CASINO Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone (1995, MCA/Universal, R,
priced for rental) Had it been made by any other director, this
gambling-and-goons saga would have been a triumphant display of
technical virtuosity and uncanny empathy. Coming from Martin
Scorsese, though, it's a disappointing retread. An occasionally
engrossing but mostly weary hybrid of Scorsese's own GoodFellas
(content) and Powell and Pressburger's The Life and Death of
Colonel Blimp (scope and color schemes), Casino benefits on
video from fast-forwarding through the scenes featuring Sharon
Stone as gambling lord De Niro's scheming ex-hooker wife.
Stone's Oscar nod notwithstanding, her character is so
one-dimensional she's a chore to watch. If you watch at all,
make sure it's the letterboxed laserdisc--the cassette edition's
indifferently panned and scanned transfer of this very
wide-screen movie jettisons the stylistic flourishes that
occasionally lend Casino a hallucinogenic splendor. B-