Tag Archives: Martin Scorsese

Five movies to watch alone

Posted on by
40

To coincide with our “Five movies to watch with a group,” post from the summer, it’s time for the foil.  Here are movies that we think you’ll get a deeper understanding from if you kick out the guests and block out the rest of the world.  While the group movies offer visceral thrills and outlandish humor, these movies use a sometimes understated, subtle way of telling the story that can’t be appreciated with a loud group of people.

There Will Be Blood- We both named Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic the best movie of the 2000s, but we’ve never watched it together.  Something primal about Anderson’s direction and Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance (also topping our best male performances list) leaps off the screen and speaks right to you.  If you’re in a crowded room, you won’t hear it as well.

Continue reading →

10 Memorable Movie Psychos

Posted on by
4

Instead of a “Scariest movies for Halloween” list, we decided to go with another semi-standard list for this time of year: the best psychotics.  We aren’t limiting it to horror movies: it’s an even playing field for these murderers and madmen.  Let their tricks treat for years to come.  (Entries are placed in no particular order, but feel free to name ones you would’ve picked instead.)

Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)– For three movies, no matter your opinion of the sequel and prequel, Anthony Hopkins held your gaze as the calm, collected cannibal.  When you first see him, he stands raised as if he were honoring royalty entering the room, a maddening stillness and calm smirk across his face.  He always appears collected, which makes the madness behind his motives all the more chilling.

Jack Torrance (The Shining)- One of many iconic roles for Jack Nicholson and one of many masterpieces for Stanley Kubrick, this villain stands at the center of a chilling send-up of the American family.  Dad gets cabin fever and starts chasing mom and son around with an axe.  Watching this character descend into madness after seeing him semi-normal is what makes him so effective.

Continue reading →

SPOTLIGHT: Daniel Day-Lewis

Posted on by
6

Gargantuan doesn’t even begin to describe a Daniel Day-Lewis performance.  One of the greatest living actors, if not the greatest, he towers over other actors of his generation with a surreal dedication to his roles.  Known as a definitive method actor, he stays in character from the time a movie starts shooting until the time it finishes production.  This practice has won him 2 Oscars out of four nominations.  He only does a project when he can truly commit himself to the grueling experience he goes through to prepare, which is why we don’t see him every year.  When we do though, it’s one goddamn hell of a show.

Continue reading →

The Big 10: No Easy A’s

Posted on by
1

Out of the dozens of reviews we’ve done since we started this blog, we’ve had only 10 A’s.  For a movie to deserve a perfect rating here, it doesn’t have to be perfect: it needs to be different.  It has to bring something new to the movie table, or do something old so well that it feels new.  Here are our 10 ‘A’ reviews, as diverse as an obese teenager’s quest for societal independence or a man avenging his father’s death in 19th century America.  (Side-note:  though we rarely hand out straight A’s, we’ve also only awarded one F… to a movie ironically called The A-Team.)

Amélie

Being John Malkovich

Casino Royale

District 9

Gangs of New York

A History of Violence

In the Loop

Precious: Based On the Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire

Up in the Air

Where the Wild Things Are

ARCHIVE REVIEW: Gangs of New York

Posted on by
3

Gangs of New York
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Written by: Jay Cocks
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cameron Diaz, John C. Reilly

In its early ages, New York City was a dirty, filthy, muddled mess, sprawling over an untamable piece of land, controlled nothing more than the violent, greedy people who were trying to civilize it. With immigration and war on the rise, it was growing faster than ever, more torn that ever and more important than ever. Despite the bloodshed, it bloomed with the nation, undertaking a rapid transformation that would summarize America’s birth and stay in the world. In more ways than one, Gangs of New York is just like the city.

The film is often one that is most hacked by critics and Scorsese fans, mostly for its historical inaccuracy, length and muddled narrative. But just like the violent mess the city was, the movie follows suit, becoming a grand, grotesque but truthful epic tale of how a city and a nation were born.

Scorsese incorporates similar themes to his other famous works. There are the power struggles with men and women, violence as a substitution for sex, violence within class, nationality and religion. This movie hits them all, and it hits them with brute force. Continue reading →

Our (Belated) Best Movies of the 2000s

Posted on by
26

1. There Will Be Blood– Paul Thomas Andersen’s take on a corrupt, independent oil prospector at the turn of the century who just conned a family out of their oil-wealthy land is an epic exploration of two souls squaring off in a new world torn between spiritual and capitalistic ideals. The performance of Daniel Day Lewis gives Daniel Plainview flesh and blood thicker and blacker than the oil he devotes himself to drilling, carrying the film for nearly three hours and never skipping a scene that won’t enthrall. Those who can’t appreciate experimental filmmaking or principals of classic cinema like Citizen Kane will think this movie bores more than it bleeds. Though it’s a tragic tale, telling the American nightmare oppose to the America dream, it’s technically beautiful, if not perfect. The unconventional and strange cinematography and score are just a few of the elements that set Andersen up as rebellious poet, taking a stand against everything the digital film age embodies, and in doing so he creates something just as classic, magnificent and important as Citizen Kane, but clumping them together is injustice. There Will Be Blood mines deep into new territories and in the process, becomes a masterpiece.


2. The Departed– Martin Scorsese’s visceral return to the crime drama yielded extraordinary results.  Packing an unbeatable cast into a winning script by William Monahan, Scorsese creates a world where corruption starts young and gets more powerful with age.  Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Vera Farmiga, and Mark Wahlberg are all excellent, but as with most of his films, Scorsese is the star of the show. He laces this tale of Shakespearean magnitude with perfect music and pacing.  Two and a half hours rarely go by so fast.  You’ll have whiplash by the time the film reaches its bloody climax, and love every second of it.  With The Departed, Scorsese’s created a classic that stands with his best work. Continue reading →

A Few Movie Facts: Matt

Posted on by
1

1.  I hated Pulp Fiction the first time I saw it, but for some reason watched it again a week later and loved it.  Now I watch movies I think are bad twice on occasion just to see if I’m missing out.  (Exception: Michael Bay movies or ones that are really bad.)

2. I saw The Dark Knight 7 times in the theater.  I’ve only watched it twice on DVD.

3. Like Luke, my favorite director is also Martin Scorsese.  The Coen Brothers and Francis Ford Coppola are close behind, though.

4. One movie that’s super acclaimed that I will never, ever watch is Bridge on the River Kwai. It just looks like something I could never sit through.

5.  Out of all the movies I’ve seen, I probably think about There Will Be Blood or No Country for Old Men more than any of them.  This is mostly because they are from the same year and thinking about one leads to the other, but also because they are two of the greatest movies made in the past 30 years.

6.  Brad Pitt is a good actor, but I really don’t like that many of his movies even though I’m a guy and I’m “supposed to.”

7. My two favorite actors are Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis.  If they ever did a movie together, the script wouldn’t even matter.

8. TV Shows like Mad Men and The Sopranos are better than 90% of the movies that come out these days.

9. I consider myself a huge movie buff, but I don’t want to sit around for hours and discuss the French New Wave or German Expressionism.  I’d rather watch the movies.

10.  My guilty pleasure movie is The Devil Wears Prada.  I know it doesn’t utilize anything revolutionary or tell a new kind of story, but come on.  Meryl Streep’s power to carry a movie has never been more prevalent.

If they were in television… Quentin Tarantino

Posted on by
3

Image courtesy of Fused Film

When I heard that the venerable Martin Scorsese would be the executive producer and director of the new HBO show Boardwalk Empire this fall, it got me thinking.  What would other directors do with the expanded storytelling capability of television?  So I’ve decided to start a new segment dedicated to analyzing what an acclaimed film maker would do with a whole season (12-13 one hour episodes) on HBO or Showtime.  I pick those networks because they are the only ones where you can be uncensored like the directors in their films.

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Notable Films: Pulp Fiction, Death Proof, Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2, Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown, and Inglourious Basterds.

Famous For: Poetically vulgar dialogue, messing with structure, fetishized violence, sympathetic criminal characters, melding genres the average person doesn’t know exist.

Continue reading →

The five best movies for St. Patrick’s Day

Posted on by
5

St. Patrick’s Day is one of the biggest drinking days of the year, whether it be the Irish invading the pubs in numbers larger than usual or other people dressing in green and dousing themselves in beer.  If you’re looking to avoid the St. Patrick’s Day alcohol binge, here are some movies that pay homage to Irish heritage without focusing on beer.

Image courtesy of Hollywood Jesus

1.  Gangs of New York– Martin Scorsese’s 2002 epic lands us right in New York City in the mid-19th century.  Irish-Americans face discrimination from the loyalist party, who are also facilitating a takeover of the city while everyone else is fighting the Civil War.  Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Amsterdam Vallon, an Irishman who tries to take revenge on Bill the Butcher (the ever-superb Daniel Day-Lewis) for murdering his father.  Not only will you get a dose of Irish-American history, you’ll also get one of the great film epics of the 2000’s.

Image courtesy of Cinematic Intelligence Agency

2. Once– This beautifully made musical follows two people in Dublin as they write and record music.  Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglovás star as the two, and the chemistry they share is revelatory.  The film surprisingly won the Oscar for Best Original Song the year it was released.  That song, “Falling Slowly,” is one of the most gorgeous songs ever recorded in a musical, let alone a movie.  Don’t miss your chance to experience this film.

Continue reading →