To be chaste or not be to chaste - that is the Edwardian question

NEW MOON

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"New Moon" is a super sleek locomotive of a movie - a serene, spirited, darkly obsessive and intriguing film that deserves more acclaim than it has received. I am surprised writing this myself but, being an admirer of the film "Twilight," this movie is superior in all departments.

"New Moon" continues the obsessive and undying love between 18-year-old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and her vampire lover, 103-year-old Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Tension erupts right from the start when Bella is invited to the Cullens' glass house and she cuts herself and gets a few more abrasions and the Cullen clan, well being that they are vampires...you get my point. Edward summons himself elsewhere, far away from Bella whom he is afraid of hurting. Let's be honest: how long can a relationship between a human and a vampire last? Not very long, when you consider humans have souls and vampires do not. Of course, fans of the Stephenie Meyers' book series know this abandonment will not last.

While Edward and the whole Cullen gang leave the sleepy woodsy town of Forks, Bella finds a new male admirer in Jacob (Taylor Lautner). They are good friends and she feels comfortable around him - Jacob can fix motorcycles and apparently she has a couple to lend him. Unfortunately, Jacob is not an ordinary human - he is a born werewolf! His whole family is, including his brothers who feel the need to be barechested, even in stormy weather. This wolf clan is threatened by the Cullens and there is a treaty that prevents Jacob from protecting Bella when a vampire is nigh. What is Bella to do when she falls in love with Jacob, and has consistent visions of Edward warning her to steer clear of dangerous thoughts, like riding around town with male, sexed-up strangers in their motorcycles!

I came to "New Moon" with no expectations except to hope it came a tenth close to the atmosphere and serenity of "Twilight." I was not disappointed. This movie adds more atmosphere with more sweeping overhead shots of the dense and dank woods and rainy, steep cliffs. The special-effects also blend in nicely with the outdoor day shots, particularly the wolves that look convincing and expressive enough in their CGI glory, or the finale bit with the Volturi council (a vampire elite of sorts) inside an Italian throne room where some thrashing occurs.

Director Chris Weitz and writer Melissa Rosenberg also add more depth to the troubled Bella who wakes up from having nightmares about Edward, and tries to shake and balance her love for the forlorn vampire and the forlorn werewolf. Team Jacob or Team Edward? Tough choice. Either way, you'll be left swooning by the precious Kristen Stewart - a dynamite actress who knows how to convey just enough with every line reading so we know what she is thinking. Robert Pattinson is just as glum and buff Taylor has moments of aggression that work well enough to make you think he might tear you apart. Michael Sheen and Dakota Fanning add finishing touches of vampiric energy that diminish any memory of the forgettable "Underworld" trilogy.

Some critics have lambasted the "Twilight" films and books for its Victorian assumptions that teenagers can fall eternally in love by initially practicing abstinence. But this surprisingly deft and emotional roller-coaster ride of a movie, "New Moon," is ultimately about overcoming all obstacles for the one true love and making sacrifices. In Bella's case, it is about turning into a vampire in order to be with Edward. Nobody has considered that she is a teenager in love with a 103-year-old inhuman creature with the face of Robert Pattinson. More psychoanalysis should be underway on that fact alone.

Vampires sparkle in rain-soaked country

TWILIGHT (2008)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Vampires are fascinating creatures because they represent the undead and seem unconnected to humans and their proclivities. Not so with the vampires in "Twilight" - they play baseball and attend the prom! There are a couple of new twists on vampires in "Twilight," an absorbing love story that has a rushed third act but it still manages to maintain interest.

Kristen Stewart is Bella Swan, the quiet teenage girl from Phoenix who has moved to the town of Forks, Washington, to live with her father. This town is almost always cloudy and drenched in rain. Her new classmates seem like a joyful bunch, but there is also a group of emaciated teens with dark brown eyes. One of them is a brooding James Dean lookalike named Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), who is even more quiet than she is. Bella sees something in Edward, something either otherworldly or she has met the sulkiest, most distancing teenager in history. But when she is rescued by Edward, either during a potential rape attack or getting smashed by an out-of-control truck, she grows smitten and eventually discovers his secret: he is a vampire. I think the ice-cold skin might have been the tip-off.

Legions have read Stephenie Myers' novel so they know what to expect. I suppose a teen-friendly vampire soap opera is a might close to my initial expectations, but I was pleasantly surprised by the film's central key relationship. What elevates it I think is Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson who have undeniable chemistry, and keep the romance believable and honest. In fact, had Edward not been a vampire, it wouldn't have mattered. She wants to kiss him, make love to him, but all Edward wants to do is climb up trees. He makes her long for him, and I can imagine that many teenage girls find this idea arresting, forlorn and tragic all at the same time. Yeah, he is a vampire and she is human so sex could be a problem. The key word is abstinence but I must say it is refreshing to see a movie where the teenagers can love each other first before the sexual shenanigans begin. Director Catherine Hardwicke (who helmed the potent "Thirteen") knows and understands Bella and Edward enough to give them weight and some measure of complexity.

"Twilight" does suffer a bit when it focuses on Edward Cullen's family, who all live in a glass house in the middle of the woods. They welcome Bella with Italian food that they obviously cannot eat themselves. The Cullen clan also play baseball but only when lightning strikes (!) and they only drink the blood of animals. And when we are introduced to another group of vampires who kill humans, I felt my heart sinking a bit. A better subplot given less screen time is to the Native American family who might be werewolves. Granted that many of these subplots are in the book and perhaps figure in later installments, but I grew weary of the evil vampire clan and their determination to go after Bella. Perhaps due to Stewart and Pattinson's love story, I felt these other elements distracted a bit.

Still, "Twilight" is a serene and strangely beautiful film with two charismatic leads. The love story blooms and stays with you, nicely amplified by Stewart and Pattinson who give this film an ethereal humanity you don't see much of in movies anymore. Hardly a great movie nor a stunning new saga in vampire lore, "Twilight" is still captivating and makes you swoon. It is just a sweet love story that happens to revolve around vampires.

35 Years of Indiana Jones

RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Original review from 2001

No other movie in the last thirty-five years has given me greater pleasure than "Raiders of the Lost Ark." It is the epitome of high adventure, pure spectacle and grand entertainment. In fact, it is the most entertaining action-adventure movie of all time - the only film, outside of the prequel and sequels in the Indiana Jones series, that is 100% pure escapism with a greater velocity of escapist scenes of peril and action than any other film prior. Its serialesque quotient is so high that it set a standard since director Steven Spielberg upped the ante by making it intense and bloodcurling every step of the way. It also helps that Harrison Ford is the gruff, reluctant hero of the film, sidestepping danger from every angle, from giant boulders to death traps involving poisonous arrows to a pit of snakes, and so on. Karen Allen was the perfect leading lady...tough and lovely in a white dress. So below is my review of the film commemorating its twentieth anniversary in 2001. If adventure has a name, it is still Indiana Jones.

The late Pauline Kael once said that a film is only worth seeing once and that the initial viewing is usually the best - one's impressions are often correct upon seeing a film the first time. When I first saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in 1981, I could not wait to see it again. And again. And again. The film is a thunderous assault on the senses and a wonder to behold, but more than that - it is a roller coaster ride that you want to keep visiting again and again. It is thrilling, scary, adventurous, spooky, amusing, nerve-wracking and the kind of movie that will literally keep you on the edge of your seat.

By now, everyone knows who Indiana Jones is. He is the resourceful, stubborn, educated archaeologist and adventurer seeking unusual artifacts around the globe in the era of the 1930's. The first sequence, notably the most gripping opening sequence in the entire action-adventure genre, has Indiana in Peru entering a dangerous cave where a golden idol is kept. He must endure several booby-traps before acquiring it. The action never lets up as he faces a rolling boulder, poisonous darts, collapsing temple walls, ugly corpses and so on. It is a continuous action serial where we wonder if the hero will make it out of one mishap after another. He always does, of course.

Harrison Ford is pitch perfect as Indiana Jones, showing sly changes from a bespectacled professor who is admired by his students to an action hero with a felt hat and trusty bullwhip who never thinks twice about shooting a swordsman (easily the best joke in the film). In fact, it is a shock after the opening sequence to see Indiana teaching an archaeology class - who is this guy, we wonder. When he is asked to find the Lost Ark of the Covenant, a relic being sought by Adolf Hitler, the gleam shows in his eyes as he is ready for adventure all over again. Indiana's first stop in this adventure is Nepal where an old flame, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), has a medallion that is a key to finding the Ark. She denies having it, and punches him in the face for ignoring her for so long (turns out that Indiana had deflowered her when they were younger). The villains enter as he leaves, threaten Marion since they also seek the medallion, and a shootout in a bar turns into yet another thrilling action setpiece. Other stops around the globe include Cairo and some fortress where the Ark is to be unveiled on some unnamed island. Indiana rescues Marion and the medallion from Nepal, and they confront a variety of dangers and pratfalls along the way. There are mean Nazis, bare-chested, bald fighters, slithering snakes, rotting temples, poisonous dates (the fruit that is), clever monkeys, naval ships, trucks, rotating planes, and so much more that you feel you have entered a museum of 1930's memorabilia come to life. It is a pulp fiction world that director Steven Spielberg loves as does most people and it shows. And the action never stops, though it is not as headache-inducing as say "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom." Spielberg knows when to quit, when to let us breathe. It is only fitting that there is even a scene where Indiana sleeps instead of making love to Marion. He needs his rest.

What makes all this silliness work is Ford's charismatic performance - he makes us believe in him and makes the hero vulnerable enough to make us hope he will make it out of every single jam he is in. Also noteworthy is a hissing villain, one who is as credible as Ford is as a hero. Belloq (Paul Freeman), a French archaeologist, also has a gleam in his eyes and wants the Ark for his own needs - "a radio for speaking to God." Both of these men are in pursuit of a magical relic and will do anything to get it. 

Steven Spielberg is at his very best here, making every event as cinematic as possible and accentuating all the visual gags with flair. The action scenes are tightly edited and frightening in how explosive they are, especially the climactic truck chase where Indiana rides horseback to get inside the truck holding the Ark while dozens of jeeps and trucks go after him (as if this was the beginning of World War II). The gags come from everywhere but are never obtrusive, even if at one point a monkey does the Nazi salute! But what makes "Raiders of the Lost Ark" wonderful is Spielberg's sense of fun and his surefire direction, which somehow makes all the old cliches seem new again. The old marksman versus the swordsman joke is old-hat but Ford's sense of desperation makes the scene seem wondrous all over again, and one understands his reflexive action of shooting the swordsman. Every scene tingles with excitement and tension. The first time I saw the famous opening sequence, I was literally grabbing the arms of my theatre seat. I am not sure how Spielberg does it exactly but it works in ways most action movies have not since - it is witty and there is an element of surprise that engages us. The rousing, memorable musical score by the incredible John Williams lends support and enhances our enjoyment.

The cast is superb and, surprisingly, there is little in the way of overacting or exaggeration as say in "Romancing the Stone" or "Jake Speed." Harrison Ford's secret is that he plays it straight, as if he believed what was happening all around him. It is not easy for an actor not to wink at all the chaos and mayhem but he succeeds admirably. Karen Allen is a great choice as the also stubborn, tough, romantic interest in Indiana's life - a shame she did not appear in any of the other entries of this series (Note: She did return in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"). She is clearly the woman for Indiana and knows how to match his wits, and delivers a knockout punch. For some good belly laughs, there is John Rhys-Davies as Indy's Cairo sidekick, Sallah. And for a charming yet insane villain in the grandest of traditions, there is Paul Freeman as the sympathetic Belloq who even has a thing for Marion.

"Raiders" does not end on an uplifting note. Instead it sort of ends abruptly as Indiana reclaims the Ark (what did you expect?) and brings it back to the United States, yet it falls in the hands of the government rather than a museum for research and study. There is no sense of victory, and yet it is Spielberg toying with us all over again. The movie is a big wind-up action toy, a comic-book style film yet infused with humanity, humor and horror. That is why it remains the best action-adventure film ever made, as rousing and engaging as any film ever made. The sequels and numerous rip-offs tried but couldn't do it justice. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" showcases Spielberg at his kinetic best, bringing us into a world we can only dream of. After all, isn't that what great movies are all about?

Homage to buddy-buddy cop comedies? A cop out I say!

COP OUT (2010)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

 Kevin Smith has been an influential force in the independent film community. There was a time when nobody could talk about anything but "Clerks." Since that 1994 comedy, there has been critical praise (myself included) for "Chasing Amy," "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," and "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back." "Cop Out" is the first Kevin Smith film to not include his screenwriting skills. I think those skills might have elevated this stinker beyond the bowels of turdland.

With typically wisecracking, bald-headed Bruce Willis and foaming-at-the-mouth-to-elucidate-every syllable Tracy Morgan headlining the cast, this should be a winning buddy-buddy cop comedy. The problem is the movie is eager to explode with the usual cliches that have since become a bore and a trial and half to sit through. The cops are after a drug dealer. Tracy Morgan dresses up as a cell phone. Willis is tough but getting too old for this...you get the picture. The cops have caused a ruckus, let the bad guys get away and we get the standard scene of giving up your shield and gun. The cops still want to pursue the drug dealer, mainly because a precious baseball card was stolen by a junkie (Seann William Scott) and...need I go on?

"Cop Out" has precious few hallmarks of Kevin Smith's writing, most likely improvised or suggested by Smith. One example is Bruce Willis standing outside the window of the interrogation room and naming the titles of all the films Tracy Morgan is acting out against a suspect. One of them is from "Die Hard" which Willis's character has not seen. That is funny. I also like the far too precious screen time of Seann William Scott who has a habit of repeating exactly what another person says to him. Other than that, the film wastes the great talent of Rashida Jones in a throwaway role. "Cop Out" is exactly what the title implies, and less. The canceled TV show, "The Good Guys," was funnier and tighter-paced.

Those darn evil kids!

BLOODY BIRTHDAY (1981)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I don't mind cheesy slasher pictures and I certainly get a kick out of anything resembling "The Bad Seed" or the demonic children from the Village of the Damned. "Bloody Birthday" is no exception in the cheese department of bad kids, but even cheese needs a little more processing than this film provides.

The story goes that three children were born on the day of a total eclipse. Since the moon and sun block Saturn (the planet that controls emotions) during the eclipse, the newborns eventually mature into raging, smiling psychopathic children. They grin but their singular emotion is a mask for pure evil. They shoot adults without provocation, pretend to place rat poison in birthday cakes, lock a kid in a refrigerator at a junkyard, and have a thing for looking through a peeping hole at a woman undressing! The girl of the trio even keeps newspaper clippings of people they killed in alleged freak accidents!

"Bloody Birthday" is not likely to gain much favor from anyone except slasher film completists. The movie shows one murder after another in succession, so much so that it becomes monotonous. Nice to see future comedienne Julie Brown as the dancing girl who undresses unwittingly for the murderous tykes, and there is a throwaway appearance by Jose Ferrer as the doctor who oversaw the birth of these kids (his scenes must have been shot in one afternoon). Susan Strasberg is criminally wasted as a stern schoolteacher, who might have shot her scenes in an hour. Several gratuitous female breast shots later (which may have been shot through endless takes), the movie has nothing but a creepiness that settles in from the sight of psychotic children with guns and bows and arrows (more alarming now than back then, especially in light of the post-Colombine massacre). Still, aside from the day the children were born, there is no depth to their evil doings. Eerie picture but mediocre as far as slashers go.

Comfortably and shockingly numb

SHOCKER (1989)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Wes Craven's "Shocker" is witless, hardly electrifying horror garbage. It belongs in a scrap heap, or burned along with some old, broken-down televisions. It is a poor man's Freddy Krueger, with far less ingenuity and imagination.

Horace Pinker (Mitch Pileggi) is a brutal serial killer who kills entire families in their homes, thanks to his job as a TV repairman that allows him easy access! Aspiring college football player Jonathan Parker (Peter Berg) has premonitions of Pinker and where he will kill next. Jonathan's adoptive family is the next target, and another probable target is the standard-issue blonde girlfriend (Camille Cooper)! Parker's father (Michael Murphy, looking quite dazed) is a police detective who is perplexed by his son's gift! Once Pinker is captured, he is fried in an electrical chair that transforms him into an electronic Freddy Krueger energy source of some kind (with a bald spot covered by burns) who zaps himself from one unlucky soul to the next to continue his murderous bidding. In one clever scene, he brings along Jonathan and both are zapped from one TV program to another, which includes a brief appearance by Timothy Leary!

There are multiple problems with "Shocker." For one, the villain is too one-dimensional - he is simply a raving maniac with a lust for blood. Yep, that is one for the books. I don't need to know why someone kills in a movie, but a backstory wouldn't have hurt. Freddy Krueger had his reasons - we learned he was burned to death by the townspeople. The only illuminating aspect to Horace Pinker is that he runs a loop of grisly war footage on his TV's! And playing Megadeth's "No More Mr. Nice Guy" adds some level of wit, to the soundtrack anyway.

As for Peter Berg, he is practically an emotionless actor so that when the big scene arrives of witnessing his murdered girlfriend's corpse with blood splattered on the walls (hate to spoil that one), his reaction is that of a kid who just found out his bike was stolen! Michael Murphy doesn't register much either as the beleaguered father - he seemed more hot and bothered by Jill Clayburgh in "An Unmarried Woman" than here.

Wes Craven has crafted some imaginative ideas into the dream vortex that he brought about so elegantly in "A Nightmare on Elm Street," and attempts to bring some of that same dream logic here. But most of this movie is unmemorable and far too brutally violent to the point of nausea. The movie screams exclamation marks, the psycho stalks, screams and sweats in exclamation marks, and the editing and direction elicit exclamation marks. It is a movie punctuated with exclamation marks sans punctuation in between those exclamations for them to comfortably settle in.

All in the name of EXCESS

CASINO (1995)

BACK HOME YEARS AGO

An Analysis with context by Jerry Saravia 

(written in 2005 as a tenth-anniversary retrospective)

THE REAL SIN CITY

 Martin Scorsese's "Casino" is one of the saddest, most brutally violent crime movies ever made - an epic about lost souls driven to excess, pride and death. It is not just a mob drama (in fact, it really isn't one) - no, this is a tragedy of hubris at its most extreme, an elegy about a lost world, or a lost paradise evocative of Milton. It is about the neon-flashed, mob-controlled Las Vegas of the 1970's and early 80's, before it was bought out by the corporations. This is the real Sin City, not the Frank Miller cartoon portrait, about real people involved in a limitless money-making scheme of power and wealth. Sure, you can make all the money in the world but what does it do the people involved and their relationships with each other?


Based on a true story by Nicholas Pileggi (who also wrote GoodFellas), the film begins with the expert Jewish odds maker and number cruncher, "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro) blown away from an explosion in his silver Cadillac Eldorado while Bach's St. Matthews Passion plays on the soundtrack (originally "House of the Rising Sun" was going to be used in the opening and in fact was screened with that song at Vegas ShoWest early screening). Our first impression is that Ace is dead and this is his story of what went down in Vegas considering he narrates the story in Sunset Blvd.-style. However, we do not have one narrator but two. The second voice-over is from Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), the volatile Mob enforcer (Santoro's real name was Tony "The Ant" Spilotro). For the first hour of the film, Ace and Nicky narrate the behind-the-scenes action of the fictional Tangiers casino (the real "Ace," known as "Lefty" Rosenthal, ran the Stardust casino). We learn how the Kansas City Mob skimmed the profits from the count rooms, how they got financing from the Teamsters Pension Fund to buy the casino, and how the "pinched" Ace could operate the casino while being a food and beverage chairman or a public relations director. In one of the most astounding, electrifying and memorable montages in the film, we watch money being rolled into coins as we segue to a silver-haired man carrying a briefcase that holds money from the count room. The bag man, referred to as a Mormon fuck by Nicky, leaves in a cab to a plane which takes him to Kansas City and into a room inside an Italian grocery store where the godfather, Gaggi (the late Pasquale Cajano), counts the money. Meanwhile, in a flashback with the jokey title that reads "Back Home Years Ago," we learn how Gaggi hires Ace to keep track of all the skims as well as run a casino. This can only happen with the aid of the head of the Teamsters Pension Fund, Andy Stone (the late Alan King), and a hotshot real-estate agent, Philip Green (Kevin Pollak), who has no criminal record, serving as the head of the Tangiers Hotel and Casino Corporation. We also see how Nicky keeps an eye on Ace and serves as protection. Ace never has to get physical - Nicky does the dirty work of keeping other crew members in line. Sometimes security guards at the Tangiers do the dirty work.


Unfortunately, Ace has no idea that Nicky is coming to Vegas with him. Ace doesn't really like Nicky (though they've known each other since childhood) and the last thing he needs is any heat from a psychopath. Ace wants to run a smooth operation but it is not happening with Nicky in tow who comes to town with his own crew, including his mob crony Frankie Marino (Frank Vincent). They open up a jewelry store called The Gold Rush, they rob people, keep crap dealers in their pocket, kill and bury people out in the desert (which the Vegas cops are known to do), and basically make Vegas a place drenched in pools of blood. Any time that Nicky kills someone, there are no witnesses and so he is acquitted thanks to his lawyer Oscar Goodman, essentially playing himself. None of this matters except to the bosses back home - too much heat is generated from a vicious bastard like Nicky (This makes me wonder why the bosses thought it was a good idea to send him there in the first place).

But the house of cards really fall apart when Ace refuses to hire back a dim bulb employee, Don Ward (well played by John Bloom aka Joe Bob Briggs) who happens to be connected to Pat Webb (L.Q. Jones), a county commissioner. Webb is connected to the politicians who can run anyone out of town, and Ace's pride gets him bested when his Mob connections are brought to the media's attention. So now Ace and Nicky are virtually inseparable in the media's eye. Ace manages to make matters worse when he gets his own TV show, criticizing the town that let him play there in the first place. But can anyone take a guy seriously who juggles on TV while Flight of the Bumblebee is played by a violinist? It is no wonder that one scene has De Niro's Ace framed behind a sign that reads "Jokers Wild." Rupert Pupkin would know all about being a joker.


To make matters worse, there is Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone), a former showgirl and gold-digger married to Ace. She is first shown as the glitziest showgirl on Earth - an ex-hooker with enough connections to operate as the best hustler in town. Ace is attracted to her when she cheats a high roller out of stacks of chips. He is driven by her energy, her smarts, her glamour. What possesses Ace to think he can mold and matriculate her into society when he is not fully accepted himself is a mystery. Ginger herself has two vulnerable spots that Ace can't control: her affection for a childhood friend and moocher, Lester Diamond (James Woods), and her frequent alcoholic binges. Since she is no longer operating on the streets, she is consumed by an empty lifestyle of drugs and alcohol. She seeks solace from Nicky, and they start a brief fling that the FBI (who have been surveilling Nicky) get wind of. Don't forget that Ace has had her under surveillance as well. The bosses back home know this could mean the end of their control, and Nicky, Ace and Ginger may all get whacked as a result. It doesn't help matters that the FBI has been surveilling the Italian grocery store owned by the Kansas City underboss Piscano (Vinnie Vella), who spends a lot of time complaining about the casino skims. Yes, Ace and company managed to really screw it all up.
EMOTIONAL CHAOS IN AN EMPIRE

"Casino" is the rise and fall of the Mob in Vegas - the rise is depicted as a form of entertainment that you would find on the Strip. The fall is depicted as a tragedy of limitless power - how much is enough? In a way, "Casino" is the equivalent of high-speed cocaine, an addictive drug with a major high and such a major low that you feel the loss of a kingdom in a vivid, visceral manner. Since "GoodFellas," Scorsese has taken on the interior emotional states of his characters by making us feel the way they do. For example, in "GoodFellas," we witness the coke-fueled paranoia of Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) in such a subjective way that we feel as paranoid about helicopters and pasta sauce as he does. The Age of Innocence has a two-act structure where one feels as much despair as Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) does from never having the woman he so desires. In "Casino," the loss of a casino empire is felt as the downward spiral begins. You keep hoping that there will be a return to the initial high but the rhythm changes, the stakes have changed and the chips fall where they may. Critics and audiences have confused the change in tempo as a sign of weakness or overlength. Not so, as you will see.

The first half of "Casino's" three-hour running time focuses on the glitz and the lure of Vegas (there are more shots of money than any film I can think of). It is the attraction of Vegas and all the money that instantly grabs your attention, as well as the documentary-like scenes of backroom intrigue. Sharon Stone's own attractive poses as Ginger steals and cheats her way to Ace's marriage proposal qualifies as pure eye candy (Madonna and Traci Lords were previously considered for the role of Ginger). We also have the rattling of slot machines, the high rollers, the pit bosses, "the eye in the sky" camera and monitors watching everyone, the rooms full of money, the swanky hotel suites and vulgar interior decor (thanks to production designer Dante Ferretti), the numerous lights that catches attention even on the Strip, and so on. Music complements the allure of Sin City as we hear Moonglow and the Theme from Picnic (during the count room scenes), Louis Prima, Les McCann, Little Richard, even Love is Strange by Mickey and Sylvia when Ace first discovers Ginger. Still, despite an entertaining first half of "Casino," something seems slightly amiss amidst all the glitz. When we are introduced to Nicky, he jams a pen in an unidentified man's neck who insulted Ace without warning. The scene ends with cigarette smoke rising in the foreground as Nicky holds a bloodied pen while the Stones' Satisfaction echoes - a pure vision of Hades. Then there's a later scene where a gambler's hand is severely pummelled with a hammer - this cheating gambler was caught by Ace and his casino manager, Sherbert (Don Rickles in a largely mute role). Yes, all of the glamour of Vegas looks enticing but a sickness already seeps in - it is a spotlight on Vegas with blood just boiling under the surface.

The second half begins after a horrible vise sequence with the firing of Don Ward over three slot machines hitting the jackpot in a short amount of time. This works in tandem with the first act where Nicky's vicious pen stabbing incident is followed by Ace's disapproval of the "dumb white man," Don Ward - both scenes of Don show Ace and his casino manager, Sherbert. Thus, we get a recapitulation of similar scenes from the first half where tempo and rhythm change dramatically. We hear "Moonglow" again as we see the skimming from count rooms except our Mormon guy is now skimming from the skims; an inebriated Ginger in bed arguing with Ace, the very same bed she laid in with Ace trying on all the gold bracelets; Nicky's pal, Frankie, visiting Gaggi with shorter and shorter stacks of cash; Ginger's key to Ace's safety deposit box transformed into a beeper so he can watch her; Ace's car explosion shown at the beginning and in the climax from various angles; and Nicky's ranting to a wounded man about crying leads to a scene where he sobs over his brother's death. There are other various repetitions of individual moments but the pace slowly gets tighter, sometimes looser as in two significant trailer scenes with Ginger and Nicky (there is one other moment in a hotel where Ginger has visible bruises after an S&M encounter with Nicky).

Screaming matches between the characters begin and end with great velocity, as in Ginger's repeated foul-mouthed screams to Ace at their house, Nicky shouting at Ace in the middle of the desert, Ace as intense as ever in a restaurant with a visibly drunk, stoned Ginger, the constant surveillance and snapshots from the FBI, Nicky screaming and slapping Ginger, and so on (Believe it or not, actor Robert Blake had a problem with the screaming matches, saying it had nothing to do with the acting style he knew). The music amplifies the tension and becomes more erratic as we get the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun," Devo's cover of "Satisfaction," B.B. King's appropriate The Thrill is Gone, a live version of the Stones' "Gimme Shelter," the furious energy of Cream's Toad, the melancholic Stardust and the theme from Contempt, even Devo's Whip It. Devo's version of "Satisfaction" sums up the characters' trials and tribulations - Nicky, Ginger and Ace simply can't get any satisfaction from Vegas anymore.

Melancholia seeps in as Ginger gets more drunk, more boorish, and even ties her own daughter to the bed! Stone is so good in these scenes, even foreshadowing Ace's near-demise ("Who blew you in the parking lot?"), that some felt she was too repetitively annoying - well, that is the point. Nicky also gets drunk to the point he can't punch a craps dealer and he also grows boorish, irritable, as well as unstoppable in his thirst for violence - you want someone to just shoot him and Ginger and get it over with. Curiously, Ace stays the same - he never seems affected by the chaos. He feels every problem can be solved like a game of poker - life to him is a crap shoot. Ace realizes he can't control Nicky or Ginger as they are doomed in the no-exit trajectory of life they have pursued. The problems get worse and nobody wants to leave - Ginger keeps returning to Ace despite marital problems, to say the least. Nicky is banned from every casino yet still walks into one just to annoy Ace (Nicky is listed in the dreaded Black Book). Ace also refuses to leave, thinking that the Supreme Court and his own TV show will help him gain tenure. Eventually, all the familial and mob-related stupidity resort to Ace nearly getting burned to a crisp in a car explosion gone awry, Ginger dying in a hotel corridor as she exits her room (actually, the real Ginger died screaming outside a hotel until she collapsed in the lobby), a number of casino executives shot or bludgeoned to death, and Nicky and his brother stripped and beaten to death with baseball bats (they were found three years later buried in an Indiana cornfield). Afterwards, a lot of the old casinos are demolished and bought out by the corporations, turning the old Vegas into Disneyland. Or as Ace says in voice-over, "it is like checking into an airport." The tragedy is that the one survivor of a lost casino empire never learned his lesson - he is still an unredeemed bookmaker with giant spectacles and that's that. Such a cold, detached finish left many viewers with no emotional surface to cling to, which is precisely the point. The first screening I recall attending, the audience got up in great haste and left as soon as the end credits came up.


THE CRITICS SAY IT IS A SUCKER BET
Critical perception of "Casino" was mixed. The late Gene Siskel felt that as a love story, it didn't work (though the love story is really about the mob's love for money in Vegas). David Denby of New York magazine, among other critics, felt the relationships between Ace and Ginger and Lester made no sense since they lacked depth. There's a lack of depth in terms of character but not in terms of emotion, though Ace seems more like a calculating, analytical humanoid than a man - his past remains enigmatic. Ace expresses emotion when seething at Ginger who continues to support Lester, saying he wants to literally kill her. Most of the time, he is a vigilant robot who gathers no joy from his work. As Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman pointed out, "he may as well be running a bank." His control-freak demeanor, particularly at having the same amount of blueberries in every muffin, or his need to check his tie in every mirror he comes across, or keeping a series of monitors in his bedroom to keep track of the casino, or keeping his trousers in the closet in his office, remind one of Howard Hughes's own obsessive-compulsive needs (it is no accident that Scorsese later made a film about Hughes called The Aviator.) Though I generally agree with the criticisms, people forget that Ace was emotionally bankrupt to begin with. As Sight and Sound's Jonathan Romney wrote: "Ace inherits his paradise at the cost of 18-hour working days, and consequently has no time to be a person." But check out the scenes toward the end where Ace argues vehemently with Ginger, and even has a tiff with Nicky - De Niro proves his element in his slow burn routine in one of the last great performances he gave. Also, notice the visual sense of a king ruling over his empire - almost every shot of De Niro is at a low-angle accentuating the sense he's above all. He's not so above Don Ward who is visibly taller than Ace is (one of two scenes that shows Ace could lose what he gained). Sometimes a king can lose stature.

Most critics agreed that Sharon Stone turned in a highly credible and nuanced performance playing Ginger, from a gold-digger who seems to be having a good time to a drug-addicted mess who dies a lonely death (though earlier shots show her vacuity and loneliness when surrounded by gold jewelry). Stone is the emotional center of the movie, from a giddy, glamorous hustler (who is as vigilant in her line of work as Ace is) to a screaming, frantic woman who gets plastic surgery and snorts coke in front of her daughter (a scene improvised on the spot by Stone). The Golden Globes and the Academy Awards nominated her, and she did win the Golden Globe for Best Actress (Scorsese, by the way, was nominated for Best Director at the Golden Globes).


Many critics felt that Joe Pesci, as effectively hateful as he was, merely did a reprise of his Tommy DeVito character from "GoodFellas." The main difference is that his Nicky Santoro speaks with a vague Chicago accent and is far more sadistic and irritable. Pesci is also allowed some sense of humanity, as previously displayed in "GoodFellas." He is seen cheering his son at a baseball game, cooking pancakes for him, sobs at his nearly-dead brother, and even feels bad at squashing a guy's head in a vise ("Don't make me have to do this, please. Don't make me be a bad guy.") This is not an ordinary psychotic gangster - he simply gets carried away with his willful power. Jennifer Santoro (Melissa Prophet from "GoodFellas") is Nicky's wife, mostly seen sleeping on the couch or listening for the FBI's clicking sounds on their tapped phone or mouthing off to the FBI. She has a funny scene where her hairdo conceals some stolen diamonds, and one of them gets stuck in her hair. She is subservient to Nicky's needs, though her character remains largely in the sidelines. After all, Nicky Santoro is a busy man, especially at requesting oral sex from other women. The joke is that Nicky and Jennifer are introduced into town by Ace as "regular Ozzie and Harriet."

Nearly all critics felt that Scorsese had made one gangster movie too many. First of all, Mean Streets and "GoodFellas" were the only two gangster pictures he made before "Casino." Scorsese's directorial debut picture Who's That Knocking at My Door didn't qualify as a gangster picture per se - hoods that appear in the film are only incidental to the personal story at hand. Raging Bull happened to have Mafioso characters in it yet they were not central to the story. Perhaps following the civility and good manners of The Age of Innocence with a gangster picture was seen as a commercial move and a case of a director merely repeating himself (although "Casino" was not a substantial hit, it has gained some status in the Scorsese canon).

No one felt that Scorsese lacked directorial prowess. His signature camera moves were all there, including extensive Steadicam work, zoom-ins, endless quick pans, fast tracking shots, etc. What was new was the look of the film, as bright as the neon lights of Vegas thanks to the burnished lighting design patterns by cinematographer Robert Richardson (who has lensed many of Oliver Stone's films). Editing by Thelma Schoonmaker, with the usual hand of Scorsese, was as always electric. There were mini-dissolves within the same shot, swish pans galore (effectively used during the montage of who's looking at whom in a casino), freeze-frames (particularly telling during Frankie's fib to Gaggi about Nicky), jump cuts, etc. As Chicago Tribune critic Michael Wilmington said: "the blazing style suggests a hopped-up rock n' roll film noir documentary."

There is also great beauty throughout, something almost mystical and transcendental in the adoration of Vegas and its characters. An overhead shot of the city of Vegas at night is followed by an aerial shot of the desert floor. Overhead shot of Ace as he watches all the gaming tables, later followed by an atypical overhead shot of a large pool area where Ace meets with Andy. Overhead shot of Ginger tossing chips up in the air followed by Ace's freeze-frame of her. The luxurious bedrooms, dressing rooms, swimming pools, hotel suites, rolling coins on a conveyor system and other luxuries that no one ever seems to enjoy (decorative clothes is another matter). Sometimes, the beauty is tarnished by dutch angles and stark lighting. A scene of heightened violence with Nicky's crew is followed by a hallucinatory, impossible point-of-view shot inside a cocaine tube. The pristine, grayish backroom with overhead lights where a guy's hand is struck with a mallet looks rather uninviting. Other moments of violence are sometimes shown in silhouette, as in the executions towards the climax. Even a straight sequence of baseball bats pulverizing bruised bodies is almost haunting in a way, as we hear the crickets and nothing else except for Nicky's moans.

Scorsese's own knowledge of the mob thanks to his own childhood past and crime writer Nicholas Pileggi's own book lent a major hand to the authenticity of a world that longer exists (no doubt helped by the casting of actual FBI agents, croupiers and even hit men like Frank Cullotta, a former mob crony of Tony Spilotro's!) Also on hand was Scorsese's acute ability to direct his actors. He could probably direct De Niro and Pesci in his sleep, but the surprise was the dynamite performance by Sharon Stone. At least most critics agreed that "Casino" was hardly the precipitous low of The Godfather Part III, which disappointingly closed Francis Coppola and Mario Puzo's own gangster trilogy.


THE AUDIENCE
So why were audiences not lining up to see such an amazing movie? The major drawback was the excessive, grisly violence that scared them away. Those who like their violence sanitized and cartoonish were given a cold slap in the face by Scorsese - the violence in "Casino" is never gratuitous and is honestly presented. The vise scene is easily the most disturbing and nightmarish footage ever shot by Scorsese but it illustrates a point about Vegas. As Scorsese said, "it underlies the entire structure that creates something like Vegas. The more cash, the more blood. The more shining gold, the more blood, the cracked skulls, the more heads they find in the desert. That's the basis of it. And it gets me angry." It is all about excess, excessive pride, excessive arrogance, excessive blood. And when the baseball bats are used to kill Nicky and his brother, we sense that there's nothing left - this is as far as one's loss of humanity will go. These scenes inexplicably led Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman to pronounce that Scorsese was getting off on the violence. Gleiberman could easily accuse Tarantino of the same with Pulp Fiction, which he gave a higher grade than "Casino."

Speaking of Tarantino, another reason audiences weren't ready for such honesty is that the year before we had Natural Born Killers and "Pulp Fiction," both of which were trendsetters for ironic, cartoonish violence. Scorsese didn't quite fit in. An example of what some exhibitors remarked at a ShoWest screening of "Casino" were that it was either too dark or the kind of thing that they know happens, but they rather not see it. The first screening I attended, people were complaining about the violence (though most of the patrons remained quite silent during the truly graphic beatings at the end). One person walked out during the vise scene. I have seen these walkouts before, particularly in "GoodFellas," and have come to expect and understand that Martin Scorsese doesn't make films for the average viewer. The appropriate reaction to realistic, honest violence is nausea and shock, and Scorsese is one of the few that can manage to portray it so vividly (though he has said since that he no longer wishes to play it straight, as evidenced by the stylized violence in Gangs of New York or the aftermath of violence in Bringing Out the Dead). Heck, Scorsese was from the mean streets and had seen a corpse or two.

Another drawback may have been the length of the film and the immorality of the story - not many will sit still for a 170-minute movie unless it is Titanic or Lord of the Rings. A nearly three-hour elegy about the mob is not exactly brisk, sentimental entertainment - Scorsese may be too heavy-hearted and unsentimental for most audiences. "Casino" has no sense of redemption, no happy resolution (hell, it is based on a true story) and none of the characters are people you'd want to invite for dinner. Film narrative in America often means employing a sense of hope circulated around likable characters with a comprehensible three-act structure. "Casino" is about the corruption of the human soul, showing unsavory characters getting their comeuppance from indulging in money, drugs, murder, more drugs and more murder. No limits, too much money and no sense of joy from it all, all told in two acts with a three-character structure.

AND THAT'S THAT
"Casino" is not a reworking of the themes of "GoodFellas" and it is not a remake, despite the similar cast. "GoodFellas" showed that crime does pay for the mob. Its central character, Henry Hill, felt that he could work his own business drug deals and get away with it, regardless of the objections from the don, Paulie (Paul Sorvino). And when Henry sells out everyone in his crew, he relocates and only wished he kept living the life of a gangster - it is all he knew. With "Casino," Ace Rothstein survives a near-fatal car explosion but it doesn't qualify as a rude awakening - he is still a bookie by the end and only wishes he could keep his job in Vegas (apparently, the real Ace continued to frequent Vegas in disguise and did pass away not too long ago). He thought he could control Ginger - his one long shot that didn't pay off. Sadly, only number crunching means anything to Ace. At the end of the film, he stares at the audience with his oversized spectacles, as if to say that he could bet your money would disappear if he was given the chance. Everyone to him is a sucker. Like most of Scorsese's antiheroes, Ace never has to justify himself. He just forgets he lost everything.


Trivia not listed on IMDB: 1.) Martin Landau was offered a role in "Casino" but declined, saying there was nothing to the part. I wonder what role it was, but my sneaking suspicion was that it was the Andy Stone role played by the late Alan King.

2.) Don Rickles aka Sherbert has actually appeared on the Lefty Rosenthal show, thanks to a recent clip shown on the Biography channel.

3.) During the scene where Nicky spies on the FBI who's spying on him, Sammy Davis Jr.'s song "EEE-O-Eleven" can be heard in the background. The significance of this song is that it was sung by Sammy during a scene from the original Ocean's Eleven. "Ocean's Eleven" is one of Scorsese's guilty pleasures, and the attitude and look of it was one of the inspirations for "GoodFellas." 


References: Jonathan Romney. Review. Sight and Sound. 1996.
Owen Gleiberman. Dicey Proposition. Entertainment Weekly. November, 1995.
David Denby. Married to the Mob. New York Magazine. November, 1995.
Scorsese and Pileggi. Casino: screenplay. Faber and Faber Limited. 1996.
James Kaplan. The Outsider. New York Magazine. March, 1996.