She’s on the phone with Rachel’s brother, asking for help, when Cosmo appears with a flower, wondering why Rachel’s not at work. A day after he’s paid his debt, he loses $23,000 in a card game with some very nasty-looking men. The news is all over it. It’ll be a big night. “I got a golden life. When he's not able to do so, they suggest he kill a Chinese bookie to wipe away his debt. They used to say, “anything could happen.”, And out of all this strides the late Ben Gazzara, sporting a white leisure suit, king. And, I grant you, I do enjoy hi-def for big budget sci-fi extravaganzas. And he’s even got the respect of Roger Ebert.

Sophistication who wears a top hat and has a mustache drawn on to him. Before the internet helped the average high schooler become aware of things like “goatse” and “2 girls 1 cup”, there used to be a classification: “X-rated”. Monday: Ben Gazzara in "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" (1976), Cassavetes' unseen sleeper, which got little distribution when it was first made, but has gathered a reputation as one of his best and funniest. You’re an amateur. Some chippy asks him what he’s looking at, and he replies with the line I paraphrased above. Cassavetes, Falk and Gazzara play three buddies who, on the death of a friend, go on an extended binge of drinking and sex, as if hurling their recklessness in the face of mortality. He runs for blocks until he finds an honest-to-god phone booth. When the director of this film first visited Tim Carey’s house, Carey made him wear a padded suit and turned his attack dog loose on him. Some asshole went up and started shooting. He's laconic, vet, and a gambler.

We were all forced to accept hi-def as part of an economic stimulus.

The mobsters give Cosmo the $23K debt form he signed, and allow him to rip it up. To be sure, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie contains all the elements of a crime picture: mafiosos, seedy clubs, gambling dens, etc. He pounds liquor, plays the jukebox, and claps off-beat like a loon. Eye Candy Extraordinaire: Christian Bale. If you know anything about loan sharks, you know how delighted they get when you keep changing your mind. I could spend a happy weekend on those lips alone.

Movies You Missed: BIUL spotlights great films you probably overlooked. Everything he says sounds like a threat, whether it actually is or not. The waitress is what’s known as “’70s hot”. Also Wednesday: "Shadows" (1959), the first film he directed, the story of a doomed interracial romance on New York's beatnik fringe. Mort gives him the directions with a map and flashlight. And deal in girls he does. Everything on this site was written as though a full-grown adult would read it.

That’s right, I’m great.”. “I deal in girls.”. (I’m not screencapping that, it’s not that kinda website. Cosmo replies that he didn’t see anyone, and he doesn’t want to reduce the debt after all. He does his best to calm her, as the terrified waitress runs topless into the street, and we are briefly treated to the spectacular undulations of her unbound bosoms. Meta. And no pickle on it. They hate to sleep. Whereas once a man could steal away to a peep show or a strip club to get his jollies off, now he loses his family after being discovered viewing web porn on the family computer. This is not what he told Rachel he was going to do, but you can forgive him because it’s such an awesome idea. Take a walk.”.

Starting today and running for a week, the Music Box is presenting a season of nine of his films, four of them with newly-minted 35mm prints, and the form of his achievement is clear to see. This is what your dad always warned you about. She wants to know why, after waiting with him for hours in some craphole casino, Cosmo is happily auditioning a cute new dancer. Thursday: A new print of "Husbands" (1970), not my favorite, but I haven't seen it since it opened and perhaps his later films have prepared me to see it differently. Traffic continues to roar past. The Emmy-winning actor, best known for his work on The Sopranos, shares his list of Criterion favorites, lavishing special attention on three masterpieces by John Cassavetes. All this from a walking, grinning cadaver. 2. A proud strip club owner is forced to come to terms with himself as a man, when his gambling addiction gets him in hot water with the mob, who offer him only one alternative.

Tonight: The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Mort excuses himself from the table, and goes to tell Flo. You may recognize one of them as Haji, from Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Two nights ago, I watched the 134 minute version of John Cassavetes' "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" for the first time. Flo looks around, grabs Cosmo by the arm, leads him down a dark alley and beats the shit out of him. When we meet him, he's making his last payment on a gambling debt, after which, he promptly loses $23,000 playing poker. Just says to him, with no fear, “Why don’t you do yourself a favor and get out of here. If you adore Tarantino, you’re about to step into the world he’s made a career appropriating. 25 squad cars. Before Star Wars, cosplay, rap music, American Idol, smartphones, internet porn, slutwalks and Starbucks. This is a man whose rhythms are never in sync with other men. They seek love, but it is not sex they crave but total acceptance and security; they rarely find it, and when they do, it is in passages of giddy, manic relief that cannot last. When you look around at the people in this film, how many company logos do you see on their clothing? Flo instructs him that his “new car” runs on wire, so don’t stall it; there’s no key. The old man sleeps alone, and the guards are all in a nearby A-frame. Also Sunday: A new print of "Gloria" (1980), which won Rowlands the second of her Best Actress nominations, as a mob-connected woman who takes the kid of a mob victim under the arm, and tries to protect him.
Two nights ago, I watched the 134 minute version of John Cassavetes' "The Killing of a Chinese Bookie" for the first time. Cosmo is escorted to a diner, where the men surround him at a table. “I got a golden life.”. Shadows (1959), the first film he directed, self-financed for a mere $40,000, didn’t find much of an audience upon its small initial release, but it garnered Cassavetes some notice from critics (including a Venice Film Festival Critics Prize)—as well as studios, resulting in a couple of impersonal projects in the 1960s (Too Late Blues, A Child Is Waiting). Read more. By the next day, he has again convinced himself; as he sports a ruffled tuxedo with carnation and smokes a fat stogie in his limo, he mutters to himself, “I am amazing.” This is another example of Harwood’s brilliant score, a languid, hazy duet for piano and keyboard that hangs in the air like beautiful clouds. Finally, he lays it all out with her. Cosmo takes this opportunity to do the deed. Pixillation. Despite how he comports himself, Cosmo is a degenerate gambler. Kill! Got the world by the balls. THE KILLING OF A Chinese BOOKIE is John Cassavetes fascinating look into the world of Cosmo Vitelli, owner of the Crazy Horse West, a California strip club. The mood is light, but Cosmo is tense and jumpy.

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Cassavetes' characters love to talk, to smoke, to drink. He is the Alpha Male.

He was a bankable star who pulled down big paychecks for his work in such films as "Rosemary's Baby," "Two Minute Warning," "The Fury," "Brass Target" and "The Dirty Dozen." If you’re watching it for the first time while reading this, in about an hour and a half, you’ll be astounded at what a bunch of queefs people are these days. Game respect game.
The film has a stage character named Mr. IT’S FUCKING TERRIFYING. I am a huge fan of "South Park." Mort grips Cosmo very tightly behind the neck, and growls “step outside.”. Adrenaline pounding, he catches a bus, before jumping off, and into a taxi. This has to be one of the smartest and most obscure film references of all time.

Tim Carey plays Flo. Uploaded on: August 28, 2017 Size: 267.7 KB Views: 547 License: Opened at the Columbia I and II Theaters on February 15, 1976. Cosmo hits a greasy spoon for the burgers, and the nice lady can’t understand why he’d want 12 hamburgers in a paper bag. In the mid-1970s, things were as different from now as night and day. He loses face so badly that the commodore punks him in front of everybody when he asks for “unlimited credit”, exclaiming “I never heard of such a thing.”. Until Cosmo jumps from the stage, he completely forgets about the bullet in his gut. As Flo contemplates this, a single bead of sweat rolls slowly between his eyes. Get info about new releases, essays and interviews on the Current, Top 10 lists, and sales.

That’s the level of raw talent we’re dealing with here. Cosmo gets the drop on him, and after Mort apologizes and lays on the smooth talk, senses an ambush and blows Mort away.

When he was in full flood, his work alternated with his professional acting jobs, and they clouded the picture. Imagination bore to Mr. This is the real shit. You’re a pussy, and you watch movies made for pussies by pussies. Until you see him in action, it’s difficult to convey just how compelling- and terrifying– Tim Carey is in this role. This is as hardcore as 20th century character actors ever got. As he leaves, he tells her he’s going to the club to get the money, and pay off the debt.

You won’t go back from Cassevetes. The sight of this man, this performer, this artist, holding onto the very last threads of his dignity before he shoulders his way through the beaded curtain and into the dark void backstage. At The Movies Tribute to Siskel & Ebert (2009) Final show!