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#1
04-20-2006, 11:54 AM
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An old controversy finally addressed
Finally, the writers of "Rounders" address the issue of why Mike McDermott doesn't shag Petra when she drops by his apartment.
Courtesy of Curious Guy Bill Simmons, ESPN Page2. We need to settle some residual "Rounders" questions. I'm tired of getting these questions e-mailed to me by readers, and I'm tired of wondering about this stuff whenever I watch the movie, so we need to settle them once and for all. Question No. 1: After Mike McD's wet blanket girlfriend from hell moved out on him -- and thank God, you guys should have had her get run over by a cab on her way out -- and he was hanging out in his empty apartment watching the old Johnny Chan footage and feeling sorry for himself, the smoking-hot Russian chick (played by Famke Janssen, who should be much more famous than she is) comes over to collect some money, gives him a break on the figure, flirts with him, shoves her tongue down his throat ... and Mike McD basically gives her the Heisman. What the hell? Seriously, what the hell? First, what guy on the planet would turn down some revenge-against-my-ex sex with Famke Janssen? Second, what guy on the planet would turn down sex with Famke Janssen? (I asked this in a column four years ago, and I'm asking again now: How was Johnny Chan the only man in that room who ended up flopping a nut straight?) And third, the movie was rated "R," anyway ... you guys couldn't have thrown in a gratuitous sex scene for no real reason? Would that have killed you? Or was there some sort of underlying [censored]-erotic context with the Worm-Mike McD friendship that you were going after that I missed? Please explain yourselves. Part of me will never forgive either of you for this. Koppelman and Levien: We plead guilty. Biggest mistake of the film, probably of our entire career (please leave out the requisite "Walking Tall" joke, thank you) if only because we were on set and would've gotten to gawk at it for eight hours. As written, the character was a much more regular-looking girl. When John Dahl ended up casting Famke (the producers Ted Demme and Joel Stillerman knew her well), we were too green to see our opportunity. Now, today, believe us, Mike nails her, then after lots of gratuitous nudity, she casually mentions that Worm rang up the debt and Mike is off. It's not that we're monks, just idiots. If you want to know our logic, our admittedly misguided logic, here it is: A. Mike has already slept with her. You're a guy, so you understand what that means. The edge is off of it, just a little bit. B. Mike has just found out that he is, after driving the truck, walking the line, staying away from the tables, right back in a giant hole. Worm has put him in serious financial debt to people who know how to collect. C. For the plot of the film to work, we figured that the debt of money had to seem so important to Mike, so dangerous, so huge, that Mike had to deal with it right away. In hindsight, we were totally wrong. (By the way, neither Ansen nor Travers picked up [on] that one.) Simmons: I feel like I just listened to Joe Dumars explain why he picked Darko over Carmelo. Sure, everything makes sense ... but it was still catastrophic. 
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#2
04-20-2006, 11:56 AM
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Re: An old controversy finally addressed
They also explain the amount of money he won, and also how Mike can cash a check that big without paying a percentage on it. The answer to both is what people on here mostly guessed in their respective threads.
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#3
04-20-2006, 04:01 PM
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Re: An old controversy finally addressed
Holy hell, is it THAT hard to post a link to the article if you're going to take the time to copy+paste all that text?? Now I have to go googling. FU.
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#5
04-20-2006, 04:15 PM
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Re: An old controversy finally addressed
[ QUOTE ]
Holy hell, is it THAT hard to post a link to the article if you're going to take the time to copy+paste all that text?? Now I have to go googling. FU. [/ QUOTE ] espn.com/page2 if looking on a day after today find a link to the simmons archives.
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#6
04-20-2006, 04:43 PM
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Re: An old controversy finally addressed
[ QUOTE ]
Holy hell, is it THAT hard to post a link to the article if you're going to take the time to copy+paste all that text?? Now I have to go googling. FU. [/ QUOTE ] http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...simmons/060420 Better? Probably took me longer to do that than for you to Google it. (Sigh) No good deed goes unpunished. A cliche, but an accurate one.
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#7
04-20-2006, 10:02 PM
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Re: An old controversy finally addressed
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Holy hell, is it THAT hard to post a link to the article if you're going to take the time to copy+paste all that text?? Now I have to go googling. FU. [/ QUOTE ] http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...simmons/060420 Better? Probably took me longer to do that than for you to Google it. (Sigh) No good deed goes unpunished. A cliche, but an accurate one. [/ QUOTE ] MUCH appreciated, thx. Great read.
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#9
04-21-2006, 01:24 AM
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Re: An old controversy finally addressed
no, the old controversy was not addressed. the answers to the questions he asked could be figured out by common sense; the one question he DIDN'T ask was: what did kgb have on the last hand when mike flopped the nut straight? T76 rainbow and kgb thinks mike's on a draw? wtf.
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