Good Burger (Nostalgia Check)

For an entire generation of entertainment consumers, Nickelodeon’s All That acted as an introduction to sketch comedy and, in many ways, comedy in general. Created by Brian Robbins and Mike Tollin, All That was a rather ingenious creation; it generated comedy aimed squarely at young people without ever condescending to them. There was zero educational value to the show, and at times the humor got a tad risqué. (There were references to women’s underwear!) Also, let us not forget that the show’s cast was made up almost exclusively of young people. This mixture of elements created a viewing experience that felt like you were just hanging out with a bunch of funny friends, and that’s exactly what kids look for in their entertainment.

Dead Presidents: The Landmark That Could Have Been

If there’s one thing that we can agree about when it comes to the consensus classics of cinema, it’s that they are mostly packed to the brim with white people. There are some exceptions, and usually mainstream films will throw in a black character or two, but often these characters just aren’t all that important. They are normally there just to make sure the filmmakers can't be accused of excluding an entire race. When a major film is made about African Americans, they frequently feel like the result of a bunch of white people patting themselves on the back. Two recent examples that were recognized at the Academy Awards—The Blind Side and The Help—aren’t about black history and culture so much as they are about Caucasians and how they can lend a helping hand to the race that they have oppressed for so long. (Though I do think The Help has its moments.) I feel we are in vital need of a great film that takes African Americans seriously, and it is my belief that the Hughes brothers’ Dead Presidents could have and should have been that movie. That is doesn’t quite succeed is one of cinema’s great recent missed opportunities.

Star Wars Reconsidered: The Phantom Menace

If there is one thing the Internet was created for, it’s argument. Take a trip through Twitter or any message board, and you will find an endless stream of negativity, cynicism and confrontation for the sake of confrontation. However, there seems to be one thing that everyone on the Internet agrees on: George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels are among the most horrible atrocities ever to be committed by mankind. People on message boards can crack endless jokes about 9/11 or the Holocaust, but if you were to post something like “Hey, I kinda like Jar Jar Binks” then a rain of endless fire is likely to fall down upon you, for you are a heretic. The prequels are terrible, because that is what the Internet says. It is consensus, therefore it is law.

The Thin Red Line (1998)

Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line is undoubtedly a mess, but the final product is likely the finest mess I’ve ever seen. There are no less than 50 World War II films that could have been made from this material, and I’m not entirely sure Malick didn’t film each and every one of them. While most movies tell a story that revolves around no more than a few characters, The Thin Red Line desperately wants to illustrate the journey of every last soldier who ever fought in the Pacific. Despite what Adrien Brody will tell you, there is no single protagonist. This film has as omniscient a point of view as anything I’ve ever seen. The focus casually shifts from character to character, and just about every actor gets several lines of voiceover narration. The Thin Red Line aims not just to be a story set in a war; it wants to tell the story about war.

Psycho (Adventures in Atrocity)

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD, BUT YOU HAVEN’T SEEN PSYCHO, YOU AND I NEED TO HAVE WORDS.

To me, one of the strangest things about Gus Van Sant’s 1998 remake of Psycho is that the cinematic community has chosen to forget it. Perhaps we’re all better off this way, but in my opinion this is a film that should be displayed before Hollywood as one of the greatest sins the movies ever committed. I say this as someone who admires just about everyone involved with the project. Heck, Van Sant’s own Milk might have been my favorite movie of 2008. (I haven’t decided for sure, because I don’t care.) Yet sometimes, even great artists make decisions that are just plain wrong. Psycho is an example of this. Alfred Hitchcock’s film remains brilliant to this day for a variety of reasons. Van Sant’s version attempts to copy it, yet at the same time it throws in a few bells and whistles to make it seem a bit more modern. Every one of Van Sant’s additions would prove to be a subtraction.

The Big Lebowski (My Favorite Movies)

The opening narration of The Big Lebowski is, in itself, as apt a description of the movie as you’ll find. The Stranger, a gravelly-voiced cowboy played by Sam Elliott, begins to describe the man who will eventually become the film’s protagonist: The Dude. It rambles on for a while, illustrating The Dude as “a man for his time and place.” The problem is that the narrator frequently finds himself distracted by his own story. Eventually he gives up, saying that he’s lost his train of thought. The narration then comes to an end.

If you have a problem with this opening, then you’re going to have a problem with The Big Lebowski. Here is a film that is both shapeless and unfocused… and gloriously so. The fact that it meanders all over the map and back is what gives the film its greatness. It’s a movie about people who don’t really care about anything, and they care even less about finishing anything. These are characters that can greet absolute chaos with a simple utterance: “F--- it. Let’s go bowling.”

The "Scream" Trilogy (I've Finally Seen It!)

SPOILERS FOR THE SCREAM FILMS INSIDE.

Every time the horror genre seems to be on its last breath, a new film comes along that revitalizes the entire enterprise. In the ‘70s, it was Halloween. In the new millennium, the “found footage” films such as The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activtiy started gaining power. In the ’90s, it was Scream. Its mixture of genuine suspense, gory violence and sly meta-commentary on the genre helped remind audiences what it was like to be truly entertained—and frightened—at a horror movie. At least, that’s what I had been told. I pride myself on knowing a lot about movies. Horror movies, however, are rarely my cup of tea. This is because I’m a certified wimp. I’m not exaggerating. I have a certificate and everything.

The Cable Guy (I've Finally Seen It)

There’s a perception in the film world that The Cable Guy, a 1996 semi-dark comedy directed by Ben Stiller and produced by Judd Apatow, was a massive flop. While it didn’t break box office records, that really isn’t the case. It had a budget of $47 million, and it made over $100 million worldwide. Admittedly, Columbia Pictures likely had higher financial hopes for the film, as it starred one of the hottest comedic actors going in Jim Carrey, but to deem it an abysmal failure would be inaccurate. Another widely-held belief about The Cable Guy is that it’s terrible, and this assumption is equally mistaken. On the contrary, it’s an ingenious little comedy that manages not only to be quite funny, but it has quite a bit to say about the way television and pop culture controls our lives. Its subtext can occasionally border on the obvious, but it’s saved by the hilarity that surrounds it.

Pulp Fiction (The "Greatest" Films of All Time)

HOW “GREAT” IS IT?

IMDb Top 250: #5

AFI Top 100: #94

The Online Film Community’s Top 100: #11

Total Film Top 100: #3

BBC/British Channel 4 Poll: #4

“It is the most influential film of the decade … Its greatness comes from its marriage of vividly original characters with a series of vivid and half-fanciful events, and from the dialogue. The dialogue is the foundation of everything else.”

– Roger Ebert, who named it the second-best film of the decade behind Hoop Dreams.

“Relentless in its pace, Pulp Fiction is as exhausting as it is exhilarating. In between all the shootings, Mexican standoffs, and other violent confrontations exist opportunities to explore various facets of the human experience, including rebirth and redemption. With this film, every layer that you peel away leads to something deeper and richer. Tarantino makes pictures for movie-lovers.”

-James Berardinelli

“In Pulp Fiction, Tarantino creates a dizzying spectacle of life at its darkest, only to release us, with a wink, into the light.”

-Owen Glieberman

“The way that this picture has been so widely ravened up and drooled over verges on the disgusting. Pulp Fiction nourishes, abets, cultural slumming.”

-Stanley Kauffmann

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JFK (My Favorite Movies)

One should never, ever go to an Oliver Stone film looking for historical veracity. His willingness, nay, insistence on bending the truth has been well-documented. My favorite film of his, JFK, is no different, and I think the reasons I love it so much are not the reasons Stone wanted me to like it. One should not approach JFK as a documentary or a fact-based drama, which would be Stone’s preference, but instead if one approaches JFK as a fictional conspiracy thriller they will find one of the most fascinating and arresting films of its era.

The Shawshank Redemption (The "Greatest" Films of All Time)

How “Great” Is It?

IMDb Top 250: #1

AFI Top 100: #72

AFI 100 Most Inspiring: #23

“It is deeper than most films; about continuity in a lifetime, based on friendship and hope.” – Roger Ebert

“The Shawshank Redemption is all about hope and, because of that, watching it is both uplifting and cathartic.” – James Berardinelli

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L.A. Confidential (I've Finally Seen It!)

There’s something captivating about celebrity crime and misbehavior. As far as Hollywood has been Hollywood the lifestyles of those more famous than ourselves have captivated us, particularly when it is revealed they are guilty of less-than-glowing behavior. If I told you a local woman was going to rehab you’d alert me that bears also defecate in the woods, but when I say it’s the girl from The Parent Trap, you are suddenly more attentive. L.A. Confidential paints us a picture of Hollywood at its most glamorous, but at the same time this is when the public’s thirst for tabloid fodder was beginning to take shape.

This is but just a small part of what makes the beautiful, sprawling L.A. Confidential so great. It’s intriguing and fascinating in just about everything it does, from its police procedural storyline to its cinematography to its array of superior performances. It’s environment may be bright and glamorous, but its soul is dark and corrupt, much like the world it so wonderfully studies.

It is also a character study of three different police officers. Kevin Spacey, at the height of his 90’s power, plays Jack Vincennes, a detective sergeant in the LAPD who lives like a celebrity. He works as a technical advisor on the television show Badge of Honor, his main goal always to make headlines and get in the paper. Better yet, get in the pages of Hush Hush Magazine, a tabloid run by Sid Hudgens (Danny DeVito) that deals in celebrity and Hollywood deviance. Often Hudgens will get a story for Jack, who will show up on the scene just to make the arrest and get his picture taken. He’s an LAPD rock star.

Where Spacey’s career was on fire in 1997, the other two stars were still on the rise. Russell Crowe (described in Gene Siskel’s review as “a bright new face”, which kind of sounds surreal now) plays the more rugged, weary cop Bud White. He is prone to bursts of violence which can get him in trouble with the force. He lives by the stereotypical “tough cop” code, and isn’t afraid of getting his hands dirty is it means justice is served. Meanwhile, Guy Pearce (also new to the scene) plays Edmund Exley, who plays it so by-the-book he’s in danger of turning into the book. He isn’t afraid of snitching on his fellow officers, simply because “rules are rules”, and the rest of the department resents him for it. Since he is such a straight-arrow he rises fast, but that doesn’t change the ridicule he faces on a daily basis.

The center of the film is a massacre which occurs at the local Nite Owl Coffee Shop, where every worker and patron is murdered in cold blood. Each of the three officers investigate the incident in their own unique way, creating three different narratives that will ultimately converge at the end (but don’t they all?). Throughout the investigation they learn that perhaps the way they have done things up until the end is perhaps not the soundest path, and that the ultimate goal is figuring out the truth: all politics, fame and headlines aside.

L.A. Confidential utilizes the film noir style found in so many detective films from the era in which it is set, but takes it to more modern, human, and ultimately dark places. It brings into question what exactly the greater good is, and what we may have to lose or gain to maintain it. All this set in the era in which the fervor over the personal lives of celebrities and socialites is being born. This obsession has only grown and become more embedded as time has gone on. The E! Network would have loved the events of L.A. Confidential.

Rating:  (out of 4)

Kaufman/Jonze Double Feature

Over the course of the past decade Charlie Kaufman emerged as one of the definitive voices in American cinema. Each page of a Kaufman script has more imagination and ambition than most films can accomplish altogether. It is easy to forget that he never directed a film until 2008’s Synecdoche, New York, and before that his main collaborators were music video directors Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze. In this column I will review the Kaufman films directed by Jonze, who himself went on to write and direct the terrific Where the Wild Things Are.
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Being John Malkovich (1999)


Rarely has there been a writing debut so comprehensively assured as Being John Malkovich, a movie that bounces between absurdist humor and metaphysical statement seemingly from line to line. Equally as impressive is Spike Jonze’s ability to handle this seemingly impenetrable material. Kaufman spends each of his scripts spinning around and around inside the human mind, somehow avoids crashing, and comes out with an entirely memorable and absorbing film.

John Cusack plays a puppeteer named Craig Schwartz who is starting to get fed up with his unsuccessful livelihood. He is married to Lotte, as played by Cameron Diaz. Eventually Craig decides to get a job at LesterCorp, sitting on the 7½ floor. The marriage between Craig and Lotte has a strong undertone of dissatisfaction, and when Craig meets Maxine (Catherine Keener) at work he immediately is attracted. She, however, is not so interested. That is until his next discovery: a portal in the office which leads into the mind of actor John Malkovich. That person can feel what Malkovich feels, see what Malkovich sees, and hear what Malkovich hears. Once you are done, you are dumped in a ditch next to the New Jersey Turnpike. Following? Good.

Craig emerges with an entire different view of life and consciousness. He has inhabited another human body! Most films present such outlandish and extraordinary events and exploit them for cheap laughs or thrills. Here each character realizes the significance of what has just happened. Craig and Maxine allow people to buy trips into the portal, and to each user this presents endless opportunity and reveals their true desires, as sometimes one has to step outside themselves to do. Lotte discovers that in fact she desires to be a man and to be the lover of Maxine, and Maxine is also attracted to Lotte… but only when she is Malkovich. The most memorable sequence comes when Malkovich himself enters the portal, when we enter the land of “Malkovich, Malkovich.”

Being John Malkovich is no less than a brilliant film. It questions exactly what makes us who we are. Is it our bodies? Is it our minds? Our personalities? Throw all the heady stuff out the window and you still have an incredibly compelling and quite humorous invention. This film is a revelation, and to say much more would only ruin the numerous and thrilling surprises, and with this film the Kaufman revolution was beginning. He and Jonze arrived to show us all what can be done with the medium.

Rating: (out of 4)

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Adaptation (2002)


What does a screenwriter do when presented with source material that is impossible to adapt? Write himself into the screenplay, of course. That’s exactly what Charlie Kaufman does in Adaptation, and it doesn’t stop there. He writes himself writing himself into a screenplay. If Being John Malkovich gives us a world of “Malkovich, Malkovich”, Adaptation is like a feature length trip in the world of “Kaufman, Kaufman”. Several forms of entertainment have depicted the challenges and pressures faced by creative writers. Few make you feel it as deeply and thoroughly as Adaptation.

Kaufman is played by Nicolas Cage, who has just broken through with his screenplay for Being John Malkovich, and has been hired to adapt the nonfiction book The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean. Kaufman is unable to find a story within the book, though he likes what he read. He doesn’t want to change the material or make it too Hollywood, but instead wants to make it feel like real life. In the midst of his endless writers’ block he eventually meets Susan, and the plot gets a whole lot more interesting.

Meanwhile, Kaufman’s fictional brother Donald also looks to get into the screenwriting business with his serial killer film The 3. It’s incredibly clichéd, but Kaufman does not write his fake brother as a moron who doesn’t understand the nuances of film. He knows what makes him happy, and as such he comes off as a much nicer man. He doesn’t insult Charlie or act high-and-mighty around him, but instead supports him through his convoluted and eventually self-important script. Oh, did I mention Donald Kaufman is also played by Nicolas Cage? He truly deserves the Oscar nomination he received, because there is barely a moment when you get the two brothers confused. Adaptation provides one of the best performances Nicolas Cage has ever turned in.

Adaptation is not simply a meta film, it is so meta it nearly folds in on itself. It is a film about its own creation, and as such it makes you think it will stay firmly planted in reality. Instead it goes off in a totally absurd direction and yet you buy it the whole way. It looks at the process of creation, whether fictional or otherwise, and the whole time sticking a knife in the back of the conformist modern Hollywood. Famed writing instructor Robert McKee even is shown as played by Brian Cox. He is portrayed as a sort of screenwriting God, even though he tells all of his students to write everything based on Casablanca and nothing but Casablanca. With Adaptation, Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze make a strong case that following the McKee manifesto will make you but a screenwriting robot. Real brilliance is found when one looks inside themselves and creates what is uniquely theirs, and sometimes it isn’t what’s considered ‘normal’.

This stands as one of Kaufman’s lighter films, though it holds all the usual touches he and Jonze provide. It doesn’t cut as deep into the nature of life as most Kaufman screenplays, and as such it SEEMS small, even though it has more ideas than 80 percent of films added together. After Adaptation, Jonze didn’t make another film until last year’s Where the Wild Things Are, and he continues to prove that he needs to keep making movies. In between film projects he does music videos and the like, but he is a true powerhouse when given the camera. Kaufman, meanwhile, continues to be as distinct a voice as cinema has ever produced, right up to his directorial debut Synecdoche, New York, which truly reeks of a writer completely pouring out his soul. He doesn’t stop until he has written a screenplay that goes as deep as it possibly can, and when he knows he has created a film like none other. There is routine, and then there is Charlie Kaufman.

Rating: (out of 4)

Bringing Out the Dead (Summer of Scorsese)

Sadly, this will be the final "Summer of Scorsese" post. There's just too much going on right now, move-wise and personally. Classes start again for me soon, and my posting frequency might dip off a bit once that hits. I will still post as much I can, particularly new movie reviews, but as far as "Summer of Scorsese" goes I'm afraid this will have to be all. I realize I have skipped over many major films in his career (The Aviator and The Last Temptation of Christ come to mind) but I feel continuing would be ill-advised. My posts for this feature have already been few and far between, and in my opinion declining in quality because they've been forced, so it ends now. Hope you enjoyed, I know I did.

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Unmistakably a product of Martin Scorsese, Bringing Out the Dead plays like the child of Taxi Driver and After Hours in the midst of a drug overdose. As pure visual filmmaking it is a complete triumph, and even though there isn’t one overriding plot I got caught up in the energy and brutal honesty presented through Scorsese’s direction, Nicolas Cage’s certifiably insane performance, and the screenplay by Taxi Driver and Raging Bull writer Paul Schraeder.

Nicolas Cage plays Frank Pierce, a paramedic working nights in New York City, a city presented here as the natural evolution (or devolution) of Schrader’s New York City presented in Taxi Driver from the 70’s to the 90’s. To Frank it is but a maze of misery he is forced to inhabit every night, and when the film begins he hasn’t saved anyone in months. The ghosts of those he has lost haunt him, including Rose, a young girl he could not save. Frank is continually tired, stressed and lonely, and he lives his life of routine despondency until he meets Mary (Patricia Arquette). Frank is able to revive her father from death, and Mary spends a lot of time in the hospital waiting for her father to get better. She provides an example of the naiveté that exists outside Frank’s world. However, Frank is still trapped inside.

Whatever you do, don’t watch this movie expecting a realistic portrait of a New York City paramedic. Schraeder and Scorsese are not much for verisimilitude here, focusing instead on penetrating Frank’s mind and the hallucinations within. At one point fireworks fill the New York skyline for no real reason except to communicate a state of mind. The camera zooms quickly and drastically with energy only Scorsese can muster. This is one of Scorsese’s more surrealist films, and here it works perfectly to match Nicolas Cage’s energy. By midway through the film Cage is about ready to go crazy, and when he loses it he does it in the normal Nicolas Cage way. Sometimes he can come off as abrasive, but I absolutely love his work here.

Over the course of the three days presented in the film Frank works with three different partners. The first is Larry, played by John Goodman. Of the partners Frank will work with he is most aware of the horrors of the job, ending their night throwing his hands in the air and essentially giving up. He represses most of the pain and stress, focusing instead on his next meal. Eventually he explodes. His second partner is Marcus, (Ving Rhames) a devout Christian who attempts to spread his religious beliefs across the city while on the job. While treating an overdose Marcus distracts the crowd by having them praise Jesus, making Frank’s more medical solution seem like a divine miracle. He does not see his job as dehumanizing but instead invigorating and a chance to observe his beloved Lord at work.

Frank’s third partner is Tom (Tom Sizemore, whose career is sadly coming apart), who takes his anxiety and turns it into a violent rage that abuses patients. There is one patient he beats and/or kicks multiple times. He always needs to be hitting something, and the moment he comes apart is seen in the background of a brilliant shot near the end of the film.

Frank himself has been beaten down into a fraction of a human being. To him there is no greater thrill than saving someone’s life, which he describes as “the best drug in the world”. That’s why he became a paramedic, besides the fact that his mother was a nurse and his father was a bus driver. Now that he works the job he has become disillusioned with the lifestyle that was advertised to him as rife with heroes waiting to leap to rescue when called upon. Instead he is surrounded by insanity and death. He’s not there to save people, but instead to sit there and be there for those around the dying. As he puts it, he is merely a “grief mop”.

Bringing Out the Dead is also one of Scorsese’s funnier films, in the darkest way imaginable. It’s even able to slip in a few Monty Python references (look at the title). In a way Frank is that man walking amongst the plagued villagers, asking to collect the bodies. He can’t save them, but he can be there to watch them die. This is an oppressively unbearable job, and the characters whip out defense mechanisms left and right, refusing to submit themselves to the misery. This film is the exact opposite of the glorified medical dramas that exist on TV. It’s not always a glorious job. It’s a grim job, a bloody job, and Scorsese and Cage put themselves right in the middle of it. The universe here might be a little too stark, (I’m sure reality exists somewhere in the middle) but it reaches you and shakes you like few films can.

Amazingly, not many people are on board with me here. Many see Bringing Out the Dead as one of Scorsese’s worst. I could not disagree more. Is there a bit of style over substance? Of course, and this is something that could be (and has been) said about Shutter Island as well. However, I think there’s more meat on the bone here than people give it credit for. It’s intentionally abrasive, showing you a side of life many people refuse to acknowledge. Each character has been disillusioned with their professions, and in a way the film does that to you as well. This is not an optimistic film, but this is not a vice. Scorsese directs every film with equal tenacity and energy, and he sees nothing as a minor project. Bringing Out the Dead is not the best film he's ever done, but it’s still better and more memorable than what most people could pull off when they give everything they’ve got.

Summer of Scorsese
Original Post
Goodfellas
Taxi Driver
After Hours
Gangs of New York
Mean Streets
Casino
Raging Bull
Bringing Out the Dead
The Departed (My Favorite Movies)
Shutter Island (Review)

Thanks again! I wish I could have done more, but it's likely I'm not COMPLETELY finished with the work of Martin Scorsese.

Casino (Summer of Scorsese)

It is directed by Martin Scorsese, with a screenplay by himself and Nicholas Pileggi, all inspired by a nonfiction book by Pileggi. It stars both Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci, with Pesci as an ill-tempered mobster quick to resort to violence. It chronicles the rise to glory of a group of powerful mobsters, then chronicles their sudden and violent fall from grace.

The movie I’m describing here could be either Goodfellas or Casino, the two mob movies Martin Scorsese made in the early 90’s along with the help of Nicholas Pileggi. For this reason Casino is often jokingly referred to as Goodfellas 2, and deservedly so. They are made in incredibly similar styles. Casino takes the documentary style sometimes used in Goodfellas and runs with it until the legs give out. The similarity is something even Scorsese has acknowledged.

This does not mean Casino can’t stand as its own picture. It can, but to a point. There are moments that are brilliant here and rank up among the most fascinating sequences in any Scorsese film. It is also significantly overlong and has moments where it bogs down to a near-screeching halt. It’s still a blast to watch, however, and for me it has a sense of beauty to it that many Scorsese films don’t have. It captures the culture of the Las Vegas strip in all its sinful glory. The bright lights surround the characters, and eventually blind them.

Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert DeNiro) works for the mob as a sports handicapper, able to pick winners for just about every sporting event thrown his way. Since he is a natural winner, the mob chooses him to run the fictional Tangiers casino in Las Vegas. The audience is then treated to an incredible documentary-esque sequence where we learn the inner workings of the casino. We all knew the mob skimmed off the top, but this film knows every step of the process. We follow the money all the way from the money room in the casino to the nameless city of “back home”.

Casino is best with details, something Scorsese has obsessed over in his mob movies. It’s based on real events, with the “Ace” character based on the real-life Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. Every character is based on a real person, including Joe Pesci’s Nicky Santoro, based on Tony Spilotro, and Sharon Stone’s Ginger Rothstein, based on Geraldine Rosenthal. When Nicky moves down to Las Vegas to protect Ace, we are taken through a series of events that leads to tragedy. It all begins with one moment.

Ace watches from the security cameras, and at a table he sees a woman. To anybody else this is just another woman. Not to Ace. He falls in love at that very instant, and from that point on they are all doomed. This woman is Ginger, and though she does not love him back, for her this is her best opportunity to marry into money. A whole lot of money, as well. She becomes so greedy that she steals from everyone, doing what she can just to get ahead.

However, it is this love story where Casino does not work as well. I find Sharon Stone’s performance to be effective, but also overrated. She spends the film’s three-hour length repeating the same “I love you Sam, I don’t love you Sam!” notes with the appropriate profanity, but it grows tiring after a while. This may not be entirely her fault (it’s what the material calls for), but the Academy Award nomination she got was not necessarily earned.

Unlike Goodfellas, when the characters worked so well, here whenever the film tries to let us in it comes off as unnecessary and it slows the film down considerably. The script, if not the film itself, could have used some significant trimming. The documentary-type scenes are brilliant, but the love story and the deeper character moments don’t always ring true. This is a bit surprising to me, for Scorsese-penned scripts have often been focused on the qualities of characters first and foremost (Mean Streets, GoodFellas). I think the problem here is that instead of telling the big picture through a small group of people, Scorsese is trying to tell the big picture WHILE focusing on a small group of people. You can’t always have your cake and eat it too, and when you try to juggle this many balls you're bound to drop a few.

News flash: Martin Scorsese often makes violent films. However, Casino takes it to a level that is almost unnecessary. A man’s head is put in a vise, a hand is smashed with a hammer, people are shot to death (men and women), and many other tools are used as murder weapons, including a pen, and the scene in which baseball bats are used is one of the hardest scenes to watch in a gangster film. Usually Scorsese shoots violence in an abrupt and shocking way, but in Casino he makes it linger a little too long, and it stops being effective and becomes disgusting.

Casino is not Martin Scorsese’s best film, but it is certainly not his worst. It is overlong, to be sure, but in that time we get scenes that are captivating, some that are effective on an emotional level, but also some that drag on. We see the best and worst of Scorsese in this film, and that alone makes it worth checking out. It shows us people that were given heaven on Earth (which the cinematography captures perfectly), but it the end, as Nicky says himself, “we f----d it all up”.

P.S.- The use of narration here is unique in that it betrays an audience assumption about narration. You’ll see what I mean.

Summer of Scorsese
Original Post
Goodfellas
Taxi Driver
After Hours
Gangs of New York
Mean Streets
Casino
The Departed (My Favorite Movies)
Shutter Island (Review)

Up next: Raging Bull

Goodfellas (Summer of Scorsese)

It all begins with the narration: “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” Middle class white boys like me may never understand this sentiment, but to a kid living in the midst of Brooklyn with strict parents, there is nothing more attractive. Henry Hill watches out of his bedroom window as all the “wiseguys” sit around and play cards all night. These guys don’t have to ask for anything, they just get it.

However, when we hear Hill narrate this opening line, we have not been warmly welcomed into the film. Driving down a road he, Tommy DeVito and Jimmy Conway hear a bump in the trunk. It is revealed there lays a man, barely alive. Tommy and Jimmy finish the job in brutal fashion. We then begin the flashback, wondering how a man can find such a lifestyle appealing. As a child Henry drops out of school to work for the local gangsters. He knows this is the only way to make a name for himself around town, and he works his way up the ladder much to the dismay of his parents.

After being arrested the first time, he is given the advice that would come to shape the rest of his life, courtesy of Jimmy (Robert DeNiro): “Never rat on your friends, and always keep your mouth shut.” No matter what happened, this is the code he is to follow. We are then taken to Henry’s adulthood and we observe how his lavish lifestyle soon begins to dissolve into something much less glamorous.

This is the definitive mob movie. The Godfather is a terrific film to be sure, but there is barely an inch of truth to it. That is a romanticized mob, for the truth is the mob does not sit around speaking Italian at each other in their mansions. Real mobsters don’t have mansions. They have a lot of money, to be sure, but they tend not to look it. Business is done in back rooms, poor lighting and all. They sometimes dress well, but they don’t waltz around in tuxes all day. This is the most powerful man in the Goodfellas universe:



Certainly no Vito Corleone there, but I feel I might have done both films a disservice by comparing them, as these are two films that probably should not be compared. It does not matter whether or not a movie is about mobsters, but the question is why is a movie about mobsters? In that case comparing The Godfather to Goodfellas is apples and oranges.

The genius of Goodfellas is in the details, something Scorsese has been all about from the beginning. As recently as The Departed it was reported that in his mind Scorsese debated how much Leonardo DiCaprio’s Billy Costigan should receive from the Massachusetts police to go undercover. He needed to know the amount of money, but at no point in the film is it revealed to the audience. In Scorsese’s mind everything needs to be accounted for. Goodfellas, along with Casino, shows Scorsese completely immersed in the world he creates. At one point Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill is sent to jail, and in this sequence the life therein is described to us in detail, down to what goes into the sauce they eat every night.

For the first half of the film life is going swimmingly for Hill, all of it encompassed in one extended shot. Let’s watch:



The Copacabana was a symbol of luxury for New York City residents back in the 70’s, one of them being Martin Scorsese. In fact, at the beginning when we watch the young Henry Hill looking out his window in awe of the local gangsters it is hard not to see that as a young Scorsese. Perhaps Goodfellas is a depiction of an alternate life for Scorsese, had he not had asthma and was forced to sit inside all day. Instead of going outside, he would go see movies with his dad. It was the only activity he could do. As he grew older he would watch many of his friends get involved with the mob.

The Copacabana shot beings outside on the street, and every door on the way in is opened for Henry Hill. He is respected by everyone he sees. He meets many of his fellow mobsters inside. By getting involved he is able to get help with anything he needs, including impressing a girl, in this case Karen (Lorraine Bracco) who becomes his wife. This shot could also be seen from her point of view, as seen at the end, when she asks exactly what he does. There is an extended sequence where Karen takes over narrating duties from Henry, describing how she falls into the world herself. She is not the normal movie wife who asks for her husband to fix his ways. She wants him in the mob.

The narration is key here. Scorsese has used narration multiple times in his films, but unlike when others use it, it is not to fill in plot holes. Here, as in Taxi Driver, if there were no narration we would have a hard time sympathizing with the “protagonists”. Henry Hill describes to the audience slowly and precisely exactly what is going through his mind at all times, and thus we are fully immersed into the world of a gangster.

But what of the fall? I don’t want to spoil too much of the second half for those who have not seen it, but I want to stress the importance of it. All it takes is a couple mistakes and suddenly everything goes downhill. One of Henry’s best friends is Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) a hot headed guy who is prone to sudden bursts of ill-advised violence. His explosions provide the most shocking parts of the film, and it is this type of guy who can get you in the most trouble. Towards the beginning we witness the infamous “You think I’m funny?” scene, which provides some of the tensest moments in the film. It’s alarming how fast a man can be killed. At one point Henry alerts the audience as to the exact moment he knows a man is going to be killed, only to have the threat revoked a few minutes later. As Hill states, the guy will never know how close he was to getting killed. Scorsese doesn’t glorify violence, it happens out of nowhere and it’s done quickly. Just like in real life, things don’t slow down as bodies are riddled with bullets.

The music is also crucial here, and it is something Scorsese pays special attention to in all his films. There is no original score here, only various pop songs from the era the movie is in. The music is used to describe the glamour of the life, and eventually the downfall. My favorite sequence in the movie is when the film breaks its normal style and is cut at a breakneck pace. It follows Hill as the walls close in around him over the course of the day. He has seemingly hundreds of errands to run, all while he is on drugs and he thinks he’s about to be arrested. The music is equally chaotic, going between fast and slow seemingly at will. It is as if there is a jukebox behind the screen scoring the action of these character’s lives. If only to symbolize the course of the life in the mob, the film begins with Tony Bennett, and ends with Sid Vicious.

Once you are in the mob, there is no way out. You don’t go on to fortune for long. There may be temporary rewards, but in Goodfellas characters have only one of three fates: they go in hiding, they go to jail, or they die.

SUMMER OF SCORSESE
Original Post
Goodfellas

Up next: Taxi Driver

The Sixth Sense (I've Finally Seen It)

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR THE POP CULTURE OBLIVIOUS

Bruce Willis was dead the whole time.

YEAH, THAT ONE

You know this already, whether you’ve seen M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense before or not. One cannot take a stroll down Film Discussion Lane without having this revealed to them. Even a certain song by The Lonely Island reveals this, and it describes their… enthusiastic response to this revelation. I had not seen The Sixth Sense before, and going in I knew what was coming. And oh, what I wouldn’t do to go back and experience this film during its initial release, without the knowledge of the eventual SHOCKING TWIST ENDING. (I have made a vow to type this phrase in all caps whenever I use it.)

The fact that the ending was spoiled for me did not change the fact that I wholly enjoyed this tale of a boy that sees ghosts and the psychologist who tries to help him. The ending still packed an emotional punch that I did not expect, and that is because the screen is inhabited by actual characters who think and feel and all that stuff that Michael Bay doesn’t give a crap about. In fact, even M. Night Shyamalan would forget this after a while, relying on style over substance, and relentless adherence to a formula that involves a SHOCKING TWIST ENDING. The weird thing about this film is that it earns it.

We open on Dr. Malcolm Crowe and his wife celebrating Crowe’s latest achievement in child psychology. A former patient of his, played by the less famous Wahlberg brother, has broken in to his house. After shooting Malcolm in the stomach he turns the gun on himself. We fade away to black, and then return the next fall to find Crowe at the doorstep of his latest patient, Cole Sear, played by Haley Joel Osment. Cole is exhibiting the same types of behavior as the homicidal patient Crowe faced, and he sees Cole as a chance to make things right. After a while Cole reveals the reason for his strange behavior. This is another point where you could probably sing along:



This is strange, certainly. However, I feel the film could have gone a different route:



From this point on, we see the dead people along with Cole, and the sights are effectively chilling. This is a very powerful performance from Osment, who is given perhaps one of the toughest roles a child has ever had to play. Most child characters are reduced to “stand there and look cute” parts, as well as the occasional “stand there while the dinosaur comes at you and you scream but Sam Neill will save the day” parts. Here Osment projects all kinds of emotions, and he transmits the requisite child-in-a-thriller creepiness in a way I have not seen one do on film before. Osment is a legitimate actor, and once his life is straightened out I hope his acting career gets back on track. The last major motion picture he starred in was 2003’s Secondhand Lions, which I like to call Puberty: The Movie.

While treating Cole, Crowe is having trouble communicating with his wife. Is it, I don’t know, because HE’S DEAD?! That was the main problem with the movie for me, in fact. I was watching it knowing the whole time that Crowe was dead and his wife was simply in mourning, and sometimes I had trouble seeing how anybody could think differently. I would love to see this movie not knowing anything about it, and see how these scenes between dead Crowe and alive Crowe’s wife played out. It seemed obvious to me that he was dead, but then again, I knew it was coming. This is no fault of the film, but instead it is my own.

The one scene between Crowe and his wife that absolutely works either way is the ending, which is played with the perfect balance between shock and sentiment. When Willis talks while his wife is asleep I was incredibly moved by what was going on. I was also impressed by the film’s refusal to absolutely tie things up in a pretty little bow. The final scene between Cole and his mother does not leave us with warmth, but a something a little darker. We do not know how this kid ends up living with this ability, nor how his mother handles her son’s strangeness.

However, when this film was released we fed M. Night Shyamalan exactly what he wanted to hear. Slowly his work devolved into self-congratulating hooey. The next two films by Shyamalan were praised, with another Bruce Willis vehicle Unbreakable (I haven’t seen it) and then Signs. While I loved most of Signs, this is also where his work began to devolve. The ending is poorly handled by Shyamalan, and the style in which Signs is made is incredibly awkward. That form of direction and cinematography compliments the movie perfectly for most of the film, but towards the end it falls with a thud. Shyamalan would repeat this style from this point on, with the following universally reviled films: The Village , Lady in the Water and The Happening. Lady in the Water is an ego trip of fantastic proportions, and The Happening is, well, watch this:



There you have it. The next Shyamalan film comes this summer in the form of The Last Airbender. I think a film like this might be a good outlet for him to stay away from his normal tendencies, but I’d like to see him return to a smaller film like The Sixth Sense, which is without a doubt the most influential thriller in recent memory. It even influenced Martin Freaking Scorsese when he released Shutter Island earlier this year. No, I cannot go a post without mentioning his name. Either way, The Sixth Sense is an example of everything Shyamalan does well. It’s up to him to remember it.

Rating: (out of 4)

Fargo (My Favorite Movies)

The Coen brothers are masters of making movies that are about nothing and everything at the same time. Everything they are is epitomized in Fargo, a masterpiece of a film that is so well done that you forget it’s kind of pointless, but the world of movies would not be complete without it. The dialogue is perfect, the cast is perfect, the cinematography is perfect, everything here is perfect. It stands as not only what is perhaps their best film, but one of the defining films of the 1990’s.

The film follows Jerry Lundegaard, a man who is so desperate for money that he hires two men to kidnap his wife and demand ransom. Jerry expects his wife’s father to pay the ransom (he’s real well off, you see) and once paid he would get a cut of the dough. Needless to say, it doesn’t go quite so smoothly. If it did, there’d be no movie.

I shouldn’t describe the plot any further assuming you have not seen it, for it would only ruin the joy that is found in this film. Let’s just say at one point people die, and that brings in Marge Gunderson, a police chief who is very much pregnant, yet very much determined to find the culprits of this crime. She is played by Frances McDormand in her best performance, a woman of such morality that it contrasts nearly every other character in the film. This film is filled with those who are scheming, stealing and murdering, and in the center is this innocent pregnant woman in a very happy marriage to her husband Norm, played by John Carroll Lynch. This is the second straight film I’ve written on with Lynch, but here he is playing a character much more sympathetic than, say, a serial killer.

It’s tremendous fun just to listen to these characters speak, for the Coens, like few others, are able to perfectly capture the way every character in their world speaks. An early scene has the Lundgaards around the table eating dinner, and that is one of the most impressively written scenes in the film, simply because of the realism that is presented. It is nothing new to hear banter between two hitmen before a job (see: Pulp Fiction) but here it is not so much stylish as it is mundane, and is it ever beautifully mundane. The film takes place mostly in Minnesota, and the accents are so exaggerated that they feel perfect. (You betcha, yah!)

William H. Macy plays Jerry as a man who thinks he has a plan, but has no idea. He is blindsided at every turn by a development that did not go his way, but so naïve is this man that he pushes through convinced everything will be alright. There comes a moment towards the end when he realizes it isn’t going to be fine, and Jerry stumbles and bumbles his way around in a hilarious panic. The hitmen here a played by the always awesome Steve Buscemi, and designated scary-looking guy Peter Stormare. These men have no interest in each other, and could not be more different in their methods, and what ultimately results is inevitable.

As with most Coen films, the environment in which the story is based is very much a character in itself. The land these characters occupy is a desert of snow, a certifiable tundra. It is a land so lacking in personality and color that every character appears lonely and without any human connection. For the film's entirety we are watching some of the worst people in the world at work. That is what makes Marge’s relationship with her husband so effective. In world so cold and low in positivity, they live in their own little bubble of happiness. If there is a theme to be found in most Coen films, it's that the world is an ugly place and one should relish any rays of hope that go their way.

I realize as I describe this film it may sound like a comedy. Well, it is but it isn’t. That actually is a very apt way of describing any Coen brothers movie. It is, but it isn’t. Just take a look at some of their other films such as The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men, or A Serious Man. All of these movies are funny, but they are also violent, tragic, and ultimately powerful. But why are they powerful? That means there must be an ultimate meaning right? Wrong, but maybe. The themes of a Coen brothers film are so universal they can seem nonexistent. As I said at the beginning, everything they’ve done is about nothing and everything at the same time.

The film begins claiming it is based on a true story. Anyone with an internet connection can easily find out that isn’t true. (And since you're reading a blog, my bet is you have one.) Why provide the disclaimer? The Coens have said they wanted to make a film based on a true story, but they couldn't find a good one, so they made one up. It is a true story, just not based on any reality. As a result what they’ve given us is one of the most vividly realized, thrilling, humorous, and just all around entertaining films I’ve seen.

Titanic (I've Finally Seen It!)

I have not yet written a post on Avatar, but here’s a hint: I didn’t love it. The visuals are spectacular, and I found them exhilarating for the first hour or so. Then I got used to them, and focused more on the plot, and boy was that lame. There was not a twist I did not see coming, and I was just kind of bored after a while, and it went on for far too long. Walking out of it, I thought I mostly enjoyed it, but the further away I get from it, the more indifferent I feel about it.

This led me to begin my viewing of Titanic with rather low expectations, and I was pleasantly surprised. It does sometimes suffer from James Cameron’s Syndrome, particularly in the second half, but for the most part I found it an entertaining experience, and I can understand why it became the highest grossing film of all time. Until Avatar that is.

This film doesn’t pretend you don’t know the fate of the Titanic. You begin the film looking at the wreckage. Within 15 minutes the sinking is described in detail by the obligatory fat computer geek. This provides background for the events we’re about to witness, but at the end many characters are often running around the ship anticipating its next movements.

ROSE: How do you know the ship is about to split?

JACK: I saw the beginning of the movie!

The film balances two plotlines, one in modern day and one back aboard the ship itself. It spends most of its time on the latter, but I found the former interesting for the 45 or so minutes we spend with it. The diving team is led by an unnecessarily blond Bill Paxton, thinking that will disguise the fact it’s the same character he played in Twister. They are poking through the Titanic wreckage looking for a large blue diamond known as the “Heart of the Ocean”. When nothing turns up, an elderly woman known as Rose Dawson-Calvert calls claiming she knows something about it, and that she is the nude woman in a newly found drawing. She is shipped out to the Titanic’s grave, and begins the flashback.

We are then taken back to Southampton, England, when her name is Rose DeWitt Bukater and she is played by Kate Winslet. She is about to board the Titanic and be taken off to America. She is engaged to tycoon-in-waiting Cal Hockley, played by Billy Zane doing his best Buffalo Bill impression from Silence of the Lambs. He is one of the film’s weak points, for he is merely an evil person with no upside, and ends up essentially being a prop for Rose to reject. She is so fed up with her boring, uppity lifestyle that she contemplates jumping off the side of the ship. Here’s where Jack comes in.

Jack Dawson is a poor man from America who just won his ticket back home in a poker game. He is played here by Leonado DiCaprio who provides the best performance in the film. He sees Rose hanging off the side of the ship, and he is able to coax her back to the other side. Thus begins the doomed romance, much to the disapproval of Cal, and Rose’s mother Ruth, played by Frances Fisher, who wears her one facial expression of disapproval well enough.

I’m not going to describe the love story in great detail, for I’m sure we all know what happens. What impressed me here was how well the love story was handled, as opposed to Avatar. I actually cared about these characters, perhaps because we know the ending already. After the success of this film, Cameron may have tried to copy it scene by scene into Avatar, and I just got bored. The romance of Jack and Rose seems to form organically and as realistically as possible, while in Avatar the love story between Jake Sully and Neytiri seems to happen simply because they happen to be the main characters.

Then the night comes when the Titanic strikes the infamous iceberg. This is done incredibly well. The collision doesn’t rattle the boat to its core and cause mass panic, but instead seems to be a minor scrape. None of the passengers are aware the ship is going down, but when it is described as a “certainty” that the ship is going down, the anxiousness of the crew translates to the audience. The ship sinks slowly and deliberately, and the second half of the film seems to occur almost in real time. This often works, yet there came a point during the sinking when the film began to drag. There are only so many times characters can run from water and it still be exciting. James Cameron strikes me as one of those filmmakers that falls in love with everything he shoots, and he edits his films himself, for the most part. That is never a good idea, for you need a tough voice telling you what works and what doesn’t. Only more disciplined directors such as the Coen brothers can get away with that.

The acting here is not the strong point. DiCaprio is decent, but I was surprised at how sub-par Kate Winslet came off, as did most of the supporting cast. The real attraction here is the atmosphere and the effects, and Cameron can do that better than anyone. What he needs in most cases is a writer and an editor, and this film could have been just a little bit better. I went in to this film coming off the Avatar hangover, and I wasn't expecting much. However, this film showed me what James Cameron is capable of when he uses his power for good. He’s made all this money for a reason, after all. Titanic was a film that resonated with audiences in an incredible way, and for most of this film I watched with a quiet appreciation.

Rating: (out of 4)

Saving Private Ryan (I've Finally Seen It!)

Boy, what took me so long? I was embarrassed for not seeing Up until now, but now that I have gotten through the true masterpiece that is Saving Private Ryan I almost feel more shame for not seeing this film until today. It is without a doubt the most harrowing war film I’ve ever seen, and it transports you to one of the most violent scenes in the history of human kind during the first half hour or so. From there it takes you inside the mind of the American World War II soldier, and it does it so well that it begins to mess with the mind of the viewer. This was the film that won Steven Spielberg his second Best Director Oscar, yet it lost Best Picture to… Shakespeare in Love? WHAT? You tell me which film has greater longevity.

The film begins with the invasion of Normandy on D-Day, and there is barely a pause before you are witnessing perhaps the most gruesome battle scenes ever filmed. Bodies and limbs are blown to bits, everything covered with dirt and blood. Some soldiers cannot move simply because of the shock at what they are seeing. May World War II veterans have said that this is by far the most realistic depiction of Normandy they’ve seen, and I think one of the biggest reasons this is so is the cinematography. Janusz Kamiński is one of the best guys out there when it comes to camerawork, and he is in top form here. Throughout the film the camera stays right up in the faces of the soldiers. Lesser films would show you the big picture, asking you to look at all them purdy explosions. Spielberg takes the less glamorous route and focuses on the carnage and the emotional toll this horror takes on each soldier. It’s not the battle itself that matters, but the consequences, and this leads us to the rest of the film.

It is learned that three of the four Ryan brothers have been killed in action, and the mother will get all three messages on the same day. An order is passed down from on high that the final Ryan brother, James, is to be retrieved and immediately sent back home. The squad which is sent to find him is led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), and it is made all the more difficult simply because they are not sure where to find him. This mission does not sit well with most of the Rangers. They are going to find a guy and send him home while they have to stay and fight, all the while this mission will likely cost them their own lives. People are dying all around them, and the common point of view among this team is that this Ryan is not worth their time. Yet, they have to follow orders, so they march on.

There is not a soldier in this group that doesn’t want to be somewhere else. None of them relish their job, and it is next to impossible to cope. Most of the usual soldier to soldier banter you see in most war movies is absent until close to the end, for up to then they want nothing to do with each other. Find Ryan, send him home, and move on, no time wasted. When they talk it is to the point. When they finally do sit down and have the obligatory “girls back home” talk, it is because they are preparing for a battle which likely will cost them their lives. It is essentially the moment their lives flash before their eyes.

The cast here is something to behold. Almost everyone here had a great career beforehand or would go on to great things the next decade. The main players include Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeremy Davies and Matt Damon. Paul Giamatti shows up for about five minutes, as does Ted Danson in a separate incident. Nathan Fillion has an even lesser part, but it is an important scene which shows the psychology and confusion of the common private in World War II, even though if played differently the movie would have been over an hour earlier.

The film is nearly three hours long, so prepare for the long haul. It feels that long, unlike a film like JFK, which zooms by in 205 minutes while some 90 minute films can drag on forever. I’ll probably be writing on that film soon. I don’t mind long movies, as long as they have a reason to be that long. Sometimes a filmmaker will cut a film so long because they feel it makes it seem more distinguished, but it just slogs it down. Here the length is required so that the viewer is completely immersed in to this environment. Before filming, the cast went through a World War II boot camp. They would march through the woods, camp in the woods, and eat rations. That comes through in their pure, raw performances.

This is probably the best World War II movie ever made. Keep in mind I’m writing this after only seeing this once, but it just had that strong an impact. It is the film that defines the Second World War, just like this past year’s The Hurt Locker defined the Iraq war. Some people have seen Steven Spielberg of late as a cash cow who sits in his office and orders his slaves to make movies, but all one needs to do is watch this, watch Schindler’s List, watch Jaws, E.T., the Indiana Jones movies, Jurassic Park and so many more to remember just how great a filmmaker he is. When one makes so many classic, great films, I’ll forgive Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. For now.

Rating: (out of 4)