Part of Holiday Classics
It’s Christmastime in Reno. World-weary gambler (Philip Baker Hall) teaches the tricks of the trade to a luckless young man (John C. Reilly), who does well until he falls for a side-hustling cocktail waitress (Gwyneth Paltrow). The debut feature of writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson — working title: SYDNEY — was adapted from an earlier short film (Cigarettes and Coffee) and premiered at Sundance in 1996 and took a year to hit theaters. By that time, Anderson was in production on BOOGIE NIGHTS, after which his audience would ultimately find HARD EIGHT, a lower-key but impactful film — enough to have cemented Philip Baker Hall and John C. Reilly as Anderson mainstays by the time his second film would hit.