Poker d'amour à Las Vegas

Calling all soap opera fans: check out Lucky Chances, a double-feature miniseries combining Jackie Collins's two novels Lucky and Chances. The series continued, but this is a very satisfactory five hours. It follows the Santangelo family through decades and generations, and although you get a five-minute opening with Nicolette Sheridan, it's a pretty linear story once we go back in time and see her father, Vincent Irizarry, as a young man before she was even a twinkle in his eye. This is soap at its best. There is a glamorous setting, with exceedingly wealthy mobsters who have the world at their fingertips. The women are beautiful, with big hair and slim bodies they frequently show off in bikinis and lingerie. The men are hunky, great lovers, and sweep women off their feet with silk sheets, champagne, and unforgettable nights. Scandals, murders, secrets, blackmail, infidelity, forced marriages, power, seduction, and revenge all run rampant through the three episodes.

I love this genre, and I've already bought a copy of Miss Collins's novels. Soap operas are my favorite genre of fiction to read. So, yes, it's cheesy, ridiculous, and silly. But I loved every minute of it.

Lucky/Chances is a good movie based on a good book. I read the books first prior to watching the movie and it does follow the book closely with a few minor chnages. Vincent Irizarry could not have made a better Gino and Nicollette Sheridan was perfect to play Lucky. The acting may have been a tad bit over-the-top, but many of Jackie Collins' books are and that's probably why the movie was done that way. I'd personally love to see a silver screen version of this book so that more details of the story could be shown (there was a lot that couldn't be shown on t.v.).

As usual, the movie is nothing like the book. I really enjoyed the book, because you became invested in the characters. However, I did the process backwards: I saw the movie before I saw the film and liked the film. I saw it at a fairly young age, but I still liked it. Vincent Irizarry was on my mother's soap, so we had to see anything he was in. Nicolette was not the right person for Lucky I think. And Sandra Bullock as Maria? The entire purpose of the character was not what Bullock represented, but it's how I first fell in love with her and remember her to this day. However, she wasn't right for the part either. The movie was fair enough, but you could tell that NBC wasn't ready to deal with Dario's homosexuality and real mob violence. It almost had the moral appeal of an after school special. The movie should of took itself more seriously. I liked the movie, but after reading the book, the actors were all wrong for the characters.

I have always loved this TV-series, and now I'm rewatching it for the fourth time I think. (Many years between the times) I also read the book in my early teens. I think this filmization is underated, it has that nice 80:s vibe that brings nostalgia and makes you feel good, the type casting and acting serves it's purpose perfectly. It's hard to not get engaged in the turns and thrills of the story.

I too saw this movie at a young age of 14, but I had read the book first. I agree that mostly of the characters were casted wrong. For instance in the book Maria is described as a fair skinned woman with white blond hair yet Sandra Bullock played her. Being the early 1990's no network would have been prepared to handle the open gayness of Dario (no-doubtly it wasn't "PC" yet) I think they could have added a bit more violence when trying to explore Mobster actions. It would be interesting if they remade the movie now would it resemble The Sopranos in some way would it be violent and hoping they would make better casting choices?? The book was better than the movie you were able to get more involved with the character's and their story.