Mississippi Grind (2015):
Ben Mendelsohn is the fucking bomb. There are few actors for whom I can watch anything: Bobby De Niro, Gary Oldman, et al and Ben has made his way on that list.
This guy is just brilliant and elevates the material all around him. He even brought out a pretty great actor in Ryan Reynolds.
The movie is about gambling, second chances, hitting the reset button on life, and these are well treaded territories. The movie doesn't have a lot of new stuff to offer, but it does have a great atmosphere and terrific performances, which is a good sell.
Plus, Ben fuckin' Mendelsohn!!!
7.5/10
Watching the Detectives (2007):
A film made by movie nerds for movie nerds. Luckily I am a movie nerd. I loved the references and all the love for 'pictures', as Marty calls them. The plot was a little thin, would have made for a nice sitcom episode, like Bored to Death but it was a fun movie, nonetheless. 7/10
Cop Land (1997):
This is a terribly impressive cast and Stallone gives a very layered performance. The story was pretty good but the pacing lacked a bit, and there were one too many sub plots going on. Despite all that, I enjoyed the movie a lot, mainly because of the great cast.
Ray Liotta, Harvey Keitel and the great Bobby De Niro, it appears that these three are in a lesser Marty Scorsese movie here, and that is not a bad thing.
I watched this after reading about the behind the scenes antics between James Mangold and Harvey Scissorhands in Down and Dirty Pictures. Incidentally, Mangold married his producer of this movie. So he came out a winner, I guess.
8/10