Wanderings and … wonderings.

Pip: Welcome to Wanderings and … wonderings. — where one person’s film opinions arrive with the confidence of a final verdict and the brevity of a Post-it note.

Mara: Ben Gould has been watching, and he has thoughts — on a casino sleazeball who owns every scene he touches, a poker film that apparently tests the limits of human endurance, and a long-delayed comedy sequel coasting on goodwill. Let’s start with the gambling and crime films.

Lester Diamond, Rounders, and the Luck of the Draw

Pip: The question here is what makes a crime film actually work — and whether it’s the world, the story, or just one memorably repellent human being on screen for ten minutes.

Mara: The post on Lester Diamond makes the case plainly: “James Woods is a treat and we should be grateful to him.”

Pip: That’s the whole argument, really. A supporting character with a fraction of the screen time walks away with the film’s most lasting impression. The pimp outlasts the plot.

Mara: The post describes Woods as “effortlessly creating one of the sleaziest, slimiest characters ever put on celluloid” — a mere ten minutes that apparently cements an acting legacy. That’s a strong claim, but the writing doesn’t hedge it.

Pip: Ten minutes of screen time, a lifetime of residual disgust. Some actors just know how to leave a stain.

Mara: The Rounders post lands at the opposite end of the spectrum entirely. Where Casino delivers Lester Diamond, Rounders delivers — according to the post — repetition, a tedious voice-over, and poker somehow rendered inert.

Pip: The review calls it “a boring waste of boring time.” The word boring appears so many times it starts to feel like a formal critical methodology.

Mara: Seven times, by my count. The post also singles out Matt Damon’s performance, notes that Ed Norton’s arrival promises relief and doesn’t deliver it, and ends with the line “I hated this fucking boring slog.” No ambiguity there.

Pip: So: one film gives you James Woods chewing scenery for ten glorious minutes. The other gives you two hours of poker and a voice-over. The casino wins. Speaking of things coasting on past glory —

The Unnecessary Sequel Nobody Asked For (But Here We Are)

Pip: Happy Gilmore 2 is the kind of film that exists because enough time passed and someone said yes. The post calls it “the type of entirely unnecessary sequel you’d expect after a 30-year hiatus.”

Mara: The verdict is measured: “It’s okay for what it is — hit and miss, breezy enough for an hour but far too draining once the physical comedy reaches breaking point in its repetition.” The post also notes a John Daly cameo, which prompted genuine surprise that he is still alive.

Pip: Ten minutes of screen time, a sequel nobody needed, and a poker film that broke a man’s spirit. The range is impressive.

Mara: Same territory next time — what sticks, what doesn’t, and why it matters.

Pip: Welcome to Wanderings and … wonderings. — where the ellipsis does a lot of heavy lifting and today, so does one very specific grievance about a Martin Scorsese film.

Mara: Ben Gould takes us deep into a movie that promised everything and delivered something far more complicated — and far more frustrating. Let's start with what went wrong in 1860s New York.

Gangs of New York: A Film That Had No Business Being This Annoying

Pip: The premise here is simple: a movie with every ingredient for greatness — Scorsese, Day-Lewis, New York, crime, religion — somehow managed to squander the lot. The question is how, exactly, and why it still stings decades later.

Mara: The post opens with a confession of anticipation turned sour, and this line captures it precisely: "This is the only Scorsese film in which he appears overwhelmed by the material, which I find completely baffling as it's about New York, crime, and religion, his cinema oeuvre."

Pip: That's the sting of it — this wasn't alien territory for Scorsese. If he loses the thread here, it isn't because the subject defeated him, it's because something in the execution went genuinely sideways.

Mara: The specific complaints stack up fast. The visual style is described as "pointlessly and relentlessly weird," depicting 1860s New York as "something out of a comic book." The editing is jarring — baroque costuming, lurching pacing, a U2 song over the closing shot.

Pip: A U2 song. Over the Twin Towers. In a period film. That's not a closing statement, that's a hostage situation.

Mara: Cameron Diaz and Leonardo DiCaprio both take hits for their accents, with DiCaprio described as "evidently awed by the full-method Daniel Day-Lewis." And then — perhaps most surprisingly — Day-Lewis himself doesn't escape. His performance is called "just comedy, nothing else."

Pip: Calling Daniel Day-Lewis's work in a Scorsese film the weakest link takes a certain confidence.

Mara: The post lands on a recurring-disappointment metaphor that sums up the whole relationship with the film: "The only parallel I can think of is when you open the fridge expecting a different result from when you opened it 30 minutes prior." It closes, simply, with "Shite."

Pip: Economical. The film spent three hours; the verdict took five letters.

Mara: Strong feelings, clearly held for a long time — there's something almost affectionate in how much this film still irritates.

Pip: That's the thing about movies that almost worked. They haunt you. More wanderings next time.

What is this shit? Why does it exist? This sorry excuse for a ‘movie’ at least has one raison d’être: its purpose is to show the audience how successful and beautiful the two leads are.

Wow, congratulations.