Poker Jokers
Zak Penn is best known as an A-list screenwriter of special effects titles like X2, X-Men: The Last Stand, and the upcoming The Incredible Hulk. He was still in his early twenties when he got his big break with the original screenplay for the notorious Schwarzenegger vehicle Last Action Hero; that it was substantially rewritten by other hands Penn received only a story credit seems in retrospect like a plus.
Much like his previous outing as a director the hilarious 2004 Incident at Loch Ness his new film, The Grand, is an improv mockumentary in the Christopher Guest mold. For this story of the world s second biggest poker tournament, Penn has assembled an amazing cast that includes improv vets (Richard Kind), sitcom stars (Ray Romano, Jason Alexander), movie stars (Woody Harrelson), character actors (Dennis Farina, Barry Corbin), a revered German director (Werner Herzog), real-life poker players (Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth), a fuzzy rabbit (Munchkin), an emissary from the Christopher Guest troupe (Michael McKean), and the long missing-in-action Gabe Kaplan.
In a sit-down a few hours before the film s premiere, I ask Penn whether he started out with the poker idea or with the notion of making another improvisational film. The second, he tells me. I absolutely wanted to do an improvisational ensemble comedy, and I was just looking for the right setting to put it in. My friend Matt Bierman asked me if I had ever watched the World Series of Poker on TV and pitched me on the whole idea. I actually had very little interest in doing a movie about poker. I like playing it, not watching it. But the setting just worked too well for too many reasons; the characters really worked in that world.
Were there other concepts along the way that you considered? I ask. Like something that turned out to be what Christopher Guest was going to do next week?
Not really. When you re doing an improv movie, you re in a kind of small group. It s Christopher Guest or nothing. And it s not like he churns out a movie every year.
Where Loch Ness followed a more fully preplanned story line, The Grand crosscuts among a bunch of aspirants for a $10 million, winner-take-all pot. One-Eyed Jack (Harrelson), who inherited the casino from his gruff Granddad (Corbin) and lost it in a haze of sex and drugs, is hoping to buy it back from coldhearted magnate Steve Lavisch (McKean). Harold Melvin (Chris Parnell) is a human calculator, very close in affect to Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man. Andy Andrews (Kind) is a schnook who seems to have stumbled into qualifying despite having no poker knowledge at all. And the emotional heart of the story resides in the hugely dysfunctional, longstanding family conflicts between Larry Schwartzman (David Cross) and his sister Lainie (Cheryl Hines), both of them contestants, whose sibling relationship was poisoned in childhood when their father (Kaplan) pitted them against each other while always favoring Lainie.
The shape of the film changed in response to the casting, with the actors filling in their characters traits and backstories. If you read the first draft of the treatment, Penn says, Lainie s husband Fred has maybe two mentions. He s barely in it. When Ray Romano came along, we expanded the part. And now even though we shot all his stuff in two days he s all over the movie, which is mostly a testament to him. He and some of his buddies came up with all this stuff, and we wove it into the movie.
Penn started with a core group of friends in the cast. Werner and Michael Karnow and Richard Kind were all good friends of mine. I ve always said that Werner would be a perfect Bond villain. And so The German is my interpretation of that. There were a lot of people coming in and out, so there were only a couple of performers that I specifically wrote parts for. For the rest of them, Matt and I conceived the characters, using ideas from other people, and then finding the right actors for it.
What s really important, he says, is casting and then creating a good environment. With a good enough environment, you need to have actors who come prepared with material. Well, except for Michael McKean. I feel like you could turn a camera on and say, Michael, we re going to shoot the whole movie, and you play every part. And he d figure it out as he went along.
It s not surprising that McKean, after Spinal Tap and the Guest films, could wing it brilliantly. But I wondered about some of the actors who didn t have that sort of background, like Barry Corbin. I wouldn t say that Barry is as up to the improv stuff as some of the other people. I had to help him more and script it out. But he s really damn funny, and he was great in the moments where it was just behavior.
By coincidence, two of the stars of The Grand, Corbin and Harrelson, were both in this year s Oscar winner, No Country for Old Men. We were shooting this at the same time they were shooting No Country for Old Men, so Woody and Barry were going back and forth on what I called the Coen brothers shuttle. The Coens were very, very nice about it. They had a lot more money than we did, so they paid for the plane fare.
The entirety of The Grand builds to the final big showdown, the championship table, which takes up almost the entire last third of the film. Amazingly perhaps insanely Penn decided to have the game play out for real, with no advance outcome scripted. We set it up like a real poker game. We had 10 cameras and a live studio audience. I had some fixed decks in case things went wrong, but it s so complicated that I didn t really know how to use them. It was a very strange experience, being around actors in character all desperately wanting to win. Even between takes there was a lot of animosity between them; they were all betting each other on who was gonna win. We said Whoever wins, wins. If Andy Andrews wins, we ll use a scene where he wins. So I had to shoot twelve different endings. We shot scenes with Ray and Cheryl where she won, and then a second time where she lost. And we did the same with Andy Andrews.
Having real world-class poker players in the cast helped keep things honest. They d correct us if we had anything wrong. Absolutely. Phil Laak and the rest of them would point out when we got the odds slightly wrong. Andy Newman, who plays the dealer in the movie, is also a writer and an actor. He s the guy who created Celebrity Poker on Bravo. So he was on set every single day, and he s as close as you get to being in both worlds. He s an excellent poker player. He really knew his stuff. Frankly, he s the unsung hero of the movie. I should remember to thank him in my speech tonight. We wouldn t have been able to do the movie without him.
The Grand. Directed by Zak Penn. Written by Zak Penn Matt Bierman. With Woody Harrelson, Cheryl Hines, David Cross, Ray Romano, Dennis Farina, Richard Kind, Chris Parnell, Werner Herzog, Gabe Kaplan, Michael Karnow, and Michael McKean. Opens Friday at AMC Loews Broadway.
Early in 1600 the first poker game: Gilet appeared in France and Italy Primero card game poker now have the elements: bet every hand, such as the pair, iron, and with three sets of licensing.
1600-1790 evolution: Brag games in the United Kingdom, Germany and France, the Pochen Poque development of the three places. Scare game with the elements, in Germany and France in the name of this game has been very close to the poker. German version of the game, gamers in the thought of licensing or licensing will be turned to percussion desktop and said that Ich Poche! As instructed. Although the school claimed that Poker (Poker) is derived from the word in the phrase pukka India, and in India, truly is a pukka sahibs game.
1790-1830 Poque: putting the people of New Orleans, a sailor from Persia to teach French immigration Gibraltar gambling games, this game is from the ancient Persians evolved from the game. Although the game with a five sets and a total of 25 licences to four players. After learning of immigrants and improve Poque fame for the new games, said, I poque (French pronunciation is divided into two po-que) 1 yuan, or I poque you two yuan. First game developed into Poqas , and then gradually evolved into a Pokah , and finally the Poker.
We can ignore pushing the origin of the name, as if it is from the poke , a term used to describe the pickpockets, or Ecstasy party is the word used by the magician.
1829 - New Orleans: This involves the daily English actor Joseph Crowell deeds, Helen M Gregor vessels on the matter to play cards, each of the five players all licensing and bet, and then whoever has the biggest set All bets will win combination. He said it was the statesman Henry Clay from the invention and is proud of what he deserves. Vessels along the Mississippi River trip to Ohio, during the Board continue. From the cities and towns adjacent to the river, the Licensing Board in Pengju, along the new railway from east to west has been carried out. Board bet only one round. The audience was not after five hand pumping licensing round.
1834 - cheating game: Jonathan H. Green professional gamblers become reformers, in 1834 wrote one of the earliest books on poker. He mentioned for the title of cheating the game, and he was in the Mississippi River on board game called poker.
Game by 20 licence, only Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks and 10. From 2 to 4 players, each have been allocated five cards in hand, the best poker hand wins popularity far exceeds the Three-Card Monte. 20 unlicensed poker in the eyes of people who were fooled than the Three-Card Monte more reasonable and legitimate.
1837 - Shunzi and spend the same: the use of 52 to join Shunzi poker and the same flower, at the same time can accommodate more than four players at the game.
1848 - gold tide: thousands of gold above those journey to the west, stopped the game and taken to the local.
1850 - Mota card: poker was introduced reform.
1861 - Xunhe (Stud) and pumping card: that the United States civil war poker dramatic population increase, regardless of the northern military or military barracks in the South have played poker in thousands of soldiers. Suohe civil war on the United States and levy licensing there is a profound change. When the war ended, poker has become America s most popular card game, two or more men can be done with a poker game. Games can be increased by placing bets in the Round of elements and skills. Bluffing game has become the most important part.
1872 - The establishment of the rules: When the United States Minister to the United Kingdom Robert C. Schenck, poker has also returned to Europe. Schenck at the Royal party in the poker introduced to the Queen Victoria and guests attended. Schenck should request the Queen wrote a poker rules and the relevant records in the British Duchess Notes , has become the first book on the rules, it printed at the Queen gave her a friend.
1870 - poker jackpot: Jackpots In order to prevent the emergence of a number of players with poor pumping licence for a licence to participate in dangerous exotic. In 1875 a clown Mota licensing.
1880 - Texas Hold em invention: To summarize a variety of poker games, Texas Hold em is one of the most successful people gamble is the best option for the introduction of public poker licensing concept.
1896 - poker chips : The first game magazine publishing.
1903 - equally exotic: high / low and the smallest hand in the game.
1909 - legislation against stupid: Two-Missouri (Coran and Lyles) to introduce a bill into the Legislative Council in control of poker players, and avoid foolish in the audience did not know the value of each hand, and a quarterly loss of a few millions of dollars the amount.
1911 - pumped games explosive growth: In 1911, the California State Bar (Harold Sigel Webb) will be dark licensing (pumping licensing) as technical gambling game. But winning number (Xunhe) idea is only a chance of the game, they were classified as unlawful. This lead to a new pumping games and Bota licensing development.
1925 - Public card: Texas Hold em and Omaha corollary in this case, the prototype of the game gradually emerging.
1930 - poker with words. Everywhere in the Board reflects a certain number of the daily poker phrase, and likewise also arise from non-gamers. Ace in the hole, beats me, blue chip, call the bluff, cash in, pass the buck, poker face, stack up, up the ante whenever these phrases coin flip and Boda licensing downturn daily.
1938 - British ban: Justice announced that poker is a game of chance in the club were classified as legitimate until 1960. During the poker game still in the private sector to continue and to other scare survival. In 1960, the club has become a legal and service charges collected, but not pumping commission. Later in the casino poker game are also provided.
1965 - Cincinnati children: Hollywood Poker for a film around the world, has never been introduced to the poker contacts, bring them happy and excited.
1970 - World Poker Series (WSOP): First game of the Binions Horseshoe in Las Vegas held. Poker game to Texas, has now become dominant. The winner will become the world poker champion. Noteworthy is the first champion in 12 years in nine Americans, including four of Texas.
1978 - Super System:: Super / System: Poker forces courses, Doyle Brunson is the author, with the number of top professional poker players of the experience of learning brought about revolutionary reform.
2000 - TV and the Internet: regular television Championship (from the table viewers can watch the glass-hand the players), and online poker room from the casinos and poker card room into people s homes.
2003 - World Poker Tour: a television series, the casino poker and television combined with micro-lens viewing players hand, the 2004 bonus pool to the record-breaking 8.0 million.
2004 - speed poker
