Best Martin Scorsese movie

Happy 68th!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RyqtrGnicc

watched Mean Streets for the first time in I dunno 20 years last night. He never really made another movie like this, did he?

he's tried though

Mean Streets and Taxi Driver both really stand out to me as films from a different (more interesting) director.

Mean Streets didn't have enough focus. It almost felt like reality TV.

I guess Bringing Out the Dead is maybe closest to Mean Streets? that sort of dreamy, episodic, highly stylized approach (I hated BOTTD though). can really see the Kenneth Anger influence in Mean Streets as well, in the way it marries pop music to feverish, striking images. And unlike a lot of his other films, MS is definitely lacking in the plot/narrative department. it just drifts along from one setpiece/vignette to the next. very little of it is actually mean or threatening in any way.

I did lol when I recognized chubby, long-haired Richie Aprile though

it just drifts along from one setpiece/vignette to the next. very little of it is actually mean or threatening in any way.

Which does make the end death scene ever more of a shock (It just seemed inevitable that somebody would die, but it was up for grabs who and when). Which I guess is a merit, but not a reason I'd triumph lack of cohesion any more over even just a semblance of some.

yeah by the time I saw this originally I had already seen Taxi Driver and Goodfellas etc and was expecting more of the same so I was more surprised by the LACK of violent outbursts than anything elese

shine a light could also use some violent outbursts imo

lol yeah god that is awful

x xpost

Kinda reminded me of Assassination of Jesse James by The Coward... oh fuck it. Like the name, the movie was pretentious and didn't really get interesting until the last 10 minutes in which Jesse James is actually, as the title struggled to deliver, assassinated. I kinda wonder whether it's my Gen. X ADD mentality or movies that dwandle and diddle around on purpose are really worth a shit in the first place.

watched Alice again for the first time since i was 15 this weekend. so, so wonderful.

tbh i've never understood why people love goodfellas so much. it verges on self-parody, it's sooo corny, the soundtrack is oppressive...everything is overly telegraphed

no one likes new york, new york?

that's a nice one-two punch of opinions there

the people who love goodfellas otm

it's not any of those things by accident you know dell

he set out to do self-parody? i guess i need to read the book it was based on.

well i though you might be referring to the arch potrayal of gangsters and their speech and behavior and and trappins. the movie is a spectacular more than a crime drama or an epic.

trappings

like i get that ray liotta's character was just one of the boys next door who somehow got mixed up in martin scorcese's mob jerkoff fantasies...and i get the cocaine paranoia layla helicopter scene or whatever. i just don't understand why people love that movie so much. it may as well have been a made for tv movie special of the week. taxi driver, say, otoh is real "ARt". there are more compelling snl sketches featuring joe pesce. meet the fockers is better than goodfellas. or that movie where billy crystal is deniro's guidance counselor/spiritual advisor.

the movie is a spectacular more than a crime drama or an epic.

fair enough. it's appeal eludes me.

dell otm

Well, excepting I never sat thru Meet the Fockers.

I'm not crazy about Scorsese generally and I understand the hesitation. I'm not bonkers over The Godfather either.

Is True Grit or High Noon corny and on the verge of self-parody? What about Spartacus?

You're not filling in any holes here, so I'm assuming you're basing this on Jimmy Two Times or Pesci's character wondering aloud why a Jew broad is prejudice against Italians. How do you say that the soundtrack is oppressive, but you "get" the 1980 bust sequence? Do you like the Fockers and Analyze This better because you think DeNiro's performance in GoodFellas is worse? Really?

If that's all you see in GoodFellas, I don't know what to tell you.

otm

lol

I'm going to close this thread close this thread.

I probably would have voted for Mean Streets but I'm bummed to see Alice got nothing

who the hell voted for Shine a Light anyway

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Mean Streets/Alice/Taxi Driver might be my favorite run of three movies by any director

very heartening to see Raging Bull in its proper place here

meh, even Raging Bull > Goodfellas

del (and Pauline Kael) rong.

if you think Goodfellas is self-parody, what would you call Casino?

tragedy

Can't remember if I voted in this but GF and TD would have been my top two followed by R Bull - probably. I've still never seen Casino.

Actually Goddfellas would both prob be in my top 10 movies of all time.

that should have said "and Taxi Driver"

if you think Goodfellas is self-parody, what would you call Casino?

― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Monday, May 2, 2011 12:35 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

something

I've seen more acknowledgment of The King of Comedy's power in recent years.

So Marty and Souleymane Cisse had a sitdown at the Tribeca fest:

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2011/04/scorseseciss%C3%A9-apres.html

still haven't figured out what foreign dialect Pesci uses in Casino.

You're not filling in any holes here, so I'm assuming you're basing this on Jimmy Two Times or Pesci's character wondering aloud why a Jew broad is prejudice against Italians.

just EVERYTHING about it. the whole, "i used to play stickball in the streets with my friends, what a great gang they were. also we killed people and made marinara sauce in prison". again, i just think it's part of martin scorcese's j.o. fantasies about organized crime...which for me do not necessarily translate into good film. i guess i prefer it when he focuses on weird paul schrader-ish loners or the rupert pipkins of the world.

i feel like the soundtrack is oppressive at least in part b/c it paved the way for people to do movies in which you don't have to communicate things through characters or dialogue, but instead just insert pop song here. which is fine, i mean i love vh1 specials, too, but...

i don't have a problem w/deniro's performance in goodfellas. i think he was great. but i just think he burned out really quickly. or something. and i probably shouldn't harsh as much on the film; more its fans...

del (and Pauline Kael) rong.

if you think Goodfellas is self-parody, what would you call Casino?

i watched Casino recently and enjoyed it. tbh maybe i just don't like ray liotta.

i feel like the soundtrack is oppressive at least in part b/c it paved the way for people to do movies in which you don't have to communicate things through characters or dialogue, but instead just insert pop song here. which is fine, i mean i love vh1 specials, too, but...

I think Goodfellas is overrated, but this feels a bit ironic if you dug Casino, where voice-over narration communicates everything for like the first hour.

del, whatcha think of the first Godfather? talk about yr collective American JO fantasy about the mob (not entirely Coppola's doing).

I mean, GF is told at least on the surface in Henry Hill's voice, tho it's subverted by the time he becomes a coke freak. You hafta show what he found irresistible about the lifestyle.

still haven't figured out what foreign dialect Pesci uses in Casino.

― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, May 2, 2011 1:40 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

haha, i thought it was a game attempt. at least he tried, its not like nypd blue where brooklyn cop andy sipowicz constantly sounds like a chicago hot dog vendor

The movie requires Henry Hill's passivity to communicate the allure of his world, but there's this unresolved tension between the energy of Liotta's performance, the voice-over, and the character as written.

I think we're all forgetting this.

http://rlv.zcache.com/goodfellas_painting_poster-p228333512157444550tdcp_400.jpg

del looking one way, thread lookin the other