Best Martin Scorsese movie

Goodfellas, easy.

-- nate woolls, Friday, August 15, 2008 7:07 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

yeah Edward, Herrmann fans like the TD score just fine.

(he also inserted a Psycho quote under the end credits, a rumbling 3 notes on the cello)

Most underrated: Last Temptation
Most overrated: Goodfellas

Looking at this list makes me realise that I only really like Taxi Driver, The King Of Comedy and After Hours.

OTM. Kind of want to be a pain and throw a vote at The Last Waltz but I will go with KoC.

Goodfellas and King are at the top for me. Too different to choose between.

Morbz OTM. Bringing Out the Dead is a disaster, dunno what people saw in that one.

eez, I thought I was the only King fan on this board. W'happen?

you're completely insane, i've overheard you having fawning conversations with other ilxors (including myself) about this movie multiple times!

i dont think it's great or anything, but I do enjoy The Aviator a lot.

Most underrated: Last Temptation
Most overrated: Goodfellas

-- Eric H., Friday, August 15, 2008 2:32 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

silly. wouldn't most overrated go to say, taxi driver? or raging bull?

schef, I'm not insane, just senile.

Yeah, Eric who wrote "fuck Raging Bull"?

TD may be overrated, but on my last viewing it's better than I used to think.

i dig bringing out the dead, maybe mostly because it looks fantastic and i find it to be a genuinely weird movie w/r/t tone and acting.

in Joe Pesci Casino has one of the worst accent and performances I've ever seen. Is he speaking English?

i give him props for being the only one in the movie to attempt a chicago accent~

Pesci's a terrible actor

I guess I've read more people criticize the taxi driver score in recent times than I've read praise of it.

if you want to talk underrated scorsese check out his first full length, who's that knocking at my door. it's like a dry run for mean streets, and I'm always impressed by how many of his trademark tricks were already fully realized in the late 60s. from the opening montage you know you're watching a scorsese film. it's light on plot but there are a number of impressive sequences, including a rape scene played with no sound other than an incongruous doo wop song.

then again, I really like the color of money and never understood the general lambasting it gets. yeah, it's not the greatest movie in the world, but it's a solid flick. and forrest whitaker has a great bit part in it.

agree that boxcar bertha is his personal nadir. its sole cinematic moment of grace is keith carradine crucified to a boxcar.

if bringing out the dead was made by some up and coming director nobody heard of, I think people would give it more slack. again, not the greatest movie ever, but it's a quirky, small film with some interesting takes on redemption.

the scene of the drug dealer being sawed out of his impalement has this weird ecstatic quality to it.

omar otm.

and i like casino a lot too! some days i prefer it to goodfellas because some days i prefer its really grim tone (not that goodfellas is a comedy, but then again it sort of is in a weird way). i have a fair amount of admiration for his trio w/dicaprio as well. the obvious ones (mean streets, taxi driver, raging bull) are all great though i don't think raging bull's greatness really appeals to me as much as taxi driver's, and i prefer mean streets to both by a fair amount.

sole cinematic moment of grace is keith carradine crucified to a boxcar.

That's David Carradine, and Boxcar Bertha is certainly better than Cape Fear (or Kill Bill).

Goodfellas, easy.

-- nate woolls, Friday, August 15, 2008 7:07 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

-- rent, Friday, August 15, 2008 2:21 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

haha yeah david carradine. cape fear seems pretty dire but I actually haven't seen it in its glorious entirety.

imdb trivia on boxcar bertha
After he finished this film, Martin Scorsese screened the film for John Cassavetes. Cassavetes, after seeing this film, hugged Scorsese and said, "Martin, you just spent a year of your life making shit!"

tho I'm happy you're willing to rep for a movie with BOXCAR in the title

After Hours
Kundun

kundun's only redeeming feature is making mao a campy b-movie villain

Casavetes, (semi-)wrong again!

Fuck you.

Pay me.

Goodfellas, easy.

-- nate woolls, Friday, August 15, 2008 7:07 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

-- rent, Friday, August 15, 2008 2:21 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

-- Jordan, Friday, August 15, 2008 12:45 PM (Friday, August 15, 2008 12:45 PM) Bookmark Link

somehow still haven't seen Casino. Of the ones I've seen (which i guess is about 3/4 of them) my favorites are King of Comedy, Raging Bull, and After Hours.

I think the Age of Innocence is a really underrated film.

Most overrated: Goodfellas
-- Eric H., Friday, August 15, 2008 2:32 PM (2 hours ago)

silly. wouldn't most overrated go to say, taxi driver? or raging bull?
-- s1ocki, Friday, August 15, 2008 4:54 PM (1 hour ago)

Goodfellas, easy.
-- nate woolls, Friday, August 15, 2008 7:07 AM (2 hours ago)
-- rent, Friday, August 15, 2008 2:21 PM (3 hours ago)
-- Jordan, Friday, August 15, 2008 12:45 PM (Friday, August 15, 2008 12:45 PM)
-- Pleasant Plains, Friday, August 15, 2008 6:32 PM (6 minutes ago)

Taxi Driver is too great to be overrated.

otm

All I'm saying is that no president has ever been shot because the assassin had been watching too much GoodFellas.

that's some prime sub custos bait

(xpost) That's right. Which makes me feel even better for voting Taxi Driver.

I also enjoyed The Aviator which I guess makes me crazy.
Voting KoC.

"one day, a great rain will come and wash the scum BLAH BLAH BLAH FUCK YOU PAY ME.

Cassavetes, after seeing this film, hugged Scorsese and said, "Martin, you just spent a year of your life making shit!"

As if there weren't enough reasons already to worship JC.

Boxcar Bertha is certainly better than Cape Fear

Cape Fear is definitely towards the bottom of his oeuvre. But even there, Scorsese shows some remarkable subtlety. For the first thirty, forty minutes or so, his camera never meets a tripod, gliding all over the place as if it were resting on melted butter....until the scene where the killer and the daughter first talk (on a deserted stage, IIRC). And finally the camera calms down and we get a classic, even rote shot-reverse shot editing pattern during the conversation. Only now, after all that swirling, the rigid back-and-forth becomes unbearably intense.

There's nothing remotely like that in Boxcar Bertha.

No, but there is Barbara Hershey's tits.

Yeah but there is no De Niro's tits.

No, but there is Barbara Hershey's tits.

to be fair scorsese didn't have much involvement in producing those

at least he didn't spend a year of his life making A Woman under the Influence...

Hinckley's lousy aim is not Schrader & Scorsese's fault.

CONTROPS

"Marty! Kundun! I liked it!"

definetely After Hours, no contest at all.

(btw just watched the original Cape Fear and it beats the .. out of his remake, which, I guess was supposed to be funny)

at least he didn't spend a year of his life making A Woman under the Influence...

Oooh looks like a JC poll is up next if it hasn't been done already. That should bring out all the lovers.

wait til the box set comes out, KJ. (Chinese Bookie for me)

also, if King of Comedy wins this poll, Eric might watch it.

Not sure if watching the 1962 original first would be better or worse for your experience. (I definitely saw the 1991 version first, though it was fine. Watched the 1962 version, then the 1991 version again a few months later, and realized I dislike it a great deal.)

I don’t know if I will see it, in part because it doesn’t seem like my jam. (This is also why I didn’t see Taxi Driver until very recently.)

It wasn't until I saw the original Cape Fear a year or two ago that I realized how bad Scorsese's remake is. Crude and sloppy.

Not sure whether I'd seen the original at that point or not, but Scorsese's was just standalone terrible either way.

I saw taxi driver when I was younger and thought it was great but every subsequent viewing just moves it higher up in my personal top ten. It's iconography and college dude movie rep don't help expectations but it's an unexpectedly beautiful film. I think Scorsese is maybe at his best when he doesn't give you exactly what you think he'll give you. As great as he often is at doing his "usual thing."

Yeah, it's been way too long since I saw Cape Fear (and I suspect it was an edited-for-television version) to know whether I think it's as bad as all that. Shutter Island is his better thriller no doubt

for my thanksbirthday i received the criterion 4K of Mean Streets. it's a film where so much of his thing is already there, especially the seemingly improvised street humor. that backroom conversation between DeNiro and Keitel is such an A+ scene in that respect.

there's a vv good interview w/Scorsese in the new issue of Esquire (which was delivered to us, addressed to a fictional-sounding name: someone who doesn't apparently exist) and he's aware he's entering his final stretch (i mean obv, he just turned 81) and is hoping to get several more films made.

Did you know that "mook" is acceptable in Scrabble? This is true. And, if you play it, also sets up exactly the response you want from your opponent.

https://scrabble.merriam.com/finder/mook

The Raging Bull thread is on I Love Film...Can someone identify the music here for me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2xD-HYTPPI

Pietro Mascagni's Barcarolle from the opera Silvano.

Many thanks.

Is “mook” an ethnically offensive word, or does it just have that association because the guys in Mean Streets say it? I ask that because I occasionally use the word IRL.

According to that link to the Scrabble dictionary, it just means "a foolish or contemptible person," no ethnicity involved. Which is how I always took it from the film too.

Good to know. I will be less self conscious about calling people mooks going forward.

A mook is a mook is a mook. The word cuts across race, ethnicity, gender, everything. They're everywhere.

And they all worship the same god.

https://i.postimg.cc/0QQjhWKg/mook.jpg

Watched Who's That Knocking at My Door? for maybe only the second time in my life (the DVD I used was a still-sealed $3 copy I bought at least 10 years ago). Whatever I may have posted in the past working from memory, didn't think it was great at all--one incredible four-minute musical cue ("El Watusi"), some technical interest, a very good performance from Keitel (also Zina Bethune, who basically disappeared from movies afterwards), and not a lot else. Endless conversations that go around in circles--which anticipate the same in later films, but they're not at all funny here. I can understand why someone like Ebert would have made a fuss over it in 1969, and there are other directors where I prefer early rough work to polished later stuff--and honestly, I'd take it over Killers of the Flowers Moon. But not over Mean Streets, which is exponentially better.

We posted the first of these on May 18, 2020 (20th Century Women), the early days of the pandemic; we've got two more to go after this one, on three Scorsese films:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAuMg5zjgIo

Some confusion over whether the "Steppin' Out" in Mean Streets is John Mayall's or Cream's. I guess it is Cream (not on any of the studio albums)--I always thought it was from the first John Mayall album.

Cream did a long version of "Steppin' Out" on Live Cream II, an archival release from '72.

It was initially mistitled/credited as "Hideaway", which IIRC carried over to some prints of Mean Streets.

Both songs being instrumentals first recorded by Clapton during his time with Mayall.

That's it--I distinctly remember seeing "Hideaway" in the music credits more than once. Mystery solved, thanks.

The song in question (1:45):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA2XMiK12VQ

We talk a lot about this, which--dead serious--I think is the greatest four minutes of any Scorsese film ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVIA1vqQfb8

(I may have posted this clip upthread--if so, that link is broken.)

Just watched The Age of Innocence for the first time. It was a pleasure to be sunk in that milieu for a couple of hours. There is a sense that with such strong source material, it's your set designers and casting agent you're going to rely on most of all but I thought it was handled well. I think it's aged well (a bit like DDL. tbf), albeit the editing in the final scenes in the Paris courtyard is kinda clunky.

Curious whom Alfred would have cast instead of Pfeiffer...

Right?!?

Sigourney Weaver?

I appreciate that Marty is this level of nerd. With staff helping of course.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/mar/25/martin-scorsese-vhs-video-collection-archive

Looks like he was cool using SLP