Posts Tagged ‘cons’
Monday, June 22nd, 2026
This may be shocking to hear, but the entertainment industry in my opinion employs a high number of attractive people. And by my estimation Samara Weaving (AZRAEL) is one of the ones who excel even among that group. Add to that the fact that she came up through horror (Ash vs. Evil Dead, READY OR NOT) and doesn’t seem to have turned her back on it, plus she’s funny and almost always picks movies that seem like something I would watch, whether or not they end up being worthy of her, so she’s a real human being who seems like some nerd could’ve WEIRD SCIENCEd her into reality. Being too good to be true was even part of the premise of THE BABYSITTER, where she exploited the heterosexual vulnerabilities of the teenage protagonist as well as anyone who may or may not be watching at home who is impressed by her BILLY JACK fandom. And now she seems to be on a crime movie kick! Fellas, are we being catfished?
I hope I can confess those feelings without being diminishing of her talents, because she’s also very good at what she does, and her new one CAROLINE CAROLINE is no exception. This is a little different from what we usually see from her, even her last one EENIE MEANIE, because it’s the type of crime movie that wants to be more like BADLANDS than like TRUE ROMANCE. It could exist even if Tarantino had never made a movie. (Not that that would be a fair trade off.) (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Adam Rehmeier, bank robbers, cons, Jon Gries, Kyle Gallner, Kyra Sedgwick, Samara Weaving
Posted in Reviews, Crime, Romance | 2 Comments »
Thursday, April 6th, 2023
GREAT PRETENDERS a.k.a. THE GREAT PRETENDERS is from 1991, and it’s Ronny Yu’s con man comedy. It stars the great Tony Leung (a year before HARD BOILED) in a much broader role than what we normally associate him with. The type of comedy where he’s running around waving his arms. His character has a shaved head to wear different wigs, and there’s a whole sequence about him putting the wig on the wrong way and looking ridiculous, plus a montage of trying on a bunch of other wigs. Strangely, when he pretends to have a mohawk later on it uses a very obvious bald cap. I don’t know if that was a matter of his hair growing out or not wanting to glue the mohawk on, but it’s hard to accept people believing it’s his real hair. Not that it matters in a movie like this.
His character is named Snake Wai (alias “Tony Leung”), and he’s a conman running small time scams on the street. It’s the type of movie where you follow him and hopefully are charmed by him even as he’s lying to everybody, but you won’t feel too bad about it either way because most of the time everybody’s actually in on it or secretly playing their own angle. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: cons, mahjong, Raymond Wong, Ronny Yu, Simon Yam, Teddy Robin, Tin Leung, Tony Leung
Posted in Reviews, Comedy/Laffs, Crime | No Comments »
Thursday, September 22nd, 2022
“This ain’t about money anymore.”
DIGGSTOWN, released August 14, 1992, is a pretty entertaining meat and potatoes movie, with the meat being a sports movie and the potatoes being a con movie. It’s directed by Michael Ritchie (PRIME CUT, FLETCH) and written by Steven McKay (between HARD TO KILL and DARKMAN II: THE RETURN OF DURANT) based on the novel The Diggstown Ringers by Leonard Wise.
James Woods (BEST SELLER) stars as Gabriel Caine (no relation to RAISING CAIN), a master manipulator doing time in a Georgia prison for selling counterfeit art, now making money on the side helping other prisoners escape. When he’s released he heads to nearby Diggstown with a complicated scheme targeting unofficial ruler of the town John Gillon (Bruce Dern, THE DRIVER). Gillon was once the manager of local boxing legend Charles Macom Diggs (Wilhelm von Homburg, DIE HARD, NIGHT OF THE WARRIOR). Now he manages the small boxing venue Diggstown Arena, but makes enough money to buy his his son Robby (Thomas Wilson Brown, the neighbor kid in HONEY, I SHRUNK THE KIDS) a ’56 Corvette. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Benny "The Jet" Urquidez, boxing, Bruce Dern, cons, Heather Graham, James Woods, Jim Caviezel, Louis Gossett Jr., Michael Ritchie, Oliver Platt, Randall "Tex" Cobb, Steven McKay, Thomas Wilson Brown, Wilhelm von Homburg
Posted in Comedy/Laffs, Crime, Reviews, Sport | 7 Comments »
Friday, February 19th, 2010
I don’t know what my problem was, but I didn’t dig on GLADIATOR like everybody else did, and for some reason I was bitter about it and skipped most of the Ridley Scott movies after that. But like the typical SCARFACE-loving American male I couldn’t resist AMERICAN GANGSTER, and that’s when I realized the error of my ways. So predictably my post BAD LIEUTENANT fascination with Nic Cage sent me back to catch up on Mr. Scott’s con men movie.
Cage plays Roy and Sam Rockwell plays Frank, two grifters we first meet in the midst of scamming an old lady by calling up and telling her she won a contest. I must be getting soft in my old age because seeing it open that way made me wonder if this movie was gonna be too unpleasant to watch. We all love a good con job in a movie, but telemarketing scams on the elderly? Usually not as fun. Fortunately it gets more complicated when they show up at her house pretending to be FBI agents after the people who scammed her and take advantage of her hotheaded husband. The more complicated it gets the less moralistic we become as an audience. We would cheer on Ocean’s 11 even if they were stealing from orphans, as long as they had to use a tunnel and dress up in uniforms. Or that’s one theory, anyway. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: Alison Lohman, cons, Nicolas Cage, Ridley Scott, Sam Rockwell
Posted in Crime, Reviews | 55 Comments »
Monday, January 1st, 2001
Well this is one of those pictures you would call a hitchcockian type thriller, and yes that is named after Alfred Hitchcock. But one difference is that this is NOT directed by Hitchcock, it is the director debut of Mr. David Mamet.
In the opening scenes the acting is kind of stiff and everything is kind of dull and I was thinking of watching something else. But as soon as the story kicks in you see that that is to illustrate that this lady psychologist who is the main character, her life has grown banal and she is in need of adventure. Her everyday job scenes are almost draining they are so dull while the rest of the movie is full of suspense. One of her patients tells her what does she know, she hasn’t experienced anything. And through his gambling problem she goes and decides to thrust herself into some real experiences. She goes to a small bar called “house of games” (get it, that is also the title of the movie, house of games) where she meets a gambler named Joe Montegna. I mean that is the actor’s name anyway. (read the rest of this shit…)
Tags: cons, David Mamet, filmed in Seattle, J.T. Walsh, Joe Mantegna, Lindsay Crouse
Posted in Crime, Mystery, Reviews, Thriller | No Comments »
