Uncut Gems

My favourite film of 2017 was Good Time. Uncut Gems is the second feature film by the same dynamic duo, the Safdie brothers. Uncut Gems stars Adam Sandler. Hold on, don't stop reading. I like Adam Sandler, I by no means love Adam Sandler. He has made lots of bad films (Jack and Jill, Murder Mystery), a few funny ones (The Wedding Singer, 50 First Dates), and some good ones (The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Funny People, and Spanglish) but Sandler has never been in a great film; until now. Uncut Gems ranks as Sandler's best work. I loved this movie. What's it about? Sandler plays a jeweler who is looking for the big payoff. He is up to ears in debt, has a gambling problem, a mistress on the side, and his life is falling apart. He has a chance to turn it all around with one magical rock full of uncut gems. He has to get it sold before the mobsters close in and beat the living shit out of him. It's riveting.  
Let me take a moment and talk about John Cassavetes. If you only watch two Cassavetes films, make sure to watch A Woman Under the Influence and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Cassavetes was an independent film maker and his influence can be felt in so many films. Watch the scene in A Woman Under the Influence where Peter Falk brings his work crew home and they sit around the dinner room eating spaghetti and then watch the scene in Ridley Scott's Alien where the crew are all sitting around eating after they have come out of hypersleep - Scott is a fan of Cassavetes. Or watch the chase scene at the end of Blade Runner and then compare it to the The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
So why have I digressed into this Cassavetes rambling, you might ask? Because Uncut Gems is almost the modern version of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie. There is so much I loved about Uncut Gems, the retro 70s and 80s zeitgeist of independent film, the music, the lighting, the overlapping dialogue - it's like it was made in a different time. And yet it's completely contemporary; it even has a cameo by the Canadian group, The Weekend.
It's playing this week in Ottawa at the Mayfair. Go watch it.