, matchpoint era. Matchpoint's a perfect. That's like a perfect example of this character. Yep. Stay away. I know if I buy it. You're not a Scarjo fan? I don't know if she's like, I've never seen her as unhinged as Ginger is in this movie.

Hmm. Yeah. More categories. Best that guy. aka the Joey Pants Award. Producer Craig heard our feelings the other day talking about this. And then he had a bunch of weird Gen Z kids jumping out of Twitter being like, yeah, finally, somebody tells you guys, nobody's ever fucking heard of Noah Emrick.

Oh, was that a thing that happened? Was that on film Twitter or rewatchable's Twitter? This was from the Miracle Pod? Yeah. Craig was like, you know, when you do these Joey Pants Award, most of the times my generation does know that people are. And my response obviously was fuck you, Craig. But, you know, that's fair.

My generation's never heard of Noah Emmerich. And I was like, congrats. He was just on the Americans. Yeah. He was like one of the stars of the Americans. We suspended Craig for three days, but he's back. Well, the problem with the best, that guy, it's like, especially when you go of 70s, 80s, like, I barely know who the people are. The older movies are harder, but I actually feel the opposite when I'm on the show because I'm like, I spend my whole freaking

in life studying who these people are. So, like, there is no that guy to me anymore now. I'm like, oh, you know, we talk, like, I remember we did color of money. I was like, I knew every single person's, like, bio, because I don't, that this is what I do in my spare time. So it's almost like, I mean, the same is true for you. You know, we too, you're just talking about Rachel Boyd for five minutes, you know. I didn't know who played Pat Webb.

I always knew he was one of those guys. Pat Webb? That's a perfect example. Isn't Pat Webb LQ Jones? LQ Jones. But LQ Jones is like such an important American actor. I know, but I never knew his name. He was in all the great Peck and Paw movies.

I know he's a really, really... I always knew him as that guy, but I never knew what his name was. He was like, that guy who kind of looks like Sam Elliott. Yeah, he's a perfect example of what we're talking about, where, like, he's kind of a that guy, but if you spend way too much time caring about movies, he feels like a huge figure. Like, he shows up in some of the biggest westerns of the 60s and 70s over and over again.

I was never a big Western guy. I always broke my dad's heart. It was the same way, like with me with Ben, with sports movies how now it's finally coming around where he's starting to watch him with me. But my dad, like, I saw every Western, I thought, you know, Quinny's with his guy. Yeah, I'm like, I just, I never got into it. Same way. LQ, possible name for you, for if you have a son, LQ Fantasy, or are you still going Lester?

LQ is pretty good. Well, the Lester could be Lester. Lester Q Fantasy. But I think that's not, and that's not even his real name. And he was in a movie where his character was named LQ and he was like, that's my name now. So is LQ Jones too famous to be that guy in your mind or no? Well, Sean's point is that no one can be that guy because he actually knows the character actors. Right.

Not that no one can be, but like you need to be. There's a couple guys here. Nick Mazzola, the blackjack dealer, right? Yep, he won the last time. And John Manko, who's Nicky Eyes from Goodfellas. That's a good one. That's another good one. Vitsenana, give me all you got a word.

Going two ways here. When is the near at the commission hearing? I have a pass. You have a pass. You're out of order. But then just actual bad acting. The guy who didn't realize the slot machine scam was happening, Donnie, the Donnie, the Southern accent guy. How did that guy get in a Scorsese movie?

Were they intentionally trying to go non-charismatic? He's supposed to be this guy who's got a job because his brother-in-law is the county commissioner or whatever. All right. But couldn't that have been like John C. Riley? somebody somebody from that era John C. Riley when you come in anybody two lines about the slot machine I guess that's but again like

that guy's a bad actor but that's Joe Bob Briggs that's Joe Bob Briggs that's Joe Bob Briggs you know Joe Bob Briggs he's a bad actor I agree but it's almost like one of those things where he's that that guy but also like that guy's had a TV show on TNT for like 30 years you know okay can act

Deanne Waiter's Award obviously going to James Woods but some other nominee Rickles, right? Yeah, Rickles. And Scorsese's bomb is incredible and has to be that. She's great. Frank Vincent's in it too much.

Frank Vincent isn't too much. Woods is in it the right amount of times. Rickles, I actually don't feel like, I wish he had gotten off a couple one-liners. Recasting couch. Nikki's wife. Jennifer? Could we have thrown in a famous actress for that spot?

Or somebody on the way up, could that have been like Diane Lane with a beehive hairdo? That kind of thing. I don't even know who that actually. actress was. Her name is Melissa Prophet. There's a person I've never heard of. Yeah. So could we have done a little better there? Yes. It's a kind of part that normally would go to, I'm trying to think of some of the Gumars from Goodfellas, you know, like that list of actresses. So I had an idea because she came up earlier. What if that had been the Madonna part? We don't have

the Sharon Stone part for you, but you have to flesh it out of it if you're like, that's Madonna. Yeah. But like I Leona Douglas would have been someone like how I felt. With the Gucci movie with Lady Gaga for two and a half hours? Where you're just like, I can't get over the fact that this is Lady Gaga? I haven't talked to Sean about the Gucci movie. It wasn't about the fact that she was doing a Dracula accident throughout the movie. That actually makes it fun. Did you watch the whole movie?

Listen, I don't want to enrage film Twitter. Well, most people think that movie's bad. I think when me and Chris and Amanda talked about it, we were like, this is actually a lot of fun because it's bad. Like, it's ridiculous. And more movies should be ridiculous. She's like communing with ghosts while she's acting. Yeah. She's locked in.

And you can't tell me Jared Letto's not funny. He's so funny in that movie. Come on. I got to say, I would not mind seeing Lady Gaga take on Ginger. Wow. That's good. That's good. I don't know if she's, I mean, she's not as.

I don't think she's breathtakingly hot enough. She's not as alluring as she is. Is she? I think match point. I'm not deeply attracted to Lady Gaga. Matchpoint Scarlet could have done it. That's like the whole point of. match point is how hot Scarlett Johansson is.

Chris was saying, I think that's a good point that he made, that she's never lost it the way that Ginger loses it. Yeah, fair. All right, let's take a break, then we'll do a half-fast internet research. If you're a QuickBooks customer looking to grow your business without the growing pains, you need the Intuit ERP. Upgrade to Intuit Enterprise Suite in a matter of hours. It's the AI-native ERP from the makers of QuickBooks.

Learn more at Intuit.com slash ERP. Have Fast Internet Research. So real-wife mobster turned witness. Frank Kulata inspired the character Frank Marino, which was Frank Vincent. We have a triple Frank. Wow. He was the technical advisor of the film and also played it on-screen hitman. There's a lot of stuff on the internet about the costume budget, which was a million bucks.

De Niro had 70 costumes throughout the film. Sharon Stone had 40, and they were both allowed to keep everything after. Oh, my God, really? De Niro's like, I'm keeping the fucking suits. When would you ever wear those age suits out, though? Does De Niro go out and try to get that? A couple of the suits where we should have had that in what's age the best. There were some great suits in this movie.

He looks like a giant tangerine. There were a couple really good ones, though. Well, the early stuff. The 60s stuff is cool. In the 70s stuff, is so garish. So Joe Pesci's wife at the time of the filming was Claudia Harrow. And she played Trudy, the co-hostess and bandleader. of Aces High.

From the Fent Fatal dancers, right? It gets better. They divorced and she remarried and she was convicted in 2000 of two counts of attempted murder for trying to hire, for hiring a hitman to try and kill her other ex-husband who was a stunt man.

I don't know if that gets better. It gets better, like more interesting. So yeah, the co-hosts is of Aces High. It was up to no good. The casino scenes were shot at between one and four in the morning, as we said, F-word.

Any guesses for? the F word in this movie? It's like 250, right? I would say over 300. 435. That's a lot. Most of James Woods's lines were improvised. He was not supposed to speak

during the phone call with Ginger after the wedding. He also came up with the idea that Lester would be with the prostitute and doing cocaine while on the phone with Ginger. I bet he did. I don't know how I came up with that one. The canning room scenes were filmed on a set. Production is never allowed to be inside. of County Room.

That's when the motions 11. The Frank Rosenthal show did exist. Yeah, it's on YouTube. Guests included Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, Liberace, O.J. Simpson, and Don Rickles. Yeah. Joe Pesci broke a rib in the cornfield. Do you think that, do we think that Joe Pesci is the body that goes in the grave?

Or is that a Joe Pesci body double? I don't think it's his body. And are there a lot of Joe Pesci-sized body doubles. It's a short body double. All great on answerable questions. Is that the worst way to die? I had buried alive has to be way up there. But he's buried alive, too.

He's... Being to death by bats. Being alive, buried alive. Right. That's what I'm saying. You got your brother die and then you're beating a death with a bat, but you're still alive and they throw lime on you and then cover you in a hole in a cornfield in a state you've never been to. Right.

Top eight ways you would want to die. It's pretty bad. Apparently De Niro held his cigarettes the same distance from the lid end. So the links were always consistent with where his first. fingers were. I thought that was interesting. Yeah. What do you think?

Has anyone ever smoked more cigarettes in movie history than De Niro? So one of the things, the reason is why I think De Niro is our greatest ever actor is just how differently he smokes. Depending on the character. Ace and Jimmy smoked, for instance. Jimmy has the thumb finger,

yeah. And he's like, sucking it down. Ace has it in like a cigarette holder. It's like this beautiful kind of like, everything is like in its right place. It's kind of I'm a money man. I'm the,

I'm picking the lines. And then on the flip side, the bard of Sigs, I got to say. I've really been in touch with it recently. I don't know why. Well, that New York Times article about Sigs coming back. That's based on me. I was smoking cigarettes in December in New York City. I thought you were kidding.

That actually happened? Yeah, I had like four or five of them. You fell off the wagon. It wasn't really off the wagon. It was just like I already, I'm never on the wagon because I still use Nicarette sometimes. Yeah. And then I just had, I had a couple of cigarettes while.

So, you were. I watched risky business recently. I always want to know the circumstances when someone, breaks on something like that. I went out for a couple drinks. I stand outside the hotel. Yeah, usually liquor's involved. The hang outside.

You go, I haven't smoked in a couple years now, but anytime baby dolls here and he wants to go outside the restaurant for a cigarette, and I'm always like, oh, this would be so easy. Yeah. Give one. The one thing that happened this time that's not happened before is I had, like,

then the ghosts stayed with me. Like for a couple of days after, I was like, God, you know, it would be really great right now. Yeah. leaning out the window here in New York City. That's what I'm saying. The Bart of Sigs, you know, the ghost stayed with me?

What the hell is he talking about? It's tough, man. It's hard to explain. Two humpbacks from the camel to stay with you your whole life. I was watching Risky Business recently, and Cruz smokes a cigarette in that movie, and nobody's had worse luck throwing any object or smoking a cigarette than Cruz, who somehow can flip cocktail bottles and play pool and a bottle.

all these other things drive a car, but smoking was never in his will house. It's because it's poison and his body is allergic to poison. He is pure. So in casinos, there was a famous restaurant called Piero's in Vegas that was the leaning tower. Oscar Goodman, the mayor of Vegas is in this movie as the attorney. And wasn't he actually his attorney? Yeah, he was a real attorney who became mayor in 1999, four years after the movie. I just to explain the joke that I made at the beginning of the podcast.

this mother's brother is playing, is allegedly hearing Harry Reid. Yeah, yeah. And you sent there's footage of that, of that trial. That ace yelling at, or lefty, yelling at Harry Reid is on YouTube. The character Ichikawa was played by Nobu Matsuhu-Matsuhisa. Mm-hmm. The sushi restaurateur.

Based on, I'm going to mangle this, Akio Kashiwagi, who was a famous visitor to casino. ran a huge credit lines. Not like that. This guy ran, he owed everybody money, including Donald Trump, and was eventually found murdered by the Yakuza, the Japanese mafia.

So, top 10 to wait. Tough ending for that guy. Top 10 way to die. Wow. Yeah. The house. Murder, vice. Top three.

Head vice, yeah. That's a good one. Getting shot in the head while being clutched by Joe Pesci. Oh, yeah. Like three times in the 22. Yeah. Yeah.

This is one of the best half fast internet research tidbit I've ever had 217 movies. The house in this movie was bought in 1996 by Shug Night. Wow.

Yeah. Ace's house? Ace's house. And it's in Vegas. In Vegas. Where Tupac died in Vegas, probably right after Shugna bought this out.

And Shug is from Vegas, right? Yeah. Huh. That's a good one. That's dark. The, there's some stuff about the,

I'll save it for in picks. Oh, do you want to know what happened in Rosenthal? Lefty Rosenthal? Sure. Took his two children in California and then to Florida, worked as a nightclub manager, ran an online betting site and died in 2008 at the age of 79.

He just missed Fandall. He didn't miss two for the money. They probably left him out. It broke his heart. Would you give, if he were still alive, lefty a pod right now? Definitely like Tuesdays on the ringer of a game of show. Imagine the story he has.

Him and John Shetremski. Cutting it up. What do you think Lefty felt about the analytics movement? If he's talking to Warren Sharp, is he just like, I don't know about that. With me, when I'm booking Oklahoma, Michigan, I just want to know if the QB is on Coke. I don't need analytics. I call Jalen Hertz Mom and find out what's going on with him. That's how he got all his info.

Apex Mountain, De Niro. I mean, this is heat and casino within three weeks, but the answer is no, but I'm just wanted to mention it. Have we landed on De Niro's Apex Mountain on an episode yet? Because we've done Goodfellas, obviously. We've done Taxi Driver. Godfather, too. It's Raging Bull, isn't it? And we've never done Raging Bull.

Yeah. I don't know if we, the Raging Bull is a watchable. Very tough sit. It is not a rewatchable. Do you think track taxi drivers are rewatchable? We did it. Oh, that's right. We did with Hater.

Yeah. Pesci. I think it's Goodfellas. Yeah, we already decided it's good fellas. into my cousin Vinci. This is kind of the end of... Does it? This is the end of the Pesci run, though.

This is like the tail end of him leading movies. How about the 1981 Cadillac El Dorado Brits? With the steel plate in the floor? Of course. It has to be apex. Kevin Pollack, absolutely. Not suspects? I guess it's the same year.

This and Suspects same year. Oh, they're the same year. Oh, yeah. Kevin Pollack's really funny talking about this movie. because he also does impressions of all the people in the movie just like on his whatever his old talk show podcast. His impressions are great. Yeah, I always thought he was an underrated everything.

There was a show Comedy Central had once where it was him playing poker with like these three other comedians. It was like 20 years ago, maybe even more, 25 years ago. And they were all drinking and busting on each other and telling jokes. I look for it on YouTube like once a year. You know, that's like dinner for five. It was kind of like the original dinner for five. Yeah.

No idea that they're like anybody's ever going to watch them. so they're actually doing like really good stories. Yeah. We should relaunch dinner for five at the leaning tower, you know? Bring all the mobsters in. At Shug Night's House?

Bring LQ Jones in. Sharon's don't know. Pissed off blackjack scenes. Absolutely. It's hard to imagine a better minute. I sent it to you guys this morning. Can you grin. I love when she does the blackjack dealer,

I'm going to go away. And he's like, that's like, that's the redneck on her. Stick this up your fucking ass. It's so good. That brings me back. to my friend Hopper because he would get that mad

at the blackjack dealer occasionally. I never understood why you get mad at a black jack dealer is just because you need usually alcohols involved.

You need a receptacle for your rage. Woods, no. Movie blow jobs? Don't have an opinion. Probably not. Rickles? No.

No. How about emergency golf course landings? Aviator? Harrison Ford probably. Aviator is a good one. Harrison Ford

in real life landing a plane on a golf course that was a good one. Crashing. Scumbag ex-boyfriend characters. Wish I had some prep time for that one. I know. It's, to me, is the gold standard.

Star 80. It's probably Apex Mountain for that. Oh, that's a good one. And Carlo from Godfather. He's not a boyfriend. He's thought it was a good one. This would be a good sub-re-watchable spot. Yeah.

Star 80 is a great one. I mean, yeah. As bad as it gets, right? I saw that movie in a theater with my dad, and we were leaving. I'm like, what the f- Why? Why? Why?

Why don't you take that? I was like 14. That's not good. Skimming from a casino. LQ Jones? No, a wild bunch. How about making meetings in code language? Is this what you and Chris do?

Yeah. That's right. I've been tapping on his leg the whole time throughout this whole pod. No, what about calling like Chris? Meet me at six and it means meet me at nine. Yeah. Meet me at six at the whatever.

I love wouldn't Jennifer and Ginger have to do the call. Like, I want him to shopping, but I don't pick up to me and stuff. Yeah. That means beat him in the desert. desert. Pickin'nits. Ace, every time I watch this movie, why didn't he just kill Lester? Just kill him. You've killed other people. Kill the guy who's the biggest detriment to your happiness with your wife.

He kept the two card counter guys. He's like, throw him in the... Broke the guy's hand. No, the other guy, he says throw him in the alley and make believe he got hit by a car. No, that's about the guy who's hand he broke. That's who he's talking about. The other guy he lets go free. The other guy is like the one he lets, survive to tell the tale. So he lets the... Oh, I got that wrong.

You're right. The other guy throws out, he's like, take him out the door head first, you know? And that's... So you think Ace is anti-murder. You don't think Ace killed anybody. I think he's trying to become a legitimate casino owner and legitimate businessman.

Your point is a good one, but I think that's right. He should have tried to find a way to get just get him to take him out. But yes. Yeah, Nikki, what are you doing? The whole reason to have a homicidal maniac. He probably met Lester him. Like, I like, I like this guy. But Nikki is also kind of enthralled to

Ginger, you know, like he's negotiating his affection for her too, so I don't know. He goes back up to the A's. He's like, I couldn't kill him. He showed me how to hit a fucking fade. Fix my hitch in my swing. Why would a guy as smart as Ais give Ginger the key to a $2 million security deposit? It's a knit. Maybe put $20 in there and pretend it's $2 million as a test.

Like, why is the test actually him getting money stolen from him? He's too smart. One of the great songs in this movie is Roxy Music's Love is the Drug. Yeah. That's it. Okay. He's drugged out of his mind with the hope that she could be trusted. Chris, why didn't Ace have a girlfriend until he met Ginger?

What's going on with this guy? Oh. Bachelor? I mean, I think that the implication is probably married to his work. He's married to his work. Yeah. It's probably a very difficult place to meet women, you know? The action is the juice for.

race. No showgirl that just comes on over? I don't think he's living like a monk until then. He pescheate his wife and blowjobs and what did poor Ace have? Nothing. Fitville. Yeah. The Counting Commission's cousin, another one.

Just kill that guy. Joe Bob Briggs. Just get rid of him. No. You can't kill him. You just make a war with the sheriffs in Nevada. You don't want that. They don't have to know how he died.

No, that would be too suspicious. You can't do that. the shootings we talked about. When he kills Anna Scott, he's shooting his own arm when he's cradling her head as he shoots like this. There's no way you don't hear. That's a good point. Would Ginger really have gotten out of all the money

from the bank deposit? With the cops right there, just letting her take $2 million. It's funny how everyone knows the rules of safety deposit boxes. She has the key, sir. She has the key. Just do the scene where he's just like, are you sure you really want to do this?

Like most husbands don't trust their wives like this. Yeah. So there's a whole article on the Internet's about a jewelry expert saying how the jewelry is in the wrong decades in this movie, that they use 1990s jewelry for 1970s stuff, that the earrings, Bulgaria definitely didn't make a couple of their bruches. Okay. Just for the jewelry people out there. Just want to say, I see you guys.

How's your jewelry pod coming? Any other? Any other nitpicks for you guys? I mean, I think it's really the the salmon ginger stuff is like you have to get over that. Just the trust? Yeah, just like him just being like Caesar throw all the chips up in the air.

Yeah. And he's like, oh, that's my one. That's my one. She'll be fine. I can tame her. I mean, the whole movie is kind of a nitpick. It's like Ace is the smartest guy in all of Vegas and he gets taken down by this woman.

And his homicidal maniac. Yeah, and his crazy friend. Yeah. Next category. Could this be remade as a 10-episode Netflix show? This kind of broke my brain. This would be the greatest prestige Netflix show possible. If you just spent like $300 million on it and did casino,

I don't think they should. Taylor Sheridan is making a Kansas City Mafia show, which is essentially like I think the sort of one, like there's Chicago and Kansas City moms. Rimo is Chicago, though, right? Yeah. Like that's like I think you could do one. I would be really into seeing a show about, like, from that perspective.

It's probably a show now, but I've always thought there's a great movie between Godfather 1 and Godfather 2. You know, when Fredo goes out and then they start to build. Fredo goes to Vegas is the name of the show. I think that would be a really good show because there's so much there about building. I don't want to believe Scorsese's never, and Terrence Winter didn't try to do that, like, as a Bork Empire. I'm sure there's a spec script line around somewhere with that idea. Some Mo Green backstory?

Seriously, though. Yeah. That would be good. His name was Mo Green. You don't talk to a guy like that, Mike? That's Mo Green. But then you get a lot of Heim and Roth in there, too. You know, like, you get to tell that story in an interesting way.

Probably in answerable questions. Did the guy who got stabbed 40 times with the pen? Did he die? Well, he's crying like a girl on the ground, so I think he made. You think he bled to death or just hospital? So what happened? I got stabbed death of the pen 40 times. Do we see that guy again?

Is he live? I don't know. Unanswerable. Who blew up Sam's car? Was it definitely? Nicky. Definitely. It's definitely Nicki.

Yeah. 100%. Yeah. In real life, it wasn't Spilotra. Yeah. It was another guy who thought that Rosenthal hosting that show and drawing all this attention on himself was bad for business, who was also in the mafia. Or believed to him. It was a guy who was on Aces High Twitter.

How do you guys find... Acese's Twitter? How do you feel about Frank Vincent turning on Pesci? I mean, fucking turn about his fair play. No, I get it, but the actual character, the relationship with those two characters. I don't think he's an easy boss to have. I agree. So I think he's like, this is my chance?

And I think especially because Dominic is like is a prick in this movie too. He's spitting on the cops food and everything. Yeah. I bet he's like the two of them together. We're all pain in the ass. Is this how you're going to bury Bill? What do you mean? You're going to turn on Bill?

And me and my old man friends with the people show, aluminum bats. Yeah, when your contract is up, you know, you're doing that negotiation. And Bill's like, there's the right way, the wrong way, and there's my way.

And then you wield the aluminum bat. Be careful, Bill. A lot of hints about CR being unhappy and may be killing me. I don't know. What's going on here? I don't know, CR. What's going on?

What piece of memorabilia would you want from this movie? I said, I love the house. The John Barrymore Road. You start potting that. I want that, you know what I want is the, the machine that helps you tell whether the dice are weighted or not, the dye are weighted. You know, and he's in the beginning, I really like that. I was thinking the first thing he, the first diamond brooch thing he gave to Sharon Stone.

Plus it would be a good thing to own, but just like, uh. Would you give that to your way? So casino, movie worn jewelry would be a good one. I'd also like the guy, the Kansas City guy's composition book for all his expenses in Vegas. I'm going out of pocket. That's good. Or Joe Bob Briggs's jacket from this movie. And people like, what's that?

Remember the guy who couldn't act in casino? It's his jacket. The vice. Donnie. Donnie, the bad actor. The vice would be a good one. I don't know where you put that. The vice of the bats would be cool.

What about the pen? He stabs him with. Oh, the pen's a good one. The pen are even in the sports book, some of the original Tangiers sports book. This stuff would be cool. Who on the men? movie.

So I'd like to throw out Sharon Stone as the thing that makes this movie different than other Scorsesey gangster movies. Your heart is beating so fast, I feel like. I had her as well.

Yes. S.G. We're back, C.R. Three minutes ago, you're gonna kill me over a contract negotiation and now we're aligned again. We did it.

Fantasy tried to break us up like always. So I, you're sure. it's not Martin Scorsese. I think that's the other choice. We gave Martin Scorsese a lot of love on this podcast. I don't feel like he wins a lot from this movie. He wins...

99 out of 100 other people direct the movie Casino, and it's pretty blah. That's my case for it. Then Scorsese wins every movie then. But see, I think that's not true for all of his movies. There's a version of the Aviator that is not directed by him that is a better movie, in my opinion. But there's not a version of Wolf.

There's not a version of Irishman. and there's not a version of good fellow. No. Can I make the case for Sharon Stone? Of course. Not only is it a small list of people who could have played this part successfully. For the Sharon Stone career, however you feel about it,

if it's just basic instinct and then total recall and assassins and clicking it. It's basically just basic instinct is the legacy. I think this proved that A, she was a really good actress and a really, like, unique, special actress in a lot of ways. And then B, what a disservice? Like, why didn't she have better parts? Like, this leaves me wondering, like, what else could she have done?

Why did people underestimate her? It's really more like, why are there more parts like this for actresses, right? Right. Yeah. So I just think she needs this movie for whatever place she occupies in the 90s and 80s. You need this. You need that she could hold her own with these guys. She's a movie with De Niro and Pesci.

Like, De Niro's the guy at this point. It's him and Pacino. And that's it. Daniel Day Lewis hasn't gotten there yet. These are the two guys you have to go toe to toe with, and she did it. Can you name one movie that she made in the 10 years that followed Casino? Oh, God. Sliver after this?

I think she got, right? Sliver is before. Didn't she get married, though? I think there was some weird. She worked steadily. Really? She made at least 10 movies. Probably more than that.

Oh, so you're saying this is like Brady Anderson? Brady Anderson's 50 home run season, just an aberration? No, no, that's not what I'm saying. It's more, I think the point you made is good, which is that there were not good enough parts for her. But she didn't win anything from her. All right, give us the movies. The first movie she makes after this is a remake of Diabolique. Oh, yeah.

That movie's bad. Which bombed. Sphere, CR God, good call there. She did a voice in ants. She did a movie called The Mighty, which is... The movie's bad. Like a buddy comedy. Yeah.

She did a remake of Gloria. with Sidney Lumet, which is a remake of a Cassavetti's movie, which nobody saw. She's pretty good in The Muse. I saw it. You saw Gloria? Yeah. I like the original Gloria. The original Gloria is good.

Unfortunately, they remade Gloria and it was the exact same movie. It was also like 18 years later. It wasn't long enough. The Muse, where she plays the Muse, the Albert Brooks movie, which was not really considered one of Albert Brooks's best movies. Weird combo for people who would be attracted to each other. A movie called Picking Up the Pieces that I've Never Heard of. Cold Creek Manor, a different loyalty, and then Catwoman.

Oh, yeah. I mean, that's, and that's 10 years. Well, you know, I mean, like, I remember, like, in the 80s watching her, like, in, like, in, like, King Solomon's minds and stuff like that. Like, she was, she was around for a while before Total Recall and Basic Instinct, you know, and so. Well, we talked about this on Basic Instinct, like, reconcilable differences. She was great in, like, she had some good ones.

But we see this about Gina Davis, too. I think that's somebody we really like that. you know at some point at the IMDB just falls off a cliff and you don't really know what happened but usually it's because there weren't enough good roles for actually she even has like I guess you're right they both have like

three or four signature parts right where you're like a league of their own Thelman Louise the fly she's in a couple of really big movies isn't she in something coming out is she in Kenny I'm not sure I mean Gina Davis is literally now like runs a foundation an organization

that like tries to put people works to get women more opportunities in Hollywood. That's like that's her mission in like her career now because of all the stuff we're talking about. It starts out with her getting the wrong part in Fletch when Danny Willer-Nickerson. She's just like scratching Fletch's back for an entire movie. You're going to let that stand that Dana Wheeler-Nickson-Slander? Dana-Willer-Nixon took her part. We don't have to relegate this.

It's such a shame. Still bugs me. I have one last Sharon Stone take for you guys. I had her time. Born too soon. If you move her back 10 years, she goes from casino, she makes two other movies,

and then goes right to do some awesome streamer TV show. Like, she's the lead of some fucked-up awesome show. Five years later, she's in House of Cards or True Detective. Yeah, like, I just feel like the streaming era. It would have been interesting to see her as Claire. House of Cards is a good call. I was thinking of, like, you know,

she'd be, she'd Gloria Trillo on the Sopranos or something like that. Totally. Because the thing with her, it was too hard to see her in different movies because she was so Sharon Stone, you know, and it's like you almost want to put that on a TV series where I'm with you 10 hours a season. Almost like how Gandalfini had that same kind of, he was so overpowering as a soprano. You couldn't even see him in other parts. Did she talk about this when she came on the pot?

I was too afraid of her. I think she feels like it went great, so I didn't want to push it. I mean, in many ways, it did go great. She wanted to be a star her whole life, and then she became one, right? And it worked. I think that the other thing that, obviously, the whole industry is incredibly sexist, but the basic instinct controversy just trailed her for 10 years. Yeah.

People were like, she spoke out against her filmmaker. She's hard to work with. She had all that stuff following her. And Scorsese's, you know, wanting to work with her, obviously, like, lifts her up and lifts up her reputation. And she's so amazing in this movie. but like you said, there's not a lot of good parts. Yeah, there's not a lot of Scors Easy movies.

You know, they're special because there aren't a lot of them. So it's like, she wants to make a sphere a couple of years later. Well, thank God for this one. We were going to do with Brian Coppulman, but we wanted to do this one in person. We need to go back to East Coast. So I apologize to them. We'll make it up to you at some point, compliment. All right, this was produced by Craig Horlebeck.

I'm Bill Simmons. That was Chris Ryan, Sean Fantasy. We will be back. God, we have an unbelievable gimmick for February. I'm not giving it away. I'm pumped. But I promise you this, nobody will be able to guess the gimmick for February. Not one person.

It's the birdmester of rewerew. It really is like, it is really the Apex Mountain for the rewatchables February. It is so ridiculous. And somehow we even, we have a sponsor for the gimmick next month. But very excited about that. All right. We'll see you next time.