Uncut Gems - Misplaced Pages

Crime films , in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as drama or gangster film , but also include comedy , and, in turn, is divided into many sub-genres, such as mystery , suspense or noir .

#767232

97-692: Uncut Gems is a 2019 American crime thriller film directed by Josh and Benny Safdie , who co-wrote the screenplay with Ronald Bronstein . It stars Adam Sandler , LaKeith Stanfield , Julia Fox in her feature film debut, Kevin Garnett , Idina Menzel , and Eric Bogosian . The film tells the story of Howard Ratner (Sandler), a Jewish-American jeweler and gambling addict in New York City's Diamond District , who must retrieve an expensive gem he purchased in order to pay off his debts. Filming took place from September to November 2018. The original score

194-491: A "C+" score, as well as an average score of 2 out of 5 stars on PostTrak . Sandler's performance received critical acclaim, with some commentators calling it the best of his career. After the film debuted at Telluride, Todd McCarthy of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "Many will agree that this is Sandler's best performance, and the Safdies will finally move from the fringes of the commercial film scene to somewhere closer to

291-460: A "superpower," adding that "it was very important to make Howard a strong guy who doesn't back down." Josh Safdie explained that one of his goals was to "prov[e] that people can look beyond a flaw. ... That's why the movie is called 'Uncut Gems.' Uncut gems are rough things that are considered ugly by most people, but when you scope them out and get underneath you can find the beauty and value in them." The Jewish concept of "learning through suffering"

388-467: A Diamond District movie in 2009, influenced by their father's stories of working as a diamond salesman. Co-writer Ronald Bronstein came from a similar background, as his father worked in the Garment District . Their shared Jewish upbringing was essential to their crafting of the film. The Safdies explained that "the film is about belonging," but it is also "about cheating God." Slate called

485-416: A Hollywood feature went from $ 20,000 in 1914 to $ 300,000 in 1924. Silver and Ursini stated that the earliest crime features were by Austrian émigré director Josef von Sternberg whose films like Underworld (1927) eliminated most of the causes for criminal behavior and focused on the criminal perpetrators themselves which would anticipate the popular gangster films of the 1930s. The groundwork for

582-478: A broader category called "film type", mystery and suspense as "macro-genres", and film noir as a "screenwriter's pathway" explaining that these categories are additive rather than exclusionary. Chinatown would be an example of a film that is a drama (film type) crime film (super-genre) that is also a noir (pathway) mystery (macro-genre). The definition of what constitutes a crime film is not straightforward. Criminologist Nicole Hahn Rafter in her book Shots in

679-505: A change signaled by films like Chinatown (1974) and The Wild Bunch (1969) noting that older genres were being transformed through cultivation of nostalgia and a critique of the myths cultivated by their respective genres. Todd found that this found its way into crime films of the 1980s with films that could be labeled as post-modern , in which he felt that "genres blur, pastiche prevails, and once-fixed ideals, such as time and meaning, are subverted and destabilized". This would apply to

776-575: A conservative era. For crime films, this led to various reactions, including political films that critiqued official policies and citizen's political apathy. These included films like Missing (1982), Silkwood (1983), and No Way Out (1987). Prison films and courtroom dramas would also be politically charged with films like Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) and Cry Freedom (1987). While films about serial killers existed in earlier films such as M (1931) and Peeping Tom (1960),

873-454: A crooked shell" and portrayed gangsters who showcased the "romantic mystique of the doomed criminal." The 1940s formed an ambivalence toward the criminal heroes. Leitch suggested that this shift was from the decline in high-profile organized crime, partly because of the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 and partly because of the well-publicized success of the FBI. Unlike the crime films of the 1930s,

970-484: A film described as "crime/ action " or an "action/crime" or other hybrids was "only a semantic exercise" as both genres are important in the construction phase of the narrative. Mark Bould in A Companion to Film Noir stated that categorization of multiple generic genre labels was common in film reviews and rarely concerned with succinct descriptions that evoke elements of the film's form, content and make no claims beyond on how these elements combine. Leitch, stated that

1067-491: A locker of the Hollywood Athletic Club. The Asphalt Jungle (1950) consolidated a tendency to define criminal subculture as a mirror of American culture. The cycle of caper films were foreshadowed by films like The Killers (1946) and Criss Cross (1949) to later examples like The Killing (1956) and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959). Leitch wrote that these films used the planning and action of

SECTION 10

#1732797351768

1164-684: A mobster known as The Snapper Kid. Regeneration (1915) was an early feature-length film about a gangster who saved from a life of crime by a social worker. These two early films and films like Tod Browning 's Outside the Law (1920) that deal with the world of criminal activity were described by Silver and Ursini as being gangsters "constrained by a strong moral code". Stuart Kaminsky in American Film Genres (1974) stated that prior to Little Caesar (1931), gangster characters were in films were essentially romances . European films of

1261-535: A psychopathic personality." Drew Todd in Shots in the Mirror: Crime Films and Society described the character as different than films featuring rebellious characters from the 1940s and 1950s, with a character whose anger is directed against the state, mixed with fantasies of vigilante justice. Films like Dirty Harry , The French Connection and Straw Dogs (1971) that presented a violent vigilante as

1358-470: A remake of The Defiant Ones (1958). The cycle generally slowed down by the mid 1970s. Prison films closely followed the formulas of films of the past while having an increased level of profanity, violence and sex. Cool Hand Luke (1967) inaugurated the revival and was followed into the 1970s with films like Papillon (1973), Midnight Express (1978) and Escape from Alcatraz (1979). When Ronald Reagan became president in 1980, he ushered in

1455-413: A robbery todramatize the "irreducible unreasonableness of life." The themes of existential despair made the these film popular with European filmmakers, who would make their own heist films like Rififi (1955) and Il bidone (1955). Filmmakers of the coming French New Wave movement would expand on these crime films into complex mixtures of nostalgia and critique with later pictures like Elevator to

1552-420: A savior. By the mid-1970s, a traditional lead with good looks, brawn and bravery was replaced with characters who Todd described as a "pathological outcast, embittered and impulsively violent." Hollywood productions began courting films produced and marketed by white Americans for the purpose of trying to attract a new audience with blaxploitation film. These films were almost exclusively crime films following

1649-526: A swimming pool that needs resurfacing. Dinah is fed up with his antics and plans to divorce him after Passover . Howard is deep in debt, and owes $ 100,000 to Arno, a loan shark , among others. Although he has $ 100,000 in cash, he would rather spend the money on a 600-carat black opal from Ethiopia's Welo mine, which he smuggles to America. He gambles that he can sell the opal for as much as $ 1 million. Howard's business associate Demany brings basketball star Kevin Garnett to KMH. Garnett becomes enamored by

1746-402: Is a style of crime film that originated from two cinematic precursors: the gangster film and the gentleman thief film. The essential element in these films is the plot concentration on the commission of a single crime of great monetary significance, at least on the surface level. The narratives in these films focus on the heist being wrapped up in the execution of the crime more or at as much as

1843-423: Is different just as crime are different than horror, science fiction and period drama films. Rafter also suggested that Westerns could be considered crime films, but that this perception would only be "muddying conceptual waters." The history of the crime film before 1940 follows reflected the changing social attitudes toward crime and criminals. In the first twenty years of the 20th Century, American society

1940-414: Is massive, varied and thick — the noise of the city, a paranoid score, and sometimes you even hear the dialogue." Kevin Garnett's performance was also praised, with Brady Langmann of Esquire calling it the year's best breakout performance, and Alan Siegel writing on The Ringer that it was "one of the best acting performances by an athlete ever." According to a list compiled by Metacritic, Uncut Gems

2037-662: Is so bad on purpose just to make you all pay. That's how I get them." When nominees for the 92nd Academy Awards were announced in January 2020, Sandler did not receive a nomination. Reacting to the announcement, he congratulated Kathy Bates —his former co-star in The Waterboy (1998)—on her Best Supporting Actress nomination, and wrote: "Bad news: Sandman gets no love from the Academy. Good news: Sandman can stop wearing suits." The A.V. Club ranked Uncut Gems as

SECTION 20

#1732797351768

2134-456: Is that the diamond dealer is a symbol of the wealthy Jew. But what we see in this movie is that he’s a symbol of the working-class Jew, the desperate Jew. Maybe he’s not meaningfully working-class in terms of his place in the American economy, but he is culturally marked as working-class, and that is what’s actually embarrassing about it. — Ari Brostoff When creating the character of Howard,

2231-491: The 2019 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, and at the 57th New York Film Festival on October 12. It received a limited theatrical release in the United States on December 13, before its nationwide release on December 25. The film was released internationally on Netflix on January 31, 2020, and it began streaming on the service in the United States on May 25, 2020. The Criterion Collection acquired

2328-634: The Arri Alexa Mini camera outfitted with the same pairing of lens types. O'Kiep , South Africa doubled as the Welo mine in Ethiopia, but real Ethiopians were cast as extras. For verisimilitude, the filmmakers borrowed real footage from Garnett's NBA games, assuming that it qualified as fair use . The opening and closing sequences were inspired by the gemological photomicrography of Eduard Gübelin and Danny J. Sanchez. Daniel Lopatin composed

2425-640: The British Board of Film Censors or conveyed mostly through narration. Box-office receipts began to grow stronger towards the late 1960s. Hollywood's demise of the Hays Code standards would allow for further violent, risqué and gory films. As college students at the University of Berkeley and University of Columbia demonstrated against racial injustice and the Vietnam, Hollywood generally ignored

2522-503: The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1935), promoted bigger budgets and wider press for his organization and himself through a well-publicized crusade against such real world gangsters as Machine Gun Kelly , Pretty Boy Floyd and John Dillinger . Hoover's fictionalized exploits were glorified in future films such as G Men (1935). Through the 1930s, American films view of criminals were predominantly glamorized, but as

2619-880: The Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals, four games to one, which was exactly the same count the Knicks lost to the Lakers a year earlier . To date this is the last Knicks' championship. This is also the Knicks' last season with a Finals appearance until 1993–94 , 21 years later. Besides being the last Knicks team to win a championship, the team is also remembered for the deep roster of future Hall of Fame players, which included Dave DeBusschere , Walt "Clyde" Frazier , Jerry Lucas , Earl "The Pearl" Monroe , Willis Reed , Future U.S. Senator Bill Bradley , and future Hall of Fame coach Phil Jackson . In fact, as of 2023,

2716-1045: The Western film as they lack both the instantly recognizable or the unique intent of other genres such as parody films. Leitch and Rafter both write that it would be impractical to call every film in which a crime produces the central dramatic situation a crime film. Leitch gave an example that most Westerns from The Great Train Robbery (1903) to Unforgiven (1992) often have narratives about crime and punishment, but are not generally described as crime films. Films with crime-and-punishment themes like Winchester 73 (1950) and Rancho Notorious (1952) are classified as Westerns rather than crime films because their setting takes precedence over their story. Alain Silver and James Ursini argued in A Companion to Crime Fiction (2020) that "unquestionably most Western films are crime films" but that that their overriding generic identification

2813-495: The gangster film as both a genre on its own terms and a subgenre of the crime film. In these films, the gangster and their values have been imbedded through decades of reiteration and revision, generally with a masculine style where an elaboration on a codes of behavior by acts of decisive violence are central concerns. The archetypal gangster film was the Hollywood production Little Caesar (1931). A moral panic followed

2910-410: The '70s." Radheyan Simonpillai of Now commented that "there's so much propulsive, forward momentum even when the characters never get anywhere." In her round-up of the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival , Wendy Ide of The Guardian ranked Uncut Gems as one of the best films of the year, calling it "Audacious, thrilling and exhausting", describing Sandler's "remarkable performance" as one of

3007-612: The 1940s films were based more on fictional tales with gangsters played by Paul Muni in Angel on My Shoulder (1946) and Cagney in White Heat (1949) were self-consciously anachronistic. Filmmakers from this period were fleeing Europe due to the rise of Nazism. These directors such as Fritz Lang , Robert Siodmak , and Billy Wilder would make crime films in the late 1930s and 1940s that were later described as film noir by French critics. Several films from 1944 like The Woman in

Uncut Gems - Misplaced Pages Continue

3201-689: The 1980s had an emphasis on the serial nature of their crimes with a larger number of films focusing on the repetitive nature of some murders. While many of these films were teen-oriented pictures, they also included films like Dressed to Kill (1980) and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986) and continued into the 2000s with films like Seven (1995), Kiss the Girls (1997), and American Psycho (2000). In an article by John G. Cawelti titled " Chinatown and Generic Transformations in Recent American Films" (1979), Cawleti noticed

3298-652: The 1990s with films like Wild at Heart (1990). Quentin Tarantino would continue this trend in the 1990s with films where violence and crime is treated lightly such as Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Natural Born Killers (1994) while Lynch and the Coens would continue with Fargo (1996) and Lost Highway (1997). Other directors such as Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet would continue to more traditional crime films Goodfellas , Prince of

3395-409: The 92nd-best film of the 2010s. The film did not receive a vote in the 2022 Sight and Sound poll of the greatest films of all time. Following the vote, the website They Shoot Pictures, Don't They? polled 839 voters (including 75 Sight and Sound voters) for the best film that did not receive a vote, and Uncut Gems ranked fourth, behind Her , Rififi , and L.A. Confidential . Uncut Gems

3492-442: The American crime film which began rejecting linear storytelling and distinctions between right and wrong with works from directors like Brian de Palma with Dressed to Kill and Scarface and works from The Coen Brothers and David Lynch whose had Todd described as having "stylized yet gritty and dryly humorous pictures evoking dream states" with films like Blood Simple (1984) and Blue Velvet (1986) and would continue into

3589-522: The City (1980), Q & A (1990), and Casino (1995). Other trends of the 1990s extended boundaries of crime films, ranging from main characters who were female or minorities with films like Thelma and Louise (1991), Swoon (1991), Devil in a Blue Dress (1995), Bound (1996) and Dolores Claiborne (1996). Every genre is a subgenre of a wider genre from whose contexts its own conventions take their meaning, it makes sense to think of

3686-794: The Gallows (1958), Breathless (1960) and Shoot the Piano Player (1960). Following the classical noir period of 1940 to 1958, a return to the violence of the two previous decades. By 1960, film was losing popularity to television as the mass form of media entertainment. Despite To The crime film countered this by providing material no acceptable for television, first with a higher level of onscreen violence. Films like Psycho (1960) and Black Sunday (1960) marked an increase in onscreen violence in film. Prior to these films, violence and gorier scenes were cut in Hammer film productions by

3783-489: The Middle Ages, when ... [Jews'] only way of accruing status as an individual, as a person who was considered a human being, was through material consumption." Production designer Sam Lisenco worked with the Safdies to draw a picture of a new-money striver who, despite his wealth, retains the trashy tastes of his childhood. Lisenco noted that Howard insists on buying expensive-but-dated items that he could not afford when he

3880-660: The Mirror: Crime Films and Society (2006) found that film scholars had a traditional reluctance to examine the topic of crime films in their entirety due to complex nature of the topic. Carlos Clarens in his book Crime Movies (1980), described the crime film as a symbolic representation of criminals, law, and society. Clarens continued that they describe what is culturally and morally abnormal and differ from thriller films which he wrote as being more concerned with psychological and private situations. Thomas Schatz in Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and

3977-425: The Safdies announced that Scott Rudin , Eli Bush , and Sebastian Bear-McClard would produce the film, and A24 would distribute it. Netflix acquired the international distribution rights. The Safdies initially approached Adam Sandler to star in 2010 and 2015, but Sandler's manager rejected the script before Sandler got a chance to read it. Once Scorsese agreed to executive produce the film, actors started taking

Uncut Gems - Misplaced Pages Continue

4074-514: The Safdies were heavily influenced by Jewish humor and actors from the 20th century. Howard has been likened to a schlimazel , a stock Jewish humor character marked by his poor luck, or a schlemiel , marked by his ineptitude and clumsiness, although the Village Voice 's J. Hoberman argued that Howard's shamelessness precludes the latter comparison. Indeed, the Safdies wanted Howard to encompass Jewish stereotypes proudly and to treat them as

4171-516: The Studio System (1981) does not refer to the concept of crime film as a genre, and says that "such seemingly similar "urban crime" formulas" such as the gangster film and detective film were their own unique forms. Thomas Leitch, author of Crime Films (2004) stated that the crime film presents their defining subject as a crime culture that normalizes a place where crime is both shockingly disruptive and completely normal. Rafter suggested

4268-461: The Window , Laura , Murder, My Sweet and Double Indemnity ushered in this film cycle. These works continued into the mid-1950s. A reaction to film noir came with films with a more semi-documentary approach pioneered by the thriller The House on 92nd Street (1945). This led to crime films taking a more realistic approach like Kiss of Death (1947) and The Naked City (1948). By

4365-403: The auction manager and a Celtics staff member, respectively. Celtics head coach Doc Rivers wrote and delivered a voiceover pep talk for the film. Pom Klementieff has a brief cameo as Lexis, a friend of Julia who greets Howard outside his Manhattan apartment during the opening credits. Josh Ostrovsky has a cameo during Howard's Passover dinner. Josh and Benny Safdie came up with the idea of

4462-606: The best of his career. The film was chosen by the National Board of Review as one of the top ten films of 2019 . In May 2012, Howard Ratner runs the KMH jewelry store in New York City's Diamond District . Although Howard has a well-paying job, his habits are even more expensive. He has a gambling addiction , a fancy house on Long Island for his wife Dinah, a pied-à-terre apartment in Manhattan for his mistress Julia, and

4559-613: The best performances of the year, and praising the cinematography. Justin Chang of the Los Angeles Times said: "Directed with relentless tension and diamond-hard intelligence by Josh and Benny Safdie (who earlier this month won directing honors from the New York Film Critics Circle ), Uncut Gems is a thriller and a character study, a tragedy and a blast." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian called

4656-486: The best way to skirt complexities of various films that may be defined as crime films as works that focus primarily on crime and its consequences, and that they should be viewed as a category that encompasses a number genres, ranging from caper films , detective films, gangster films, cop and prison films and courtroom dramas. She said that like drama and romance film, they are umbrella terms that cover several smaller more coherent groups. The criminal acts in every film in

4753-459: The bet, Arno, Phil, and Nico visit KMH to threaten Howard. Howard recruits Julia to sneak out the cash and place the bet at the Mohegan Sun casino. He then traps the loan sharks inside the store's security mantrap and forces them to watch the game with him. Garnett comes through again, earning Howard $ 1.2 million. Ecstatic, Howard frees Arno and his men, but an enraged Phil shoots Howard in

4850-601: The box office. The success of the film and its sequel The Godfather Part II (1974) reinforced the stature of the gangster film genre, which continued into the 1990s with films Scarface (1983), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Untouchables (1987), Goodfellas (1990) and Donnie Brasco (1997). Dirty Harry (1971) create a new form of police film, where Clint Eastwood 's performance as Inspector Callahan which critic Pauline Kael described as an "emotionless hero, who lives and kills as affectlessly as

4947-483: The center." Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave the film a grade of "A", calling it "a riveting high-wire act, pairing cosmic visuals with the gritty energy of a dark psychological thriller and sudden bursts of frantic comedy". Jake Cole of Slant Magazine gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, writing: "As in Good Time , Uncut Gems finds the Safdies working in a genre rooted in the grimy, character-oriented crime films of

SECTION 50

#1732797351768

5044-431: The character of Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle who Leitch described as a "tireless, brutal, vicious and indifferent" in terms of constraints of the law and his commanding officers. The film won several Academy Awards and was successful in the box office. This was followed in critical and commercial success of The Godfather (1972) which also won a Best Picture Academy Award and performed even better than The French Connection in

5141-429: The continual breakdown and re-establishment of borders among criminals, crime solvers and victims, concluding that "this paradox is at the heart of all crime films." Rafter echoed these statements, saying crime films should be defined on the basis of their relationship with society. Leitch writes that crime films reinforce popular social beliefs of their audience, such as the road to hell is paved with good intentions ,

5238-412: The crime film was following changing attitudes towards the law and the social order that criminals metaphorically reflect while most film were also no more explicitly violent or explicitly sexual than those of 1934. White Heat (1949) inaugurated a cycle of crime films that would deal with the omnipresent danger of the nuclear bomb with its theme of when being threatened with technological nightmares,

5335-554: The criminal psychology and are characterized by and emphasis on the crime unfolding often though montage and extended sequences. The genre is sometimes used interchangeable with the term "caper". The term was used for the more dramatic films of the 1950s, while in the 1960s, it had stronger elements of romantic comedy with more playful elements as seen in films like The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Topkapi (1964). Leitch described combining genres as problematic. Screenwriter and academic Jule Selbo expanded on this, describing

5432-680: The decade ended, the attitudes Hollywood productions had towards fictional criminals grew less straightforward and more conflicted. In 1935, Humphrey Bogart played Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role Leitch described as the "first of Hollywood's overtly metaphorical gangsters." Bogart would appear in films in the later thirties: Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and The Roaring Twenties (1939). Unlike actor James Cagney , whose appeal as described by Leitch "direct, physical, and extroverted", Bogart characters and acting suggested "depths of worldly disillusionment beneath

5529-401: The end of the decade, American critics such as Parker Tyler and Robert Warshow regarded Hollywood itself as a stage for repressed American cultural anxieties following World War II. This can be seen in films such as Brute Force , a prison film where the prison is an existential social metaphor for a what Leitch described as a "meaningless, tragically unjust round of activities." By 1950,

5626-451: The face, killing him instantly. Arno is appalled at the murder and tries to escape, but Phil shoots him and begins looting the store with Nico. Julia collects Howard's winnings, while Dinah calls the police, suspecting something is amiss. John Amos , Ca$ h Out , and Trinidad James appear as themselves, with Amos appearing as Howard's neighbor and the others as acquaintances of Demany. Tilda Swinton and Natasha Lyonne have vocal cameos as

5723-462: The film "a cinema of pure energy and grungy voltage, and the Safdies make it look very easy. This will be the year's most exciting film." The soundtrack and sound editing were acclaimed. Jon Caramanica of the New York Times wrote that "there is no opportunity for sonic escape in 'Uncut Gems,' a film that often sounds like it is itself taking in three movies at once. The thrum of the thing

5820-461: The film "the most Jewish movie in years." IndieWire 's David Ehrlich quipped that " Uncut Gems is the movie that Jews were promised in the Torah. Uncut Gems is gonna be the theme of my son's bar mitzvah." The question that everyone had about this movie before it even came out is whether it’s antisemitic to make a movie about a crooked Jewish diamond dealer. The assumption built into that question

5917-559: The film more seriously. Jonah Hill was cast as Howard in May 2017, but dropped out to direct Mid90s . In April 2018, Sandler finally agreed to play Howard after watching the Safdies' film Good Time . Other actors considered for the role included Sacha Baron Cohen and Harvey Keitel . Eric Bogosian , Judd Hirsch , LaKeith Stanfield , and Idina Menzel joined the project in August and September 2018. Three hundred actresses auditioned for

SECTION 60

#1732797351768

6014-501: The film's original score . He also recorded several songs with the Weeknd for the film, but they went unused; however, he has production credits on the Weeknd's 2020 album, After Hours . A soundtrack album of Lopatin's music for the film was released on December 13, 2019, on CD , vinyl , and digital streaming services. Uncut Gems had its world premiere at the 46th Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2019. It later screened at

6111-448: The film, but he was forced to drop out when the Safdies moved filming to the basketball season. The Safdies began to look at retired players, and settled on Garnett, even though Garnett's Celtics and the Knicks have a historic rivalry . In October 2018, it was revealed that the Weeknd , Trinidad James , and Pom Klementieff had joined the cast. The Weeknd specifically requested to play the role as an egotistical punk, admitting that that

6208-748: The game on the day that Bryant broke the Madison Square Garden single-game scoring record. However, Bryant's agent said that Bryant was only interested in directing. They were also drawn to Stoudemire due to his joint black and Jewish heritage, as well as his years starring with the New York Knicks , the Safdies' favorite basketball team. (Josh Safdie joked that "There's a strong correlation with Judaism and Knicks basketball ... it has to do with suffering and trying to understand your life.") However, Stoudemire refused to shave his head to mirror his Knicks-era look. Embiid initially agreed to join

6305-536: The gangster films of the early 1930s were influenced by the early 1920s when cheap wood-pulp paper stocks led to an explosion in mass-market publishing. Newspapers would make folk heroes of bootleggers like Al Capone , while pulp magazines like Black Mask (1920) helped support more highbrow magazines such as The Smart Set which published stories of hard-edged detetives like Carroll John Daly 's Race Williams. The early wave of gangster films borrowed liberally from stories for early Hollywood productions that defined

6402-466: The genre has been popular since the dawn of the sound era of film. Ursini and Silver said that unlike the Western, the horror film, or the war film, the popularity of crime cinema has never waned. 1972%E2%80%9373 New York Knicks season The 1972–73 New York Knicks season was the 27th season of NBA basketball in New York City. The Knicks captured their second NBA title as they defeated

6499-412: The genre represents a larger critique of either social or institutional order from the perspective of a character or from the film's narrative at large. The films also depend on the audience ambivalence towards crime. Master criminals are portrayed as immoral but glamourous while maverick police officers break the law to capture criminals. Leitch defined this as a critical to the film as the films are about

6596-566: The genre with films like Little Caesar (1931), The Public Enemy (1931), and Scarface (1932). In comparison to much earlier films of the silent era, Leitch described the 1930s cycle as turning "the bighearted crook silent films had considered ripe for redemption into a remorseless killer." Hollywood Studio heads were under such constant pressure from public-interest groups to tone down their portrayal of professional criminals that as early as 1931. Jack L. Warner announced that Warner Bros. would stop producing such films. Scarface itself

6693-526: The growing rage against the establishment spilled into portrayal police themselves with films like Bullitt (1968) about a police officer caught between mob killers and ruthless politicians while In the Heat of the Night (1967) which called for racial equality and became the first crime film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture . The French Connection (1971) dispensed Bullitt ' s noble hero for

6790-740: The industry and the high-stress setting, although various workers noted that certain aspects of Howard's character were exaggerated for dramatic effect, including his gambling addiction, his large debts, and his willingness to evade anti-smuggling laws. Several real-life industry figures received cameos in the film. Crime thriller film Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identified crime film as one of eleven super-genres in his Screenwriters Taxonomy , claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres. The other ten super-genres are action, fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, slice of life, sports, thriller, war and western. Williams identifies drama in

6887-445: The law is above individuals, and that crime does not pay. The genre also generally has endings that confirm the moral absolutes that an innocent victim, a menacing criminal, and detective and their own morals that inspire them by questioning their heroic or pathetic status, their moral authority of the justice system, or by presenting innocent characters who seem guilty and vice-versa. Crime films includes all films that focus on any of

6984-498: The main gangster Jody Jarrett fights fire with fire. These themes extended into two other major crime films by bring the issues down from global to the subcultural level: The Big Heat (1953) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955) which use apocalyptical imagery to indicate danger with the first film which the film persistently links to images of catastrophically uncontrolled power and the "traumatic consequences" of nuclear holocaust and Kiss Me Deadly literally features an atom bomb waiting in

7081-405: The only or first gangster film following the fall of the production code, The Godfather (1972) was the most popular and launched a major revival of the style. The film followed the themes of the genres past while adding new emphasis on the intricate world of the mafia and its scale and seriousness that established new parameters for the genre. The heist film, also known as the "big caper" film

7178-404: The opal and believes it will bring him good luck at his playoff game that night . He promises to give the opal back that night, giving Howard his 2008 NBA Championship ring as collateral. Howard quickly pawns the ring to feed his gambling addiction. He places a degenerate six-way parlay worth $ 600,000, betting that Garnett will play well. Garnett dominates. However, he angers Howard by keeping

7275-434: The opal, only to find that Garnett still has it. Howard catches Julia with the Weeknd in the club bathroom and believes they were having sex. He fights the Weeknd and orders Julia to leave his apartment. After an awkward Passover family dinner, where it is revealed that Arno is Howard's brother-in-law, Dinah rejects Howard's plea to give their marriage another chance. Garnett returns the opal to Howard and resolves to buy it at

7372-414: The opal. The following evening, Howard is ambushed at his daughter's school play by Arno and his hired goons, Phil and Nico. Arno tells him that he stopped the bet and lectures him about his reckless spending. The loan sharks strip Howard naked and lock him in the trunk of his car, forcing him to call Dinah for help. Howard meets Demany at a nightclub party hosted by R&B singer the Weeknd to retrieve

7469-450: The price. Gooey bids up Garnett to $ 180,000, but Howard greedily pushes for more, prompting Garnett to back out. Enraged by Howard's bungling, Arno, Phil, and Nico assault him outside the auction house. Howard returns to KMH, bloody, hopeless, and in tears. Julia comforts him and they reconcile. He retrieves Garnett's ring from the pawn shop but is late, and forced to exchange his prized 1973 Knicks ring for it. Garnett visits KMH to pick up

7566-434: The release of the early gangster films following Little Caesar , which led to the 1935 Production Code Administration in 1935 ending its first major cycle. As early as 1939, the traditional gangster was already a nostalgic figure as seen in films like The Roaring Twenties (1939). American productions about career criminals became possible through the relaxation of the code in the 1950s and its abolition in 1966. While not

7663-470: The rights to distribute the film on home video, and issued a physical release in 2021. Although Criterion normally re-releases classic films, it sometimes acquires contemporary works. The Safdie brothers rented and ripped Criterion discs from Netflix growing up; Josh Safdie said that being acquired by Criterion felt like sneaking into a museum. The first weekend of its limited release, the film made $ 537,242 from five theaters; its per-venue average of $ 107,448

7760-412: The ring and confront Howard about his auction scheme. Howard explains that he has an emotional need to chase the next big score. He is already planning his next big bet, and uses the confrontation to motivate Garnett to dominate the next game. Garnett pays Howard $ 165,000 for the opal, but once again, Howard gambles the money on a speculative Garnett-focused parlay instead of clearing his debts. To prevent

7857-500: The role of Julia, and the names of Lady Gaga , Jennifer Lawrence , Scarlett Johansson , and Kim Kardashian were thrown around; but the role eventually went to Julia Fox . For the role of the basketball player, Kevin Garnett was cast in September 2018. Kobe Bryant , Amar'e Stoudemire , and Joel Embiid were also considered for Garnett's role. The Safdies had originally written the part with Bryant in mind, and planned to focus

7954-536: The silent era differed radically from the Hollywood productions, reflecting the post-World War I continental culture. Drew Todd wrote that with this, Europeans tended to create darker stories and the audiences of these films were readier to accept these narratives. Several European silent films go much further in exploring the mystique of the criminal figures. These followed the success in France of Louis Feuillade 's film serial Fantômas (1913). The average budget for

8051-490: The site's "critics consensus" reads: " Uncut Gems reaffirms the Safdies as masters of anxiety-inducing cinema—and proves Adam Sandler remains a formidable dramatic actor when given the right material." On Metacritic , the film has a weighted average score of 93 out of 100 based on reviews by 56 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore during the film's limited release gave it an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale; upon going wide, it earned

8148-410: The success of Shaft (1971) which led to studios rushing to follow it's popularity with films like Super Fly (1972), Black Caesar (1973), Coffy (1973) and The Black Godfather (1974) The films were often derivations of earlier films such as Cool Breeze (1972), a remake of The Asphalt Jungle , Hit Man (1972) a remake of Get Carter (1971), and Black Mama, White Mama (1973)

8245-407: The three parties to a crime: criminal, victims, and avengers and explores what one party's relation to the other two. This allows the crime film to encompass films as wide as Wall Street (1987); caper films like The Asphalt Jungle (1950); and prison films ranging from Brute Force (1947) to The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Crime films are not definable by their mise-en-scene such as

8342-412: The upcoming auction. He asks for his ring back, but Howard lies that he left it at home. Later, Howard berates Demany for allowing Garnett to hold onto the opal for so long. Enraged, Demany trashes Howard's office. The auction house shocks Howard by valuing the opal at just $ 155,000. To salvage the situation, Howard tries to scam Garnett by recruiting his father-in-law Gooey to submit fake bids to drive up

8439-450: The war in narratives, with exceptions of film like The Green Berets (1968). The crime film Bonnie and Clyde (1967) revived the gangster film genre and captured the antiestablishment tone and set new standards for onscreen violence in film with its themes of demonizing American institution to attack the moral injustice of draft. This increase of violence was reflected in other crime films such as Point Blank (1967). Leitch found

8536-503: Was a large influence on developing the visual language and camera work in the Pixar film Inside Out 2 , and many of its elements were used in the film. The film's main characters are personifications of the feelings of Riley, a teenage girl, and Uncut Gems influenced the framing of Anxiety's scenes, particularly when Anxiety takes charge of Riley's brain. The film received praise from Diamond District workers for its accurate portrayal of

8633-602: Was also important for the character throughout the story. In a round-table hosted by Jewish Currents , David Klion argued that "the overriding effect that the movie seems to have on virtually everyone who sees it is one of intense anxiety, which feels like a very Jewish theme." Arielle Angel noted that Howard embodies a combination of "insecurity plus power," and that Howard's Jewishness leaves him "white enough to have access," while still leaving him "with this immigrant hustler mentality." The Safdies designed Howard's character to channel Jewish "stereotypes that were forced onto us in

8730-519: Was composed by Daniel Lopatin . Uncut Gems is the last film directed by the Safdie brothers before dissolving their partnership in 2024. The film premiered at the 46th Telluride Film Festival on August 30, 2019. A24 gave it a limited release in the United States on December 13, 2019, and a wide release on December 25. Uncut Gems was a box office success and received acclaim, especially for Sandler's performance, which several reviewers described as

8827-532: Was delayed for over a year as its director Howard Hughes talked with the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America 's Production Code Office over the films violence and overtones of incest. A new wave of crime films that began in 1934 were made that had law enforcers as glamourous and as charismatic as the criminals. J. Edgar Hoover , director the Bureau of Investigation (renamed

8924-483: Was during the weekend-proper), finishing sixth at the box office. In its second weekend of wide release, the film made $ 7.5 million, finishing eighth at the box office. By the end of its theatrical run, the film had earned $ 50 million, and it was A24's highest-grossing film domestically until it was surpassed by Everything Everywhere All at Once in May 2022. On Rotten Tomatoes , the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 351 reviews, with an average score of 8.4/10;

9021-467: Was how he treated people in 2012. Klementieff's scenes, apart from a brief cameo during the opening credits, were removed from the final film. Principal photography began on September 25, 2018, in New York City , and concluded on November 15. The film was shot by Darius Khondji , primarily on 35 mm film , using vintage anamorphic prime and long zoom lenses. Night sequences were filmed using

9118-664: Was included on the fifth-most year-end "Top Ten" lists of the best films of 2019 that were published by major film critics and publications. Critics and commentators considered Sandler to be a viable contender to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in Uncut Gems . During a December 2019 interview with Howard Stern , Sandler jokingly promised to make the "worst movie ever" if he did not win an Oscar for Uncut Gems , saying: "If I don't get it, I'm going to ... come back and do one again that

9215-464: Was the highest ever for A24 and the second-best of any film released in 2019. It made $ 241,431 its second weekend in theaters. The film made $ 5.9 million on the first day of its wide release (including $ 1.1 million from previews on Christmas Eve), which was the highest single-day gross in A24's history. It went on to make a total of $ 18.5 million over the five-day long holiday weekend ($ 9.6 million of which

9312-400: Was under intense social reform with cities rapidly expanding and leading to social unrest and street crime rising and some people forming criminal gangs. In this early silent film period, criminals were more prominent on film screens than enforcers of the law. Among these early films from the period is D.W. Griffith 's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) involving a young woman hounded by

9409-592: Was younger, like the Sony Trinitron television in his Manhattan apartment, floor-to-ceiling mirrors, and large fish tanks. The Ringer 's Katie Baker described the overall effect as "a study in tacky midtownish entropy." In May 2016, it was announced that the Safdies were going to direct the film from a screenplay they wrote alongside Bronstein, and that the Safdies' company Elara Pictures and RT Features would produce, with Emma Tillinger Koskoff and Martin Scorsese serving as executive producers. In May 2017,

#767232