nine queens
deliciously twist - filled, nine queens is a clever and satisfying crime caper .
soderberg and clooney present... nine queens remake! - dvd talk forum
nine queens' class analysis is acute, and narrowly focused on defining the characters .
playing hollywood at its own game? bielinsky’s nine queens. | deborah shaw - urltoken
looking for movie tickets? enter your location to see which movie theaters are playing nine queens near you .
two con artists try to swindle a stamp collector by selling him a sheet of counterfeit rare stamps (the
nine queens
) .
nine queens
works as a look at a buenos aires the tourist rarely gets to experience, but its swindle isn' t slick enough .
until he makes a trip to the bathroom. marcos follows him in while having a loud and massively unsubtle conversation about the sale of the nine queens on a
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i had so much fun meeting new people and riding with some of the best female snowboarders / skiers in the world! huge thanks to the nine queens crew for having me .
kevin james as doug heffernan on the king of queens,  in its final season .
if nine queens draws you on a journey that eventually leads up a garden path toward your own suckerhood, it' s all the more pleasurable for having done so with such slick expertise .
nine inch nails, queens of the stone age, dave grohl, and special guest lindsey buckingham will give the closing performance at the 56th annual grammy awards on sunday night, spin can exclusively reveal .
the basic premise of nine queens is not new. thieves team up to commit a crime so profitable they will be set for life if only they can pull it off. this type of movie has been around since… well… since there have been movies. nine queens, however, takes this concept to a new level with so many twists and turns that it will keep you glued to your seat just so you can keep up .
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wow, you' ve already seen ocean' s twelve and his nine queens remake? and to think, i didn' t even know that they' d started production yet. boy, you' re fast !
with'' nine queens,'' which opens in new york on april 19, mr. bielinsky has engaged in a similar process of deception. on the surface, his film is a crime yarn, portraying 30 hours in the lives of a pair of swindlers who stumble onto the deal of a lifetime: selling a forged set of rare weimar republic stamps known as'' the nine queens'' for nearly $ 500, 000 .
each season brings new surprises and we can’t wait to see what these 13 new queens bring to the table .
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i wasn' t sure whether to node this under nueve reinas or nine queens, but decided that the majority of e2 members would be searching on the english title, if at all. / msg me if you think i made the wrong choice .
such an opportunity presents itself when marcos stumbles into a chance to fence the nine queens, a famous sheet of nine defectively printed stamps from weimar germany. more specifically, what marcos can peddle are expert forgeries of the set, and he finds his perfect sucker in gandolfo (ignasi abadal), a wealthy businessman and stamp collector; because he’s to be extradited to venezuela the next day, gandolfo will have no time to submit the forgeries to expert analysis and will probably jump at the chance to take the queens with him .
the 6th edition of the suzuki nine queens in beautiful serfaus – fiss–ladis. this spot has definitivley proven to be the best spot in the world to bring the female snowboarders and freeskiers together to progress the sport for a whole week - the girls are ready so let´s shredd !
'' nine queens'' was shot with a budget of only $ 1. 3 million, modest even by local standards. so mr. bielinsky made certain the cast had plenty of rehearsal time, to assure that no time would be wasted once filming got under way .
david mamet might kill for a script as good as the one that fuels “nine queens. ” a seductively structured and superbly acted suspenser that breathtakingly piles swindle upon scam without giving away the game until the very end, fabien bielinsky’s debut feature has been the biggest smash in its native argentina in at least a [ … ]
it all starts, then, with a courting dance between old - timer and apprentice, and between bielinsky and viewer: are you in or are you out? then nine queens raises the stakes. marcos is offered a slice of a fail - safe plan to sell gandolfo a set of forged weimar stamps, the
nine queens
of the title. but wild factors keep creeping in to make the game more complicated – more and more outsiders to be cut in, marcos' s beautiful and ferociously straight - edged sister valeria (leticia bredice), and a sudden twist that sends the film off on a brief, breakneck chase sequence .
from the moment it was first shown in theaters here,'' nine queens,'' a modest caper film by fabian bielinsky, was a commercial and critical success. but one scene so unnverved argentine audiences that the film has become a cultural phenomenon, dissected and analyzed countless times in newspapers and on radio and television .
for his part, mr. bielensky has received proposals to remake'' nine queens'' in countries as diverse as the united states, france, germany, england and spain. he will probably sell the rights, he said, but made it clear that he does not want to get involved with any remakes himself .
david mamet might kill for a script as good as the one that fuels
nine queens .
a seductively structured and superbly acted suspenser that breathtakingly piles swindle upon scam without giving away the game until the very end, fabien bielinsky' s debut feature has been the biggest smash in its native argentina in at least a decade .
in some of the best news that we’ve gotten in weeks, logo announced the cast of “ rupaul’s drag race ” season nine today ― and we already losing our minds .
it also seems unwise to reveal to a fellow hood that one is sitting on a pile of cash. the crossing and double - crossing to follow seem inevitable, not compelling. this relationship worked in
nine queens
because the partners, closer in age, challenged each other in an almost flirtatious way, each daring the other to blink .
who isn' t a thief ?
is the question asked in the story of two small - time swindlers, juan (gaston pauls) and marcos (ricardo darin), whose paths collide in a convenience store and quickly leads to a half - million dollar forgery scam on a big time gangster about to be deported in
nine queens .
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mr. pauls also said'' there is a lot of david mamet in this movie.'' but richard peña, program director of the film society of lincoln center, which showed'' nine queens'' in its new directors / new films series last year, noted that for all its awareness and embrace of international influences, the movie retains a distinctly argentine sensibility .
but you can train yourself to disdain “the king of queens. ” determined viewers have had nearly nine seasons, and a campaign of rerun - saturation so thorough that you might begin to suspect a state sponsor, to muster complaints. they have come up with two. unable to say it’s not funny, detractors say “the king of queens” is unconvincing. slim, go - getter secretaries like carrie (leah remini) don’t marry lugs who drive trucks like doug (kevin james), do they? others don’t buy jerry stiller as carrie’s dad. he’s always george’s dad of “seinfeld” to them .
mr. bielinsky, 43, also had to battle what was seen as a lack of experience. though he had written the screenplays for several feature films, directed short films based on stories by the argentine writers jorge luis borges and julio cortázar and worked as an assistant director on some 400 commercials and several full - length films,'' nine queens'' is his debut as a director .
''' nine queens' is an excellent cinematic example of a certain river plate tradition of paranoid narratives, of which borges is just one example,'' he said.'' a society looks normal on the surface but is run by corrupt secret societies and secret deals, with a conspiratorial atmosphere that leads you to ask who is real and who is just playing a role.''
born in queens, new york, in 1957, ray romano began seriously pursuing a stand - up comedy career in the mid - 1980s. his successes landed him a starring role on the hit sitcom everybody loves raymond, which ran for nine seasons and garnered him an emmy award. romano later created the acclaimed men of a certain age, and flexed his dramatic chops for the popular series parenthood .
is here for all you quotes spouting fans of nueve reinas (original title) which was recently remade into criminal. this script is a transcript that was painstakingly transcribed using the screenplay and / or viewings of nine queens. i know, i know, i still need to get the cast names in there and i' ll be eternally tweaking it, so if you have any corrections, feel free to
released in 2000,'' nine queens'' won just about every award for which it was eligible, from the argentine film critics association (best picture and six other prizes) and at the mtv latin america people' s choice awards. to mr. darín, that response confirmed the wisdom of mr. bielinsky' s decision to focus on plot and character and leave any moral lessons implicit .
s called the nine queens is revealed. the camera zooms out and we see berta, vidal gandolfo, sandler and the stamp expert (among others). it is explained that someone on the inside told juan about the imminent closure of the bank and the whole scheme was devised around this. juan walks over to a couch where valeria (holding a bag full of money) is relaxing and the two embrace .
yet'' nine queens'' has a subtext that has encouraged argentines to see it as an allegory for the entire get - rich - quick mentality that prevailed here during the decade from 1989 to 1999, when carlos saúl menem was president. those years of'' pizza and champagne'' are now over, but they left a legacy of spiritual and material impoverishment that mr. bielinsky found hard to ignore .
nine queens
is the story of two small - time swindlers, juan (gastón pauls) and marcos (ricardo darín), who team up after meeting in a convenience store and become involved in a half million - dollar deal. as the deceptions and duplicity mount, it becomes more and more difficult to figure out who is conning whom, and we begin to ask ourselves ,
who isn' t a thief ?
so is soderbergh gonna do something original ever again? what really bothers me is that we' re getting remakes of foreign films only a few years after the original. insomnia was released in' 97 - remake in 2002. open your eyes was released in' 97 - remake (vanilla sky) in 2001. and now nine queens? there' s probably more, but these are the ones that come to mind right now .
george clooney and steven soberbergh are to collaborate on an american remake of the argentinian thriller nine queens. soderbergh is co - scripting the movie, which he will then produce alongside clooney. the film will mark the directorial debut of soderbergh' s regular assistant director gregory jacobs .
for years george and i have been trying to find a project for greg to direct ,
soderbergh explains .
we all feel this material hits the bull' s eye: a street - level, contemporary crime thriller with brilliant plotting and complex characters .
the original nine queens, written and directed by fabian bielinsky, spun a fiendish, hall - of - mirrors tale of two conmen making their way through a buenos aires teetering on the brink of financial meltdown. the film was a huge hit in its homeland and performed well in limited runs in both britain and the us last year .
'' the idea of sudden wealth has always been incorporated into the psychology of the argentine, but during the 1990' s it reached obscene levels and reached into the highest spheres of politics and government,'' he said.'' we were forced to be witnesses to impunity and corruption, indifference to the common welfare and absolute frivolity, so of course a movie like' nine queens' reflects that state of affairs.''
now before you think i' ve given away the game with all those
seeminglys ,
let me point out that they may only seemingly be seeminglys. they may in fact be as they seem. or seemingly otherwise. as juan and marcos try to work out their scheme, which involves counterfeit stamps, we wonder if in fact the whole game may be a pigeon drop with juan as the pigeon. but, no, the fake stamps are stolen, seemingly by complete strangers, requiring marcos and juan to try to con the owner of the real nine queens out of stamps they can sell gandolfo. (since they have no plans to really pay for these stamps, their profit would be the same in either case .) and on and on, around and around, in an elegant and sly deadpan comedy. a plot, however clever, is only the clockwork; what matters is what kind of time a movie tells .
nine queens
is blessed with a gallery of well - drawn character roles, including the alcoholic mark and his two bodyguards; the avaricious widow who owns the
nine queens
and her much younger bleached - blond boyfriend, and valeria the sister, who opposes marcos' seamy friends and life of crime but might be willing to sleep with gandolfo if she can share in the spoils .
originally posted by coral so is soderbergh gonna do something original ever again? what really bothers me is that we' re getting remakes of foreign films only a few years after the original. insomnia was released in' 97 - remake in 2002. open your eyes was released in' 97 - remake (vanilla sky) in 2001. and now nine queens? there' s probably more, but these are the ones that come to mind right now .
fabián bielinsky greets me with a warm and hearty handshake. at once relaxed and fervent, he' s clearly pleased that his first feature film, nine queens (nueve reinas) has won fans on the international film festival circuit, not to mention winning seven 2001 argentinean film critics association awards, out of ten nominations, as well as the people' s choice award from mtv argentina and the audience award and best director award at the lleida latin - american film festival .
“the king of queens, ” the longest - running live - action comedy currently on television, is the opposite of an acquired taste. like pizza or the doors, the show just hits the spot — the simple, happy sitcom spot .
note :
nine queens
is like a south american version of
stolen summer ,
the movie that won the contest sponsored by hbo, miramax, and matt damon and ben affleck. according to variety, some 350 screenplays were submitted in an argentine competition, bielinsky' s won, and he was given funds to film. it' s illuminating that in both cases such competitions yielded more literate and interesting screenplays than the studios are usually able to find through their own best efforts .
just this week we got a preview of julia robert’s take on juan josé campanella’s academy award - winning el secreto de sus ojos (the secret in their eyes), which without the whole dirty war / military junta subtext becomes a kind of creepy film about vigilante justice. but even before el secreto became an international hit there was 2000’s nueve reinas (nine queens), writer - director fabián bielinksy’s loop - de - loop low budget crime caper that unexpectedly turned into a global film phenomenon .
david mamet might kill for a script as good as the one that fuels “nine queens. ” a seductively structured and superbly acted suspenser that breathtakingly piles swindle upon scam without giving away the game until the very end, fabien bielinsky’s debut feature has been the biggest smash in its native argentina in at least a decade. with a strong push from sony classics, there is no reason this utterly accessible genre - and - character piece shouldn’t become a must - see for the “memento” and “amores perros” constituencies stateside .
'' to my surprise, though, my principal source of information turned out to be people who had been victimized themselves by scam artists,'' he said.'' friends, relatives, friends of friends, all of them had stories to tell me about being ripped off themselves or knowing someone who was. as a result, every one of the scams you see in the movie is taken from real life, with the exception of the nine queens, which i invented myself.''
the 2014 grammys closed on gloriously weird note, thanks to a unique collaboration of nine inch nails, queens of the stone age, dave grohl and fleetwood mac’s lindsey buckingham. the supergroup kicked things off with their take on nine inch nails’ “copy of a, ” of the group’s hesitation marks lp, beefed up with bubbling bluegrass guitar line and flashing psychedelic lights. if someone were to isolate the tracks of the song, it might sound like pretentious noodling – a little edm flourish there, some jangly country guitar there, some muppet - like drum crushing from grohl and a whole lot of sweet vocal harmonies. but together, it made for a sound that was far trippier than the lighting rig but also something that was more than the sum of its parts .
after the disintegration of the argentine economy in december, in fact,'' nine queens'' seems almost prophetic. but the underlying idea for the movie, mr. bielinsky said,'' emerged from my own fascination with the psychology of crime.'' researching the subject, he not only read newspaper articles and interviewed police officers, but also watched american movies about con artists, like'' paper moon'' and'' the sting,'' and the films of alfred hitchcock .
nine queens
becomes a shell game that requires close attention to figure out who is screwing whom. this is the major problem with the story as, if you stop paying attention for a moment, you lose the thread of what' s going on. characters are brought in to the story to propel things along and statements about argentine society - who isn' t a thief in that country - are made repeatedly. by the end of the film, as things wrap up neatly, i was glad that everything gets explained .
talented argentine director fabian bielinsky made just two films before his untimely death in 2006 and his first, “nine queens”, is now considered a classic in his native country. a naive young wannabe grifter, juan (gaston pauls), attaches himself to the older and more experienced con artist marcos (ricardo dario) for 24 hours to learn the tricks of the trade after a botched scam at a convenience store. marcos shows him how to improvise and create scenes at newsagents and restaurants in order to get what he wants while paying as little as possible .
inside, though, that first conviction doesn’t go away. “the king of queens, ” which ends this season, now that mr. james is turning to other pursuits, is funny. it’s brisk, perceptive and unpretentious. it works. see for yourself tonight on cbs .
people complain when hollywood remakes classics like
the manchurian candidate .
but the most nonsensical remake might be
criminal ,
based on the stellar argentine crime caper
nine queens ,
a critical smash and a modest box office hit in the united states. the inferior american version strips the menace and texture from the original without offering any big stars to compensate. and it' s not as if the movie is being introduced to a different generation, since the original came out in 2002. so why the remake? a lack of subtitles isn' t a good enough reason .
when juan (gaston pauls) pulls off a bill changing scam with a convenience store cashier, he' s emboldened to try it again right after a shift change and is challenged. stranger marcos (ricardo darin) comes to his rescue, introduces himself as a fellow, more experienced con artist, and asks juan to become his partner. no sooner do the duo work their first job together than a phone call from marcos' sister valeria (leticia bredice) results in a potential half million score - the sale of a counterfeit stamp rarity, a weimar sheet misprint known as the
nine queens .
criminal
does boast an impressive trio of actors in john c. reilly, diego luna and maggie gyllenhaal. they are always engaging, even if sometimes for the wrong reasons. the problems lie not with the actors but with a glib approach that exposes the flaws of the original story. the screenplay, updated by director gregory jacobs and sam lowry (a steven soderbergh pen name), stabs at
ocean' s 11
breeziness and falters .
nine queens
contained the same faulty premise and flimsy setups but sold them with its taut intensity and a lead criminal who was a truly bad cat .
community partnership exhibition program the community partnership exhibition program at the queens museum provides opportunities for our cultural and other nonprofit organizational partners to develop and mount short - term exhibitions based on their programs and our collaborative projects. in addition, it regularly showcases the work of students in the museum’s department of education programs .
“the king of queens” may no longer exemplify a cultural trend. but people watch it. according to cbs, 8. 7 million viewers tune in each week. after tonight’s episode, the series goes on hiatus until april 9; it’s expected to do as well or better for its seven valedictory episodes .
nine queens
characters are engaging and occasionally amusing, but director bielinsky never rises above simply putting them through their paces. he doesn' t achieve the liftoff the film needs to sparkle, instead letting a leaden monotony set in. the film is goosed up with the introduction of sandler' s wealthy sister - in - law, who lives in a garish apartment with a younger boy toy, but this lively and amusing character makes too hasty an exit. the multi - layered con' s final moves become labored by an unconvincing promise between valeria and marcos involving their younger brother' s faith in his unsavory sibling .
nine queens is a movie about the con - game. marcos finds juan at a gas station using childish
tricks
to cheat some money from the cashier and decides to help him out of the situation and take him under as his con man protege. juan is trying to raise / steal $ 50, 000 to help his dad get out of jail by paying off a judge. that same day, a deal of a lifetime comes along dealing with a famous stamp called
nine queens
. they find out a rich stamp collector, vidal gandolfo, who will soon be leaving the country and won' t have time to check it' s authenticity so they decide to make a fake one and sell it to him. the fake ones get ruined so they have to go in and purchase the actual stamps for $ 250, 000 which $ 50, 000 was juan' s money and the remaining marcos'. the deal goes down at a hotel where marcos' sister valerie works. vidal wants her to deliver them and also sleep with him. the entire time the plot keeps twisting, showing both con men having the upper hand at different times and trying to cheat one another. who will take the money and win the game ?
of course marcos is only seemingly a cop. he lectures juan on the dangers of excessive greed and buys him breakfast, and then the two of them seemingly happen upon an opportunity to pull a big swindle involving the
nine queens ,
a rare sheet of stamps. this happens when valeria (leticia bredice), seemingly marcos' sister, berates him because one of his old criminal associates tried to con a client in the hotel where she seemingly works. the old con seemingly had a heart attack, and now the field is seemingly open for marcos and juan to bilk the seemingly rich and drunk gandolfo (ignasi abadal) .
nine queens proceeds in a series of knight' s moves – you can follow every oblique shift, but you can' t predict the final pattern. the outcome, in fact, is very much to do with argentina' s current woes. nine queens is a product of that country' s recent film - making resurgence, which also produced lucrecia martel' s la cienaga, and which the country' s economic collapse has probably scuppered. it' s hard not to see bielinsky' s film as a prediction of catastrophe: it could certainly be read as a portrait of a nation where desperate players, at every level of society, are on the make and out of their depth. every cheap chiseller in the film protests that he' s not a crook, but the crime isn' t just at street level: the businessman says ,
i' ll be sad to leave this country – i' ve never seen such good will for doing business .
this satirical streak no doubt helped make the film a hit in argentina, but i hardly think bielinsky is depicting his nation as unique in its corruption and venality. if this superbly entertaining film gets remade in the enron / worldcom - era us, don' t be at all surprised .
nine queens
is a neatly handled who' s - doing - whom story that holds strong ties to such grifter films as
the sting
and david mamet' s
house of games .
but, this argentine crime thriller is long on dialogue and short on action. things begin slowly and steadily as juan pulls a bill changing scam at a local convenience store. he gets greedy as he watches the shift change and decides to double dip and pull the same scam again, minutes later. he is caught at his ploy and, suddenly, a plainclothes cop is hustling him out of the store, arrested for his crime .
hollywood (variety) - the argentine thriller
nine queens
is being turned into an english - language picture by steven soderbergh (news) and george clooney (news), who hit the jackpot in 2001 with their remake of
ocean' s 11 .
queens
follows a day in the life of two con artists. it swept the 2001 argentine film assn. awards, including best picture. sony pictures classics released the film in the united states last spring. soderbergh and clooney will produce the remake through their section eight prods. banner, which is based at warner bros. soderbergh' s longtime first assistant director, gregory jacobs, will make his directorial debut and co - write the script with soderbergh .
for years, george and i have been trying to find a project for greg to direct, and we all feel this material hits the bull' s eye: a street - level contemporary crime film with brilliant plotting and complex characters ,
soderbergh said .
premiering in september 1996, everybody loves raymond starred romano as a father and husband whose parents live next door. his offbeat domestic observations struck a chord with both audiences and critics, earning him an emmy for best actor in a comedy series in 2002 and the series an emmy for best comedy in 2003. the show ended in may 2005 after nine seasons .
raising the temperature comprises nine artists working in various media who search for a new vantage on this urgent and critical subject. the perspective is aesthetic, not aggressively political. scientific alarms have been filtered through artistic sensibilities. the works presented here comment on our changing relationship to the world we inhabit, or discuss the conditions and consequences of our urban life and its toll on the planet .
but reilly and luna have some fun with the con men' s getting - to - know - you period. rodrigo bets richard he can get a woman' s purse in a few minutes, then stages an elevator mishap. in helping a woman to safety, he says he will hold her purse for her. he doesn' t steal the purse, just gets his hands on it - - the point of the bet. other moments, plausible and tense in
nine queens ,
are made ridiculous by this movie' s more lighthearted approach. when richard enlists a cop friend to pretend to harass him to impress a mark, the cop' s
performance
is so broad that you half expect him to start stripping, bachelorette - party style .
two grifters - boyish, likable juan and hard - edged, scheming marcos - meet by chance. marcos, who seems to have cheated everyone he knows including his siblings, is missing his partner, so he offers to teach juan tricks for a day. juan accepts because he has some savings, but needs more to bribe a judge to release his father from prison. marcos gets a call from an aging, ill ex - associate needing help to sell a forged set of rare stamps, the nine queens, to a businessman about to be deported (he can' t take cash out of argentina, but could take the stamps). when the con men have to improvise, marcos asks juan to use his savings to set up the deal. is juan about to be conned ?
but, things are not what they seem and the
cop
turns out to be a fellow con man, marcos, who propositions the young scam artist to team up and make some real money. juan reluctantly agrees and marcos introduces a plan to con a big time hood who is only hours away from being deported. marcos knows a guy, an old time forger, sandler (oscar nunez), who has in his possession a set of counterfeit stamps called the nine queens. the duplicates are so good that only close scrutiny would reveal them as fakes. this fact, and because the gangster, vidal gandolfo (ignasi abadal), is about to be shipped out of argentina, cause marcos to bring juan in on the scam that could net them a cool half million dollars .
then the plot thickens as they get a proposition from an old man, a scam expert himself. he had made a perfect replica of the nine queens, a sheet of uncut, imperfect stamps in mint condition. his plan was to sell the stamps to an avid collector. he wanted to sell the stamps now because since the collector was being deported from the country in a day, he wouldn’t have time to have the stamps thoroughly checked. however, the old man gets sick and entrusts the task to marcos, and since juan happens to be with him, he will be coming along for the ride too. marcos, being the opportunist that he is, ends up making the deal that he will get 90% of the profit, while the forged stamps’ creator will only get 10% .
fabian bielinsky' s
nine queens
is a con within a con within a con. there comes a time when we think we' ve gotten to the bottom, and then the floor gets pulled out again and we fall another level. since nothing is as it seems (it doesn' t even seem as it seems), watching the film is like observing a chess game in which all of the pieces are in plain view but one player has figured out a way to cheat .
david mamet might kill for a script as good ,
todd mccarthy writes in variety. true, although mamet might also reasonably claim to have inspired it; the set - up owes something to his
house of games ,
although familiarity with that film will not help you figure out this one .
this is where
nine queens
gets a bit too full of itself, as the story becomes a swirl of characters brought in to twist the plot around. it is a question of who is scamming whom as juan and marcos run into a myriad cast of characters who have their hands in the con game. marcos' s sister valeria is the beautiful assistant manager at the hotel housing vidal. she has a bone to pick with her brother and threatens his arrest if he brings his thieving ways into her hotel. it turns out that marcos stiffed his own sister and younger brother, federico (tomas fonzi), from an inheritance. valeria will help her wayward brother if he' ll fess up his scheme to federico. all sorts of other colorful characters are brought in to help with the con .
actor, comedian. born on december 21, 1957 in queens, new york. raised the middle child of three sons in the neighborhood of forest hills, the aspiring funnyman formed the
no talent
comedy troupe at age 16. though romano always knew he could make his friends laugh, he didn & apos; t give stand - up serious consideration as a career until many years later .
nine queens' class analysis is acute, and narrowly focused on defining the characters. juan' s eagerness to find a big, fast job is motivated by his poor father' s situation (he' s in prison for scamming, and needs money, and his good son wants to put what his father has taught him to good, mostly moral use). and marcos, well, he' s a bit more reckless, at least as you understand him, always looking for the huge, put - you - over job, willing to gamble, but also confident of his own scamming skills. he had money, or his late father did, in an estate that marcos squandered and also essentially stole from his two siblings, angry valeria (leticia brédice) and undauntedly doting federico (tomás fonzi) .
thus, in 1998, while fox and nbc were peddling “getting personal” and “conrad bloom, ” comedies about front - end figures like art directors and admen, cbs banked on a fat deliveryman. the overgroomed swingers foundered, but “the king of queens” persisted. its hero, doug heffernan (not a relative), worked for a u. p. s. - like company that hasn’t gone under .
next thing you know, an old associate of marcos, sandler, calls marcos to say he needs help in selling counterfeit copies of a stamp collection known as the nine queens. sandler, marcos and juan target a rich spanish businessman, gandolfo, who is being deported to venezuela and needs to smuggle his wealth out of argentina. they take the fake stamps to gandolfo at the hotel where he is staying – coincidentally the same hotel where marcos’ sister valeria and younger brother federico work – and after gandolfo’s hired expert has checked them and declared them authentic, the parties agree to the 450, 000 peso exchange. as luck would have it though, the hired expert later demands a cut of the money (he knew the stamps were fakes) and a motorcycle gang steals the briefcase with the fake stamps and throws it into the river .
argentinian thriller nine queens illustrates this point neatly. marco, played by the saturnine ricardo darín, is a con artist milking the streets of buenos aires for all they' re worth. his meanest trick, which involves squeezing money from tender - hearted old ladies, is second nature but hardly a worthy game. the real challenge is to rook someone unrookable: a corrupt, fabulously wealthy spanish businessman, vidal gandolfo (ignasi adabal). marcos works an elaborate bluff to get gandolfo hooked on a scam, without letting him know he' s being played. it seems to work beautifully, but next thing we know, gandolfo is deconstructing marcos' s strategy move by move. he' s several steps ahead, having seen every double, triple, quadruple bluff in the book – which is precisely why he' ll fall this time .
criminal
is an adequate americanization of one of my favorite films of 2002, the delightfully twisty
nine queens (nueve reinas) .
adapter / debut director gregory jacobs doesn' t quite make up for the extra tension that argentina' s financial chaos added as an urgent back drop. some of the twists are too smoothly straightened out by focusing more on the older con man, here played by john c. reilly, and his sister, played by maggie gyllenhaal without the original' s sensuality, despite her low cut blouse. diego luna is a mite young, but he' s cast to turn reilly' s character into more of a manipulative mentor and less an apparent partner. on its own, without comparison to the original, it' s an amusing and workmanlike update of
the sting
crossed with
the grifters .
thirteen - time grammy winner grohl, as usual, is the connective tissue, having performed extensively with both bands, most prominently on qotsa’s 2002 lp songs for the deaf and nine inch nails’ 2005 album with teeth. fleetwood mac guitarist / singer buckingham, of course, is the wild card, and his role — singing a kickass version of “tusk” or “the chain, ” maybe his solo hit “go insane”? — remains to be seen. however, it’s not as random as it might seem: buckingham guested on nine inch nails’ latest lp hesitation marks and also appears in sound city: real to reel, the grohl - directed documentary about the legendary, now - shuttered l. a. studio where many classic albums were recorded; his fleetwood - mac - mate, stevie nicks, appears in the film and also joined grohl on the sound city players album and tour last year .
first - time helmer / scribe fabian bielinsky does a fair job in creating a mamet - like whirl of characters and cons as the swindlers, juan and marcos, ply their trade on their unsuspecting victims. as the plot thickens, the duo tests each other' s ability in their scamming game. juan is reluctant at first to team with the unknown marcos, but the promise of a big killing for a day' s work is too much to resist. the trouble is, you know that someone is conning someone and i got mired in trying to unravel the plot. a more astute script or director may have made this a less hectic tale. instead ,
nine queens
is a benign story of a sting operation that moves along at a good clip and ties it all up in its
surprise
ending - although i was little surprised at the conclusion .
the early years of her reign play out in a suitably stately fashion over the next nine hours. this may not be one to binge - watch quite so rapidly as other netflix offerings – crown, state and church favour small, subtle nudges of each other and loaded silences, rather than loaded guns and pile - driver plots, which doesn’t exactly make the pace sluggish, but it does mean that one or two episodes at a time feels plenty .
between august and december 1957, picasso carried out an analysis of velázquez’s las meninas. the suite of fifty - eight works that picasso donated to the museu picasso in 1968 consists of forty - four interpretations of the velázquez picture, nine descriptions of the dovecote at his villa la californie studio in cannes, three landscapes and two free interpretations: the piano and portrait of jacqueline. ten of the forty - four oils devoted to las meninas treat the original composition in its entirety .
these complicated and emotionally volatile family ties are only one angle that the film works well. the central scam that occupies marcos and juan involves a sheet of rare stamps, the
nine queens .
or rather, it' s a sheet of faux - stamps, but, as you hear it, very good quality art. they locate a buyer, gandolfo (ignasi abadal), who' s about to leave town quick because he' s been busted for his own expansively shady deals. they have only a matter of hours to set up the deal and deliver. the scam seems simple enough, but inevitably, problems crop up. also inevitably, most of these problems have to do with doubt and betrayal: as much as the conmen must depend on and trust one another to get their work done, they must also assume, given their career choice, that no one can be trusted. thus, their evolving dilemma .
early one morning, marcos observes juan successfully pulling off a bill - changing scam on a cashier, and then getting caught as he attempts to pull the same trick on the next shift. marcos steps in, claiming to be a policeman, and drags juan out of the store. once they are back on the street, marcos reveals himself to be a fellow swindler with a game of much higher stakes in mind, and he invites juan to be his partner in crime. a once - in - a - lifetime scheme seemingly falls into their laps - an old - time con man enlists them to sell a forged set of extremely valuable rare stamps, the nine queens. the tricky negotiations that ensue bring into the picture a cast of suspicious characters, including marcos' sister valeria, their younger brother federico and a slew of thieves, conmen and pickpockets. as the deceptions mount, it becomes more and more difficult to figure out who is conning whom .
while the foo fighters did not release any new music during this year’s window of eligibility, grohl has two nominations, both connected to sound city: best rock song for “cut me some slack” (with paul mccartney and the other surviving members of nirvana, a group often dubbed “sirvana”), and best compilation soundtrack for visual media; separately, he appears as a songwriter (again, with nirvana) on a best rap song nominee, jay - z’s “holy grail. ” queens are up for two awards: best rock album (for …like clockwork), best rock performance with the album’s “my god is the sun, ” and, indirectly, best engineered album, non - classical. two - time grammy winners nine inch nails’ hesitation marks is nominated for best alternative music album. buckingham is not nominated but is featured on the delta rae song “if i loved you, ” which garnered rob cavallo a shot at producer of the year, non - classical .
luna looks as if he couldn' t hurt a fly, which works for his character at times. rodrigo has the advantage of having a trustworthy face, his partner tells him. when the duo fall into a high - stakes scam involving valuable antique silver certificates (a stand - in for the
nine queens
postal stamps of the original), it' s rodrigo who seals the deal by charming an older woman. but luna also looks terrified when rodrigo and richard engage in heated negotiations with the would - be buyer. his visible show of fear makes sense once you have seen the ending, but it just looks squirrelly without the benefit of that knowledge. but luna is always a joy to watch. he even pulls off a silly moment where he flirts with richard' s sister, asking the virtual stranger whether she recognizes a certain tune and singing a snippet of it. luna commits himself to this left - field moment. a less game actor might have mumbled and slinked off in embarrassment .
early one morning juan is pulling a bill - switching scheme in an all - night deli when marcos, an apparently innocent bystander, pretends to whisk him off to the police. but marcos is a con artist, just helping out a new recruit, and he enlists juan in a plot that he claims will set them up for early retirement. juan is skeptical at first, but agrees to work with marcos after he impresses him with a few sophisticated cons. a once - in - a - lifetime scheme then seemingly falls in their laps - - an old time con man enlists juan and marcos to sell a forged set of extremely valuable rare stamps - - the nine queens. the tricky negotiations that ensue bring into the picture a cast of suspicious characters including marcos' beautiful sister valeria, their innocent younger brother, frederico who idolizes marcus - - as well as a slew of thieves, conmen and pickpockets. as the action moves from humble barrios to luxury hotels, it soon appears that the city itself is part of an elaborate plot .
early one morning juan is pulling a bill - switching scheme in an all - night deli when marcos, an apparently innocent bystander, pretends to whisk him off to the police. but marcos is a con - artist, just helping out a new recruit, and he enlists juan in a plot that he claims will set them up for early retirement. juan is skeptical at first, but agrees to work with marcos after he impresses him with a few sophisticated cons. a once - in - a - lifetime scheme then seemingly falls in their laps - - an old time con - man enlists juan and marcos to sell a forged set of extremely valuable rare stamps - - the nine queens. the tricky negotiations that ensue bring into the picture a cast of suspicious characters including marcos' beautiful sister valeria, their innocent younger brother, frederico who idolizes marcus - - as well as a slew of thieves, conmen and pickpockets. as the action moves from humble barrios to luxury hotels, it soon appears that the city itself is part of an elaborate plot.
nine queens ( spanish : nueve reinas ) is a 2000 argentine crime drama film written and directed by fabián bielinsky and starring ricardo darín , gastón pauls , leticia brédice , tomás fonzi and alejandro awada . the story centers on two con artists who meet and decide to cooperate in a major scam . the film was nominated for 28 awards and won 21 of them , and is now considered a classic in argentina 's film history . 
nine queens (spanish: nueve reinas) is a 2000 argentine crime drama film written and directed by fabián bielinsky and starring ricardo darín, gastón pauls, leticia brédice, tomás fonzi and alejandro awada. the story centers on two con artists who meet and decide to cooperate in a major scam. the film was nominated for 28 awards and won 21 of them, and is now considered a classic in argentina's film history.
nine queens (spanish: nueve reinas) is a 2000 argentine crime drama film written and directed by fabián bielinsky and starring ricardo darín, gastón pauls, leticia brédice, tomás fonzi and alejandro awada. the story centers on two con artists who meet and decide to cooperate in a major scam. the film was nominated for 28 awards and won 21 of them, and is now considered a classic in argentina's film history.