The Card Counter was an incredible movie, had a nightmarish aura to it stemming from those flashbacks and you see the toll it takes on a man. Oscar Isaac killed it, but so did the other two main characters.
If you have seen it, what did you think of it? I think Paul Schrader is another movie brat director having his own old age renaissance like Scorsese
man oscar isaac is in everything
bro was in the nativity story lmao
Haven't seen First Reformed yet but that's upcoming.
Really reminds me of Bresson (a usual influence)
Was it better than First Reformed? I didn't like it that much.
it had a better ending than FR
It was pretty good, frick knows what happens at the end am I right OP. make sure you've seen rounders
Has anyone read Paul Schrader's book, Transcendental style in film?
>rounders
Is that the movie based on Norm Macdonald's poker adventures?
Fits very well in that sports movie that's really about the people, along classics like The Hustler, Raging Bull, Cincinnati Kid (called out in the movie actually)
schrader releasing this movie one day before the anniversary of 9/11 is so funny
Masterpiece and one of Schrader's very best. Decidedly more late style and containing more of his quirks than First Reformed (also excellent but more palatable to the mainstream). Card Counter is the film that made me a fan of his. Master Gardener is also great as a trilogy capper but that one plays better if you've seen all the God's lonely man films Schrader has done.
To add onto this. If you're a fan of Card Counter, check out his film Light Sleeper. It's the most similar to this one in tone, style and music (the score for CC is done by the son of the composer who did LS).
LS is kino of the highest order, i concur with this anon
great dafoe and sarandon combo
I agree 100%. Got First Reformed on my drive as well. I would say the movie that made me a 'Schrader Fan' was Auto Focus, believe it or not. Schrader's movies just speak to my soul for some reason, I just feel them strongly. I have to finish Light Sleeper, idk why I stopped watching. American Gigolo is also on my watch list. Gigolo's an underrated movie in that it's one of the earliest movies in the decade to be really 80s, if that's makes sense. The fashion, the soundtrack, the empty lifestyle themes, etc. Also gotta watch Mishima, a life.
The more I think, the more incredible a filmography Schrader has managed to create for himself. He's not like a genre filmmaker per se, but makes personal films that somehow have universal appeal. Shows deeply flawed characters all yearning for connection (like Dostoyevsky and Bresson).
Dude was a great interview subject as well, very eloquent.
100% he's one of my favorite writer directors, I even like his "bad era" like The Canyons (unironically love it) and Dog Eat Dog. He's never not an interesting artist always trying new things and his best work touches my soul deeply. I just really vibe with his style.
You gotta hop on Mishima, it's his best film! I'll also recommend Affliction highly, insanely bleak but powerful.
I heard more about the making of the Canyons than the actual movie itself, but it seems like it could be interesting sleezecore regardless. I'll definitely check out Mishima, watching Light Sleeper at the moment.
Yes, he was the main villain as the contractor who taught his underlings "enhanced interrogation techniques" but escaped jail time because he was technically a consultant. Excellent performance
what a haunting look
it doesn't look haunting in the slightest, he looks like he's mentally challenged and about to start drooling at any moment
cause you don't know the context
It's not a good movie. The story, characters and aesthetics are all lacking and the former very predictable and contrived. The lack of any actual cinematographer or visual director since Schrader's always been a screenwriter who only directs so he doesn't get cucked in adaptation. He just doesn't have that flair to him anymore and has become a copy of himself. Oscar Isaac is such a vastly overestimated actor as you can tell that he's acting instead of being which is detrimental to a story that hinges on being believable. First Reformed was interesting but it felt it could've gone other places so I felt a bit blue-balled. Master Gardener was fine, nothing to write home about but nothing to scowl at either. It was serviceable and Joel Edgerton was a far more natural and enjoyable presence than Oscar Isaac or Ethan Hawke but again, it falls into the trap of being able to tell where the story's going ahead of time and the conclusion not being executed well enough to stave off the feeling of it being anticipated anyway. These man-in-a-room type of movies really benefit from the author's spontaneous and unbridled youthful experiences and vigour which Paul doesn't have anymore. If nothing else, I'd love to see more directors make such movies because they're fascinating and relatable to the average viewer. Male, of course.
>These man-in-a-room type of movies really benefit from the author's spontaneous and unbridled youthful experiences and vigour which Paul doesn't have anymore. If nothing else, I'd love to see more directors make such movies because they're fascinating and relatable to the average viewer. Male, of course.
Yeh I really agree with all that you said, I still like the movie personally. Many men really do relate to the man in the room type movies, I have no idea why.
I fear that the reason no one is attempting them anymore because they're a hard sell and it's hard to do a young, straight male story about being at odds with this society for obvious reasons. Reject the evidence of your eyes and ears, all's fine and dandy in this post-modern hellscape we call our world. How can you write Taxi Driver in 2024? Of course, Travis would hate homosexuals, blacks and transvestites but no, even if you were to please them by making it explicit that he's in the "wrong" just the idea that you want to make a movie such as this would get you kicked out of the room. This business is finished with, there is no future for movies.
Yeh but I'm sure there's ways to get something made cheaply if people passionate enough about it. There's some sites where low budget movies get shown
It's incredibly difficult and not worth the risk and time/energy on most people's account. Film is a dead medium and the gatekeeping and ESG/DEI culture around it, even worse than any other industry, has fricked it up permanently.
Why? People can shoot movies on their phones now. The editing software is easily available.
True but here's the thing. Film is an inherently midwit medium, to be truthful with you. It doesn't have to be and can rise above it but film does attract the most midwits out of any medium. To them, it's not about making movies or loving making movies, it's about being part of the culture, the clique, the "history" hence why so many people don't try at all because the barrier to entry is so impossible yet for them they'd rather not try at all than toil away with the small chance their amateur films get picked up or amount to something. I went to this film class, I made some stuff but no promises that I would make a career of off this. I get calls, I make calls, know people from there but honestly? I've gotten into novels/books more. It's just words on a paper but I feel like if you love art for art's sake, that medium is far better and won't break your heart as much film does. The barrier of entry isn't as big as film and there's not much of a guarantee you'll make a career of it but film is only getting worse and passion aside, you have to be pragmatic and considerate of your time and energy.
Sites like what? I need a place to put my low budget man in a room film
Make travis a Hispanic that hates nonwhites
make Travis a racist white man in south texas fighting human traffickers.
>Most exiting time
Literally ANY time prior to 1945 was infinitely more exiting that the best moments of all the years since then combined into a single day.
Who says that? How is this an exciting time? It's the worst time to be alive on a spiritual and human level. Kids aren't going out anymore and enjoying youth, they're all dysfunctional consumer bugmen from birth. We're living in dystopia. We should be living, for frick's sake. Women are destroyed even more by this paradigm and are destroying humanity. We all know who's fault it is, albeit.
wasnt willem dafoe in it for like 3 minutes
0 reason to watch this when Rounders exists.
>Russian has the most obvious fricking tell and no one picks up on it until Matt Damon
Shit movie.
I liked it a lot in the beginning, when he was actually card counting. Then it turned into a PTSD film about trying to babysit a moron from doing something moronic. Oscar was phenomenal as always and the pacing/directing were both great, but the movie should have been called "OCD Soldier Plays Cards to Pass the Time and Also Babysits a moron" instead of Card Counter. Because I wouldn't have watched the first movie and would have preferred to watch the second one.
What was the trauma reinactment scene at the end? Did he let Dafoe torture him back? idgi
I think it was basically like a torture Rochambeau