It Had To Happen Sooner or Later
With the popularity of poker rising to the point of insanity, and I am one of those nutty Texas Hold-Em players, surely a movie had to be on the horizon. And sure enough, Curtis Hanson's next film, "Lucky You," is about just that. Eric Bana will be playing a person who's in the World Series of Poker and has a lot of personal problems going into it with a deadbeat dad (Robert Duvall) and there's a girl situation (Drew Barrymore).
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this can't work. But judging from movies in the past that have used poker has a big event, "The Cincinatti Kid," "Maverick," and more recently Dario Argento's "The Card Player," which uses poker has a game a killer plays with the cops to let them decide whether his victim dies or lives, poker is just not that exciting to watch visually. It's really hard to build tension with the flip of a card.
But Hanson is a hell of a director, so maybe he can make this work. However, the main story sounds pretty cliched, but that's what we were saying about "8 Mile" before that blew most of us out of the water.
I don't know if this is of interest to a soul who reads this site, but I was just kind of surprised it took this long for someone to make a movie about it.
And speaking of sports movies, "Cinderella Man" will be hitting video/DVD in the next couple of weeks, and I'm hoping for a "Shawshank Redemption" kind of big following to come for it. Because this is a movie that unfortunately got overlooked this past summer. And with as few good films as there were out there, it's too bad that this gem got the diss from the movie going public. Great film, check it out when it hits the stores.
posted by Jonathan @ 11/20/2005 07:12:00 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Don't forget Rounders, which featured the should-have-been-powerhouse combo of Matt Damon and Ed Norton (not to mention Malcovich and Tuturro as well). It also failed to ultimately be a good movie. I didn't hate it, but let's just say my favorite thing about the movie was that an original Counting Crows song played over the end credits.
I, too, am surprised it took this long for the poker craze to make it to the big screen. Although there was that ESPN (it was ESPN, right?) Michael Madsen poker-based series.
As with any film, there has to be a good story and characters you can connect with for a movie to be any good. I like Eric Bana quite a bit, and Duvall...well, Duvall is a god. And Hanson's work should speak for itself (L.A. Confidential anyone? Freaking awesome Wonderboys? 8-Mile?). I'll give it a shot. To be honest, the fact that it's about poker is the only negative thing I can see so far...well, that and Drew Barrymore.
I completely forgot about Rounders, but that too has it's moments and then really fails to capture you with the final poker showdown between Malkovich and Damon. It's always pissed me off that his tell was the oreos. If he was that great of a poker player he would have figured that out and quit doing it.
I did watch "Tilt" on ESPN, and it was pretty lame. Michael Madsen just does the same tough guy character over and over and it gets really old.
Yeah, Madsen wins my award for "worst actor in hollywood that keeps getting work." He has one or two good performances a decade (liked him in Resevoir Dogs and also in Wyatt Earp....that's about it...didn't even like him in Kill Bill) and he sort of phones in the rest of his movies. Somehow, I don't hate him like I do most bad actors. I kind of keep pulling for him. Don't know why. But he's not good.
Fuck you guys, I love Rounders.
Anyway, you are correct that poker is hard to make exciting, but I do watch the World Series of Poker when I have a chance. I think it's that Quiz Show adage spouted by Martin Scorsese, "They just wanted to watch the money."
Now Quiz Show...that's a movie I can get on board with, Chris. I love me some Quiz Show.
I like Rounders, too. Good stuff.
I didn't say I didn't like Rounders, I just thought it didn't have as satisfying an ending as it could have had.
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