A beginning one will have trouble getting out of their minds days after experiencing it. An ending that will be able to draw tears from the most composed soul. What bridges this gap is two dynamic performances that emit a piercing dialogue. Guess that means Leave brings in the total package.
When a flick starts out on such an emotional high, it’s usually a chore for them to maintain that level. The brutal opening in Leave is followed by an entrancing performance from co-star & co-writer Frank John Hughes. One may not be familiar with his work, but you’ll want to be after hanging on his every word in this feature.
Under the steady guidance of director Robert Celestino, this dialogue driven thriller maintains an intensity that will suffocate the audience. Just when there is very little air left, a gripping emotional ending finishes the job.
Everyone involved instinctively...
When a flick starts out on such an emotional high, it’s usually a chore for them to maintain that level. The brutal opening in Leave is followed by an entrancing performance from co-star & co-writer Frank John Hughes. One may not be familiar with his work, but you’ll want to be after hanging on his every word in this feature.
Under the steady guidance of director Robert Celestino, this dialogue driven thriller maintains an intensity that will suffocate the audience. Just when there is very little air left, a gripping emotional ending finishes the job.
Everyone involved instinctively...
- 4/29/2011
- by Joe Belcastro
- BuzzFocus.com
Bryan Cranston, Vinessa Shaw and Ron Livingston have joined the cast of Robert Celestino's indie thriller "Leave," about a novelist and his encounters on a road trip. According to Variety, Celestino will direct and Jim Valdez will executive produce. Michael Hagerty will handle producing duties.The cast includes co-producers Rick Gomez and Frank John Hughes, who also wrote the script.
- 6/11/2009
- by Adnan Tezer
- Monsters and Critics
Chicago – Welcome back to the Round-Up, a safety net to catch the DVD titles that fell off the mainstream tightrope. The titles this week have virtually nothing in common other than coming in two waves from two studios - a pair of classics from Paramount’s Centennial Collection and a trio of indie films from the great Magnolia Pictures.
All five titles were released on May 19th, 2009.
“Centennial Collection #8: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”
Photo credit: Paramount Synopsis: “”This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Behind the camera? John Ford, a director whose name is synonymous with “Westerns.” Gathered in front of it? An ideal cast – James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles and Lee Marvin. Now presented on two discs, with all-new special features, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance rides into town as classic entry in the Paramount Centennial Collection.
All five titles were released on May 19th, 2009.
“Centennial Collection #8: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”
Photo credit: Paramount Synopsis: “”This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Behind the camera? John Ford, a director whose name is synonymous with “Westerns.” Gathered in front of it? An ideal cast – James Stewart, John Wayne, Vera Miles and Lee Marvin. Now presented on two discs, with all-new special features, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance rides into town as classic entry in the Paramount Centennial Collection.
- 5/27/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
Gambling and heist movies have an established place within the drama and thriller world. Audiences swooned for the Rat Pack in the original Ocean’s 11, and they did again when George Clooney and Brad Pitt took over the game. But not all gambling films are the same – there’s a sharp rift dividing the two types. In one, the heist is glamorized, the stars are sexy and the end result is a celebration of wit and elaborate planning. The other half easily ranks as the more interesting of the two; in it a down on his luck gambler goes after his last shot to make it big. The Good Thief with Nick Nolte and Rounders with Matt Damon keep you rooting for the underdog as he attempts to climb out of the hole circumstance has dug for him. Yonkers Joe continues this tradition and cuts closer to The Good Thief...
- 5/25/2009
- by Lex Walker
- JustPressPlay.net
ComingSoon.net has received an exclusive clip from Yonkers Joe , the Robert Celestino movie opening in limited theaters today. Yonkers Joe is a high-stakes con film and moving family drama, starring Chazz Palminteri, Christine Lahti, Tom Guiry, Linus Roache, and Michael Lerner. An ode to old time gamblers, now outdated in an age of powerful upscale casinos, the film tells the story of a dice hustler (Palminteri) whose determination to make one last grab for a big score in Vegas is complicated by the reappearance of his estranged, mentally challenged son into his life. Watch The Clip...
- 1/9/2009
- Comingsoon.net
An extremely awkward cross between "Ocean's Eleven" and "Rain Man," Robert Celestino's "Yonkers Joe" is a mawkish tale of a crooked gambler who has a 17-year-old son with Down syndrome.
Chazz Palminteri is quite good as the old-school cardsharp, as is Christine Lahti playing his long-suffering girlfriend. Celestino's gritty depiction of the war between the casinos and the cheats - unlike, say, "21" - notably avoids most of the clichés of the genre.
Unfortunately, that's not true about Palminteri's mentally challenged son,...
Chazz Palminteri is quite good as the old-school cardsharp, as is Christine Lahti playing his long-suffering girlfriend. Celestino's gritty depiction of the war between the casinos and the cheats - unlike, say, "21" - notably avoids most of the clichés of the genre.
Unfortunately, that's not true about Palminteri's mentally challenged son,...
- 1/9/2009
- by By LOU LUMENICK
- NYPost.com
In the opening scene of Robert Celestino's Yonkers Joe, professional gambling cheat Chazz Palminteri is at the track, meeting with Michael Lerner, his trusted confederate and chief suppler of bogus cards and dice. They're in the middle of chewing over Palminteri's lifelong dream to take down one of the big Atlantic City casinos, when Lerner checks his watch and says he has to split. His daughter is in town. Yonkers Joe is largely concerned with the delicate balance between a crook's business life and his personal life—a balance the movie itself has trouble managing effectively ...
- 1/8/2009
- avclub.com
In the opening scene of Robert Celestino's Yonkers Joe, professional gambling cheat Chazz Palminteri is at the track, meeting with Michael Lerner, his trusted confederate and chief suppler of bogus cards and dice. They're in the middle of chewing over Palminteri's lifelong dream to take down one of the big Atlantic City casinos, when Lerner checks his watch and says he has to split. His daughter is in town. Yonkers Joe is largely concerned with the delicate balance between a crook's business life and his personal life—a balance the movie itself has trouble managing effectively. Half of Yonkers Joe follows Palminteri as he schleps his formidable mechanic skills from backroom card games to back-alley crapshoots, all while calculating how he can use what he has at his disposal to pull off one of the slickest cons of all time. The other half follows Palminteri's grown son Tom Guiry,...
- 1/8/2009
- by Noel Murray
- avclub.com
From the start, “Yonkers Joe” pitches the spectator directly into a world of tough-talking gamblers and sharks, where the dice are loaded, hands move quickly, and there’s always a scam in the offing. This milieu of casinos and parking lots, peopled with hustlers and hookers, is a familiar film setting, but one that’s produced remarkably few good films. Though the subject at hand seems ideally suited to cinema, allowing for a …...
- 1/7/2009
- Indiewire
by Leo Goldsmith (January 7, 2009) [An indieWIRE review from Reverse Shot.]
From the start, "Yonkers Joe" pitches the spectator directly into a world of tough-talking gamblers and sharks, where the dice are loaded, hands move quickly, and there's always a scam in the offing. This milieu of casinos and parking lots, peopled with hustlers and hookers, is a familiar film setting, but one that's produced remarkably few good films. Though the subject at hand seems ideally suited to cinema, allowing for a closer look at all the sleights and feints of card-sharp's or crap-shooter's trade, films such as "Hard Eight," "Shade," "The Cooler," and this year's "21" all mine similar material with a range of mostly disappointing results.
From the start, "Yonkers Joe" pitches the spectator directly into a world of tough-talking gamblers and sharks, where the dice are loaded, hands move quickly, and there's always a scam in the offing. This milieu of casinos and parking lots, peopled with hustlers and hookers, is a familiar film setting, but one that's produced remarkably few good films. Though the subject at hand seems ideally suited to cinema, allowing for a closer look at all the sleights and feints of card-sharp's or crap-shooter's trade, films such as "Hard Eight," "Shade," "The Cooler," and this year's "21" all mine similar material with a range of mostly disappointing results.
- 1/7/2009
- by peter
- Indiewire
By Aaron Hillis
If New York-born actor (and sometime writer/director) Chazz Palminteri were just a decade older, he probably would've been an Italian-American staple in the '70s films of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. Instead, during that time he studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg, then made his way to off-Broadway and TV shows in the '80s before writing the 1988 play "A Bronx Tale" that would eventually be adapted for the screen as Robert De Niro's directorial debut and offer him his breakout movie role. Now one of the most prominent Italian-American actors working today, Palminteri currently stars as the titular Vegas shark in "Yonkers Joe," an entertaining drama about a con man whose seedy world of palming dice, cheating casinos, and conning any poor sucker is uprooted when he's forced to look after his adult son with Down's syndrome. I took a...
If New York-born actor (and sometime writer/director) Chazz Palminteri were just a decade older, he probably would've been an Italian-American staple in the '70s films of Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. Instead, during that time he studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg, then made his way to off-Broadway and TV shows in the '80s before writing the 1988 play "A Bronx Tale" that would eventually be adapted for the screen as Robert De Niro's directorial debut and offer him his breakout movie role. Now one of the most prominent Italian-American actors working today, Palminteri currently stars as the titular Vegas shark in "Yonkers Joe," an entertaining drama about a con man whose seedy world of palming dice, cheating casinos, and conning any poor sucker is uprooted when he's forced to look after his adult son with Down's syndrome. I took a...
- 1/7/2009
- by Aaron Hillis
- ifc.com
By Neil Pedley
There's a welcome change of pace this week, with nary a Nazi in sight. Character actors go to work both in front of and behind the camera, there's a white wedding, a black comedy and a bizarre love triangle in Plautdietsch just over the Mexican border.
"8 Films to Die For: After Dark Horrorfest 2009"
For one week only, nasty niche distributor After Dark Films terrorizes 300 screens across the country with their third annual "Horrorfest" showcase featuring a selection of eight indie horror films. This year's selection comprises of: "Autopsy," the Lena Headey-Richard Jenkins' thriller "The Broken," "The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations," "Dying Breed," "Perkins' 14," "Slaughter," the Korean frightfest "Voices," and "From Within," which Alison Willmore noted during its Tribeca premiere wasn't exactly for God-fearing types. Eight films to die for is what they say -- we'll settle for being made to perhaps feel a bit sick afterwards.
There's a welcome change of pace this week, with nary a Nazi in sight. Character actors go to work both in front of and behind the camera, there's a white wedding, a black comedy and a bizarre love triangle in Plautdietsch just over the Mexican border.
"8 Films to Die For: After Dark Horrorfest 2009"
For one week only, nasty niche distributor After Dark Films terrorizes 300 screens across the country with their third annual "Horrorfest" showcase featuring a selection of eight indie horror films. This year's selection comprises of: "Autopsy," the Lena Headey-Richard Jenkins' thriller "The Broken," "The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations," "Dying Breed," "Perkins' 14," "Slaughter," the Korean frightfest "Voices," and "From Within," which Alison Willmore noted during its Tribeca premiere wasn't exactly for God-fearing types. Eight films to die for is what they say -- we'll settle for being made to perhaps feel a bit sick afterwards.
- 1/5/2009
- by Neil Pedley
- ifc.com
Magnolia Pictures recently released this brand new movie trailer from the upcoming drama “Yonkers Joe” by director Robert Celestino (Mr. Vincent) and starring Chazz Palminteri (Once More with Feeling, The Unusual Suspects), Christine Lahti (Obsessed) and Tom Guiry (Mystic River). Synopsis: Yonkers Joe is an exciting, high-stakes con film and moving family drama written and directed by Robert Celestino, and starring Academy Award-nominee Chazz Palminteri, Academy Award-winner Christine Lahti, Tom Guiry (The Black Donnellys), Golden Globe-nominee Linus Roache, and Academy Award-nominee Michael Lerner. An ode to old time gamblers, now outdated in an age of powerful upscale casinos, Yonkers Joe tells the story of a dice hustler (Palminteri) whose determination to [...]...
- 12/28/2008
- by Brian Corder
- ShockYa
Here is the official poster for Magnolia’s Pictures Yonkers Joe . The movie opens in theaters January 9, 2009 Yonkers Joe is an exciting, high-stakes con film and moving family drama written and directed by Robert Celestino, and starring Academy Award-nominee Chazz Palminteri, Academy Award-winner Christine Lahti, Tom Guiry (The Black Donnellys), Golden Globe-nominee Linus Roache, and Academy Award-nominee Michael Lerner. An ode to old time gamblers, now outdated in an age of powerful upscale casinos, Yonkers Joe tells the story of a dice hustler (Palminteri) whose determination to make one last grab for a big score in Vegas is [...]...
- 12/10/2008
- by The Critic
- SmartCine.com
New York -- Magnolia Pictures has nabbed North American rights to the Vegas heist drama "Yonkers Joe," starring Chazz Palminteri, Christine Lahti and Tom Guiry.
Writer-director Robert Celestino's film tells the story of a dice hustler (Palminteri) whose stab at one last big score is complicated by the reappearance of his estranged, mentally challenged son (Guiry). Linus Roache and Michael Lerner also star in the ode to old-time gamblers adjusting to a new age of upscale casinos.
"Joe" is the latest pickup of 2008 Tribeca Film Festival premiere. The Wagner/Cuban Co.-owned distributor will release it on Ultra VOD platforms Dec. 5, and there will be an HDNet sneak preview two days before it hits theaters in 10 markets Jan. 9.
"It works as both a fun con-artist flick and an appealing drama, and it's a terrific addition to our Ultra VOD program," Magnolia president Eamonn Bowles said.
"Yonkers Joe" was produced by Vegas-based Go Prods.
Writer-director Robert Celestino's film tells the story of a dice hustler (Palminteri) whose stab at one last big score is complicated by the reappearance of his estranged, mentally challenged son (Guiry). Linus Roache and Michael Lerner also star in the ode to old-time gamblers adjusting to a new age of upscale casinos.
"Joe" is the latest pickup of 2008 Tribeca Film Festival premiere. The Wagner/Cuban Co.-owned distributor will release it on Ultra VOD platforms Dec. 5, and there will be an HDNet sneak preview two days before it hits theaters in 10 markets Jan. 9.
"It works as both a fun con-artist flick and an appealing drama, and it's a terrific addition to our Ultra VOD program," Magnolia president Eamonn Bowles said.
"Yonkers Joe" was produced by Vegas-based Go Prods.
- 10/15/2008
- by By Gregg Goldstein
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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