10 Times Movies Should've Used CGI

Martin Scorsese tends to make more effective use of CGI in his movies than almost any other filmmaker, typically deploying "invisible CGI" to extend sets and basically immerse the audience deeper in the world of the story he's telling.

But you know what would've immersed us all deeper in the world of his 1995 mob classic Casino? Getting rid of that damn, dirty mannequin at the start.

The very first shot of the film shows protagonist Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro) getting into his car just as a bomb blows it up, apparently killing him.

That sequence was achieved in-camera, with Scorsese simply cutting between a locked-off shot of De Niro getting into the car and another of the car blowing up with a mannequin inside. The problem is, the mannequin looks not even remotely like De Niro, nor any human being really, ensuring an otherwise thrilling opening is rendered laughable to all who notice the gaffe.

Scorsese likely assumed that nobody would ever see the film in high enough resolution for it to be an issue, but alas, once Casino hit Blu-ray it became glaringly obvious.

Even back in 1995, it wouldn't have been terribly difficult to composite the car window from the previous take to have De Niro sat inside the car when it blows up. Hell, one fan got fed up enough of waiting for Scorsese to fix it that they just did it themselves.