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Vegas Movie (and TV) Collection

Discussion in 'Misc. Vegas Chat' started by Todd_Royce_XXL, Nov 7, 2013.

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  1. Todd_Royce_XXL

    Todd_Royce_XXL Low-Roller

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    So in a thread on this board about the movie LAST VEGAS I found this quote:

    First, I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one who sees Vegas as a character in movies, almost. My wife thinks I'm kind of crazy with this. But ever since the first time we went to Vegas I find myself searching for TV shows & movies that are filmed at or set at Las Vegas.

    I love the original Hangover movie, and while I think it's a great script, with great actors in it, if it wasn't based in Vegas I don't know that I'd have watched it 15 times.
    I saw Hangover 3 the week after a trip to Vegas in the theatre and it helped sooth my post-parting depression by seeing the city up on the big screen. :beer:

    National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation is a pretty terrible movie, but I still bust it out from time to time strictly due to the setting.

    I recently watched a movie called Lay The Favorite with Bruce Willis. The movie itself wasn't very good, IMO, but again it was filmed almost entirely in LV.

    Honeymoon in Vegas
    Oceans 11 (both versions, and the sequels)
    Casino
    Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
    round out my movie collection.

    As for TV currently I watch Bad Ink and The Vegas Strip as well as any other of the Travel Channel or Destination America Channel shows, sadly most of those are fairly old.

    I have a seven dvd disc set documentary called Vegas: The City The Mob Made, that's really good for some old footage as well as modern strip shots.

    So what am I missing?
    What are some of your favorite TV shows or Movies?
     
  2. jdvegas

    jdvegas VIP Whale

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    Great analogy!!! I feel the same!
     
  3. xizor

    xizor Tourist

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    Pink Cadillac with Clint Eastwood, just to see downtown before FSE.
    Vegas Bachelor Party
     
  4. waverunner

    waverunner ------VEGA$------

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    My favorite movie about Vegas and set in Vegas is "Heat" with Burt Reynolds. I know most people who have seen it didn't like it, but Heat was made just before the whole Vegas permanent transformation came about. I loved seeing the "old" Vegas before Excalibur and Mirage came on board.
    I look at Vegas in decades that i have been fortunate to inhabit:

    70's = TV show Vega$
    80's = Heat......this movie doesn't even show up on LVOL
    90's = Casino
    2000's = Ocean's 11
    2010's = Blast Vegas

    Honorable mention:

    70"s = Corvette Summer
    80's = Rain Main........in the background you can see a partially built Mirage
    90's = Showgirls
    2000's = The Cooler
    2010's = still waiting
     
  5. KyleB

    KyleB Low-Roller

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    Although not strictly filmed in LA, Swingers is my go to Vegas movie. Since I mostly drive in to Vegas, the scene just gets me pumped up about my upcoming trips. Vegas Vacation might be kind of lame, but it did provide some great scenery as well as Nick Papageorgio. The Cooler and Oceans 11/13 are both great, and for some reason I love Bachelor Party Vegas. Obviously the Hangover is a top option as well.

    As for shows, it is pretty tough to beat Vegas Strip
     
  6. easystreet57

    easystreet57 Low-Roller

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    To the OP, Sin City Sinner.
    Thanks for giving my obsession a description “seeing Vegas as a character in films”, that is exactly it. Me too! I feed off of everything Vegas. I have watched Hangover so many times that I can recite most of the script from memory. I got it bad, the GF semi-bad. She still may think I am crazy, but not about Vegas. It’s something we both enjoy. We even have a Vegas Room in our condo, part tribute, part “memory lane”.

    Anyway, here some thoughts on the Vegas movie/TV thread. I am not familiar with every Vegas movie but here are some of my favorites. Didn’t realize that there were so many till reading VMB.

    “The Hangover” Allan is just…well, the toast of the town!

    “What Happens in Vegas” (the first 20 minutes of running time). Carmen Diaz is a favorite of mine, especially when she sliding along a bar.

    “Oceans 11”, the original, come-on, the coolest kats and kittens that ever roamed the desert, like the Flamingo, forever fabulous!, plus I enjoy listening to Frank Sinatra Jr. and Angie Dickerson’s commentary about the “Rat Pack” and the making of the film… 60’s style.

    “Viva Las Vegas”. Elvis and Ann Margret in Vegas, and a motto to live by
    .
    “21”, and a few of the others.

    For me some movies are Vegas downers, like” Casino” and “Leaving Las Vegas”. (and endless episodes of Cops). I don’t want to see Vegas ugly. I want to travel to Vegas believing that it’s covered with “butter cream icing”, even though I am well aware that it is not.

    About Vegas themed TV shows? I like popping in a DVD of NBC’s” Las Vegas” with James Cann and Josh Duhamel. Does Nikki Cox, Molly Sims, Vanessa Marcil and the thin script get you in the Vegas vibe? Oh yeah!
    And, still hopeful that CBS will someday offer a home DVD of “VEGAS”, the short lived 2012 series of the life and times of Sheriff Lamb and the gang.
    Great thread, thanks for reading.
     
  7. nfcwestbest

    nfcwestbest Low-Roller

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    I like the 1999 drama "the Runner" staring "Ron Ellard as an addicted gambler. Whose relationship with cocktail waitress Courtney Cox takes a turn for the worse, when he loses a large sum of his bosses John Goodmans money. Check it out.
     
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  8. bluerider

    bluerider Low-Roller

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    Solid movie. Saw it years ago and recently ended up finding the dvd on amazon. A fairly unknown Vegas movie with a decent cast...
     
  9. DonkHappens

    DonkHappens Low-Roller

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    Nothing wrong with including Swingers in the Vegas genre, imo. If nothing else, it gave us "Vegas baby, Vegas" as well as the classic breakfast scene, "hang on, Voltaire"

    [YOUTUBE]nXo6UnxM_0c[/YOUTUBE]
     
  10. Todd_Royce_XXL

    Todd_Royce_XXL Low-Roller

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    I first caught the NBC show Las Vegas in reruns after my wife and I got back from our first trip to Vegas. I don't know what I was expecting but in the first scene they showed Luxor, NYNY & MGM and for some reason I was SHOCKED that they were showing the real Las Vegas, lol. Again, I don't know what I was thinking the exterior shots were going to be, but I think that's when I began my tv/movie obsession with LV. Also, Vanessa Marcil officially joined my...um..."Celebrity Pass" list if you know what I mean.
    Also, I was going to mention VEGAS from CBS, but the wound is maybe still a little fresh for me. I'm bitter that show was cancelled, not only was it about Vegas but it was becoming a damn good show.
    Also, I forgot What Happens In Vegas, which is odd because we just watched that last weekend.
     
  11. bardolator

    bardolator Lifelong Low Roller

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    Disagree that anything filmed in (or supposedly filmed in) Las Vegas is worthwhile. There's as much crap about Vegas as there is not about Vegas. Unfortunately, the glitzy "Las Vegas" series with Cann and Duhamel qualifies as crap about Vegas. What a stinker. So wrong about Vegas in so many ways. Also, while Las Vegas can be a character in a work, just filming there or saying you're there doesn't make it one. As the example above suggests, plenty of writers and directors don't understand it at all beyond obvious surface features.

    I liked the short-lived TV series "Vegas" with Dennis Quaid and Michael Chiklis and was sad it didn't renew. Las Vegas was definitely a character in that show, and while everything Vegas might be worth a glance, anything mob Vegas is much more interesting. I'll watch some terrible crap if it's mob Vegas.
     
  12. jon95616

    jon95616 Low-Roller

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    I watched that Steve Carrell/Jim Carey Vegas magician movie just because its a Vegas movie. Pretty terrible movie.

    The other recent Vegas magician movie "Now you see me" was much better. Pretty cool shots of them staying in a suite at City Center (Aria?).
     
  13. dfalk

    dfalk VIP Whale

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    I like this show too, I always watch a couple seasons of it right before a trip.
     
  14. jamesxnj

    jamesxnj VIP Whale

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    Just happened across the yesterday.Cheesy flick yes,but like the Rio scenes of the sportsbook (Like seeing my living room on tv I have been there so many times)

    I am still pissed that NBC canceled ''Vegas"..a harmless mostly feelgood type show..There was some violence in some episodes,but nowadays ??

    Speaking of the Rio couple years ago they were filming an episode of 'Raising Hope' and it was pretty cool watching the crew and all the work that went into just background scenes..Talked to a couple paid stand-ins waiting for thier call to just walk through the scene...The show aired in Oct or Nov 2011 if my years are correct..Shows the Masquarade escaltors,Buzios/pool and center bar if interested...Bartenders there were pissed they used an actor for the scene in a joking way..Buddy and I were at the opposite end of the shot.
     
  15. nfcwestbest

    nfcwestbest Low-Roller

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    I got another good movie for you to check out. Well a third of a movie anyways also from 1999 directed by the same guy who made Swingers. GO is split into 3 parts. The middle part is filmed in Vegas at the Riviera, new Frontier and Crazy Horse strip club. Starring Katie Holmes ,Jay Mohr, Timothy Olyphant and a few other minor stars your recognise.
     
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  16. easystreet57

    easystreet57 Low-Roller

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    Thanks for bring up a valid point in this thread, please give me the chance to redeem myself…

    No disagreement that movies and/or TV shows that are set in Vegas somehow could be used for historical reference. Speaking for myself, referring to Vegas as a “character” in a film means only that I am drawn to the work more so then other productions simply because of the Vegas connection, like some would give preference to a show containing a favorite actor, nothing more. I enjoy the Vegas experience, the glitz and glamour, real or imaged, knowing full well that there is a actual American city at its core with a past and a future and plenty of” warts”. Tourism is a major industry and employer in the state of Nevada and the fake persona of Las Vegas, some of what is delivered on the screen, contributes to that industry, along with the Castle, the pyramid and the Eifel Tower, unreal as they may be. I have as many Vegas documentaries as I have silly movies. I find the history of Las Vegas one of the most interesting and have informed myself of the railroad founding, the clandestine financing from Salt Lake City, the mob “golden goose” days and the eventual takeover by Wall Street after realizing the enormous amount money to be made from the fake industry, Hollywood included. And still I enjoy watching Carmen Diaz slide down the bar, I can separate the two.

    The NBC “Las Vegas” series ran for five seasons, the 2012 “Vegas” only one. The latter contained some degree of historical information about the “David and Goliath” struggle of Sheriff Lamb, is that why it had little appeal?
    I am with you, I enjoy a good helping of” meat and potato” Vegas, but I always save room for some “cotton candy”. JW
     
  17. Todd_Royce_XXL

    Todd_Royce_XXL Low-Roller

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    Here is what I honestly think happened with the show Vegas. IMO the series started off slow, the first few episodes were not all that great. Of course that's just my opinion, but considering it started with really high ratings and they dropped over the first few episodes I don't think I was alone.
    I'm obsessed with Las Vegas, I love mob stories, I love this period so I stuck with the show and again IMO the show got WAY better. Really once the relationship with Russo and the cop, and further involvement of the mob and the FBI and all of that, the season ended really hot. But I think CBS, like most networks, have a cut and run mentality.
    To me what would make sense is if a show is already on the air and has a bit of a following, do some extra promotion for the show for a while. We've heard of plenty of shows who's ratings were too low during the actual season and then they gained a larger audience during summer re-runs, so if you already have a loyal audience for a show, try to put some more behind promoting it. Don't just give up on it and introduce a whole new show.

    I just thought of another Vegas show that only lasted one season that I enjoyed: The Defenders with Jim Belushi and Jerry O'Connell. They had some entertaining episodes, but only got one season as well.
     
  18. bardolator

    bardolator Lifelong Low Roller

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    Agree with Sin City Sinner's analysis of what happened to the Quaid-Chiklis show. The network didn't give it enough time. A show like that requires time to develop characters and catch on with the audience. Cotton candy shows require no mental work by the audience, and their plot is unimportant.

    A location can become a character in the sense that it sets a mood and affects what people do. Hawaii is a character in 'Hawaii Five-O" but not NYC or L.A. or SF in most cop shows set in those places. A big city is pretty much a big city, but Hawaii, like Las Vegas, is its own place.
     
  19. zamboni

    zamboni VIP Whale

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    My Favorite:

    [​IMG]

    Because of:

    [​IMG]

    Amongst other things
     
  20. gabd13

    gabd13 Tourist

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    The movie Lost in America starring Albert Brooks has a great Vegas scene in it.
     
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