Don’t Splash The Pot

Owning Mahonwy (2003)- Yump

• Directed by Richard Kwietniowski
  • Love and Death on Long Island
• Starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Minnie Driver, John Hurt, Maury Chaykin and Ian Tracy
• Budget of 10 million and a 1 million box office
• Trivia
  • The real person, on which the character of Dan Mahowny is based, is now a consultant for a company that investigates fraud.
  • The character’s name was changed to Dan Mahowny, in part because his real name (Brian Molony) was very similar to the name of the Canadian Prime Minister at the time (Brian Mulroney).
  • Owning Mahowny is based on a real-life incident: Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce clerk Brian Molony embezzled over $10 million from his employers in just 18 months to support his gambling habit. Molony’s story was told in the best-selling 1987 book Stung by journalist Gary Ross, which formed the basis for the screenplay.
  • While this is not a remake, The Borrower (1984) was based on the same true story.
  • Number 7 on Roger Ebert’s ten best films of 2003

Easy Money (1983) – Chorizy

• Directed by James Signorelli
  • Elvira: Mistress of the Dark
  • Rolling Stones Mixed Emotions Music Video
  • Producer of SNL
• Starring Rodney Dangerfield, Joe Pesci, Candy Azzara, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Geraldine Fizgerald
• Box office of 29.3 million with an unknown budget
• Trivia
  • Rodney Dangerfield’s first leading role in a movie.
  • Gene Siskel gave it 3 out of 4 Stars
  • Rodney Dangerfield has stated that the part of Monty Capiletti was the closest to his real-life persona.
  • During the scene where Rodney Dangerfield is watching television and flipping channels, you can hear “All we need is one pin, Rodney!” which is from a Miller Lite beer commercial starring Dangerfield.
  • Bill Murray was originally cast in the role of Paddy, but dropped out with the part in the end being cast with Tom Noonan.
  • The last names of the “Capuletti” family characters, headed by “Monty Capuletti” a.k.a. “Montgomery Capuletti” (Rodney Dangerfield), and the Monahan family, headed by Mrs. Monahan (Geraldine Fitzgerald), were a spoof and a reference to the names of the two feuding families in William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, the Montagues and the Capulets. Easy Money (1983)’s story-line features familial conflict between Monty and his mother-in-law.
  • This put a stop to National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983) three-week run at the top of the US box office.
  • The picture was notable for featuring a title song track of the same name sung by Billy Joel. The tune bookends the movie, is heard in the film’s trailer, and was included on Joel’s 1983 album “An Innocent Man”. The “Easy Money” song, according to an interview with Joel, is an homage to James Brown and Wilson Pickett.
  • Joe Pesci’s first role in a comedy.
  • The first movie that actor-comedian Rodney Dangerfield was seen in after his breakthrough movie role in Caddyshack (1980).
  • The movie was the “first major starring role of Rodney Dangerfield” according to the Australian DVD sleeve notes, while similarly, film critic Leonard Maltin has commented that the film was “Dangerfield’s first starring comedy vehicle.”
  • The conditions of the will, to which Monty Capuletti (Rodney Dangerfield) had to adhere for one year, were No Smoking, No Philandering, No Gambling, No Drugs, No Alcohol, and that he must weigh no more than 175 pounds, which was interpreted as No Overeating. Movie posters for the film stated conditions not actually mentioned in the film. These were No Cheating, No Booze (substituting for No Alcohol), No Nothin’, and No Pizza, though the latter did relate to the weight clause. Jokingly, a class action from public paying audiences against the film’s marketers for false advertising could have eventuated.
  • Catherine Scorsese is uncredited as Nicky (Joe Pesci) mother. She is seen sitting next to him during the wedding scene. She plays Joe Pesci mother a few years later in Goodfellas.

The Color of Money (1986) – Svo

• Directed by Martin Scorsese
  • Goodfellas
  • Casino
  • The Departed
  • The Last Temptation of Christ
• Starring Paul Newman, Tom Cruise, and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio
• Budget of 14.5 million and a Box office of 52.3 million
• Trivia
  • Paul Newman won an Oscar for Best Actor
  • Absent from the film is the character Minnesota Fats, played by Jackie Gleason in The Hustler. Newman later said that he had wanted the character to appear, but that none of the attempts to include him fit well into the story that was being written. According to Scorsese, Gleason apparently agreed with Newman’s opinion that Minnesota Fats was not essential to the film’s story. Scorsese said that Gleason was presented a draft of the script that had Fats worked into the narrative, but that upon reading it, Gleason declined to reprise the role because he felt that the character seemed to have been added as “an afterthought”
  • Tom Cruise did his own trick shots for the film, except for one in which he had to jump two balls to sink another. Martin Scorsese said he could have let Cruise learn the shot, but it would have taken two extra days of practice, holding up production and costing thousands of dollars. The shot was instead performed by professional players Andrew Ghiatsidis & Michael Sigel.
  • Martin Scorsese has said that this is the only film he has directed that came in under schedule and under budget.
  • Iggy Pop makes an appearance as one of the players on the road (the skinny young man wearing a white t-shirt).
  • Martin Scorsese has said he mainly did this at the insistence of Paul Newman and to prove that he could make a mainstream studio picture that would be finished on time and under budget. He felt that, despite his minimal input, that it was not a personal picture and he was more or less a “hired gun” on this.
  • When The Hustler (1961) first came out, there was an increase in the sales of pool tables around 1961, the film apparently causing a popularizing of the pastimes of pool playing and billiards. When this sequel was first released, a similar phenomenon occurred, trade paper ‘Variety’ reporting, “…sales of pool tables and billiards-related supplies have leaped dramatically since the October release of The Color of Money (1986).
  • The Illinois Billiard Club (since relocated from Chicago to Willow Springs) was the original club where most of the pool took place. It still has two tables that were used in the film. Table number 2 located inside the private club is where Forest Whitaker made his debut. The club has signed photos from the director and cast.
  • The film cast includes three Oscar winners: Paul Newman, Forest Whitaker and Martin Scorsese, who has a cameo in the film, and three Oscar nominees: Tom Cruise, Richard Price and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.
  • The only Scorsese film Roger Ebert did not review favorably.
  • The guy sitting at the bar in the hustle where Eddie is feeling up Carmen is played by Ron Dean. Eventually, Dean played Uncle Pat, Tom Cruise’s uncle, in Cocktail (1988).
  • The first pool hall to which Eddie, Vincent, and Carmen go is above the Lincoln Tap Room on the north side of Chicago. As of February 2015, the bar is still open and now directly across from a Church of Scientology. They park and walk past where the church is now located. It’s a strange coincidence since Tom Cruise is closely associated with Scientology.
  • Martin Scorsese: In the Atlantic City casino, the man walking a dog on a leash. The dog is Scorsese’s dog Zoe. Zoe is credited in the closing credits as “Dog Walkby.”

Diggstown (1992) – Beef

• Directed by Michael Ritchie
  • The Golden Child
  • Cool Runnings
  • The Scout
  • Fletch
  • Wildcats
  • Drive Madness
  • Bad news Bears
• Written by Steven McCay
  • Wrote Darkman 2
  • Hard to Kill
• Starring James Woods, Louis Gosset Jr, Bruce Dern, Heather Graham, and Oliver Platt.
• Budget of 17 million and a 4.8 million box office
• Trivia
  • Benny Urquidez (the referee) is a kickboxing world champion.
  • Heather Graham and James Woods briefly dated during the making of this movie, despite Woods being almost twice her age.
  • Bruce Dern, an avid sports gambler, has two sports he won’t bet on: boxing and horse racing.
  • One of ten blockbuster sports related films that were released in 1992 which included: Gladiator (1992)(which is also a boxing movie), The Babe (1992), White Men Can’t Jump (1992), A League of Their Own (1992), The Mighty Ducks (1992), Mr. Baseball (1992), A River Runs Through It (1992), Wind (1992), and The Cutting Edge (1992). The tenth one would’ve been Sidekicks (1992), but was delayed and released in April 1993 despite being completed and scheduled for release in 1992. This movie and The Cutting Edge (1992) were released by MGM.
  • The bet made originally by John Gillon (Bruce Dern) to Fitz (Oliver Platt) was $10,000 versus $100,000, but before the time the movie ended, Gabriel Caine’s (James Woods’) bet to Gillon was fifteen times as much, at $1.5 million, which doesn’t include the town of Diggstown, and if it was, it would be more than the final wager that Caine made with Gillon.
  • “Honey” Roy Palmer’s (Louis Gossett, Jr.’s) training distance running time was seven minutes and three seconds.
  • When Gabriel (James Woods) is trying to motivate Honey Roy (Louis Gossette Jr) during one of the fights James Woods says”it’s a Roots kinda thing”. Louis Gossette Jr. appeared in Roots (1977) miniseries.
  • The film ends with the same “take a dive” instruction by Gabriel Caine (James Woods) that was introduced earlier in the film by John Gillon (Bruce Dern) when Caine first arrived in Diggstown, to one of Gillon’s boxers. Caine did it to the rival boxer Minoso Torres (Alex Garcia), whom we saw at the beginning of the film fighting Wolf Forrester (Randall “Tex” Cobb).

The Sting (1973)- Chorizy

• Director George Roy Hill
  • Slapshot
  • Butch Cassidey and The Sundance Kid
  • Slaughterhouse 5
• Starring Robert Redford, Paul Newman, Robert Shaw, and Elieen Brennan
• Budget of 5.5 million and a Box office of 159.6 million
• Trivia
  • Film won 7 Oscars including Best Director for George Roy Hill and Best Picture.
  • Paul Newman and Robert Redford were each paid $500,000 for their role, the highest rate for an actor working at that time. Adjusted for inflation, that is equal to about $3 million (2022). The year before this Marlon Brando earned $3 million from Last Tango in Paris (1972) but that included profit participation.
  • The movie was filmed on the backlot of Universal Studios and the diner in which Hooker meets Lonnegan is the same diner interior used in Back to the Future (1985) in which Marty McFly first meets his father and calls Doc Brown.
  • Robert Redford didn’t see the movie until June 2004
  • The part where Snyder rejects Billie’s drink by pouring it over her hand was actually an accident. Charles Durning was supposed to pour the drink on the floor but Eileen Brennan’s hand got in the way. They kept in character and she improvised the annoyed look and shaking off her hand at him.
  • Edith Head won her 8th (and final) Best Costume Design Academy Award for this film. “Just imagine,” she said during her acceptance speech, “dressing the two handsomest men in the world and then getting this.”
  • Paul Newman had been advised to avoid doing comedy films, because he didn’t have the light touch needed to play comedy. Part of the reason Newman wanted to play Henry Gondorff was to prove that he could play comedy as well as drama.
  • “The Big Con” by David W. Maurer, originally published in 1940 and reissued in 1999, served as the source for this picture.
  • George Roy Hill wanted the film to be a stylish one that accurately reflected the feel not only of 1930s Chicago but also of old Hollywood films from the era as well. Hill, along with art director Henry Bumstead and cinematographer Robert Surtees, devised a colour scheme of muted browns and maroons for the film and a lighting design that combined old-fashioned 1930s-style lighting with some modern tricks of the trade to get the visual look he wanted. Edith Head designed a wardrobe of snappy period costumes for the cast, and artist Jaroslav Gebr created inter-title cards to be used between each section of the film that were reminiscent of the golden glow of old Saturday Evening Post illustrations – a popular publication of the 1930s.
  • Jack Nicholson turned down the role of Johnny Hooker before Robert Redford changed his mind and decided to play it.
  • According to Paul Newman, one afternoon of friendly drinks together triggered a series of competitive practical jokes between himself and George Roy Hill. Hill invited Newman to his office for a drink one afternoon. Just before, however, Hill told Newman that he had no beer or vodka and asked him to pick some up and bring it with him. Newman agreed. Later, Newman sent Hill a bill for $8.00. Hill responded to the bill by sending Newman a three page letter about the nature of friendship and how Newman had abused it. Newman responded to that by cutting Hill’s desk in half with a chainsaw and leaving a note that said: “This isn’t about friendship, it’s about $8.00. I may detonate the entire bungalow next time, so I wouldn’t mess around.” Later, Newman received a bill from Universal Studios in the amount of $800 to pay for the damage to the desk. Newman never paid.
  • Adjusted for inflation, this would be the 19th highest-grossing movie of all time.
  • George Roy Hill tried to find locations in Chicago and Los Angeles that had not been touched by modern civilization to use for some of the scenes. In Los Angeles, locations such as The Green Hotel, the Santa Monica Carousel and The Biltmore Hotel were all used. Chicago’s Union Station was also used along with LaSalle Street Station. Producer Tony Bill also contributed to the film’s authentic look by helping to round up a number of period automobiles in the Southern California are
  • When Kid Twist is in the bar, looking for recruits for the planned Sting, he is told the bar is full of good people, and he can have his pick, to which Kid Twist replies, “they have to be the quill.” In gangster slang, this means they must be the genuine article.
  • This is the only Oscar nomination for acting Robert Redford has received.
  • Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley had refused for two years to allow any filming in the city if it was depicted negatively, but allowed the producers of this film to shoot there for three days.
  • Paul Newman’s role, Henry Gondorff, was written for an overweight, past one’s prime slob, and was a minor character. He was only in about half of David S. Ward’s original screenplay, and was intended to be an older, paunchier fellow-a sort of gruff mentor to Johnny Hooker. The producers originally envisioned Peter Boyle to play the role, but Paul Newman loved the screenplay and was eager to play Gondorff. Ultimately, Ward slimmed down the character and beefed up the role to fit Newman.
  • The Chicago Elevated stop used in the sequence where Snyder chases Hooker is the 43rd Street station. There is still a stop there, on the current Green Line, but the building shown in the film was destroyed by a fire in 1974 and replaced in 1976. Though shown painted white in the movie, the old station probably would still have been the original natural brick color in the 1930s. The A/B signs on the platform are also an anachronism: skip stop service was not introduced until after WWII.
  • Is one of only two movies (the other being Crash (2004)) to have won the Academy Award for Best Picture without having been nominated for any of the three Golden Globe Awards for Best Motion Picture (Best Drama, Best Comedy/Musical and Best Foreign Film).
  • The gin that Paul Newman uses in the train scenes is Gordon’s Gin, the same gin that Humphrey Bogart drinks on The African Queen (1951).
  • Assuming the events took place in 1936, the $500,000 taken in the sting would be (adjusted for inflation) approximately $9.2 million in 2020. It would have been worth about $1.6 million in 1973, the year the movie was released.
  • Just prior to the final “sting” sequence, Hooker inserts two lozenges into his mouth. Later, when he is shot by Gondorff, blood trickles out of his mouth. This comes from the lozenges. They are known as “cackle bladders”, because the red substance in the lozenges simulating blood is actual chicken blood. Con men used cackle bladders in the “blow off”, when they wanted to get rid of the mark and make him too scared to think straight. Their use in this film is an authentic touch of how con men operated.

21 (2008) -Svo

• Directed by Robert Luketic
  • Legally Blonde
  • Killers
  • Monster in Law
  • Ugly truth
• Starring Kevin Spacey, Laurance Fisburne, Kat Bosworth, and Jim Stirgess.
• Made 159.8 Million at the Box office on a 35 million dollar Budget.
• Trivia
  • Although set in the then-present day, i.e. 2007/8, the film is based on teams active between 1979 and 1994. And at one point, more than 80 players were on the original MIT team.
  • According to Kevin Spacey, as part of their research for the film, they took some of the real players who were on the original team to Vegas. Although they weren’t allowed to play, every time they wanted Spacey to up his bet, they would push up against his chair. He said, “I would win every time!”
  • The movie was used as a luxury prize for the contestants on the Big Brother (2000) 9 in the US. They played a competition involving blackjack, and the winners got to see a special advance screening of the movie. One contestant won a trip to Las Vegas worth $21,000, which included a three night stay at the same hotel the actors from the movie stayed in
  • An alternate ending was shot, where Micky Rosa evaded capture from Cole Williams. After retirement, Cole spots Micky gambling on a boat and the two trade stories about their past.
  • Jeff Ma: The real-life inspiration behind the character Ben Campbell as a Planet Hollywood blackjack dealer, referred to by Ben Campbell as ‘my brother from another mother’.

Eight Men Out (1988)- Yump

• Directed by John Sayles
  • Plays Ring Lardner in the Movie
  • Lone Star
  • Men with Guns
  • Limbo
  • Passion Fish
  • Bruce Springsteen Music Videos
    • Glory Days
    • Born in USA
    • IM on Fire
  • Starring John Cusack, Michael Rooker, Hohn Mahoney, and David Strathairn.
  • Budget of 6 million and a Box of 5.6 million
  • Trivia
    • In a 2013 interview, Sayles told MLB Network’s Bob Costas, “People said, ‘Oh, you’ll never get this made. There’s a curse on it. People have been trying to make it for years.'” Talking about his thoughts for the cast when he first wrote the script, Sayles said “my original dream team had Martin Sheen at third base, and I ended up with Charlie in center field.”
    • Initially, John Sayles envisioned himself in a minor role as a member of the Chicago White Sox. After working over a decade to get the script turned into a movie, he was too old to convincingly portray a ballplayer when filming started. Instead, he cast himself as sportswriter Ring Lardner.
    • John Sayles bore such a striking resemblance to newspaper writer Ring Lardner that he played the part himself.
    • A child in the movie utters the famous quote, “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” In real life, a Chicago reporter was standing close by when a boy said something to the effect of “Say it didn’t really happen, Joe.” The reporter took creative license, and created the “Say it ain’t so, Joe!” quote, to give the story more emotional impact.
    • John Sayles used cardboard cutouts to help fill up the stands in the ballpark. He needed 1,000 extras to film close-ups and panning shots of live fans. To lure the extras, Charlie Sheen volunteered to take part in a contest for one extra to have a lunch with him.
    • John Sayles said he cast Charlie Sheen and John Cusack because of their ball playing experience and abilities.
    • While much is made about “Shoeless” Joe Jackson’s lack of education, Swede Risberg dropped out of school after the third grade.
    • The movie suggests that Eddie Cicotte helped throw the 1919 World Series because the White Sox’s owner denied him a $10,000 bonus. Adjusted for inflation, the bonus would be almost $135,000 in 2013.
    • Arnold Rothstein, the gambling racketeer and crime boss in this film, was summoned to testify to the grand jury before the trial in Chicago. Prosecutors couldn’t find any evidence linking him to the fixing of the series. He was murdered in 1928, after refusing to pay a $320,000 debt from a rigged poker game.
    • Sport Sullivan offers to lay bets for Arnold Rothstein, claiming the odds will remain flat. But the only money Sullivan gets from him is to pay off the players. Sullivan is the only one in the film actually shown betting on the Reds.

Casino (1995)- Beef

• Directed by Martin Scorsese
• Starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Sharon Stone, and James Woods
• Budget of 50 million making 116.1 million at the Box Office.
• Trivia
  • Based off the book Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas by Nicholas Pileggi.
  • Frank Cullota served as a technical Advisor.
  • Most of the conversations between Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci were improvised. Martin Scorsese would tell them where to start and where to end. The rest was up to them.
  • This was the first Martin Scorsese film that was edited digitally.
  • To avoid the continuity problems that accompany a chain-smoking movie character, Robert De Niro always held his cigarettes the same distance from the lit end so that their lengths never appear to change.
  • The “f” word is said 435 times, including in the narration, 2.4 times per minute on average. The film held the record for the most uses of the word until the release of Summer of Sam (1999), which also had a reported 435 uses. The record was later broken by The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), which had close to 600 uses.
  • Oscar Goodman (Sam “Ace” Rothstein’s attorney) is a lawyer who defended several reputed mobsters with Las Vegas connections. In June of 1999, he was elected Mayor of Las Vegas.
  • The costume budget for the film was $1 million. Robert De Niro had seventy different costumes throughout the film, Sharon Stone had forty. Both were allowed to keep their costumes afterwards.
  • When James Woods heard that Martin Scorsese was interested in working with him, Woods called Scorsese’s office and left the following message: “Any time, any place, any part, any fee.”
  • Sharon Stone encouraged Erika von Tagen, the child actress who played her daughter Amy, to annoy James Woods constantly.
  • Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese dropped out of Clockers (1995) to make this film
  • In the Blu-ray commentary, Sharon Stone relates the story of how she came to be in the film. She says her first two auditions for Martin Scorsese ended up being cancelled for various mundane reasons (such as that Scorsese was held up by another meeting) and Stone’s paranoia convinced her that he was blowing her off. When the director’s people contacted her to try it a third time, she turned them down and went out to dinner with a friend instead. Scorsese tracked her down and showed up at the restaurant where she was dining to make a personal appeal.
  • Martin Scorsese stated before the film’s release that he created the “head in the vise” scene as a sacrifice, certain the MPAA would insist it be cut. He hoped this would draw fire away from other violent scenes that would seem less so by comparison. When the MPAA made no objection to the vise scene, he left it in, albeit slightly edited.
  • “There’s no plot at all”, Martin Scorsese said in an interview included on the Blu-ray. “It’s three hours, no plot. So you know this going in. There’s a lot of action, a lot of story, but no plot.”
  • The character based on Anthony Spilotro (Nicky Santoro) is placed in the Black Book. However, in real life, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal (the inspiration for Sam “Ace” Rothstein) was the one placed in the Black Book, and was run out of Las Vegas.
  • Sharon Stone spent many long workdays in agony while filming scenes for this film. She had back trouble due to an old injury, and the gold and white beaded gown she wears during a casino scene weighed forty-five pounds.
  • When Nicholas Pileggi decided to write a book about Las Vegas, he researched the story of Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal and became very interested. At first, however, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal was not interested in Pileggi’s idea to write a book about him. It was only after Rosenthal read that a movie would be adapted from the book by Martin Scorsese, and that it would star Robert De Niro, that he became interested, because he loved Goodfellas (1990) and De Niro’s performance in the film.
  • Don Rickles (Billy Sherbert, the Tangiers’ casino manager and right hand to Sam “Ace” Rothstein) appeared on the real-life Frank Rosenthal Show (1977) opposite Frank Sinatra during his time as a Las Vegas performer. The show was depicted in the film as “Aces High.”
  • All of the dealers in the film worked in Las Vegas.
  • James Woods was making Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995) the same time as Casino (1995) was filming. He shot his whole part in two days.
  • The character of Remo Gaggi (Pasquale Cajano) was based on Chicago Outfit leader Joseph Aiuppa.
  • At a reported $3 million, Casino has one of the most expensive soundtracks in cinema history, with over 30 different songs and compositions used over the movie’s 3 hour runtime.
  • Frank Cullotta: The gray-haired hitman in sunglasses near the end of the movie. He was the Chief Lieutenant of Tony Spilotro in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Cullotta entered the Witness Protection Program before the “cornfield incident” took place and was not present, unlike Marino.

Rounders (1998)

• Directed by John Dahl
  • Red Rock West
  • Kill Me Again
  • Last Seduction
• Starring Matt Damon, Edward Norton, John Malkovich, John Turturro, martin Landau, and Gretchen Mol.
• 12 million Budget and Box of 22 million
• Trivia
  • There are pro poker players who credit the film for getting them into the game. The film drew in successful players such as Brian Rast, Hevad Khan, Gavin Griffin, and Dutch Boyd. Vanessa Rousso has said of the film’s influence: “There have been lots of movies that have included poker, but only Rounders really captures the energy and tension in the game. And that’s why it stands as the best poker movie ever made.”
  • Matt Damon and Edward Norton played the $10,000 buy-in Texas Hold ‘Em (No Limit) championship event at the 1998 World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. During the first of four days, Matt Damon had pocket Kings and was knocked out by former world champion and poker legend Doyle Brunson who held pocket Aces.
  • Worm was originally supposed to smoke but avid nonsmoker Edward Norton refused.
  • Early on, Mike is seen taking money out of a poker book called “Super System”, which was written by poker legend Doyle Brunson. He later pulls quotes from the book with the lines “Texas Hold ’em is the Cadillac of poker games” and “The trick to no limit is to put a man to a decision for all his chips.”
  • According to a Howard Stern Interview, the film is partially based on comedian/actor Norm MacDonald.
  • Despite the rise in No Limit Texas Hold’em interest in conjunction with this film’s release, the characters play a wide variety of poker variants: No Limit Hold’em is played with Teddy KGB at the beginning and end of the film, the Judge’s game is a 7 card Stud game, the College Boys are playing Stud variants (notably Chicago), when Worm and Mike go the Chesterfield the first time the game is Forced Rotation (alternating hands of Hold’em, Omaha, Razz, Stud usually), Worm plays 7 card Stud later at the Chesterfield, the Taj Mahal game is Limit Hold’em, the Union game is a Draw or Stud game, Mike plays Draw or Stud (it appears in the short scene)with the Greeks, the Cigar Club game is 7 card Stud Hi-Lo, the Golf pro game is a Pot Limit Omaha/Stud game, and the State police game is 7 card Stud. All the games played are part of the World Series of Poker competition (though the main event is No Limit Texas Hold’em)
  • Neve Campbell turned down the role of Jo.
  • In the final poker scene between KGB and Mike, the boxing fight on the TV is Floyd Mayweather Jr vs Jesus Chavez.
  • The late critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both loved the film but Siskel, who was a professional card player himself called out the films’ reliance on Matt Damon’s character’s tells which he felt weren’t that believable in setting such as this.
  • Matt Damon’s character “Mike McDermott” is based on singer/songwriter Michael McDermott. The film was also written by Michael’s friends.
  • Edward Norton wears almost the same costume throughout the entire film especially the brown leather coat that he wears.
  • The hand that Michael uses to beat Teddy KGB in the final game against each other is “Flopping A Nut Straight”, which in this case was an eight of spades and a nine of spades. It was the same move that Johnny Chan used in the game that Michael was watching on his VCR when Petra came to visit him at his apartment.
  • Mike and Worm are at a hot dog stand while Mike warns him about getting a card cheat reputation. They also mention Joey “Knish” and how he makes a living playing cards. For a second, the vendor’s arm moves and you see a small knish vending box on the stand.
  • Lou Krieger, poker player and author, agreed that Rounders was good for the poker industry because it spurred an interest in the game, and it depicted Texas Hold’em as a game of skill rather than a pure gamble, like craps or roulette.Mar 5, 2009
  • Phil Gordon, who said he’s watched the movie about five times over the years, took a much more lighthearted approach to how it may have negatively affected the poker world.
    • “The only negative I have experienced is a tendency for players to break out really, really bad Russian accents when they deliver a bad beat, à la John Malkovich [who also did a really, really bad Russian accent]. ‘I stick it in you,'” said the Full Tilt Poker pro.

• Good or bad, that quotability is just one sign of the impact Rounders had on the poker world. Rousso sums up the movie and its effect best:

• “There have been lots of movies that have included poker, but only Rounders really captures the energy and tension in the game. And that’s why it stands as the best poker movie ever made.”