Movie Mindset 33 - Casino feat. Felix

Let's all go to the lobby,

let's all go to the lobby,

let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat.

Delicious things to eat,

far from the candy beat,

sparkling drinks are just dandy, the chocolate bars is a candy.

So let's all go to the lobby need to get ourselves a treat.

Let's all go to the wild weed to get ourselves a treat.

Ladies and gentlemen, the movies are back.

This is the launch of season three of Movie Mindset.

And we are kicking off this season with, to me, in my opinion, sort of the granddaddy of my movies.

I've hesitated for a long time to feature an episode on a movie that I have been so publicly associated with, but

it's our only choice.

And I'm going to begin this season of Movie Mindset and this episode by addressing you, the listeners.

You call yourself men.

You know you're a lion, low-life, degenerate podcast listening to Prick, aren't you?

No small kids at home?

You know, you know,

you got your um fee texting Hesse to put the movies back on?

Don't fucking lie to me.

Will Menneker is a professional podcaster.

Watch him take you inside the real Brooklyn.

Tell me you spent that money on OnlyFans.

Don't lie to me.

Don't make a fuck out of me.

Tell me you spent that money on OnlyFans, and I'll give you the fucking money to put the movie podcast back on.

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Live from New York City.

It's the movie Mindset Show.

And the Hesa Denny Dancers.

featuring the Hesedeni dancers.

Oh, don't do it, Will.

Don't do it.

I mean, I would start juggling on the podcast now, but in the audio format, I think a little would be lost.

He's fucking juggling.

My first guest tonight?

That's right.

David Roth, everybody.

David Roth.

My favorite, wait, my favorite, one of my favorite lines in the entire thing is his interview with Frankie Avalon.

The one question we hear him ask is, so how many kids do you have?

The stupidest fucking question.

Every time Ace talks to like a non-criminal or like a normal, that's all he can think of.

That's one of the things I noted.

Like, I noticed it like the scene where Ginger is going in the house looking for the bank key and she's just like, I, you know, she's having like a public episode.

Yeah.

Like, I just need to find my kid.

Yeah.

He's asked the cop that, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Him and the cop are awkwardly standing out there, like this cop that he's definitely paying off.

And he's like, how are you?

And the cop goes, um, you know, I'm okay.

And Ace goes, you having another kid?

Whenever he's with a normal, he's like, what do people do?

Oh, yeah, kids.

What do people care about?

Yeah.

Not the spread on the Michigan-Oklahoma.

Nobody had Oklahoma.

They used a different wood on the

cord.

So, listener, in case you haven't figured it out, today's episode is a very special episode because we are talking about one movie, and that movie is the masterpiece, Martin Scorsese's Casino, my favorite movie from my favorite director, which would put it really in the conversation for my favorite movie of all time.

If you've been listening to Chapo for any amount of time, like this is probably the movie that we have referenced maybe the most times on the show.

I think so.

I think like in 2016, we've been calling Marco, we've been comparing Marco Rubio to Philip Green since 2016.

Oh, God, he does have the same energy, honestly.

He looks like him.

And to inaugurate season three, I thought I would find a way to like try to capture what it is about Martin Scarcia's casino that has led it to be the most referenced show on Chapo.

Probably my favorite movie of all time,

if I could even, you know, describe such a thing.

But like, what is it about this movie that like remains every time I see it?

Like if it's if I happen to come across it on television, I'm watching it.

I watch it at least once a year.

And it's a movie that like no matter, it's become like a constellation for me in my life, like a North star that I can just keep returning to.

And like the only thing I can kind of compare it to is like classic Era Simpsons in that it's become almost kind of a visual language, like a living metaphor that I can slot into almost any experience or interaction in my life.

I mean, Felix, just between you, me, and Matt, like just talking, like, how many times I've just found occasion to say, why take a chance?

But that's just that way.

Yeah,

that is a great way to put it because I was thinking about this too.

This is, I don't really like the concept of like a favorite movie or like a favorite game because it's just like the categories are so disparate and they fulfill such different needs that I don't, I don't know how much you truly like any of these things if you can easily pick like a singular favorite.

But

what movie do I watch the most frequently when it's available?

Absolutely this one.

Yeah.

And part of it is like something that this movie gets criticized for when people compare it unfavorably to Goodfellas, which is this idea that it's like, you know, it's not as cohesive as a story as Goodfellas.

People almost compare it to a music video, but I kind of think that speaks to how strong it is.

Yes.

Like

if you look at the actual events of this movie and the actual characters, not that much happens.

The characters don't really change that much.

They start off

as an autistic and a violent scumbag, and then they just get worse.

One of my favorite lines is when Nikki starts doing Coke and stuff, he's like, he wasn't the same Nikki I knew.

Like, what the fuck are you talking about?

But it's like, it's just, there's like a level of like, I can't even describe what it is visually, but it's a combination of like

comfort, but also, I don't know, it is the visual equivalent to sitting in like an Audi SUV.

Yeah, no, Felix, I will attempt to try to, because I've been thinking along this, the film along the same lines you are.

And I will attempt to actually kind of describe what the visual and emotional experience of this movie is.

And you mentioned that like when people say, oh, Good Fellows is better, like, you you know, that's a pointless argument to have.

Like, Good Fellows is a perfect movie.

It's a masterpiece.

But like, the thing about Casino that makes it so special to me, and what some may diagnose as a weakness, is why I actually think it's the masterpiece that it is, is that the logic of the movie, it doesn't follow the logic of like a story.

It follows the logic of talking to your friends.

It's a collection of riffs, digressions, numbers, if you will, like in conjunction with the music, the editing, the the camera, the narrative and the visuals themselves just kind of float around in and out of stories, in and out of people's lives, in service of this broader narrative, this broader portrait of the inferno that is America.

This movie is a kaleidoscope of absolute hilarity, horror, and just human degradation at every level.

The people in this movie, like, I can't help but watch this movie like outside the context of like Scorsese's spiritual beliefs and religion, because, like, this is a movie that is a portrait of people who are as far from grace and the love of God as you can imagine.

This is a movie about people who are enslaved to money.

And

the other major thing that I will talk about is the effect of watching this movie and why I'm choosing it and only this movie for this episode is just the extreme generosity of what Scorsese and his cast and the film directing, the costumes, the music, everything, the extreme generosity of the highest concentration of individually perfect moments and scenes I've ever seen in a movie.

And all I could compare the kind of visual, emotional, and physical experience of what watching Casino does to me.

The only thing I can compare it to is doing cocaine.

Like,

you see Robert De Niro

walk out of the restaurant into a car that gets blown up.

And it's like,

and for the next three hours, the next three hours, like time just falls away and you're cosseted in this bubble of like, of, like, like I said, music, images, like the most fun you've ever had.

But when that three hours is up, what you're left with is really a carnival of degradation, squalor, and horror.

Yeah, and one of the main differences that I like have always loved about Casino versus Goodfellas is, well, there are two things.

Like, one, this is really like the fall of like Sharon Stone is basically the tale of this movie.

It's like her life being destroyed by like all the men around her and

her slow annihilation of her self and her psyche.

And it's like really difficult to watch.

It's like the hardest to watch parts of the movie.

It's the parts that like, you know, when I watch it with my dad, he's like, I hate these parts.

Look at this bitch.

But there's that.

And

also...

An important difference.

No character in this movie is having fun at any point.

None of the main characters are having a good time yeah they're all in a casino none of them robert de niro never smiles even once unless it's like a crocodile smile he's giving to like a guy on the

when the young employee is just like mrs raw steen you're the most beautiful gorgeous woman i've ever seen you're a very lucky man and he just goes thank you Thank you.

That's a nice compliment.

Yeah.

He says, that's a nice compliment.

The little things he says when he's trying to be normal are so fucking funny.

Like, he's such a fucking space alien.

um what what will said about um

how yeah this is a portrait of like the inferno of america both all the hilarious and horribly violent and like just soul-wrenching moments watching like the most groomed woman who has ever lived her falling deeper and deeper and like the way that the movie is like yeah a collection of riffs you experience the events of this and and and this inferno this grand portrait you experience it in the same way that ace experiences sports you experience it through components these individual components that you go deeper into than you would go with with any other movie you were doing the equivalent of ace like learning the type of fucking wood on the basketball court yes

and it reminds me of this conversation i was having with somebody about the idea of like synected in gaming where due to technological constraints where a part is supposed to represent the whole.

Like, you know, the most famous example would be press F to pay to pay respects.

Yeah, where a single button press is supposed to represent these actions that are like either too emotionally or physically complex to be fully captured with the technology that we have now.

And how that

idea is sort of like disappearing as technology gets better and we get the idea of like full haptic controls becomes closer to reality.

Those things are already getting replaced by like boutique animations and menu management systems, and how it's like a disappearing art form.

This movie is sort of a similar idea, but instead of a single button press, it's like the scene where those two like fucking whop grease balls are chasing the joint.

That like hilarious,

uncomfortable, amazingly, visibly distinct scene, that tells the entire story of like you know 20 years of criminal history that went into this yeah and that that's every scene of the movie like yeah

she's a mandala you know yeah like an incredible like you know like 3d

you know like it's like looking into the the eye of god basically it's like looking into the eye of america you know it's like all these little moments like nikki playing like the son playing baseball and he's like talking to the cop

so and like i mean what really needs to be stressed here is that like how much this movie eschews the traditional three-arc narrative structure.

Like, from the first frame of the movie, events just happen and they keep happening.

And there's, and like, it doesn't really follow any one master storyline.

I mean, look, it is anchored by the triumvirant of probably three of the best performances you'll ever see from Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone, and Joe Pesci.

But like, in addition to that, it is buttressed by dozens and dozens of like individually perfect perfect moments and minor characters that are just as memorable as anything Pesci or De Niro or Stone does in the movie.

And like I said,

this inferno, this cauldron of vice and greed, it's like this meta-narrative about the inferno that's America, but also it's like a very,

it's also a very personal story that I think like anyone can relate to about how You're never really in control, no matter how much power or control you think you have.

We're all imbued with with like a certain tragic flaw in our character that has sealed our fate.

And that's what I mean that this movie kind of like, it doesn't really follow a story.

There's only tragic predetermination of both the characters in the movie and the larger project of, you know,

American greed and vice and crime in the 20th century.

Yeah, I mean, you know, you know where it's going before it even happens.

It opens with his car exploding.

Yeah.

Literally before it's like, it's everything's going to blow up.

You know, everything is going to unravel for all these characters.

And it's going to be like a nightmare, basically.

And

you just have to watch it happen.

And it's like so fun to watch at some points, but so like,

so tragic and so depressing.

And yeah, like, it's, and it's like three hustlers, like, all three of the main characters are hustlers, but in different ways, you know, like, yeah, and because of that, they each have their own tragic flaw, which, which, which dooms them.

And De Niro Niro Sam Ace Rossky and his tragic flaw is believing that like human relationships are the same as betting on sports that you can factor in all the odds and fact like you can you can account for all of the factors in a in a in the gravity or sort of trajectory of a person's life and account for them and plan for it yeah it's a numbers

and that like and that that he can that he can constantly that he can be in control of everything and that in his relationship with ginger the idea that like he can he he can run the numbers and make this person love him.

That's his flaw.

In Sharon Stone's character, her flaw is essentially James Woods.

Yes, Jamie Woods.

As you said, Felix, the most groomed woman of all time.

No matter how smart or how good of a confident hustler she is, she still has this one self-destructive vulnerability that she's never going to get rid of.

And in Joe Pesci's Nikki Santoro, his tragic character flaw is that he is an elite tier psychopath.

He's insane.

He is a psychopath.

He's He's the greatest psychos ever.

Yes.

Literally.

And then to compare this movie to Goodfellas, which is like, you know, that, like, the Joe Pesci world, Tommy DeVito, and Goodfellas, everyone remembers, you know, do I amuse you?

Am I a clown to you?

We remember him shooting Michael Imperioli, you know, dance the drink with me, motherfucker.

Like all the fucked up, insane things Joe Pesci does in Casino are outmatched by Nikki Santoro on an order of magnitude that's hard to even describe.

Nikki Santoro is like, he's Carlos the Jackal.

Like, he is a world historic terrorist.

I always,

one of the things I love about this movie is the things that they do with narration that I think are so interesting.

Like, how by the time you get to the hole in the wall gang, Nikki's narration is like...

He is arguably the character who has fun for the longest in the movie, but by that point, the fun is over.

He seems incredibly fucking tired.

He seems like almost like he, he, he knows without knowing how this is all going to end.

He seems exhausted by all just this idiotic criminality, the breakdown of his personal relationships.

But the one thing that always makes me laugh around that point is when they're talking about how they placate the Kansas City bosses, and he's like, I had a trick for making the bosses happy.

Every time they wanted me to do something, I did it to a T.

And he's talking about like murdering people.

And it's like, yeah, yeah, that they, that you're different from everyone else in the mafia, like doing contracting.

What does it mean to not do it to a team?

Yeah.

Yeah,

part of him is still alive.

Felix, I mean, I was thinking about that scene and how it like perfectly encapsulates his psychopathic behavior and pathology.

Because like, okay, yeah, the Kansas City, the Midwest bosses, they, you know, they ask him to do a little favor, you know, to send a message.

And then we get the famous Tony Doggs scene.

He was one of the toughest Irishmen I ever knew.

I mean, we even stuck ice picks in his balls.

Yeah,

see where they

Tony Dogs.

And then Joe Pesci, after torturing this guy for days, drags him out and puts his head in a vice.

And when he says to him, he says, Tony, I got your head in a fucking vice.

He goes, don't make me be a bad guy, Tony.

He says, don't make me be a bad guy.

He tells him the name of the guy that he was holding out on.

He's like, Charlie!

There is so much.

The emotion I think about the most with this movie is the feeling of being like forlorn.

Yeah.

And it took on like, I don't know, watching it now, this is like the most dedicated, like not in the background watch I've given it in like six or seven years because, you know, I love the movie, but I've seen it so many times that when I'm putting it on TV, I'm like doing something else.

Yeah.

And one of the things that I thought about while watching specifically the Charlie M scene was how not just this is a type of movie, but that is a type of scene that we just don't see in anything else anymore.

Not the idea of the torture or anything, but like this extremely high tier of violence that's like kind of divorced from, for lack of a better word, lore.

Yeah.

I was thinking about how great and how self-encapsulated that entire sequence is.

And

there are so many things like that in the movie, like the Ichikawa scene, these totally self-contained things with these self-contained, amazing one-off characters.

Yeah.

And

the head of the vice scene is,

you know, it's amazing.

We get to see Nikki's sociopathy, his self-image of like, well, you know, I kill people and torture them and like erupt their genitalia with hammers.

I'm not a bad guy.

Yeah, don't make me be a bad guy.

But, but, you know we get to the end of it and he and the guy just like blurts out charlie m

and he goes charlie m for that piece of shit and even after they mercy kill him he's wandering through the warehouse going

charlie

m

and i thought it's so great because if they tried to make this movie now

there would be a 30-minute digression of casino 2 rise of charlie music exactly we would see yeah we would see charlie m's dad emigrating to America.

We would see Charlie M's sports injury that made him get into crime.

People would be doing video essays that were like, I actually thought Charlie M was a bad guy.

I bet there is.

I bet there is a video essay, like, the lost lore of Charlie M.

I think lore in the right thing is definitely fun.

I'm not against lore.

I think it's fun when you have to work for it, like in the Dark Souls sense.

But like in a fucking movie, it should be the last thing you're thinking about, how you're going to show the audience the lore.

And this movie never does that.

All you need to know about Charlie M is that he held up for that fucking pretty

and I love and I love in that scene where Pessy says to Frank Vincent's character, Frank Marino, where he goes, I know you would have ratted by now.

Yeah.

We're such assholes to each other.

And like, and like, the violence of that scene, probably like second to the end of this movie, which we'll we'll get to but i have to say when i first saw casino the end of this movie physically sickened me yeah like i was like physically nauseous for like hours after i saw the movie and it disturbed me well into like the week after i saw it but like part and parcel of of the like i said the hilarity and horror in this movie is just like scorsese's treatment of violence in this movie and like look scorsese is a director that's always been associated with like high levels of of extreme violence but it's just like the rank absurdity and like, and also just like how tossed off and casual the violence in this movie is, right?

That it can erupt out of nowhere at any given moment.

I'm thinking two scenes in particular.

The scene where Phil Green's silent partner decides to sue him in open court.

Her lawsuit was going pretty good

until the bosses decide to settle out of court.

And then you just see like out of nowhere, Joe Pesci, this like tiny man in like a leather jacket and newsboy hat and fucking big old man glasses, run into this old woman's house and and then just dump like 10 bullets into her head.

It's like he walks into sitting at her breakfast nook.

Yeah, it's like he walked into a Norman Rockwell painting and like

I love how he like grabs the side of her head too and just like shoots like

dumps like three 22 caliber bullets just into her head and then like tilts her neck back and the blood just like there's no blood anywhere like from the bullets that you really see, but it just starts pouring out of her fucking mouth.

It's like a nightmare.

That is one of my favorite, like, horrible on-screen killings.

It's so horrible.

It's like that and the urinal scene from Bullet to the Head.

Yeah.

Those are like top two for me.

But I love that scene.

Hesse mentioned it, how he's, he's basically like, again, no lore.

You just get these visual cues, but you get the idea of like, he's like, okay, I have to kill an old person.

I should dress up kind of like an old person.

Yes, he's dressed like it's cold outside.

It's such a great, like, just never, never alluded to insight into the way his mind works.

Yes, exactly.

And there's so many little like character things like that.

I mean, Sam Rothstein has a ton.

Like

him and Pesci, they're talking.

He's like,

when they meet in the desert, you get that amazing shot of the car going across the sunglasses.

And

he's like, they're like yelling at each other.

They're arguing like a married couple, basically.

Yeah, yeah.

It's more, yeah, there's more like passion and like romance in that argument than any of the arguments he has with Sharon Stone.

Yeah.

His arguments with Sharon Stone are like a father talking to his fucked up like failed daughter.

It's yeah, it's it's like um yeah, it's a father talking to a failed daughter or like someone scolding their dog because it just peed on the carpet.

Like in one scene.

Yeah.

I yeah, that scene where she's, he's trying to make her go to rehab and he's like, you're the best at anything when you set your mind to it.

She's fucking withdrawal and screaming.

So she's completely

completely strung out.

He's not listening to her at all.

He never listens to her in this movie.

She feels the worst anyone has ever felt.

And he's like, you're a beautiful girl.

You don't need this.

Yeah.

Another one of my favorites when she goes to Nikki and she's begging Nikki for help with Sam and she does like a bump of Coke and he's like, you're a beautiful girl.

You don't need to do this stuff.

You can ruin your looks.

I've seen a lot of girls ruin their looks.

And she, her response to him, you're so kind.

This is, this is what I mean.

Like,

there are like, it's a three-hour movie and not a second is wasted.

And like, like, that's what I mean.

Like, when I compared watching this movie to doing cocaine, like, you lose track of time because you just are, are pulled into the momentum of this film, like, like the momentum and this sort of like events as the events just happen and kind of spiral out of control without any real rhyme or reason, but like you are fully contained in this kind of like time travel like experience.

And it's just like these, the eruptions of violence and hilarity.

It's just like,

is Vegas, is the Tangiers Casino, is it paradise or Inferno?

Is life tragedy or is it comedy?

And the answer is basically all those things at the same time.

And that is why like when i think about like movies that could rank among my favorite movies of all time they all do have a similar quality in that like they're all movies that i find both laugh out loud hilarious every time i see them and breathtakingly disturbing and upsetting at the same time the reason I was like, we gotta fucking do Casino on the next season is because like my friend was staying with me for a while and Casino was on TV or Goodfellows was on TV.

So I was like, oh, let's fucking watch Goodfellas.

And we watched Goodfellas.

I like rented it so I didn't have to like do the commercials.

And then we were like, oh, that's such a fun movie.

That's like such a fun, like, what a fun watch.

What a comforting movie.

And then I was like, let's watch Casino too.

And then we watched Casino.

And she was like, this is like the most fucked up movie I've ever seen.

This is really like difficult to watch.

And I was like, yeah, I never really noticed before.

But that was the moment I was like, this is like one of the best movies of all time.

This is like really like a perfect, perfect object, you know?

That reminds me of one of the more Ace Rothstein moments of my life relating to this movie.

In 2020, I like went out with this girl from Tinder and we got back to, this is when I was living in Rigo Park.

So like a, you know, like a 50 minute like lift ride back.

And she was like, you know, hey, let's watch something.

And I was like, I was desperately trying to find something to watch on like my TCL TV in my living room.

Yeah.

And the thing that I land, I just saw a casino and I was like, oh, this is a great movie.

And

I just watched all three hours of it.

She just watched me watch it for three hours.

Just pointing at the screen, like, look at this part.

Look at this part.

This part's great.

I just like forgot the social cue of like, let's watch a movie.

Yeah.

It's like, yeah, casino.

It's the one.

Yeah.

I was going to say, like,

I think another reason this movie

means so much to me personally and why it's like made

carved such an indelible impression in my mind is that like I'd seen Casino previously before this, but like I remember I owned this movie on like the 2 VHS set box set.

And when I started watching this movie, it appeared in my life that was like every week, practically.

I realized in retrospect that I got so enamored or obsessed with this movie because at the time I was dating a girl who was, shall we say ginger coated she was ginger core and i was very i was very like our relationship was somewhat ace and ginger coated you could find the key in there yeah

well you know when you love someone you got to trust them because otherwise

all this money it doesn't mean anything without trust

back to the question of love and trust it's like for for for ace and like you know you can take like the larger broader meta-narrative about vice and sin and the the american project but like love in this movie is inseparable from money.

And, like, the, the, the representation of that is the $2 million in cash and jewelry that Ace puts in a safety deposit box for Ginger under the assumption that, like, if I get kidnapped, like, this is, this is going to be like the payoff money, and only Ginger will have a key to it.

And watching it this time, though, I was struck, like, that to me was like, for him, a guy who only sees human relationships in terms of like money and the odds, the fact that that $2 million is still there and that she has the only key and she hasn't left with it, that's his insurance against, because as long as that money is still there, then on some level,

she must love him.

Yeah, and I love like part of a beautiful visual metaphor in that scene is them both, they can't get the safety deposit box in and they're both forcing it in, like trying to force it in, kind of like their relationship.

They're just trying to force it to like work.

And it's like, so it's such like a perfect metaphor.

And going to what you were saying, Will, about like what made this movie so indelible to you, I think, like, I remember that VHS box set because my dad had it in his like cabinet of VHS tapes.

And I remember like one time I was like six years old.

This is one of my like most vivid memories.

It was my dad like showing me all his VHS tapes and like telling me what the movies were and being like, you're not allowed to watch this one.

You remember just the cover, you know, like that picture of the three of them.

Joe Pesci like holding the dice.

And I'm like, this movie looks so fucking cool.

Like the single word title, Casino.

Like, this is the casino.

Like, this is the other movies have, like, you know, Cape Fear, you know, Silence of the Lambs, these like fancy titles, Goodfellas,

Jaws, and then this one's just Casino.

I was like, this movie's probably sick.

And my dad was like, you can't watch this till you're 18 years old.

You're not to watch this movie.

And then, of course, like, when I was like 12, he was like, fuck, I got to show you it now.

You got to watch it now.

I think that's like a very,

a very fatherly thing where they're like, all right, this is the most fucked up movie ever.

Like, I'm not going to show you it when you're six.

In fact, you have to wait till you're like in college.

But then when you're like 11, they're like, honestly, I need to talk about this with somebody.

So they show you T2 when you're like seven.

They show you diehard.

Yeah.

My dad,

I can't remember if I've told this story before, but one time my dad, like, I was like 11 or something, and my brother was like 10.

And at dinner, he was like, said a line from Die Hard, and he looked at me and my brother, and we were just looking at him.

And he's like, you guys haven't seen Die Hard?

Like, he thought it was something we would have seen.

And then he literally left the house without saying a word.

And like, my mom was like,

where'd your dad go?

Like, where did he even go?

And Nakatoni comes back.

He like comes back because it was like

six something, like 6:50 or something.

So he had to leave right away, go to the video store, rent diehard, and bring it home.

And then my mom was like, you can't show them this movie.

And he's like, I remember where all the curse words are.

So I'll mute it

when they come up.

And he like literally, like, every time it's like, motherfucker and then he mutes, like, he misses it.

Just keeps it muted for like a few seconds, like, uh, just in case.

And then he unmutes it and it's like, you fucking.

And so like every, like, it's all we heard were the curse words, words basically

like

so many good movie memories uh like and how you bring it up just the title of the movie casino you know like it sort of tells you everything and i and when i when i think about this is the casino movie it's about a casino i think about the line that de Niro says in the very beginning of the movie where he's discussing the Tanzierus Hotel and he says in any other place in the country I'd just be another bookmaker but here I'm Mr.

Rothstein I'm a person.

Like, something that would get you arrested in any other part of the country has made him like Prince of the City.

And he says, it's a morality car wash.

What Lord, it does for guys like me, what Lords does for cripples and lepers.

And like that, to me, this idea of a morality car wash

is very,

like, to me, it's sort of a Rosetta Stone for understanding the movie.

And I think about that in the context of

one of the digressions early in the movie that features the Japanese whale, Ishikawa, the gamble.

Oh my my God.

Where

De Niro

explains that, like, you know, in running a casino, the cardinal rule is to just keep them gaming at all times because the house always wins.

So you always got to look out for a guy like a whale, a guy with a lot of money who's like a professional gambler, who can come in and, like, you know, in a few hands of like Baccarat or, you know, blackjack or whatever, can clean you out of like $30 million or something like that.

So in the film, Ishikawa does that.

And then rather than let him go home to Japan, they pretend that the his the airplane uh that they've given him to fly to get his connecting flight is broken and we got a great moment with uh

Don Rickles Billy Sherbrook

better to have this on here than up there yeah better

and you know he improvised every single one of his lines in this fucking

just like off the cuff like it was nothing

and like so like they're like oh sorry they're like well we're gonna put you up you'll have your own four of the hotel everything comp but like and as Ishikawa comes back Diner goes goes, no, no gaming, no gambling, please.

Like, you know, no, no, this is just, this night is on us.

No gambling, please.

And then sure enough, he's right back at the table.

And then he says, well, he bet small, but it didn't last long.

And like, he can't stop himself.

from betting big because for a guy like that, it's not that you win $10,000 on a hand.

It's that you're losing 90,000 by not betting the money that you do have.

And then, of course, he does that and loses all his money back to the casino.

And it's this idea that like we always get it in the end.

That like everything in Vegas, like all the glitz and the glamour and the comped meals and like everything about it, like he says, is just designed to separate you from your money.

And the rule is just keep them inside the casino at all times.

Because the longer you play,

the odds will always be in the house's favor.

And it's this idea that like Ace is a guy who runs the house.

So he thinks that like...

in his own personal life, like that, that applies as well.

But the answer is, for all of us, the longer you play, the surer are the odds that you lose.

And that applies to everything.

Yes.

And it's like, he's kind of like the god in this little kingdom.

He's like the king, you know, and it is like a microcosm of America, you know, like this foreign guy comes in,

gives,

trusts Americans with the money and just they take it all and just like run with it and

like thanks them for it in the end.

Basically, it's like, thanks.

I'll be back next week.

To your point about that, his outsider-ness, I was thinking about this.

The scene where

the infamous I'm the boss headline, the county positioner, who like Ace refused to do nepotism for, not out of principle, but just because his brother-in-law was

just such an affront to the institution of gambling because this stupid goy.

That's what I was going to bring up actually, too.

Yeah, let's talk about the Joe Bob Briggs series.

Yes, Joe Bob Briggs.

I wanted to say this the scene where the brother, Joe Bob says, we're going to have to kick a kike out of town.

I think that was the last time a Jew experienced institutional antisemitism.

Like, that was the exact last time.

The point you make here is, because like the scene with, God, the scene with De Niro and County Commissioner Pat Webb played by like Sam Peck and Paw mainstay, LQ Jones.

I mean, that guy, what a face on that guy.

And it's just like, yeah, that's

the contrast between him and like De niro's shoes and his like snakeskin boots and he's like oh i i sure do appreciate your time to see this humble old civil servant like me and he's there because his brother-in-law played by the uh sort of late-night movie critic and you know movie personality joe bob briggs you've already referred to is like de neo says is this guy just another dumb white man or what he's like

and don rickles go he's juiced in he goes juiced in everyone out here in cowboy boots is a fucking county commissioner or something and it's like it's the contrast between like the good old boys of Nevada, like the Mormon cowboys who run that state, and the Italian mafiosos who have turned it into what it is, have turned Vegas into like the multi-billion dollar gambling industry that it is.

But like, it's very important that like he, he fires Joe Bob Briggs and his, his, his brother-in-law comes, who's like the real, you know, sort of mover and shaker in Nevada politics to say, like, hey, could you look at it as a favor to me to like rehire this guy because, you know, he's family.

And De Niro refuses to rehire him, but not out of any principled stand against like I don't believe in nepotism or he's too incompetent to run my business it's an affront to his idea that he can control everything and that decision is really like marks in the movie a turning point of when it all begins to unravel yeah

everything about that scene is great like it's not out of principle it's not against nepotism he even basically says to him look i love nepotism i'm always doing favors

um but he's you know he's just an affront to my concept of gambling.

And the guy, like, the guy isn't even being an asshole to him when he first came.

No.

Oh, he's very accommodating.

He's very accommodating to him.

Yeah.

Really nice about it.

He's like, why don't you like give him some like restaurant administrative job where he can't fuck anything up?

And De Niro is just being so unreasonable.

And I love there's that brief shot of De Niro's like, you know, whatever insane shoes he's wearing at that time.

And when he gets up from his desks, he has no pants on, and he puts it on to maintain the crease.

He has no pants on.

And this is the part in the movie where every time we first see him in a scene, he's taking Peptobismol.

Yeah.

Another nod to his Judaism that I love.

But

yeah, I love that because all the hicks, all the, you know, dumb fucking white men, they all look exactly like the knights that kicked all the Jews out of England for King Richard, you know?

And

casino is,

I know we just talked about how it's antithetical to this idea of like lore in expanded universes now and how movies are done now.

But if there is one thing that it expounds on greatly, it is the concept of hierarchies.

They're constantly showing these little economic hierarchies.

Yes.

And I love this one because like the shithead like Scots-Irish native Nevadans are not important.

It's what they represent.

They are the ultimate rent seekers.

By virtue of them being here, they get to like rent-seek off of what should be the ultimate rent seeker in the casino at Ace Rothstadt.

America is the house.

The longer you play there,

you are going to experience the same thing that people in the West Bank experience.

And it's like, where is Las Vegas?

It's in the West.

It's it's the wild west.

That's who was there before these,

you know, casinos sprung up, were these cowboy type figures.

And that you need to give them their cut of the pie.

Because in the end, they're the ones who are maintaining this kind of outlaw state, you know, this outlaw area.

And De Niro's like

desire to maintain order.

but keep the lawlessness, you know, keep his,

but have total control over everything.

You know, it's like two metals shearing together that really like is his undoing in the end.

That's so perfectly articulated.

And like, what Pat Webb says to him, he goes,

you people will never understand.

You're all our guests here, but you act like you're home.

But I got news for you.

You ain't home, but that's where we're going to send you if it hair lips the governor.

What you just described is so perfectly encapsulated by the scene in which De Niro has his gaming license hearing, and they vote him down without even hearing his case.

And then he goes on an extended rant about the unfair.

You always promised a fair hearing.

This is an outrageous miscarriage of justice.

The fact that, like, he like he takes it upon himself to become a crusader for fairness in the gaming industry after being given, being given the keys to an empire of corruption and crime.

He's just like, they're denying me a gaming license, and it's not fair.

They didn't even hear my case.

And then, when he says to like, when, when Andy Stone, played by the comedian Andy King,

is talking to Remo Gadgi, and Remo says, What the hell is wrong with him?

Doesn't he know that all those guys he yelled at are friends of ours?

It's like the same people he's inveighing against are the ones that have given them the ability to fleece millions of people a year of their like, you know, pensions and fucking retirement money.

And just before we move on from these cowboy guys, I love that like

Jodon Briggs as the guy, one of my favorite little like character moments in the entire movie is when Sam rustine is yelling at him and he's like yes sir mr rostein i'm sorry sir and thank you you could tell in his you could tell in his head that he thought like he's gonna love this when i say thank you for you know showing me what and sam's like it makes him so much more angry it makes him so much more pissed everything angrier like it reminds me of the scene with the um with the dancers where a guy is trying the same thing with Mr.

Rostein, sir, and he's like, no need for sir.

Mr.

Rosteen is just fine.

Yeah.

oh yeah with the uh the the french dancers from paris and he's like literally weighing them all in and she's like yeah she's eight pounds over what what gives me goes and you can see this tiny little girl like the skinniest woman ever and you know you're like flexing her hand in like embarrassment and like shame his psychotic need for control he's like no no don't give me the right don't don't give me your answers i just want the right answer and this guy finally is getting flustered and he's like well i think maybe she feels like she's under a lot of pressure because if she doesn't meet the weight limit uh she'll lose her job and he goes you know what?

She's right.

Get her out of here.

Send her back to Paris.

And then Don Wrinkles goes, What are you doing?

That girl, she's an institution.

He goes, Yeah, I know.

That's the problem.

She's an institution.

She's lazy.

But it's like, yeah, like, and then, of course, the scene with the blueberries and the muffins.

I want a same, I want an equal amount of blueberries in each muffin.

And then what are the chefs?

There's one line in the movie.

The chef just crestfallen goes, do you have any idea how long that's going to take?

And he goes, I don't care.

I want it done right.

Yeah.

love that scene because it's like, again, it's just like a couple lines and a look on the guy's face, but I like stopped the movie and I just thought for like 10 minutes about like how this would play out.

Like, does in the first day, does the chef think, okay, I'll just like take a handful and put it into each.

But no, Ace is probably going to like count it.

Yes, he's going to cut them open and count them and check them.

I was thinking the same thing.

So I have to do it for the first week at least.

When is it to stop physically counting blueberries?

Yeah, I love everything with the gambling license.

And like Ace is supposed to be the ultimate cynic, basically, the guy who can see the numbers and code behind everything, behind America, basically.

Yeah.

He's like Neo.

He can look at any competition, any supposed contest of skill, and see the thing that will, you know, indicates a sure thing past all the uncertainties that are supposed to make this interesting and he should know like okay through incredibly corrupt mechanations and god knows however many murders i get this labor pension fund to let me run this like bribery and fucking fleecing empire and because i didn't give this stupid hick like you know the beverage coordinator job for, you know, this is in the early 80s, so like $20,000 a year out of like the $400,000 now.

I like they're taking away my license.

It should be like for a guy like that, that should be like an incredibly easy calculation to make.

But instead, he decides that not only is his, for the first time ever, he is, he is involved in politics.

And his sole political issue is that the license hearings aren't fair.

And he uses all that power that he accumulated through like his best friend murdering all these people and all the intimidation and death and cover-ups to give himself a TV show.

And the hook of the TV show is like, I'm going to keep doing this until the gambling guy has a debate with me.

And it's like, how do you think that debate would go?

Like, what is, they would just go, yeah, aren't you best friends with that guy who murdered all those people?

He's been indicted 400,000 times.

Like, how do, I don't, he's just so convinced that, like, okay, if people see me me debate him They'll see how right I am Yeah, and like why would anyone watch that?

But Felix and I I love the Sam Ace Rothstein show part of the movie because it really underscores how utterly delusional Robert De Niro is because like he's a terrible TV host.

He's terrible.

He is so bad at being a TV host.

And like yeah, he thinks he can challenge the guy who like is rat fucking him behind the scenes to come on TV and have like an honest public debate about the series of bribes and murders that got him to that position in the first place.

And like, this is really underscored in another scene where, like, after he loses the gaming license, he goes to meet with Andy Stone, played by Alan King.

Please pardon my error earlier, played by Alan King, who's the head of the Teamsters Pension Fund.

And like,

Andy Stone is trying to explain to him, like, just step back for a little bit.

Like, you can still run the casino.

And he's like, you don't understand.

I have to be visible.

I have to be out there.

We're working on a Supreme Court case.

And he goes, you think these guys give a fuck about the the supreme court you think they want do you think they want their but their this level of scrutiny on their empire yeah

how would that case go he's arguing in front of like the warren court yeah he's like as you can see we committed all these murders in the 70s uh that gave me the right to this casino

we found we found this real estate jack off with a comb over

and so that makes all the murders okay and now they're not like i don't do one bribe and now i'm an asshole like what precedent would even be set so and even like um pesci brings it up too when he brings it out to the desert he's like why the fuck are you on tv you look like a fucking idiot and he's like i need a platform guys back home think you went bad

I need a platform.

And Nero's response to that is like, you know how this is.

Like, you know, the way the media takes things out of context.

Like, this guy's a mass murderer.

Like, the idea that Joe Pesci would understand that and be like, well, yeah, I mean, I am starting my own TV show about all the murders I'm accused of.

I'm going to challenge the prosecutors in all my open murder cases to debate.

I love, also, I love like, um, because Pesci at one point is like an inch away from killing Sam and he's like so fucking close to it.

And he's like, get the guys ready, dig a hole and know where it is.

And um he's like ready to kill him but then sharon stone comes to him and asks him to kill him and he immediately changes his mind and is like no fucking way absolutely not he's my friend and like completely like you were literally were gonna kill him and he like throws sharon stone down the stairs for that like for even asking that and it kind of brings them back together because it's like the rift in the relationship is repaired by them both uniting to kind of destroy Sharon Stone's life.

It's like so, it's unbelievable.

He's such a psycho.

It's almost unfortunate that like these are such incredible career-defining performances from both Pashim De Niro, two of my favorite performances they've ever done, or really in any movie ever.

Because I feel like whenever you talk about this movie, you get so wrapped up in every like hilarious, tragic, telling scene that conveys all these like incredibly incredibly minute emotions and like sort of personality types that it overshadows what I think is maybe the best performance in the movie in Sheridan Stone.

Yeah.

And something I didn't think about.

Like I've loved this movie since the first time I saw it when I was like, you know, 13 or 14.

But something that I didn't pick up then that I picked up more now as an adult is I think this is like one of the best portrayals of like

how like being groomed could like really fuck up your life yeah because she yeah like she's this incredibly smart and competent and like the beautiful you're a beautiful woman and and like as an operator uh she knows how things work but my favorite thing to do is to watch ginger work the room everyone loved her like he's like yeah but because of this like foundational event brought on by james woods playing himself in this movie

um

i I bet that's got a real stretch for him.

Bulletproof casting of James Woods as Lester Diamond, the country club golf hustler and pimp.

I got his character by doing nothing.

I think about James Woods in this movie, and I think about his role in Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday.

And I really wonder if he knew he was in a movie in either of those.

They were just like he wandered on set and they were like, James, what do you feel about your girlfriend dating a black guy?

And they were like, roll.

Yeah.

With this one, they gave him like the

hypnotherapy from MGSV.

And we're like,

this is the 14-year-old you've always been dating.

She's all grown up now.

But it's so great because, yeah, she's such a hyper-competent, hyper-aware.

operator capable of all types of like social subterfuge and can enrapture anyone she talks to.

But yeah, because of this foundational, awful event in her life, an ongoing event, like it fundamentally alters how she sees like not just men, but like men in a position of perceived authority.

Yeah.

And she just like crumbles in their face.

And it's so, it's so fucking like devastating.

For all of her confidence and wiles and beauty, at the end of the day, she's still programmed to like need the authority and protection of a really evil man.

Yeah.

And like that, that, that's it.

Ultimately, like, it just charts her on this course of like absolute, you know, I mean, like, you can describe her character as greedy, but like, I think she's just basically like a survivor.

And as she says to Sam, she's like, you know, or she's like, you know, or to Nikki about her relationship with Sam, you know, I'm a working girl, so there's no way I would enter like a situation like this if I don't know I'm gonna get covered on the back end.

She's looking out for herself, but ultimately, like, because of, you know, you know, this foundationally traumatic event in her life, she can never free herself from the need to be like under the thumb of these like violent, disgusting men.

Yeah.

And her character is really, it's like, it's like, she's both like, by the end of the movie, is so pitiful and like heartbreaking, like what happens to her character.

I love Sam being like in his voiceover.

The narration in this, they do it a little in Goodfellas, but in this, they really take it to the next level where in the narration, it's like, these guys are dumb as hell.

They're misleading these events.

They don't understand what's going on.

They're lying to us in the narration.

Like when Sam's like, I never understood what she saw in that Lester Diamond guy.

And it's like, oh, my God, dude.

But

for me, my favorite scene in the movie, which is saying like a lot, is the scene where she comes back to Sam after

running away with Lester with $25,000.

And she is with Sam.

She's like...

sitting with him at the dinner table and she's like trying to make this work.

She's like crying.

She's like apologetic and she's like, her eyes are just screaming at him like, please help me, please help me.

And she's like, you know, trying to have a conversation with him, like a human being.

But he just keeps going like, what'd you spend the 25,000 on?

I mean, he's like trying to run the numbers.

He's itemizing how it like, yeah, like a watch in a dress.

That's $5,000.

Yeah.

A watch in a new suit.

That's $5,000.

And I see his suits.

He's not spending $3,000 on a suit.

That's generous.

And what, like 10 suits?

She goes, I got him a watch too.

And he's like, he wouldn't wouldn't know what a good watch is yeah and as and as he's like keeps talking he won't shut up about this you see a tear like roll down her face and right then in that moment it's like the moment she realized like i am never getting out of this like i my life is up permanently and it's never gonna get better and like that's it um like it's over for me and just that look in her eyes is so heartbreaking it really like it's so fucking devastating it's devastating but it's preceded by one of the other hilarious sequences in this movie of them attempting to kidnap De Niro's daughter.

And, like, it basically means going to Beverly Hills with James Woods and your daughter.

Doing the scene where she's cutting up Coke in front of her, like, eight-year-old butter, and she goes,

don't do this, is so funny and like heartbreaking.

Yeah.

One of, one of, I don't, there are a lot of movies that are like bleaker than this, but there are none that are like as funny while being yeah, yeah, like it's really, it's really up there i love that entire sequence both the scene that hesse talked about and the like fucking tear brain kidnapping attempt before that because during that scene james woods loses like a you're a poopy head argument with a four-year-old

and he's telling he's telling sharon stone how he's gonna shut up he's telling sharon stone how he's gonna defeat the mob

going on

he's getting dogwalked by a seven-year-old yeah

He's getting outwitted by an eight-year-old.

And like in this scene, like De Niro uses his underworld contacts to track them down and like call the house that they're staying at.

And James Woods picks up the phone.

He's like,

who's this?

And he's like, oh, Sam, sorry, Ginger's not here right now.

And you can see him rolling his eyes on the end of the phone.

And then he tells Ginger.

that like, yeah, I just talked to your husband, the mob boss.

But like,

and then he's like, and she's like, so he knows where we are is what you're saying?

So he's called here.

He just called here.

He doesn't know anything.

He's sitting by the phone like a dumbbell.

And then he goes, he called the bell.

And then he's like, he's like, we've always wanted to do it, but now change your hair, get plastic surgery.

We're going to Europe.

We've always dreamed of it.

Now we're living it.

Let's go.

He said, Will, he says, Now we, now you can finally get the plastic surgery like I always wanted you to.

This guy, this incredibly beautiful woman.

The most beautiful woman of all time.

She's such a piece of shit.

It is such,

God, what a fucking perfect scene.

And it's great, too, because it's the first time that we see Ginger really, like, you know, she probably knows like what a useless idiot James Wuzz is, but this is the first time we really see her openly acknowledge that.

Yeah.

Where she's like, he called your house, you fucking idiot.

And he's watching, he's, she's probably has two guys watching the house right now.

He doesn't have anything.

He doesn't have anything.

Keep in mind, this is after

by him.

This is after.

This sequence takes place well after the scene where De Niro has already caught her trying to give him money and then like interrupts their little tete-a-tete at a diner, drags him out of the diner to be beaten viciously by his goons.

Yeah, he's just like,

this guy's a jagoff.

He's got nothing.

But it's such a great scene because she's watching both how fucking stupid and myopic this idiot is.

And there's this internal thing where she's like, oh my God,

this is the guy who altered the course of my life forever.

Yeah.

Like, you know, whether she

says it that explicitly or not, there is like this realization of like, oh my God, he's just another fucking idiot.

Yeah.

Like the one thing kind of that Ace ever says about her when he's like, the ginger I know would never give that guy a time the time of day.

Yeah.

Yeah, you're right.

But, you know, he happened to meet her when she was 14.

When she, in his words, when you had those stupid braces.

Yeah.

Oh,

the scene where she calls him on her wedding night.

Oh, my God.

Once again, like, she's just gotten married and she's calling James Woods tearfully.

And you see James Woods' side of the conversation.

And, like, he's in a kimono cutting up cocaine as another woman.

He's going, baby,

baby, this is the best thing for you.

Think about it.

You'll have security.

But like the way he kind of like, you can see like he goes back into grooming mode and he's like, can you feel me?

Can you feel me in the pit of your stomach?

Can you feel me inside you?

I'm looking at you for the first time.

I'm looking at you and I'm seeing a little 14 year old, like little long-legged cult with stupid braces.

That's what I see every time I look at you.

And like that scene is so heartbreaking heartbreaking and like nauseating at the same time because you can tell like in a certain sense that fucked up like relationship of getting turned out when she was a teenager by the world's biggest scumbag and loser is still probably the closest thing she's experienced to love in her life.

Yeah.

100%.

And like, you know, there's a lot of talk about like the central tragedy of De Niro because it is like probably the big, the most oft-repeated theme of the movie that he cannot truly enjoy anything,

any of the things in life that are supposed to be driven driven by passion or chance or anything, because it is antithetical to the core way he operates.

But with Ginger, there's like a more tragic thing that instead of like constantly going through these situations that she doesn't truly enjoy, like De Niro, she's instead condemned to keep finding...

different lesser diamonds for the rest of her life.

Yeah.

Whether she enjoys it or not.

You can see it like when

De Niro like first like proposes to her and shit, she is like, no, this isn't a good idea for either of us.

I don't want to marry you.

I don't like love you.

She literally says, I don't love you.

And De Niro's response is, what's love anyway, other than a mutual respect that grows between two people?

When he says, you know, it's a foundation.

I almost like, the first time I watched it, I thought he meant that they could literally start a foundation together.

But

that is like something Ace would do towards the end of the movie.

Start like the Ace and Ginger Roberts Foundation that helps like disadvantage gamblers.

They keep winning.

It helps gamblers who keep winning lose their money.

Obviously, Sam Ace Rothstein despises Lester Diamond for obvious reasons, but like I think about it like his attitude to Lester is like kind of the same as like his attitude toward Joe Bob Briggs when like he really when he fires Joe Bob Briggs and it's because Joe Bob Briggs is like like three slot machines have just hit jackpot and they were like obviously set up and he was like how come like how could you not see what was happening and he was like well gee mr.

Rothstein it's a casino people gotta win sometimes and he's like now you're really pissing me off.

Because it affronts his personal sense of gambling.

Yeah, but like, don't control my intelligence.

But like,

his attitude towards Lester Diamond is like, like, in the scene with him and Sharon Stone, where he's itemizing,

like, how much money she could have spent on him buying him a suit and a watch.

He's disgusted by him because

he doesn't dress well and isn't cool like he is.

But Sam is like smarter than Lester Diamond, but they're still basically the same guy.

But De Niro has a closet with like 80,000 Armani suits in it, and Lester Diamond is wearing like the world's shittiest mustache and leisure suit as he like you know, cages 20 grand off his former, uh, like former uh bottom bitch or whatever.

Yeah, and he is like to him, Ginger's getting married, and he hears that, he's like, Oh, this is great, I can get my $25,000 that I need.

Like

that, that is amazing.

It's like, I know it's like the 70s and 80s, but still, like, you're aware that this woman on some, you love on some level or think you love or whatever, that you have a kid with, you're aware that at age 14, she was manipulated into being a prostitute for this fucking scumbag.

And your biggest criticisms of him are like, he doesn't know what a good watch is.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

It's like his anger at the gaming commission that they're not fair.

It's like, it's this this essential delusion that he had, like his inability to like understand like the evil that just surrounded it that courses through like every molecule that surrounds him.

For whatever you can say about how much of a fucking sociopath Joe Pesh is in this movie.

He's honest.

He knows who he is.

Well, almost.

Yeah, kind of.

He does get her to give him a head at the end by being like, yeah, no, he's terrible.

Okay, I'm going to talk about that soon.

But if he was in this situation of like like a woman, he was oh, yeah, was like, oh, there's this guy that I, you know, when I was 14, he would fucking kill that.

He would cut his dick off and shove it in his mouth.

Yeah, he's easy to cut his head, he'd kill that guy.

But with Ace, it's like, okay, you have to stop seeing your rapist.

Yes, literally.

Yeah.

Okay.

Can we talk about like

one of the most disturbing scenes of this movie to me is the scene where Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci like hook up or where Sharon Stone says to Joe Pesci, I need a new sponsor.

Because like,

at this point, like, she, she, she knows that, like, it is permanently on the outs with with

Ace.

That, like, that relationship is over, and she needs to, like, she needs to free herself of the power and authority, the control that this guy has over her life.

And the only way she can do that is by attaching her life to a guy who's even more evil than he is.

And the scene where, like, Pesci is like comforting her and they're both like kind of commiserating because they both have known Ace Ace for a very long time.

And he's like, you know, yeah, Ginger, he really fucked up out here, didn't he?

You know, like, I don't know what happened to our good friend.

And she just gets closer and closer to him.

And the way he keeps rubbing her is like,

is so disgusting.

And then she's like, I need a new sponsor.

And he's like, yeah, that's what you want.

All right, that's what you want.

And then they like have the world's most disgusting kiss for like a half a second.

And then he just immediately leans back and just pushes her head into his crush.

Yes.

It's the most horrible blowjob scene I've ever seen in a movie it's to be talked only by the scene a few a few mere minutes later where you see her him grunting over her like a fucking dog yeah slobbering on her in a fucking hotel bed there's something like when they when they're like in the same room together there's something almost childish about him like it's almost it's like a teenage boy who's with like uh in the same room as a beautiful woman and is trying to talk to her but like if that teenage boy was a psycho who like could like do anything he wanted like it's benny yeah benny from benny's video yes

i i

see this you know i always think about with that and like i that i watched back again like i rewound the movie one of the only times i ever did it for a movie that i've seen like probably 30 times now is the first scene where she tries seducing him where she's complaining to him about how uh ace got lester like beat up and like you know he could have killed him yeah

And the same scene where he goes, I've seen a lot of beautiful girls ruin their looks with that.

Yeah, yeah, she goes, looks so nice.

The way, the way that, like, she towers over him and she's sort of like cradling his head and trying to, like, she's trying to move between like a regular, like, wop friend mouth kiss to like a romantic kiss.

And Gio Pesci is just standing there like a soldier, trying not to, is so, it's so good.

Because every time we see him after that, he's so coked up and like

and like drunk and and uh physically physically deteriorated that he is only able to get off by like some of the most horrifying blowjob acting i've ever seen in a regular movie yeah like

milk fed veal you could pound that

shoves that woman into the seat of his gigantic car and then he just keeps talking about veal as her head just goes down

oh i love that because he's like like, let me show you the kitchen.

Let me show you the kitchen.

And then it cuts to them walking to the car and he's still talking about the kitchen.

He's like, you can tell you have a good kitchen by the veal in the kitchen.

I think the three greatest on-screen sex scene performances

that I've seen are,

one, Seth Bullock, his hard but workmanlike pumps into all the garret.

So the greatest character interpretation through sex scenes I've ever seen.

Jim Theolpunt's a genius.

Tony Soprano, who I think Gandalfini, another great actor, he probably got the idea for the gross way that Tony Soprano has sex from Joe Pesci's scenes in these.

Which are, that is number one for me.

These are the greatest character interpretations through sex scenes ever.

Yeah.

No, it's there really is a parallel.

So we talked about...

a little bit about

we've talked a little bit about each of the main characters and i would like to return to pesci in a little bit but before we do i'd like to bring up what i think is probably like maybe my favorite little corner of this movie my favorite sort of little collection of people outside the main characters that i think makes this movie truly special and that is the collection of elderly grease balls that are the midwest bosses that are truly that are truly the real power behind everything they everything they do is so casual like yeah i like

and specifically the head of like the most powerful of the Midwest bosses is Remo Gadgi.

And like, I forget the name of the actor who portrays this guy, but like, he looks like a toad.

He looks and sounds like a toad.

And like, one of the things that I find so fascinating and hilarious about this movie and its portrayal of like crime and like I said, the inferno of America is this like Greek pantheon of like the real gods behind Las Vegas are a collection of some of the oldest and dumbest crooks imaginable.

Yes, yes.

Remo is always like surprised every time anything happens.

Yeah, he's always acts so surprised.

I love the part where

he basically makes the decision to like kill pretty much everyone in Las Vegas.

And like him making that decision, it's almost like he's like trying to decide whether to get lettuce on his like sandwich or not because his wife is telling him to eat more greens, but he doesn't want to.

Yeah, I love, again, you know, a great,

they're so great and show, so efficient, but so

exhaustive in demonstrating hierarchy.

Remo, his character and the way that he shows up in all these scenes, it reminds me of one of my favorite lines ever in the show Trailer Park Boys, which is, Julian isn't smart.

He's just smarter than all of them.

Yeah, and that's Remo.

Yeah.

and one of the things they introduced remo and like a little flashback to years ago back home and like we're talking about like de niro got the job in vegas because he was like the best odds maker and he made more money for the mob by just giving them like betting tips essentially like he he like de Niro is so good at betting that when he places a bet all the odds change for like every other bookmaker in the country because they they figure he must know something or that like he's just that good so like he comes into like again one of the many like dilapidated like mob hangouts of like people who run a multi-million dollar empire But for the most part they just sit in like a stock room staring at each other and bickering with their like brother-in-law and mother

over like a big pot of tomato sauce when it when it shows the building and it's like in the middle.

It's like a parking lot

Parking lot in Kansas City.

And they're like, of course like, you know, Remo loved Ace because he was, this is in Nikki's voiceover.

He's like, of course, Remo loved Ace because he was a degenerate fucking gambler who never won anything.

And he's like,

he's like losing at cards to another like ancient Italian mummy.

He's going, oh, what the hell?

He's just getting frustrated.

And then I love the scene where like he brings Nick, like Ace just gives him a huge envelope of money.

And like Nikki's there.

And this is like sort of back in the day when they were starting out.

And Remo like sort of like ushers Nikki over to him.

He's like, Nikki, the guy, see that guy over there?

That guy is making a lot of money for us right now.

So I want you to just keep an eye out for him.

Not like your other friends out there in the streets who don't have brains.

All those disposable fucking crack houses.

He tasks Nikki with like looking out for Ace, which is established in the next scene.

Looking out for Ace means shoving a fountain pen into the throat of a guy who

casually insults him at a bar.

That's like looking out for their investment.

That's another horrifying.

Brutally,

oh, God.

The guy crying on the ground.

You're that ace?

You're a little girl.

Did you you hear that guy?

It's so great because, like, before he bothers that guy about his pen, Frankie and

Gio Pesci are, they're doing their normal thing of every time we hear them before a big scene or incident, they're just being awful to each other.

Like, Gio Pesci is just like, what does he say in this scene?

They're talking about the odds on some game.

He goes, how come he never tells me?

Because you're a jerk off.

That's why.

I love how Frank gets it.

All Ace is doing in that scene is just staring off into the fucking distance until he sees a nice pen.

Yes.

And no, it's zooming in on his face as he's like watching him, like, like as he's watching Joe Pesci fucking like annihilate this guy.

And like the voiceover is just like, Nikki was a little nuts.

I also love Frank Vincent does this thing in one scene.

I can't remember which scene.

It might have been when Pesci talks to the two grease balls casing the joint, where like after he talks to him, Frank Vincent is like walking away behind him and he just points at him.

Oh no, no, no, no, no, no.

That's at the scene where

Sam explains that when Nikki, when he first moves to Vegas, Ace, because of his like intelligence and gambling, is basically just prints money for the mafia.

Like he's figured out a way not to lose.

Whereas Pesi has just been like stealing from just robbing and killing people his entire life.

But he still hasn't figured out a way not to lose.

And when he he gets to Vegas, he figures it out.

And they'd explain it by like, he places a bet with a bookie.

And if he wins the bet, he collects his money.

If he loses the bet, he collects his money.

And

he goes to see this, like, this bookie, and they're like, oh, oh, hey, Nikki, hey, how are you doing?

Good to see you.

And he goes, hey, he goes, yeah, you got that thing for me?

And he goes, I'm a little confused, Nikki.

I thought you was laying.

And he goes, oh, you're confused?

What do you mean if I put your fucking head through this glass right here?

And then he goes like, he has the money ready.

And he goes, yeah, you were confused.

That's why you had it ready.

and then like as they're going away frank vincent points at him he goes get smart asshole yeah yeah no i love i love um

when like joe pesci does that to like the banker yeah he's like

he's in um ace's house which is filled with horse statues and paintings of horses like and um He's like, tells the banker, he opens the conversation with, I've been trying to call you.

You've been dodging my calls.

You've been running away from me.

And

he like tells Pesci, like, you know how I I said there were there were risks with this investment that you made and Pesci's basically like I'll tell you what I'm gonna come uh tomorrow to the bank and I'm gonna collect my money or no like after he explains that Pesci lost all his money Pesci's like I think I think I'm gonna want to pull my money out I don't think I want to make this investment anymore and he's like well it's all gone and he's like I'll tell you what I'm gonna come by in the morning and you're gonna have my money for me and if you don't I'm gonna fucking kill you like I'm gonna split your head open And then around the time I'm getting out of jail, you'll be getting out of your coma, hopefully.

And you know what?

I'll do it again because I'm fucking your head open again.

Because I don't give a fuck about jail.

That's what I do.

That's my job.

I'm crazy.

And like, that's me where he says, I don't get, I don't give a fuck about jail.

That's my job.

That's what I do.

And like, that to me, like, so perfectly encapsulates like his psychopathy and how like, even in the world that they exist in, a world of crime and everyone associated with it, like even tangentially, nobody, nobody, really, really until the very end,

which we'll get to, has any idea how to deal with someone like that.

Because he's essentially a guy, he has no limits.

Yeah.

There is nothing that can constrain him.

There's no line that he's not willing to cross.

And especially when he gets to Vegas, because the cops there, they explain in the voiceover, Sam's voiceover, like the cops there had never seen anything like this guy.

Like, he was like blowing holes in walls, like stealing from banks, like like just doing all these fucking crimes with the hole in the hole in the wall gang.

And they just like literally have no way to deal with him.

And I love the scene where he's golfing, and the uh like FBI plane has to land on the fairway of the golf course.

Well Sam is having his uh gambling commission like here at like meeting to get his gaming license.

And there's like a plane with two FBI guys that lands on the fairway and like the guys run and like because they were flying around watching him so long it ran out out of gas and then Pesci starts betting on if they can hit the plane with a golf ball like there are so many moments in this movie where Pesci has like crossed the line and like they're like for instance when they put him in the black book which means he can't enter a single casino in Las Vegas and like he just doesn't get it like he's not he's not constrained by like the law or certainly not morality and I love that like the bargaining process with Ace where he's like explain like you're in the black book you're never getting out like not only does it mean that you can't enter any of the casinos but like every FBI agent in the country now is aware of your name and looking out for you.

And he's like,

Okay, theoretically,

for instance,

what if I wanted to go into the restaurant that happens to be in the casino to get one of those sandwiches I like?

And he's like, you can't even step in the parking lot.

There's so many moments where like Pesci has brought down an insane amount of heat on him and Ace.

And his response every time is to just double down.

Which gets to my favorite favorite sequence in the movie and probably my favorite like five to six minutes of any movie ever is the Can't You Hear Me Knocking section of the movie.

Oh my gosh.

Which plays almost the entire Rolling Stone song.

And it just gives you like.

just a vision of like what a day in life.

What a day in the life of Nikki.

And like the answer is like there is, he has no limits.

They're like every single person he encounters, he is just robbing, exploiting, humiliating, or killing.

Yeah.

I love the last part when he's talking to the guy and he's like, I just gave you money.

Like, your wife had to call me.

She says the lights are off in her house.

The heat's off.

And did you gamble the money away?

And like, the guy is just like, it's this like pathetic gambler, like, loser who's like, I saw guys on the street.

I owe money to them.

The price of money.

Like,

whether it's the degenerate gambler that he humiliates, the bookie that he threatens to put his head through the glass.

And like at every moment in this movie, it's one of the most hilarious and terrifying parts of the movie.

All of Joe Pesci's victims are the most pitiful looking men I've ever seen in a movie.

And he's just like grinding them into dirt.

And the scene where he humiliates the gambler by being like, you call yourself a man.

You know, you're a lying, degenerate, low-life, fucking, degenerate gambling prick.

And then like humiliates him, but only to give him the money that he was asking to borrow in the first place.

And I love that you said this idea that like nobody in this movie is having fun.

Like Pesci has chosen a profession of lending money to gamblers who are addicted to gambling so that they can lose money and be his slaves forever

until he kills them and then he just gets mad at them for get for being a for being a low character of not caring about their families or kids when he's in he's like only enabling them to further ruin their lives and he's just like you call yourself a man why don't you stand up and take some responsibility and one of the best like things at the end of that sequence is when it's like no matter what nikki was doing the night before he always came home and made breakfast for his little son.

And it's like a very, it's like an extremely, it really shows like Pesci's acting range and how, just how fucking good he is.

Because like, it's such a tender moment between him and his son.

He's like, it's so, yeah.

He's like, not too much butter, right?

You know why?

And he goes, the little kid is so cute.

And he goes, because it clogs your heart.

And he's like, look how smart you are.

I love you.

And I love the inclusion of that scene because it's like this little moment of like him being very tender and loving to his son.

like it's such a funny punchline because it comes after showing him do like a dozen of the most evil things imaginable.

And I love that little moment.

It's like, is there for the people who watch these movies to be like, you know what?

The mob, they had old school values.

You know, they had to respect James.

That's a real man.

You want to see Chief Keith do that?

I love,

that's a great point about his loan sharking business, which they don't spend a lot of time on.

They don't need to.

Again, no lore.

Yeah.

But it reminds me of, I forget the guy in Red Dead Redemption 2, who he's the loan shark for the Vanderlin gang, but he's always loaning money to like guys that live in caves

and like people to wear barrels.

It's like a woman.

A woman with a dead husband.

Four kids.

He's like, all right, Arthur, we've got some bad performing loans.

This hay farmer that I loaned the equivalent of $10,000 to is paying up.

I wonder why.

Yeah.

Those missions are so funny because no one ever has the money.

Never.

The last one you go on is you literally have to

go to a cave where a guy lives in the cave.

And he gets killed by a snake.

So

another aspect of,

you know,

these these guys these two friends who like most of the movie is just them telling you what's happening

Their narration is they're telling you like this story that goes in and out of like which one is relating it to you But the point is that like as Petty says in the very beginning turns out it was the last time street guys like us were ever given anything that fucking valuable ever again.

They're put in charge of a multi-million dollar empire and they destroy it all.

And one of the aspects I really like about that is like they make it pretty clear that like when they started out, all of like the Vegas police and government were like totally ready to just let them do what they wanted to do within reason.

It was a baseball game.

And then within like a couple years, Pesci is getting coked up and just like unloading a clip of like an Uzi into the house of a police officer.

Into his family home.

Yes.

I mean, just to bring it back real quick, I know we're on Pesci, but when you said him shaking down the degenerate gamblers and like, you know, putting the fear of God in them,

it reminds me of the famous scene, everyone's dad's favorite scene, when they catch the guy cheating.

Oh, the card cheat scene.

I get like two of the most pitiful-looking men I've ever seen in my life.

I'm like, yeah, yeah, they're crooks, but like, I feel so bad for these guys.

I feel so fucking bad for them.

I mean, like,

you could get the guy who gets his hands smashed with a ball peen hammer.

One of the most disgusting special effects of all time.

But, like, okay, again, another moment of absolute terror and hilarity is like the guy who was

his partner when he's trying to leave the casino with his winnings.

And of all people, Don Rickles just sort of descends on him.

And he's just like, Philly Sherpet, manager of the casino.

That's a lot of money to be counting out there.

Why don't you come with me to a private room?

Hey, why don't you send up a bottle of champagne?

Something nice.

And then he's like, usher this guy away.

He's like, I'd really like like to leave and then you just see two security guards flank him and the next thing he knows he's just in like the hardware room under the casino with his friend's mangled hand look what they did to my hand

i i love i love those guys they're my favorite guys that get maimed in the course of a movie because they that like it's implied that they were like they like predate Ace and

Pesci and everyone by like years and years.

They've been doing this to like every casino run by like Howard Hughes or whoever was operating in Vegas before them.

And Will's exactly right.

They're so pitiful looking.

They look like they're from, they're like

from a live taping of a Smothers Brothers community.

So by the way, Dick Smothers is in this movie.

Yeah, he plays Harry Reid.

He plays Harry Reid.

I mean, like, a little bit of actual casino lore.

Dick Smothers' character in this movie is based on former Democratic majority leader Harry Reid.

In real life, of course, they tried, someone tried to bribe Harry Reid, like in this movie, and he, it was an FBI, I think it was an agent working undercover, actually, and he, they had to bust in because Harry Reid started strangling him.

I was like, you should be a box, bitch.

Yeah,

he was a tough guy.

About the gambling guys, I love maybe my favorite sequence in the entire movie, and just such a perfect testament to the airtight, laser-focused, insanely amazing filmmaking filmmaking is the scene where they're explaining the hierarchy of the casino.

And they're like,

The dealers are watched by

the pit bosses.

The pit bosses are watched by the floor bosses.

The floor bosses are watched by

the eye in the sky.

And then, like,

that's also where he first sees Sharon Stone, and he's like in the back room, you know, smoking as it's like slowly zooming into him.

And you see Sharon Stone like winning and like being happy, but like

pocketing chips.

And it's like, oh my god, what an like one of the best character introductions of all time when you first see her, because it's so like impersonal.

It's like the one of the worst, like craziest meet cutes of all time.

He's like watching her on TV, basically.

I'd like to get that.

Like, because he, like, part of it is that he, like,

he always wins.

He always gets everything he wants.

No one ever beats him.

And this is like, he sees Sharon Stone beating him, and he's like, I need to marry her.

Like, you know,

that's the only thing I can do.

Like, that's the only way I can, like,

get around this.

And I think it's also very telling because, like, his introduction to her character is that he only sees her because he's like taking part in the like

you know global surveillance of the casino to catch people out for stealing and cheating.

And that's exactly what he does.

He sees her steal and cheat.

And then like, he's like, ah, which is like normally if we're anyone else.

If we're anyone else, you know, he would stitch that up right away.

You know, there wouldn't be a single thing that would miss his attention.

But he's like, oh, here's a woman who's a cheat and a thief.

I'd like to get to know her and control her and stop her from cheating and stealing all the time.

It really is like he's trying to groom her into not into being a wife rather than like a prostitute, a child prostitute.

But he's using the same tactics that like a like a dad would use kind of like, you know, the paternalistic shit with her, with all the characters is so crazy.

Every scene where I think we already talked about the scene where he's first trying to get her to go to rehab and he goes, there are lots of great places now.

Discreet, no names no papers like that's the first she's with like she's withdrawing the worst you could possibly fucking feel she is in hell yeah she's crafted this horrible marriage that now that they have a daughter she can't just walk out of her worst nightmare yeah for someone who's lived a life like that they are tied to yeah uh

And he's like, we can get you help because it won't embarrass me.

Yeah, literally.

I love, she says something like,

I've never had to ask anyone for anything in my life and you're making me beg like it's so it's so like upsetting and that scene where she's like laying on the bed and like withdrawing the lighting in that scene is so crazy it really like feels like the lighting of the sun coming up but it's like barely through the window and you're dreading it coming through the window more because

it's such like

it's so like this movie really captures like every

every emotional beat that it wants to give you it like thrusts it upon you

with such pinpoint, like surgical accuracy.

It's unbelievable.

Another scene and aspect of the movie that I'd like to talk about, like returning to the theme that like the people in charge of all of this, whether it's Las Vegas or the United States, are not geniuses.

And in fact, most of them are sub-mental cretins.

I think of the scene, the introduction of the character, the Kansas City underboss, Artie Piscano, and the grocery store he runs with his mother and brother-in-law.

Oh my god.

And it's like,

it sells the point that, like, as much control as you think you can have over something, you're never really in control because all it takes is, like I said, one of these submental cretons just complaining to his brother-in-law and mother and not knowing that he's on an FBI wire that ruins everything.

The scene with the Catherine Scorsese cameo,

Marty's mother playing his mother.

And Artie Piscano is just being put in charge of making sure that no one skims the skim that they're stealing from the casino.

Because people are starting to steal from the money they're stealing.

Sorry, Will, do you remember what they say when they first find out about the skim?

And Pesci's like, yeah, a guy who helps you steal is going to steal from you.

Makes sense, don't it?

Yeah,

but

Piscano says the skim of skimming from us defeats the entire purpose.

Like this free money that we're stealing.

We might as well not do it.

That's our money.

That's our money.

And someone's stealing it from us.

I love it.

So the rest of the bosses start ordering this complete idiot to start going out to Vegas and doing what?

Making reports to them on who's stealing their money or whatever.

And then he's like, he's like, I can't keep laying money out of my own pocket and see nothing in return.

So he starts keeping expense reports.

It's so

unreal.

And the thing that he's complaining about is so, the reason he's complaining is he's like, I've got to make another trip down there again oh they got me going back and forth I'm paying for my own plane ticket like it's like it's the stupidest reason to get caught like I love one like little detail I love about that scene is and like this is the type of thing you don't fully catch when you're like 14 watching it that it seems obvious now but like I love how during that scene he's you know the famous mom I said freaking lying like he's trying to keep he's trying to keep his cursing under control because his mom is just, she's not even like yelling at him.

She's just like, oh, it sounds good.

She's so funny and cute.

She's so good.

But he's also like openly talking about the mechanations of their vast criminal conspiracy where tons of, and like talking about murders he's committed and wants to commit.

And his mom is like, fine.

Like, she's like, well, yeah, both my sons are in the mafia.

Hey, no cursing.

Yeah.

But just no cursing.

There's

no

Like,

re-watching it, it's just like, this is how rich the movie is.

No matter how many times you see it, there's always like one detail that escaped your attention on the last time you saw it.

Yeah.

And for me, like, in this scene, it's like, as Artie Piscano gets more and more worked up, like, just confessing to the FBI, unbeknownst to him, he's like, I don't care if it is that cocksocker green, I'll hit the ball in the head with a freaking shovel and leave him in the book.

And like, but like, as he's getting more and more worked up, he, like, back, I think, like, I don't know if this is planned or not, but like he backs into like a grocery store stack of olive oil bottles and knocks them over.

And he's like, Mom, I can't take it anymore.

But

the other detail in that scene that is, that I, like, I barely noticed, but like this time made me laugh harder than almost anything else in the movie

on this watch, is that he's with his mom, but like...

There's just one scene with his brother-in-law, who's even older, more decrepit, and submental than he is.

And he's inveighing about how badly he's getting ripped off and like how put upon he is.

And his brother-in-law is just sitting in this grocery store, just in like a rocking chair, and just goes, They're making a fool out of you.

You gotta lay the law down.

He's just like, like, there's like sub mental yes man who's just his brother-in-law that he runs with.

It's like, my brother-in-law, the smartest guy I know, when he says it.

Like,

yeah, this is a real brain draw swording here.

I love, I also love when the Kansas City bosses are pretending to be like really invalid and have the oxygen tanks

when they're going to court and they get like wheeled into the room.

And they like when they get wheeled into the room, they take off the oxygen tanks, but they just keep sitting in the wheelchairs.

They're just like,

why get up?

Well,

I think our most reference scene, at least on the show, is the scene right after that, where they're in the wheelchairs and they're talking about like all the people they have to kill.

And when they talk about Nance, and they're like, He's a Marine.

No, no, it's Andy Stone, not Nance, Andy Stone, the Arkan character.

He goes, He's a rock, a fucking Marine, like his father.

Stone, he's always been good with me.

Yeah, like, no,

I think he'll stand tall, like we always expect, like we always knew he would.

And then it gets to Remo, and he just goes, Why take a chance?

At least that's how I feel.

And that, like, that, that, that tiny little casual moment is the genesis genesis for like probably several dozen executions.

Yes.

Unbelievable

of just horrific brutality.

And it's just like the absurdity of that.

And like, like I said, the way it just decimates this idea that you can ever be in control of something when your fate is decided in the back of a courtroom by like.

this gang of elderly Italian mummies who are like initially like, yeah, let's not kill this guy.

And all it takes is one of them just being like, I don't know, why bother?

Why, why, why?

Yeah, yeah.

It's like, and he's barely paying attention, basically.

It's like he's able to get his attention back to the conversation.

They're like, Remo, he's like, oh, whoa,

that's how easy it is.

I mean, like, at any moment, like, yeah, like, that's how your life will just get snatched away from you.

Something that stupid and like out of your control.

Yeah, just no, no one has any control.

It's really, it's on, it's incredible.

Like, another, another hilarious part of the Midwest bosses that I really enjoy on this time around is like the one scene out of nowhere where you get Frank Vincent's voiceover for like one scene and that's it.

Oh, I love that.

It's like when you get to hear Frank Vincent's internal monologue, because like he's the one that has to keep going back to Kansas City with like a smaller and smaller envelope that Nikki is sending them, wondering if he's going to be killed every time he walks into the fucking place.

And he's like, Frank, so Frank Vincent's character has to sit down with Remo.

And at this point, they're starting to hear, you know, rumors about, you know, Joe Pesci being involved with Sharon Stone.

And And he's like, yeah, the Jews' wife.

Frank, you're a good boy.

So I'm going to ask you something.

I want you to give me a straight answer.

The little guy, he wouldn't be messing around with the Jew's wife.

Because if he does, we got a problem.

And that's sort of like it freeze frames.

And you get to hear inside Frank Vincent's head for a second where he's like, look, I knew if I told him the truth, it would mean that we would all get killed.

Because if there's one thing these old greaseballs don't like, it's another guy messing around with the other guy's wife.

It's bad for business.

And I just love like in this universe,

no matter how many people you kill, extort, rob, or lives, use ruin it really doesn't matter but if you sleep with another guy's wife that's a problem you've crossed the line

it's not even the principle of the matter it's just the fact that that's like one of the things that's still in like the made man code yeah

it really is so like incongruous with how they act and do like Every single thing they do the entire movie.

It's like

Peschy has killed a woman just like shot her in the head.

It's so ridiculous.

And like, oh my God, I love it so much.

Like, I guess we've like, we've gotten to the point in the narrative where we should talk about like the end of the movie, where like it all comes crashing down.

Like, Sharon Stone is like completely wigged out.

Uh, she like makes a huge scene on De Niro's lawn.

The cops get involved.

She takes the key to the jewelry and cash box, goes to the bank.

The FBI sees all of this.

They trail her to the bank and arrest her.

It's literally, it's like someone, it's like you're in the matrix and like all of the, it's like in inception and the dream just noticed you and everyone's like looking at you and just staring at you and you're like I got to get the fuck out of here but then no like nothing will let you leave they're like antibodies attacking a virus like the the house of the rising sun scene in this movie like the montage in which like it's basically it's all over for them like the midwest bosses like the the feds they know about the teamsters pension fund they know about the skim they know about it all so like they're getting indicted and as pussy says in the voiceover, it's always better when there's no witnesses.

And the scene where he says, why take a chance?

That like, you know, precipitates like nearly a dozen horrific executions.

And like this to me is when like the movie really,

I don't know if it changes, but like the movie wouldn't be legible to me without this sickening final act.

Yeah.

Where it's just a montage of

person after person that you've either like seen briefly in the movie or have been a minor character just be executed in the most brutal and like just just so sudden and brutal like guys are just shot into open graves they stab some guy in the throat and put a plastic bag over his head they pull people to cars Sharon Stone gets a hot shot in ODs Nance gets shot through the top of his head by some guy goes where you go and jag off and then just shoots him through the top of his head that scene always just sickens me it's just yeah like imagine having your life snuffed out like having to be brutally executed by someone who looks like the guys who did that to him and like

frog looking men wearing track suits who just like they look like dave thomas

where you go and jag off and they just

but but nothing and nothing in this movie or really anything else gets close to the end of joe pesci and his brother because like and and the technique of like where i said like more than almost any other movie i've ever seen most of the action of this movie is done in voiceover it's done in narration which is usually like a big no-no.

You're told not to do that when you write screenplays.

But like to me,

this is one of the most effective narrative devices I can imagine is just being having Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro talk to you for like three hours.

And they're telling you the story.

And Joe Pesci, like at the very end, starts relating, well, what happened after everyone was killed?

Well, the bosses, they set up a meeting for me and my brother in a cornfield away from Vegas because it'd be the only thing.

And then like Frank Vincent hits him with a bat and his voiceover stops in that moment.

Stops dead.

So I set up a meeting with the guys way out in the sticks.

I didn't want my brother to get fucked around.

I mean, what's right is right.

They don't give a fuck about.

and it's just like the voiceover narration stops dead, and then we're treated to like a good three minutes or so of Joe Pesci and his brother being beaten to death with aluminum baseball bats and then buried alive in a cornfield.

It's one of the most horrifying scenes I've ever seen.

It's like the worst violence Scorsese's ever done by far.

By far.

Not even close.

Not even close.

Some of the worst violence ever in a movie.

And the worst part is like as they're beating the fuck out of his brother, Pesci's just like

screaming his name.

The way that he screams after his brothers, after his brother is like, it's so incredible.

Like, again, like, what an insane performance in total from Pesci.

But, like, this is after we have seen him, yeah, like, portray probably the biggest on-screen sociopath we've ever seen in any Square CAC movie.

One of, like, the least sympathetic characters.

And that's still like a soul-wrenching scene.

Yeah, you feel bad for him.

Like, how could you watch this scene and not feel on some human level?

Because it's so like, it's like bestial, like his whimpering of a dying animal that knows it's dying and it knows there's nothing it can like he and like not just die too because like they make the bosses want to make an example of him and they bury him and his brother alive yeah while they're still breathing and you see that like on

him it's frank vincent who beats him to death Yeah.

I love, this is a great, um, a great bit of wordless acting by Vincent is the look he gives Pesci right as he for he swings the bat for the first time.

Because it is like, I didn't want to do this, but like, holy shit, were you annoying to work with that?

Yeah.

Like, I am so sick of you.

Yeah, yeah.

The grave is so small, too, and they like stack them on top of each other.

Like, it's like fucking disgusting.

And like the dirt being shoveled onto them, like, oh my God, it's, it's one of the most brutal.

And the music stops dead there, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's one of the only few scenes in the movie that's not set to like a popular song from the last 40 years or something.

Yeah.

And then after that, we see, it goes back to Sam's voiceover, and we see like the...

the conclusion basically of all of this and of everything they've done.

The Tangiers Hotel exploding, like being detonated and just the demolition montage.

Yes.

And it's like, all right, we just got to fucking start from square one.

But that's so important because in that narration, he explains how basically just the corporations and like private finance took over Vegas and they demolished all the old casinos.

They built the pyramid, you know, like MGM, Wynn, all the big casinos that we have now.

And they used junk bonds and private equity to finance all of it.

So it's like, oh, the cycle begins anew.

Yeah, it's like the old America dying and like the new America, which is like the same, but even more boring, just being put in its place.

Like it's just as rapacious and evil, but like it's boring and classless.

Because like he says, nowadays in a whale shows up with $25 million in a suitcase, you've got some hotel management grad student asking to see a social security card or asking for a social security number.

You know, it's like you can't get room service.

It's like the old Vega.

The old Vegas is over, but like the story of Vegas and America continues because it is just like these endless cycles of like boom and bust of like crime and exploitation that just continues unabated because Vegas is like now a multi-billion dollar city of gambling and vice.

And it's just different people are in control of it, but like it's the same thing.

And then the ending of

Sam Rothstein, you see him, he's like in Florida or somewhere.

San Diego.

Yeah, San Diego.

He's just like goes right back to bookmaking and he's like, well, and that's pretty much how my day was.

Like,

learned nothing, has changed, hasn't changed at all, doesn't give a fuck about anything.

He'sn't like a dead-eyed, like, lizard, like, psycho.

Like, and why mess with it?

When why mess up a good thing?

And that's that.

That's the final lines of the movie.

And that's you get, you get the sense that, like, if he took away anything from this at all, that like the next time he talks to like some law enforcement office officer, the FBI FBI agent that the real,

I think it's Frank Rosenthal in real life.

Lefty Rosenthal, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, who was a real FBI informant,

whoever, like some big whale.

If the idea, if the concept of a marriage comes up, he will say, it could be really be risky.

I know.

Like he did not,

he has gone through so, so many things have happened to him.

He is, he has gained the world and then lost it and lost everything.

He walks away with less than what he started in a lot of ways.

But that is, yeah, he's just like, well, that was kind of fucked up.

And then, and now when you go to Vegas, it's like, they don't remember your favorite meal.

Yeah.

See, the ending of this movie is very similar, and I think it's very important that like, the ending of this movie is very similar to the ending of Goodfellows, which is very similar to the ending of The Wolf of of Wall Street.

And I think these movies form kind of an unofficial trilogy in Scorsese's broader oeuvre.

And the fact that, like I said, this movie eschews entirely a three-act structure.

It eschews most narrative conventions about plot and character.

But most importantly, it portrays human life not as like, as they say in the Sopranos, like, where's my arc?

I'm like, no, like, people's lives don't have an arc.

They just have tragic predestination.

And the fact that, like, whether it's Henry Hill, Ace Rothstein, or Jordan Belfort, they end up exactly where they started, doing the exact same thing.

Having learned nothing morally or spiritually, they are just the same.

And like, that to me is kind of the point of all three of these movies and like why they are so brilliant as depictions of crime, but also depictions of American culture.

And like, because of the fact that like there's no morality or moral or like ending that can be put on this story other than like, at the end of the day, what saves Ace's life?

the random dumb luck of the model of car he was driving having a metal plate under the driver's seat yeah all his control the only thing that spares his life is random dumb chance yeah and well does he learn anything from that no of course not nope there's nothing to learn like yeah there's nothing there there's nothing to be learned from this it's like i love the difference i feel like a big difference between this and um goodfellows and uh wolf of wall street is that in those other two movies like the good times are over.

But in this one, he's not lamenting the good times are over for him.

He's lamenting that like things have changed in the world because he was never having any good times.

Like he didn't give a fuck.

Didn't give a fuck.

I mean, I don't know.

You can't put a bow on this movie.

There is no ending.

And that's what I love about it.

The story of the inferno just continues.

And

we are all trapped in it.

Like, we were born into this kind of inferno and i think like for all the brutality and cruelty of scorses movies like if they're it's not that they're amoral i mean i think he shows i think he's honestly interested in brutality and cruelty yeah and like but i but i think like his he his perspective is not an amoral one i think like his movies some of his movies offer some glimmer that like in in in his language or in a religious sense that you can you can achieve some kind of grace in your life or you can you can like the grace of god is still open open to you in some way.

But for like the protagonists of the three films I just mentioned, like, I think ultimately the point is that like there, there is nobody more enslaved to money than people obsessed with it.

And like,

there's no freedom.

Like, like, you were, like, that's what traps you in hell is

this need to, like, this need to, like, to have money and, like, to have mastery over money.

And, like, that to me is kind of the point of the movie, is that, like, money, greed, pride, like, these are what separate you from the grace of God.

Yeah.

And a casino is really like, that is the, it's like a temple to the devil, basically, because that, it's all about money.

It's just like the pure distillation of that idea down into, down to a game, like a fun place to go.

And that's like another great thing about the title of this movie.

It's like, like, that's just what it is.

Like, and it's the perfect milieu for a Scorsese type story.

And it's just so brilliant.

I just just love

I think that like a concept that you see a lot in Scorsese movies, one idea that I think is, you know, for people hundreds of years from now, if they want to understand what this time was like,

a few movies would serve them better than like this, the entire Scorsese catalog, because he does love this idea of like, that nothing ever really ends.

That there is, you will love and you will lose and things will

exit from your life.

And there are things that you never even contemplated as a thing you could lose that will just go away.

They will no longer be a fact of your existence, but that

you are still going to trudge on.

And in fact, there is no end to it, really.

It just keeps going and going and going.

But

the other part of this, and I think it's sort of,

you know, maybe a bigger theme to his movies is this idea of like perdition

as just a place where God just does not exist.

Yes.

It's not even not even that like God once existed and now God is dead, but just a complete deletion, a complete absence.

And

it's not so much, yeah, like

a place you know, that you spend

your eternal afterlife in, but it is a state of being that you get sent to not by judgment, but through your own, through your own actions.

By yourself.

It's really just your character.

Your immortal character.

And it gets back to this idea of like the casino, the United States of America, the morality car wash, that like you arbitrage morality and your soul in exchange for money.

And like, and that is really what condemns you to hell.

That's what makes, that's what, that's the fabric of the inferno.

Is that like, like, there's no one to really condemn you there we all go there willingly and like to me like i think about the end of the irishman too which i would include in in in this discussion it's because it's sort of like for for henry hill for ace for frank sharon at the end of the day it's kind of like the worst possible outcome is surviving without be ever really facing any judgment because then you're just left with your life

Yeah, like they do like all the horror and violence that you've participated in or committed yourself, everyone you know is dead.

Like they've all suffered some consequence for it, but you're just still alive and living, doing the same thing with

no actual real like societal or spiritual judgment to,

I don't know, call you to task.

You're just like, you're just left with your life.

And like that to me is like really the bleakest and most terrifying part of the endings of all these movies.

That they're like, like Henry Hill, what did he do?

Just start dealing drugs in Arizona and get arrested again like 10 more times.

Yeah.

People don't change.

People don't change.

Jordan Belfort is like a prolific crypto scammer.

Yeah.

Like nothing ever fucking ends.

Why would you buy something from him?

It's crazy to me.

What?

We have to invest in this.

One of the biggest liars who's ever lived says it's a good idea.

Oh, my God.

Well,

I think that puts a nice conclusion on this.

That was...

The premiere of Movie Mindset Season 3, Martin Scorsese's Casino.

Felix, thanks so much for joining us on this episode.

It was a lot of fun.

My absolute pleasure.

This was awesome.

I was so happy we got to do

one of my absolute favorites.

And yeah, no,

we were destined to talk about it.

Probably the single most important movie for our show.

Yeah.

Well, that does it for this episode.

Keep watching those movies, everybody.

We'll catch you next time.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

But in the end, I wound up right back where I started.

I could still pick winners, and I could still make money for all kinds of people back home.

And why mess up a good thing?

And that's that.