“This next block of Edward Norton movies is my favorite. All of his best, one right after the other. These are the ones I obsessed over, that I watched on repeat over and over and over before my movie collection grew too out of hand to be able to rewatch things. Rounders in particular was a big hit back on 1E, my hall back at my dorm. You couldnt go three days without catching someone watching it (usually my DVD) in the lounge.
What’s kinda cool about watching Edward Norton’s films in chronological order for the first time is seeing the progression of his career (and seeing him get just a lil bit older with each one). The first three movies had him playing (for the most part) sweet, sympathetic, innocent. This is the first chance to see him with some sleeze and some edge, but at the core he still has such heart as Worm.
This movie was also my first real intro to Matt Damon. I think I’d seen Good Will Hunting by this point but wasnt impressed with it at the time (the fact that Minnie Driver annoyed me was a big factor there) though I came to love it more the longer I spent in Boston and at MIT. I think I’d also seen Bourne by then, but really this is what made me a fan. There’s so many other people in this cast that I couldnt fully appreciate until much later: John Malkovich, John Turturro, Famke Janssen.
As many times as I watched this, the one thing that kept me from watching it even more, which may also be how it missed my favorites list is that Gretchen Mol is \m/ annoying as all \m/. Watching it now, yup still true. Although now I realize it’s more how her character is written than how she was played. She’s so quick to be judgemental and sees everything as completely black and white, I just dont understand what Damon’s character sees in her.
This last scene is giving me a wicked bad craving for Oreos.”