Casino Blu Ray/ (1995)

Editor's Note Martin Scorsese, one of America's most influential filmmakers, returns to the world of mobsters, greed, and excess that he explored so compellingly in 1990's GOODFELLAS. Set in the 1970s and reveling in the minute details of how Las Vegas casinos operate, the film chronicles the rise and fall of casino manager Ace Rothstein (Robert De Niro). As the king of his domain, Ace efficiently runs the business and regularly sends lots of cold cash to his bosses. Helping him keep the casino's employees and customers honest is his best friend, Nicky (Joe Pesci), a violent sociopath. Although Ace aims to run a relatively respectable casino, the volatile Nicky wants to take over the entire gambling mecca, and when Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone), a seasoned Vegas hustler, enters the picture, Ace and Nicky's friendship is complicated even further. As drugs and alcohol become a bigger part of Ginger's life, all three are eventually brought down by their own greed and blind ambition. CASINO shares many similarities with GOODFELLAS, beginning with a script that was cowritten by Scorsese and Nicholas Pileggi. Regulars De Niro and Pesci are first rate once again as the dissimilar companions, but it is Stone who steals the show with her grueling, intense performance.

	Sharon Stone
	Robert De Niro
	Jerry Vale
	Dick Smothers
	Don Rickles
	Joe Pesci
	Frankie Avalon
	Kevin Pollak
	L.Q. Jones
	Steve Allen
	James Woods
	Alan King
	John Bloom
	Jayne Meadows
	Nicholas Pileggi - Screenwriter
	John Dunn - Costume Designer
	Newton Thomas Sigel - Director of Photography
	Philip Pfeiffer - Director of Photography
	Thelma Schoonmaker - Editor
	Robert Richardson - Director of Photography
	Rita Ryack - Costume Designer
	Nicholas Pileggi - Source Writer
	Dante Ferretti - Production Designer
	Martin Scorsese - Screenwriter
	Martin Scorsese - Director

Novelist Nicholas Pileggi again teams with Martin Scorsese for this epic drama about life in a casino. Robert De Niro plays Sam "Ace" Rothstein, the Jewish front man for one of the mob's premier Vegas casinos in the 1970s. Joined by strongman Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), the casino runs smoothly until an icy blonde (Sharon Stone) jinxes their winning streak. Based on real-life underworld figures Frank "Lefty" Rosenthal and Tony "the Ant" Spilotro, CASINO is another electric crime portrait by the accomplished Scorsese. Rolling Stone
"...Unmistakably the work of a virtuoso - bold, brutally funny and ferociously alive..." 12/14/1995 p.89-92

Sight and Sound
"...It serves its theme brilliantly....It constantly dazzles with visual, auditory and thematic stimuli..." 03/01/1996 p.39-40

USA Today
"...If you love impassioned cinema, it's the only way to go..." -- 3 1/2 out of 4 stars 11/22/1995 p.1D

Variety
"...An extraordinary piece of filmmaking....Sharon Stone is simply a revelation here....Technically, CASINO is virtually beyond compare..." 11/20/1995

Los Angeles Times
"...Martin Scorsese is a master filmmaker, so skilled in the manipulation of imagery he might be the most proficient of active American directors..." 11/22/1995 p.F1

Chicago Sun-Times
"...Fascinating....Scorsese tells his story with the energy and pacing he's famous for, and with a wealth of little details that feel just right..." 11/22/1995 p.41

Premiere
"...Scorsese's most complex film, a picture in which every scene is layered with context that reaches far beyond its immediate context..." 06/01/2003 p.101

Uncut
"Scorsese here delivers an epic parable about the fall from grace of people who have it all and squander it through their own recklessness..." 09/01/2005 p.144

Uncut
Ranked #6 in Uncut's Best DVDs Of 2005 -- "A delirious, visually ravishing, fiendishly intricate epic, it's almost Biblical in places." 01/01/2006 p.84-85