Siskel & Ebert Review The Films of...Martin Scorsese

you don't make up for your sins in the church you do it in the streets you do it at home the rest is [ __ ] and you know [Music] it and I had chance never let you go so you say you love me I'll make [Music] you baby my little baby and only my my my baby now [Music] I'll you know I guess I got something about gangster films cuz I already I've mentioned a gangster film and a detective film now another gangster film I love them when they're real that's the key back in 1973 the Godfather was the gangster film but a little picture came out that reminded us that even great old gangsters like Don Corleone once in a while well they were innocent young men imitating their fathers the film Mean Streets came out in 73 and it marked the commercial film debut of one of the most talented American directors working today Martin scorsi who would go on to make Alice doesn't live here anymore and taxi driver in Mean Street is the film I like so much it wasn't a a big hit it was a dark and personal film and Scorsese works for the first time with his favorite actor Robert dairo dairo plays an irresponsible Street Punk always in debt always looking to Goof Off he's held in check by the most responsible member of his gang Harvey kaiel and their older younger brother relationship is evident as they walk the streets of New York's Little Italy hey look at that piece Johnny that's one of those little jobs the cops carrying the sock yeah cop P me on the head with one of those you remember that time I C that beaten from those cops yeah you never recovered from that one did you I never recovered I wasn't there to be used as a punch bag to enable you to leave fast because you're stupid you should have ran and left safely with me you I'm stupid for get my head punched in my hand my hand what are you doing Jo black Jo black I own money I don't think that's him yeah it's him where is he turn the corner come on is he gone yeah turn the corner come on yeah that don't mean he's gone turn come on get over here you're in the corner what's smile with [Music] you what's up a young Robert Jiro before he was a star still very powerful you could see in that sequence with them hitting the garbage cansas how they could grow up to be sunny Corleone and The Godfather and smash somebody with a garbage can Mean Streets was striking for a lot of reasons it wasn't clean it was gritty it felt like the night had dealt with tough teenage kids who had a view of the world that was get them before they get us a view of the world that also divided women either into Saints or to [ __ ] and sure those attitudes are juvenile but mean streets made to see how commonly hell those attitudes were and it did it with violence that exploded like a firecracker just seeing seemingly out of thin air I think one thing that you said that's really right was this was a dirty movie it was a nitty-gritty movie it felt like the night people like The Godfather they might have been murderers too and The Godfather but they wore nice suits while they were killing people they drove away in nice cars these were poor kids the the crime wasn't glamorous here see oh here's another director now taking a risk uh making a tough picture not glamorous like you said uh these were these were rough kids so when they got frustrated like all teenage kids did they didn't do like Suburban kids and go to psychiatrist they hit somebody that's a lot cheaper yeah well they got it out of their system they very frustrated had trouble relating to women so they would attack them uh it was a beautiful I guess people I wish that they would take more risks and go with the director what you're really saying is you wish they'd read your reviews yes but one thing that happened in this movie uh if it came out now it would have stars in it Harvey Kel is fairly well known Robert diniro was a big star what happened with this picture was the public went to it in only moderate numbers but the industry saw it and they liked it so made these guys Stars right so my choice for a great film from 1973 is Martin scorsese's Mean Streets the film film that announced with a Fanfare that he was one of the best of a new generation of directors the movie was made on a low budget with unknown actors who were later to become famous like Robert dairo and Harvey kitel and it took place on the streets of Little Italy where scorsi grew up observing guys exactly like this I was in a game I was I had like $6 700 right you got to be kiding yeah EST the street you know you know Joey clams yeah Joey Scot yeah I know him too yeah yeah Jo no Joey SC Joey clamps right right they're the same person yeah hey they having a lot of tough ethnic gangster pictures before and after mean streets but what made this one special is that it depended on the personalities of its characters not on some canned plot outline it was about how young they were and how insecure and trying to act like tough guys when inside they were trembling the Mean Streets and three years later Taxi Driver scorsi changed forever the way movies looked at Big American cities well you know this was also made by Warner Brothers and that's a challenge because today the m radio syncratic films come from you know independent Studios and then uh but here was a big Studio that took a chance on on the young director and I think today that that script came in I think people might say well who's the rooting interest for the audience you know is it Johnny Boy the dairo character no he's self-destructive and and what about um Harvey Kel's character I mean this is another unhappy guy this doesn't you can't edit a trailer from Mean Streets that makes it look like it's a Feelgood moving you better stop that's why Alice doesn't live here anymore that's why Ellen buron won an Academy Award as [Music] Alice now the most controversial picture playing in town right now just opened it's Martin scorsese's film taxi driver with a title like that you might think the pictures about the high drama of being an inner city hack operator well forget it this picture is concerned with violence it's brutal it's a love story that turns into an ugly nightmare the picture was made by a young New York director Martin Scorsese whose other films Who's That Knocking at my door mean streets and Alice doesn't live here anymore all have one thing in common they're about contemporary people who are terribly frustrated with their lives to the point of violence and so too with Taxi Driver the taxi driver is played by Robert dairo who was so terrific as young veto Corleone in The Godfather part two dairo plays a Vietnam veteran who's lonely and depressed so he gets a job as a taxi driver and he drives nights cuz he can't sleep anyway and two important things happen he gets disgusted with the ugly street life in Times Square in Harlem he also meets a beautiful girl a spectacularly beautiful girl played by Cil Shepard but he's so crude the taxi driver he ends up taking her on their second date to a porno movie you got to be kidding what this is a dirty movie no no this this this is the this is a movie that a lot of couples come to all kinds of couples go here you sure about that yeah yeah I see him all the [Applause] time come on theing where you going I've leave now why I don't know why I came in here I of like these movies well I mean I you know I didn't know that you you'd feel that way about this movie I don't know much about movies but if I the only kind of movie you should go to well yeah I mean I come and they this is not so bad taking me to a place like this is about as exciting to me as saying [Music] let's um there are other places I can take you only other other movies I can take you to I don't know much about them but I can take you other places which is different wait a second wait a second I have to go got to go now wait wait a second I want to talk to you don't just wait a second taxi can I talk to you at least I mean when you at least talking I I didn't know you look won't you take the record I've already got it but please please I bought it for you Betsy now get two let's go can I call you just Christ I got a taxi now right through that last scene I was really loving taxi driver because up until that point the relationship between dairo and Cil Shepard has been electric the scene where he picks her up in their very first date together are both funny and erotic but that mood isn't going to last this picture is going to rub our noses in violence like few films ever have anyway sible Shephard Works in a political campaign office her candidate is running for president of the United States and one of the film's many coincidences dairo the taxi driver ends up giving that candidate a ride the scene hints at the hate that's in the the taxi drivers heart I don't think we have to worry about anybody here committing themselves until things start coming in from California listen this is just making me nervous I think we should have waited for the limo I don't mind taking a c i mind going up to California without the right preparation that's going to get us in com I'll tell you are you Charles palentine a candidate yes I am I'm one of your biggest supporters you know I tell everybody that comes in this taxi that they have to vote for you well thank you Travis I'm sure you're going to win sir everybody I know is going to vote for you you know in fact I was going to put one of your stickers in my taxi but you know the company said it was against their policy but they don't know anything you know they're a bunch of jerks let me tell you something I have learned more about America from riding in taxi Cavs than in all the limos in the country oh yeah that's true can I ask you something Travis sure what is the one thing about this country that bugs you the most well I don't know you know I don't follow political issues that closely sir I don't know oh well there must be something well whatever it is he should clean up this city here because this city here is like an open sewer you know it's full of Filth and scum and sometimes I can hardly Take It Whatever ever becomes the President should just really clean it up you know what I mean sometimes I go out and I smell it I get headaches it's so bad you know and they just like they just never go away you know it's like think that the President should just clean up this whole mess here he should just flush it right down the toilet well uh I think I know what you mean TR but it's not going to be easy we're going to have to make some radical changes Sam [Music] spray here you go Travis keep the change thank you nice talking to you Travis nice talking to you sir you're a good man I know you're going to win thank you I [Music] thank there's a nice quiet layer of anger in that scene and I've got a love haate affair with a whole picture I love a couple of the performances and the lurd photography of New York at night and that throbbing background music's pretty good too but I hated the last third of the movie the violence is so strong I ended up looking away from the film in more ways than one not only didn't I see some of the blood letting I began not to see the sense of the picture either Roger well Jee that's where you and I disagree because it seems to me that what scors sessi is doing is looking not so much at the violence in the city is in the violence that's bottled up inside this person and it's the kind of violence that we've seen in America and assassins and snipers and so forth I think it's a very good character portrait at the end in particular where he uses slow motion in order to make the violence really seem particular and drawn out and obsessive I think it's a very good movie and I think that like peek Anda the Wild Bunch the violence at the end is necessary in order to provide a conclusion to all of this pressure that's been building up all during the film I think that sounds good in theory Roger but uh when you end up looking away from the screen because a guy's getting fingers on his hand shot off somebody else consid a bullet in the neck and there blood spattered all all over the wall like some kind of modernistic painting uh I think that the director is making his film in a sense bottom heavy and blowing the sense that's preceded the picture out of the way and also I don't think it is necessary that the film end in a big piece of violence I think that the relationship between the taxi driver and that girl could have been explored in a positive sense that would have been very exciting well I didn't look away from the script screen and I think that really what you're asking is that scor sessi had made a different movie than the one he made tell me what else is on the rest of your list Well jean I guess this will be your first look at the Sunday Sun Times that's my list right there okay I'll look you talk in second place uh is Taxi Driver Martin scorsese's terrifying Excursion into urban violence which won first prize at this year's can film festival Robert dairo plays a New York loner who plunges more and more deeply into his private Madness as we see in this clip loneliness is follow me my whole life everywhere bars and cars sidewalks stores everywhere there's no escape from God and only [Music] man June 8th my life is taking another turn again the days move along with regularity over and over one day indistinguishable from the next a long continuous change and suddenly there is a [Music] change June 29th I got to get in shape now too much sitting has ruined my body too much abuse has gone on for too long from now on it'll be 5050 push-ups each morning 50 pull-ups there'll be no more pills there will be no more bad food no more destroyers of my body from now on it will be total organization every muscle must be tight Taxi Driver violent and important we've already talked about Taxi Driver my number seven choice for me it was a creepy picture that fell apart only when the bud began to flow Martin scor's 1976 movie Taxi Driver didn't win the Academy Award for best picture but 20 years later there was widespread agreement I think that it was one of the very best movies of the 197s it captured the mind of the kind of alienated Urban loner who was to rewrite American history with senseless acts of violence and it established Robert Jiro pretty securely as the leading actor of his generation the movie starred a young jod Foster as a child of the streets and dairo is Travis ble a Vietnam veteran now driving a taxi who somehow cast himself as her savior well that's all right I'm going to get you out of here so we better make it or sport will get mad so how do you want to make it I don't want to make it who Sport and here is one of the most famous movie scenes of all time it wasn't written this way gesi remembers that dairo improvised by saying the same line in different ways and the improvisation became the scene you talking to me you talking to me you talking to me then who the hell else are you talking talking to me well I'm the only one here for its 20th anniversary taxi driver has been re-released with a restored print and a new stereo soundtrack and it's going to be playing in selected theaters around the country it's already opened in New York then this new version will be released on video this is a masterpiece and it's great to have back in a [Music] newday I want to be a part of it New York New York the last WS a film by Martin [Music] scorsi Raging Bull is to my mind the single best American movie of the year it's the dramatization of the life of Jake lamada the onetime middleweight boxing champion who is admitted he threw at least at one fight and destroyed his two marriages by behaving like an animal to his two wives Robert dairo plays lamada in the year's finest male performance it's the portrait of a wild man out of control out of control in the boxing ring and in his personal life for example here's a scene where dairo discusses an upcoming fight with his brother played by by Joe peshi the year is 1947 dairo is worried that he's too overweight to win the title but his brother who's also his manager is convinced he can't lose the movie is filmed in black and white I'm going to make it down to 155 I'm lucky I make it to 160 and on top of that you sign me for a fight at 155 and if I don't make the $ 155 I lose $155,000 that's right oh you're supposed to be a manager you're supposed to know what you're doing I did just what I wanted to do that's what I'm worried about you did you want a title shot what are you talking you want a title shot what am I what am I in a circus over here I asked him he's got more sense about this what are you doing you been killing yourself for 3 years now right there's nobody left for you to fight everybody's afraid to fight you okay Along Comes this kid janiro he don't know any better he's a young kid up and com and to fight anybody good you fight bust this whole team AP right what are you worried about what's the biggest thing you got to worry about wor about the weight you worried about the weight what we arguing about for I just said the weight okay let's say you lose because of your weight are they going to think you're not as tough as you were you're not the same fighter good they'll match with all those guys they were afraid to match you with before what happens you'll kill them and they got to give you a title shot bring me coffee please why there's nobody else nobody's left who are they going to give it to Coffee a minute you listening to me please honey bring me the callof all right oh that boy how long I got to wait are you listening now let's say you win you beat Jiro which you definitely should beat him right yeah right yeah they still got to give you a shot at the title you know why why cuz the same thing as before there's nobody left there ain't nobody around they got to give you the shot you understand if you win you win if you lose you still win there's no way you can lose and you'll do it on your own just the way you wanted to do without any help from anybody terrific scene he's vicious to his wife totally confused by his brother he doesn't know how he can lose and still win that look of confusion on Dao's face is marvelous the centerpiece of the movie is lamat struggle to become the middleweight champion here is his championship fight in 1950 against Marcel sardan and it's unlike any fight scene you've ever seen in a movie as directed by Martin Scorsese this fight is presented as a slow motion ballet showing lamada achieving a long sought after [Music] goal [Music] [Music] we finish you off so stupid [Music] hey commiss come on I'm going to stop the [Music] [Music] fight [Music] to Contin the referee fight of [Music] [Music] the [Applause] after he wins the middleweight title lata's life goes downhill he gains weight starts drinking heavily and winds up running a nightclub where he acts as the MC dairo put on 50 lounds just to play this scene iag about two friends of M and one was married and one was single the married guy tells a single guy oh what's the matter with you what's the matter with you look at me and look at you and look at me and look at [Music] you let me get out of when I come home at night my wife's at the door with a tall drink in her hand and she gives me a nice hot bed then she gives me a nice rub down then she makes passionate love to me and then she makes me a nice dinner what more could you ask for you ought to try that the other friend says hey that sounds great time your wife get home this is a spectacular performance by Robert dairo I'm confident he'll win the Academy Award for best performance by an actor and he does deserve it Raging Bull is a tough bloody film made by Martin Scorsese who also directed Nero and taxi driver and other fine films like Taxi Driver Raging Bull is a violent film but its violence has a purpose Raging Bull is a portrait of a violent brutish man a riveting look at the dark side of a tortured human being just terrific film I'm very much in agreement with you I think Raging Bull is one of the Great American pictures of the year and you know what's fascinating about it is it's hardly ever the case that a great director like scors Asia and a great actor like dairo work together over a series of films on the same themes and you mentioned Taxi Driver they also made Mean Streets together and New York New York and in all of these films to a degree they're talking about how people get filled up with violence and anger and how they react when they can't find a way to articulate their passions and their their Ang and the other theme that you find in these films and also in scor's first film Who's That Knocking at my door is what Freud called the Madonna wh complex a guy who's so hung up with guilt and his own insecurities that he idealizes a girl as a virgin and as a Madonna then when he possesses her then he wants to cast her aside or he's filled with jealousy he thinks she's tarnished they followed this theme now through several films we see that in with the women in white that they always meet when they meet her in Taxi Driver and this woman is met in a a white bathing suit a marvous performance by Kathy Mori in this film is the woman that he's chasing that fight scene that we just saw I think is one of the most beautiful evocative scenes I've seen in a long time it's not anybody can just put punches together but it's those succession of images that sadness in the midst of a brutal fight there's sadness an achievement this is a real Artistry this is this is poetic film making I I'd like to see these kinds of films more than any other kind I'm curious about the violence how does it come up out of society and scores and dairo seem to show it coming out out of people who can only express themselves can only be heard through violence this is a great film you know I feel a real enthusiasm on your part and also on my part 1980 has not been one of the greatest years in the history of American movies and it's so refreshing to find at the end of the year a director and an actor working right at the top of their form and the whole company of actors working at the top form they're all great that Joe pesi as good as the brother too really good so a couple of yes votes I'd say very strong so I guess the basic conclusion on this program is we both think Raging Bull is a Terri terrific picture and you're predicting that dairo is going to win the Oscar for best actor this year yes I'm predicting that and I'm also predicting that I am going to be banging my head against the wall for the next week wondering why I said the orangutang in any which way you can is sophisticated comedy okay Jan speaking of Raging Bull finally here is my choice for the number one the year's best film it is Raging Bull the story of fighter Jake lamada is played by Robert daero and told by director Martin Scorsese it's really the story of urban violence and how it Springs from people who know no other way of getting themselves heard here's a scene that shows Lam's trigger quick temper his second wife Vicki merely says to lamata that the next fighter he's scheduled to meet is good-looking that one comment sends him into a paranoid jealous rage what's the problem stop eating that's all you can do it you don't understand anything you understand that you know Joey's right this J is an up and coming fight he's good looking he's popular he beat him there excuse me excuse me what do you mean good look say popular if you win what you to say good I say anything I'm just telling you what what what what do you want Authority or what get out it get out of here take the baby and get out of here everybody all the son's an authority about this she's when she find out who's good looking first of all and here in his fight against that good-looking face lamata flies into a beastial rage and pummels the Fighter's face as director Martin scors he shows us an unrelenting bloody detail exactly what boxing is about [Music] Robert diniro should win the Oscar in March for the best performance by an actor and don't be surprised if Kathy Mori arti who played Vicky lamat in that first scene is at least nominated hers is a superb film debut in an exciting American film that is made I think with more Artistry in every frame including those boxing scenes more Artistry than any other film this year I'm in total agreement with you and what a portrait of a carrier by Robert DeNiro you know a lot of these boxing movies have had all kinds of fraudi and things at the beginning how his parents treated him and so forth the priest dropped him when he was baptized and things like that this movie is very direct here's a man who is filled with great insecurity with great rages with great violence can't deal with anyone takes it out in the ring it's very direct unremitting and Unforgettable that's where he is most comfortable in the ring a superb performance love these fight scenes more than rocky more Artful although I like Rocky this is the really great stuff I think okay we're in agreement when we did the 500th broadcast of this show I mentioned that my favorite film of the last 14 years since Roger and I began doing this show was Raging Bull obviously it is also my favorite film of this decade Martin scors say's Raging Bull is of course the Jake lamata Story the boxing story with Robert dairo playing a human animal L is taking terrible punishment on the ROP says goal than with left and right to the Head another left another right to the jaw and Lamar turns around he's been playing posum he's got your her he rips the right hand of the body another left the right to the Head Jo is railing around the ring tide has turned no question about it shot in beautiful black and white Raging Bull reaffirms Scorsese as the preeminent filmmaker of Our Generation he's using all of his techniques in this picture while still telling us a great Street story finding life among the low life the first film on my list for 1980s is exactly the same film Martin scores Raging Bull and there was no question in my mind I think that's kind of amazing that we would be in agreement on that but of the films that I saw in the last 10 years this is the one that went out there on a high on a high wire and it never looked down and it kept right on going this is the one where the director was really swinging for the bleachers and also of course I think it has the best performance of the last 10 years in this remarkable work by Robert too from beginning to end Raging Bull is an amazing motion picture when I think of that picture I don't think oddly enough of the boxing sequences first I think of some of those that lazy like weekend afternoon when Jake goes over to try and pick up Vicki at the at the pool and I look at those beautiful images and I think that there's a lot of Dreams there there's something in the colors it's almost like silky sheets the white the color it's just it's just such a beautiful piece of film making it's a film about an entire life it's a film about the spaces in between the high points it's a film about the end of that life when Jake lamata is running a nightclub down in Florida and he's he's out of shape and he's kind of a a figure of of J now instead of being that person who for a second there was great and it's also about the obsessions that he allows to destroy his life the jealousy the insecurity by the end of that movie you really feel you know that person there isn't anything more I need to know about Jake lamada than I got in that film what an achievement that is okay my choice after considering the Roundup scene in Red River and the elevated train chase in The French Connection again I went with a more personal action sequence one of the brutal fights in Martin scorsese's Raging Bull the Jake Lam versus Sugar Ray Robinson battle where Scorsese using his soundtrack so well takes us inside the head of a fighter lamada played by Robert dairo as he hears animal sounds maybe trumpeting elephants a great action scene that pumps you up get ready anybody F at this point Lam drives both hands to the head hurts Robinson again hooks the left hand of the jaw right to the body Robinson comes back to the right on the nose Lam drives him across the ring left and right to the Head Hard left out of the body and Robinson is driven out of the ring for the first knock down of his this Robinson has been to a [Music] loss it's interesting we both pick action scenes where the soundtrack makes it very special and with most action scenes even the great ones you feel as though you're standing outside of them watching an event but in that fight sequence Martin Scorsese takes us inside a Fighter's head with those sounds and I'll never forget it that's what it must feel like as you go around the ring yeah that was the first boxing movie I think that really made you see boxing as a Savage animal fight rather than as just some kind of a a thrilling passage in an otherwise uh ordinary movie it was a great film and a great [Music] scene I'm going to love you like no one's love you our next film is the eagerly anticipated the king of comedy starring Robert DeNiro is a crazed fan and wouldbe comic whose hero is a Johnny Carson like talk show host played by Jerry Lewis the film is eagerly anticipated because it was made by director Martin Scorsese who when he works with Robert dairo and films like taxi driver and Raging Bull has made some of the most compelling feature films in movie history the king of comedy is a very weird film but has a lot in common with Taxi Driver both are stories about Outsiders who want to be insiders in fact rert pupkin Robert Niro's character in the king of comedy has fantasies about being Jerry Lewis's friend and this is one of his fantasies the Jerry loves a tape of Rupert's jokes at least once in his life every man is a genius and I'll tell you something R it's going to be more than once in your life for you it's going to be a number of times because you've got it from what I've heard here y you've got it and you're stuck with it and I don't care if you wanted to get rid of it you couldn't it's always going to be there now I know there's no formula for it I just don't know how you do it and I'm not curious mind you because I want to use the material I want you to understand that I'm just curious because I don't know how you do it I really have to ask you that how how do how do you do it I think it's that I look at my whole life and I I see the awful terrible things in my life and turn it into something funny I it just happens but what about the first few worm lines were they strong enough I wasn't strong enough no they were any strong You' hurt yourself they're marvelous you Daffy bastard leave them alone they're beautiful I remember a man a man said listen to me listen to me a man said something very profound some years ago which I later originated if it ain't broke don't fix it now you want to know how I know it's so good yes cuz I envy you I hate you but I envy you because it's Purity it's marvelous it's humor based on you no one else could do it with you it's a wonderful wild scene I love everyone in this movie talks like they've been on a TV show that's just a fantasy scene but in order to make it come true Rupert pupkin goes to Great Lengths to impress Jerry Langford the Jerry Lewis character in the film rert begins hounding Jerry at Jerry's office and he won't take a polite no from Jerry's High School secretary Shelley hack I bet you have a tap for me right here okay what your name up all right we'll listen to it and get it back to you just as soon as we can thank you very much when Jerry finds a moment good thank you when will that be uh actually you can try me tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow you might know something by then otherwise Monday Monday miss long you know I think what I might do just wait here a while maybe Jerry will find a minute Mr pupkin you're really just wasting your time we're not going to know anything until tomorrow's earliest that's really all right I don't mind I'm not wasting my time I I'm glad to do it it's important to me so I really don't mind it'll probably be Monday Monday Monday well I'll still wait really I don't mind it's okay tell you what why don't you try me tomorrow afternoon for sure tomorrow mhm what time tomorrow 4:30 4:30 I'll be here thank you you're welcome and thanks Jerry now so far what you've seen is just slightly crazy behavior but like most of Martin scorsese's films the behavior gets more and more desperate as the film progresses and sure enough rert and another crazy fan hatch a plan to kidnap Jerry and Ransom him so that rert can do the opening monologue on Jerry's show the king of comedy is not an easy film to like it's about a desperate schnook who acts like a jerk and I'm like the Nero's character and Taxi Driver we don't really ever feel the pain in rert that pushes him over the edge at the same time however and this is why I really enjoyed the film I like the film's focus on the creeping television culture in this country the desire for celebrity and the talk show as our favorite medium of dialogue rert is the product of the TV world and that's why I enjoyed his story even though I don't know how many others will I don't know how many other people will like it either I didn't like it I didn't enjoy it in the sense that you're talking about and yet I had to see it again I saw it the first time and I said I hate this film then it wouldn't leave my mind and for three or 4 weeks after I saw a preview I thought there was something about this film that I'm not relating to and I went back to see it again I admired it more the second time I think that what I was resisting was the fact that it is so cold that's right so cynical it does not deliver on an entertainment level it doesn't have any of the payoffs that we want from a kidnapped picture it is an idea picture and on that basis it's very interesting I think it's very interesting I liked it at the entertainment level I me there are scenes in there that made me laugh uh this is not a pleasant guy and the question is I think for a filmmaker is you know they always say you have to like your characters I don't think Scorsese likes this Rupert pupkin I don't think anybody this no and I'm afraid that that's the the the difficulty of this picture to appreciate it is that there's no one that's very likable in it but obviously the point of the film is that television is affecting everybody here's another thing now scor's films have always been so filled with life you know he's been this Italian American from New York and the films are always a riot of action and movement and music and energy and passion in this film it's the musac in that last scene is just and the cold uh isolated atmosphere of that waiting room sets the tone for the whole film that's obviously what he sees as going on we're going from Lively music in his early films rock and roll to music in a way the more I'm turned off in a way the better the film is working that's the way it worked for me it worked for me I enjoy on bury Treasures in your local video store I have a third comedy to recommend the king of comedy although this one is a little dark than the others directed by Martin Scorsese it's a meditation on the American Mad Dash for fame the acquisition of which often leaves one empty it's a story of Rupert pupkin one of those wacky New York autograph hounds who dreams of meeting his Idol a talk show host played by Jerry Lewis rert also dreams of Hosting his own show he wants his turn in the spotlight and in the film's most chillingly funny scene we see rert in his basement with his mother upstairs rehearsing for his big fantasy hosting his own talk show it's amazing it's amazing you look wonderful and yeah I know you look wonderful too Jerry I wasn't leaving you out right [Laughter] yeah oh Jerry I love this guy always coming up with these great lines I love him I love him he's wonderful you're wonderful I say I don't know what I do without you rer the bus is here it's early try to be on time for one I can't believe this I got to go now yeah I got to catch a buz Jerry take care of yourself baby be good good luck and Rio you know I see that Roger and I think Dair did not get an Oscar nomination for that role because it wasn't a likable character it's a great dairo performance it's a fabulous film and I must say I wasn't really onto this one when it first came out I liked it but not as much as I like it now because look at how it portrays the vanality of TV talk shows a very very timely subject today wouldn't you say David Letterman tries to have fun with that same concept every night but no one has skewered the empty host empty guest syndrome better than director Martin Scorsese the king of comedy was too downbeat for some but it's a daring film that really grows on you after repeated viewing and in my case that's exactly the same story the first time I saw the film it was so cold yes and so disturbing that I think I resisted it I felt wait a minute this is Bice gares it's got the Nero in it I'm going to go back and look at it again and I looked at it the second time and I said I'll give it a favorable review then what has happened over the last couple three years is the rert pupkin character just like Travis Bickle in their movie taxi driver has gotten under my skin and has become kind of a basic movie character a basic statement on that kind of person and I now feel that this movie is even better than I ever thought it was it's a very difficult film that has to grow on you that's why video is a good thing gives you another chance absolutely take that chance on my list of the year's best films is a harded scary comedy by Martin Scorsese named after hours the movie told the story of a young man in Manhattan that goes down to the Soho district for a date with a young woman that he's just met and before the night is over he gets trapped in an urban nightmare in which every possible thing goes wrong the star of the movie is Griffin dun and here he is trying to explain his incredible night I met this girl tonight okay in a coffee shop she gave me her phone number so when I got home I gave her a call she said to come on over on the cab on the way down here all my money flew out the window then I got to know this girl and I didn't really get along with her that well it didn't really work out so I left I tried to take a Subway tonight but the pH went up did you know that that the pH went up yes you knew that I didn't know that I didn't know anything about this so I haven't got enough money to get home until I meet this bartender a really nice guy who wanted to lend me the money and I mean he really wanted to give me the money but I mean they'd actually purchased this piece of work here you know I didn't know that I didn't know anything about that now she also up for me and for this I don't blame her at all for the way I treated her friend and it was inexcusable so I marched right in there to apologize but she'd already killed herself I was too late nobody knows big American cities like Martin scares use credits include Taxi Driver mean streets and Raging Bull and few people know more about manipulating an audience after hours was basically a comedy and yet the things that went wrong for that guy went so desperately wrong with such an insane built-in logic that I thought a great deal of attention even while I was laughing the movie is a textbook and how to make an audience feel exactly the way that you want it to feel and he did it for me about 90% of the way and at the end when a couple of light comedy characters came in chichin Chong Terry gar and Katherine aara at the end I thought the movie lost its hard New York Edge and when and and that's my only criticism of the film up until that point I thought it was exactly what you was it on your list of the 10 best didn't quite make it didn't quite make for that reason must have an extremely oh I have a distinguished list this year it is a good list this year even though the year two on my list [Music] wow although it might sound like a sequel to The Hustler The Color of Money is actually more like another chapter in the Continuing Story of fast Eddie felson's obsession with the game of pool Felson is played again of course this time by Paul Newman and years have passed since the last movie and now he's a wise Old Pro who has learned all of his lessons the hard way then he discovers an incredibly talented kid played by Tom Cruz and decides to back him financially and Coach him into the world of Big Time Pool hustling she got a an area of Excellence you're good at something you're the best at something anything then Rich can be arrang I mean Rich can come fairly easy really you got some other area of Excellence besides this stalker n ball right there's some piece of work I'm some piece of work you're also a natural character I've been telling her that you know I got natural character that's not what I said kid I said you are a natural character you're an incredible flake later in the film their partnership breaks up and Newman and Cruz are competitors in a national pool tournament [Applause] that was real distracting for me there the way all those pool balls bounced around like that and the scene gets even worse as it goes on that's not pool that's gimmickry it looked like it was set up for a TV commercial or something and it's all the more disappointing because the color of money was directed by Martin scorsi who is one of the two or three best movie directors around today and it revisits some of the hardboiled pool halls that he also explored in his great 1973 movie Mean Streets but this film is a disappointment it doesn't have the interior energy and the drive and the obsession of most of the best garasi films films like Raging Bull and taxi driver and a lot of the time it's just a standard sort of predictable narrative the performances in the movie seem strong enough in and of themselves but somehow they never really connect you never you get the idea of the relationships but you never really feel the passion and there's one more big problem the movie leads us right up to the brink of a big payoff a final showdown between Newman and Cruz and then it doesn't deliver now sure I know they probably thought it was irrelevant who would win the final big game between the old man and the kid well that's a great Theory but in practice I felt cheated I didn't like the ending either and the lash out of the movie I really didn't like but I think I want to get into the other reason why I didn't like the movie and I was shocked because he's one of my favorite directors too I think it's the script here I don't think that I've have seen a movie by such a great director where I've been able to predict what's going to happen at first the kid is just a pure player and he's sort of a rock and roller almost like the character he played in Top Gun a hot shot and he's going to be have to be trained by the the wise old guy then he's going to Res then he's going to go along and then they're going to break up and pull apart and then they're going to so far we got the Karate Kid the design of this movie the overall design is just known right from the beginning and there wasn't anything that surprised me the characters are are are are fine but the script isn't good it's The Old Man and the young kid and linear linear just as we've seen it in so many other movies you expect with scorsi more character things more twists not just that the point is to tell the story that's not what you expect what's interesting in the movie are the corners for example Helen shaver as Newman's girlfriend terrific Mary Elizabeth Master Antonio as Cruz's girlfriend they're interesting they're giving some personality things but the two main actors seem to be locked in this plot yes I wish there had been more with the women and less of the obvious pool fights and the way it's all going to turn out that's a big disappointment now some Stars don't like to be co-stars they want to dominate their movies all by themselves but Cruz has always been willing to share the spotlight and The Color of Money made in 1986 he was even willing to appear in someone else's sequel the movie was a return to the character of fast EDD Felson first made famous by Paul Newman and the Hustler in 1961 Cruz was the wild but talented young pool player whose skill caught the old man's eye you're some piece of work I'm some piece of work you're also a natural character I've been telling her that you know I got natural character no that's not what I said K I said you are a natural character you're an incredible frak but that's a gift [Music] next film is the controversial The Last Temptation Of Christ and I almost want to say to everybody you've heard the protest now see the movie because it is quite extraordinary a film that truly generated a religious experience Within Me portraying a more human Jesus one who trembles at God's calling and yet manages to his own amazement at times to spread the message of love as in this scene where he speaks up for for the right of the prostitute Mary Magdalene is to attend a wedding you you don't belong at a wedding we're here to celebrate Purity I'm sorry but these people are my guests please let me explain something to you what do you think Heaven's like it's like a wedding God's the bridegroom and man's Spirits the bride the wedding takes place in heaven and everyone's invited God's world is big enough for everybody Nazarene that's against the law then the law is against my heart that's Willam defo the good sergeant from plon quite effective as Jesus a difficult role to play to say the least here he is railing against the money changers soiling the spirit of the [Applause] temple that image stays in our mind what is money really worth as does the simple image of Jesus carrying the cross this Jesus is more than a standard misunderstood God we see in most biblical films this Jesus knows that it is harder to be a good man than to be [Music] God The Last Temptation Of Christ was masterly directed by Martin scorsi from Paul sher's script of the equally controversial novel by Nikos kazen zakus who came up with the idea of accenting the human doubting quality of Jesus the effect at least on me was not to trash Jesus but rather to make his message more accessible for if he has doubts and fears we can be more comfortable with our own it's a very simple construction and it works beautifully if he can resist some Temptation after really struggling with it maybe we can too rather than the Thunderbolt kind of Lord that is presented in most biblical films The Last Temptation Of Christ thus becomes a magnificent story of Challenge and of hope you know Jean you said you had a religious experience when you saw this and I did too this movie made me think more deeply and more seriously and for a longer time I'm still thinking about it about the mystery of the fact that Jesus was both God and man at least within the Christian teaching that's what he was uh than any other film I've ever seen or at any other time in my life did I really confront that that he was God and he was man he had all of the weaknesses of man as well as all of the strength of God and this movie is a devout movie that does Jesus the compliment of taking him more seriously than any other movie ever made so that it's an ironic uh I think uh uh contradiction that people who worship Jesus and who haven't seen the film are attacking this film which is actually more of a religious experience than any other movie that they could think of Jesus the controversy is is quite silly I mean people can have their objections based on what they've seen of course but if they haven't seen it I mean it's just so silly if God had wanted there God had a lot of choices in terms of sending his word down to man he could have sent us all a letter in the mail you know or telepathically informed us of everything he sent his son because he wanted to do that as a symbol as a story that we could then read and learn from uh in terms of the fact that he so loved man that he made his only begotten son into a man so therefore that kind of story is a story that needs to be retold and reinterpreted for every generation in terms of the symbolism that God was trying to put into it that's why this movie is so valid this is a special film good movie and now my selection of the best film of 1988 it's the film that caused the most controversy during the year Martin scor says he's the Last Temptation Of Christ based on Niko's kazen zakus novel which met head on the issue of God in man and man in God as represented by Jesus Christ who questions his own nature and mission on Earth here's Jesus defending Mary magdalene's right to enter a wedding what do you think Heaven's like that's Willam defo in the performance of the year as Jesus certainly the most compelling Jesus ever put on film because he shares his doubts we feel more comfortable with our own and because he successfully battles his Temptations we are encouraged to combat our own I can't think of a more religious film I can't think of a film that could do more as a religious film but to offer offer both comfort and challenge to all mankind The Last Temptation Of Christ has the greatest reach of any film this year and it achieves its goal I'm glad it caused so much debate it's that good a film it's a very effective film it's not on my best tin list though because I felt that the issues in the film the issues that I thought about the Divinity of Jesus Christ The Duality of the fact that he was both man and God although they were very stimulating and they made me really think about that issue the film itself it seemed to me fell a little bit short of the top 10 list it's on my top 20 list if that means anything because it was a little bit unstructured a little bit unclear as to exactly where it was going individual scenes work but the overall pattern work obviously I didn't have any problem uh following it at all I thought it was perfectly organized and um I was quite moved by it in fact just giving that review there I was a little chilled because I I tell you I've I just haven't I think it's the equivalent of a recruiting film for Christianity I think it's a fabulous picture and that's kind of ironic because a lot of Christians did didn't think that people should be able to see The Last Temptation Of Christ and they hadn't seen it themselves hadn't seen it themselves I think they [Music] should because New York stories as Jean said is an anthology of three short films about New Yorkers directed by Martin Scorsese Francis Copa and Woody Allen and because each film stands alone with a different director screenplay and cast we're going to review them that way as three different films the first of the three is Martin sc's life lessons the Stars Nick noly as a rich and important New York artist who is obsessed by his 22-year-old so-called assistant played by Rosanna arette one day she announces she's leaving him who's this guy I know him right Gregory Stark that kid the comedian a performance artist performance artist what the hell is a performance artist the person's an actor a singer a dancer I mean you call the guy that picks up your garbage a sanary engineer a performance artist and he left you now you see through that right I don't care it's over that's all look I'm moving out he is successful in convincing her to stay for a few days but when another man talks to her at an art opening he Reveals His possessiveness and jealousy what sh I don't know how to say this I mean I'm not your Shepherd or anything but people are laughing at you out there why well you know that greasy-haired kid you're dancing with well he's here to score and split I mean he does this everywhere he's invited he likes to find some innocent kid and then he prays upon him I mean I mean you're a free agent it's your life but I'm telling you if that low rent Hound does anything to hurt you or humiliate you I thought you were going to tell me that they were laughing me because of my work well this is kind of worse don't you think one of the qualities you can Glimpse in both of those clips is the particularly alive camera style that sces uses throughout his film FM with his camera moving in rhythm with the movements and emotions of the characters there's one fantastic scene where the painter goes into a frenzy of creation slapping paint onto the canvas as the camera goes back and forth between his pilet and his canvas and rock music blasts from the cassette player the camera follows his brush as if it's possessed the story has great energy and some remarkably convincing dialogue between Noti and Arquette but the allegedly ironic ending seemed painfully predictable and I wish he'd ended the film just a few moments sooner you can almost guess the moment when he made maybe should have ended it but for me Scar's film was the best of these three New York stories I think it is too and I think in dealing with an artist I felt one of the things that he was doing was showing how beautiful a camera can move like a paintbrush I think that was very much uh part of his pride as an artist talking about another artist in addition I think he's being very critical of artists who often use other people for stimulus and then uh can't relate to them get very frustrated to use them and it's only out of the frustration are they able to go back to their art I mean Nick Nole is at his best when he's the most angry with rosan arette that's when he creates the most and uh but his the way he treats her is just awful and his performance is good we've seen another Nick Noti movie in this period of time which is a totally different character fwell at the king here in this one the way he uses some of the dialogue at one point he says he he tells her he'd react like a gutshot dog and at another point he's talking about uh I've been married four times since before you were born the dialogue is Richard PR Richard Price's dialogue and the way that he delivers it uh is a different kind of Noy than we see well the other great thing with his character is that there's a shot of him that's fabulous which is after he's painted and he's the relationship is lousy and all that no just flies back in this chair and Scorsese just takes a shot of him moves the camera in on and we see a man who's fully drained and I tell you pushing all the emotions that's been the Hallmark of scorsese's films it makes him very special it's done again here I know I'd go from to [Music] Rich since 1976 when he directed Taxi Driver Martin scari has stood I think alone at the top of the art of film directing in the world today his Raging Bull was generally ConEd to be the best film of the decade of the 1980s and now with Good Fellas scari has scored another magnificent achievement this is a great film a film about scorsese's favorite subjects the great tragic subjects like avarice and jealousy murder and guilt and it ranks with the Godfather in his portrait of the crime syndicate the movie stars Ray Leota in the true story of Henry Hill an Irish Italian kid whose only ambition was to work for the mob he envied the way they seem to get dates with the best looking girls and the way the nightclub waiters always seem to know their names gave them $20 each this is with Mr Tony over there over therey that's Lorraine brco is his wife Karen who discovers that being married to the Mob means being absorbed into a self contain Cocoon of mob values and MOB friendships one of leoda's best friends in the outfit is played here by Joe peshi the same great actor who played the kid brother en Raging Bull he has an out ofc control temper that flares instantly into violence come on don't be like [Laughter] that the movie also Stars gessi longtime favorite actor Robert dairo who in this scene tells Leota that it looks like pes's going to make it into the mob's Inner Circle he's going to be a made man you believe that this little guine bastard believe that huh huh he going to get made we're going to work for this guy one day he's going to be a b what you get in Good Fellas is a portrait of an American Life young ambition early promise steady rise through the organization and the business therein is stealing things and killing people the life of the mafia in this film seems almost hermetically sealed the characters don't associate with anyone else and so their values come to seem valid to the themselves cell because nobody disagrees with them I have never seen even a movie by scors sessi that really wrapped me up so much into the world of the emotions of these people a day two days after the movie was over I still myself felt guilty I think identifying with the guilt of the Ray Leota character guilt not only that he did bad things but the worst kind of guilt which is the guilt that he still wanted to do them he wishes he was still doing that what is great about this picture and the way it's organized as a movie is it seems that it would be about this guy was narrating his life but I thought the person that took center stage and was really emblematic of what scorsi and Nick pedi who wrote the book that this film is based on really think about the mob is the character played by Joe pesi the guy who can explode at any second who's basically an animal it's an animal who when you're verbally insulted pulls out a gun and shoots you I've never done that to you on the show they they play for he's a pig MH and what I love about the film and what I like about scorsese's work is he takes in a very theatrical exciting way moral stands he makes the Last Temptation Of Christ he makes Raging Bull about he makes films about Sinners and finds the Saints and Sinners and Sinners and Saints and this guy he's saying about the map these guys are scum he says it that's so refreshing in an Artful beautiful way I think one of the I agree with you that pes's performance is so important in this movie and it's so good in this movie there's not a bad performance in movie one that's going to be overlooked as lorine brco as the wife she's very important what's the reason that you're I think attracted to peshi is because the Leota character is always an outsider he's not a pure Sicilian he's half Irish he can never be a maid man in the mob he's always looking from the outside he sees it even when he's in the middle of it with a certain objectivity and so it's told through his point of view he looks at these guys he sees how they work with each other and it's a fascinating movie it's a it's a great American Film okay I've seen it twice I'm going back lots more times than what I'll go back for is Small Things editing scenes the way he jumps in on dialogue the way there's that whole sequence about when the Roto character gets into drugs and it's shot in a whole different fashion because he's high on drugs and sces the artist wants to show us that it's very and you could also you could also mention the scene when somebody doesn't realize he's about to get killed and then he realizes it and that moment of realization is like a hammer Blow from the screen what we ought to do is in a couple of weeks after people see this picture maybe we'll go back can look at it again and talk more about it best film of the year and for me really in 1990 there was only one possible Choice Martin Scar's brilliant and funny and violent and truthful film Good Fellas scari is in my opinion the best director in the world right now and this is just playing one of the best movies I've ever seen a story told from the inside about a mafia professional who thinks that stealing is more fun than anything else in life we walked out with $420,000 without using a a gun and we did the right thing we gave Paulie his tribute it's going to be a good summer that's Rota as the mafioso there and the other Good Fellas include Robert dairo Joe pesi and Paul sorino scari plunges into the mafia with Incredible energy this film breathes with life and its heart stopping the way he takes you through the highs and lows of this man's life until the last out of control day when his world comes crashing down Good Fellas is without any question the best film of this year well you're not going to get any question from me for the third time in 11 years Martin scorsi has directed the best film of the Year according to me and I just learned Roger 2 Raging Bull topped my list in 1980 The Last Temptation Of Christ topped it in 1988 now Good Fellas a movie that displays the moral courage to rewrite the gangster movie image declaring that these mobsters and their Hangers On are nothing but animals Good Fellas in a wide range of music and in photographic Styles pans three decades of crimes from hijacking to drug deals following the exploits of a mobster in training Ray leoto as he gets his first taste of mob Madness s G's youie $7,000 I mean auts I don't mean to be out of order you don't mean to be at she it's good you don't mean to be at or you call embarrassing me in front of my friends don't all like call me dead be you know you know Sonny you're a real mut you know the money we spend come on don't be like that that's Joe peshy in the scariest role I've seen in a long time one of the lines of narration that rotus speaks that I think also really sums up the film is that when he says that Mobsters or Wise Guys think that people who work for a living are suckers and boy that's it isn't it they think we're fools and for every working man that has laughed at uh the exploits of the mobs mob in the movies and certainly there have been a lot of pictures like that that one really has to hurt a little bit it's insights like those that strip away the Romantic veneer of movies like frankly The Godfather films the veneer that has been placed on Mob types all that in Good Fellas plus some of the most Innovative editing I've seen in a picture in a long time make this easily the best film of the year and we saw a scene there that is typical the kind of scene that scorsi is famous for the eruption of violence out of nowhere things are quiet somebody loses his temper and then suddenly there's a fight uh typically guys in expensive suit suits and coats and nice polish shoes are clumsily uh trying to kill each other is a one of his trademarks but in this movie there's another murder scene another killing scene that is the most chilling scene that Martin gesi has ever put on film and you know the one I'm thinking of with Joe pesi no Joe pesi and he all he says is oh no he realizes he suddenly realizes something and one of the things he realizes is that his entire life has been a house of cards and that oh no that moment to me is at the heart of this movie it is a great movie well I want to go to the last shot of the film which is it's almost like a flash frame in there and you see a a pose of a gangster in a very romantic fashion and then we cut to uh this very real gangster who his life means absolutely nothing and is hardly romantic it's insulting to a human life and I think what Scorsese is doing is showing us that there's a whole movie history uh of 90 years of Cinema that has romanticized the violence figure and he's saying this is what they really another thing about this film is the detail of which he sees everyday life the close-ups the ways that he breaks down actions into showing how people do them and why they do them the clothes the decor the the dialogue the clubs they hang out in the food they eat the recipes they use it's all there a lot of those details are in the book right from the very beginning with the pinky rings and the way that they wait down a car and when they get out of it that's really in the very first pages of the book and Nick pedi who co-wrote the screenplay gets the credit too okay so good Fellas the best movie of the year so say both of us and let me say something right now because you and I have pick Good Fellas every critic group has picked Good Fellows I think maybe it might be time for the Academy of Motion Picture arts and scientists to make some recognition of the fact that Martin scores he is alive and working in the film industry today he made the best movie of the 80s Raging Bull according to every poll that was taken anywhere the best movie of the 70s Taxi Driver now he's made good f and they'll probably wind up giving the the prize again to some respectable little do Gooding picture or something well it may be Kevin kaser's Dances with Wolves which is the third on your list yeah but still that's a good picture but scari is up there in a different category he is in a different category three films that we agreed on Dances with Wolves uh Good Fellas and Barb Schroeder's reversal of Fortune we have seven differences in our list it was not a great having said that all complimented the scores picture it was not a great year for a film would you agree I only gave four stars to eight movies that's real low for you okay now for my number three film which is named Goodfellow from 1990 by Martin soressi it's based on the life of Henry Hill a mid-level professional Criminal Who told his story from the safety of the witness protection program and Henry Hill knows the mob from the inside out but so I think in a way do you Marty I think this scene that we're looking at now may be based as much on your childhood as on Henry Hills since you grew up in New York's Little Italy and observed the local at fir hand good fellow Stars Roda as Hill and Robert dero and Joe pesi as two of Henry Hill's Associates in crime in a world where a good-natured kidding can turn in the flash of a moment to sudden violence you mean you know it's a good story it's funny you're a funny guy mean do I talk just you know it's you're just funny it's you know the way you tell the story and everything funny how the visual style of good fell suddenly keys off the movie styles of the Decades it considers and the Rhythm relentlessly builds until at the end as Henry Hill since his captur growing closer we realize we're breathlessly running right along with him good Fellas combines wisdom about human nature with a spellbinding story and it's one of the best films of the 90s thank you I don't have much cross talk on this one so uh is it true that you tried to reflect in the various Decades of the film The way that the movies from those decades more or less look uh in a way yeah particularly but I I I really try to take care of that in the costuming and and and the set decoration really that's the main thing um and music of course to me the most remarkable thing about the film is the way that without really calling our attention to it it get us all wound up with pension at the end when he realizes that the net is drawing closer and he's trying to just go through the daily tasks of an ordinary day yes and it's not well the whole lifestyle has destroyed him especially the drug taking he believes helicopters are chasing him well they become just as important as the tomato sauce now something's wrong all the priorities are upside down and that's I wanted to give the audience people in the audience who never had a feeling of paranoia like that or feeling of paranoia whether was induced by reality or by drugs I wanted to give them that impression of what it feels like it's remarkable that anything could be more important than the tomato sauce I would go for the source of course naturally inste when it comes to betraying sudden explosions of passion and violence no director is more gifted than Martin Scorsese and his new movie Cape Fear is a terrifying tragedy about an ex-convict who wants Vengeance from the attorney he believes is responsible for a 14-year prison sentence Robert dairo stars as the excon who has returned after his prison term to intimidate and terrorize the family of Nick Noy daero is frightening and effective as an oily psychotic who knows how to get under people's skins here he confronts niti's wife played by Jessica Lang well you makx Katie don't you you know you better get the hell out of here before I call the police I'm not doing nothing just giving you back your dog caller I'm not on your property what' you come out here for you want to look around go ahead Mr Katie take a good look nice house yeah there's a nice house you satisfied now you seen it and here dairo poses as a Drama teacher insinuating himself into the confidence of niti's daughter played by Juliet Lewis her performance is a key to this movie because she's at war with her parents and in a way she is seduced by Dao's forbidden appeal you thought about me last night didn't you um yes I did do you mind if I put my arm around you no one is at peace in this family where mother father and daughter are all alienated from from one another even when Niti tries to be a good father he's Carried Away by his anger what are you laughing him on why why are you smiling I'm asking you a question did he touch you didn't let that smile off your face I'm asking you did he touch you cap fear is based on a 1962 Thriller starring Robert Mitchum as the ex-con and he appears in this one as a cop who advises noie to take the law into his own hands but scares has turned up the heat under that original story he's also made it very difficult for us to identify with any of the characters everyone in this movie is flawed or dishonest in one way or another including the Nick Noti character and the message seems to be that evil corrupts everyone who comes into contact with it the scariest element of the film for me is Den Nero's perverse charm as he persecutes this family he is sadistic he is evil but like a wounded animal that cannot help its violent nature he kind of gets under our skin and it's also frightening the way the daughter seems seduced by the the darkest and most satanic elements in her environment she has a smile that's the most disturbing thing in the film I thought the movie's final violent struggle went on too long and that the Nero's character talked too much when he should have been crazed with pain but I think Cape Fear was a strong film an unremitting portrait of evil in a world where good is not an option for anybody yeah the weakness of the picture I thought was the ending which did go on and there were some jokes when he talks about two lawyers going at it and all that I think that that he's doing a little bit of David Lynch's but he does it with such big stars that it doesn't play as right it doesn't play as JY um but for me the picture was more about the classic scorsi theme of a of a man who's a sinner trying to redeem himself washing as we see in the movie washing literally the blood off of his hands the sin of course of infidelity in the marriage and the sin of uh all kinds of mixed feelings about his wife and his daughter uh and then of course the sinning professionally by not doing everything he should have done as a lawyer to protect this client and for me that was the most frightening character Nick Noti a very restrained average man kind of performance uh average man kind of guy and and can he get out of this mess and Niti is very good in this film in fact the acting throughout the film he doesn't over he doesn't go over the top no he stays tight but you're quite right that this is a scors ay film because of course the traditional treatment of this story would have been Niti as the good guy trying to protect his family and the family bands together behind him and here's this crack pot outside but in this film The Evil is inside everyone and they're all trapped in the same kind of [Music] hell are you very much in love with her as much as a man can be do you think there's a limit that's Michelle feifer as a fem fatal torturing Daniel de Lewis and Martin scor says he's fine new film of Edith Wharton's the Age of Innocence a big departure for the New York Street wise director the age of innocence is also set in New York like so many of scor sayi stories but the time is the 1870s and the violence psychological as we follow the fortunes of a man called Newan Archer I like that name an archer in the new land of America trying to make it in New York Society trapped by being engaged to a sweet but boring woman and Smitten by a new arrival on the scene his fiance's glamorous visiting cousin sh Fifer who is married to a European count I tell you what most interests me about New York not all the blind obeying of tradition somebody else's tradition it seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it a copy of another country do you suppose Christopher Columbus would have taken all that trouble just to go to the Opera with Larry Le I think if you'd suspected that leford were here the s Maria might never have left Bo Daniel de Lewis is so discombobulated by Fifer that he implores his fiance wi own a rider to marry him quickly to save him from embarrassing himself can we just strike out for ourselves M shall we alone if you would why not you do love me newand I'm so happy the film takes us beautifully into the drawing rooms of High Society New York here Michelle feifer who is estranged from her husband account and is desperately in need of money has an audience with her grand mother the rich Doan of New York society and totally plugged into what's going on I told him he should have married you and what did he say oh my darling I leave you to find that out and the story gets even more complicated when Daniel de Lewis does marry Winona ryer after Michelle fer has told him to but now they're both having second thoughts you gave me my first glimpse of a real life and then you you told me to carry on with a false one no one can endure that what I love about this story based on Edith Wharton's novel is that you really feel the high stakes of this love triangle and we don't get that enough in the movies we get chases we don't get people in Jeopardy credit scor sayy to be sure but there's also an abundance of excellent performances here Daniel de Lewis is in great pain Michelle feifer creates a hypnotic character who may be more manipulative than we know or even she knows and wi knowa Ryder's character is pretty much a victim of an Antiquated view of marriage the age of innocence is Sumptuous to look at and it's very much like pulling up to a great fireplace with a book and delving into a heartwarming romantic story I'd like this picture a lot I like it a lot too Jee I think it's really one of Scar's best films and I'll tell you when it was first announced as a project I thought well you know Marty is really kind of Shifting directions here he's going back to the 1870s to a novel by Warton what does this have to do with a man who made Raging Bull and taxi driver and mean streets and Good Fellas actually this is the same theme that he's been on all along right back to his first picture and that is a man who is torn between what society says he should do and his own passions and complicated with his own Neurosis too because one of the problems with this woman that he loves Michelle feifer is that to marry her she would have to be a divorced woman and then he would have to risk the scorn of society at that time in order to do it it's the Madonna hor that been through all of his pictures going back to who that knocking at my door and and the violence is just as strong the games that are being played there and that you have the great Dawn figure of the grandmother there I mean if you want to view it in terms of mob ways you've got the power the ant the old ant yeah yeah because what you have here is even greater passion than you have in the modern pictures where if people are upset about something they can scream and they can express it they can let it out and here everybody is is all bottled up the the the last scene is so moving because that character has been bottled up for his entire life when he gets to the last scene in the picture you know this picture got I I'm told a mixed reaction in the press in the Venice film festival and I hope it doesn't taint uh the mood as this picture arrives now in New in in the states well obviously a lot of the critics of that Festival would have been Italian it might not have a rapport with the kind of British based repression that this New York Society represents they might feel that these people are silly but I know about repression and I identify with into the home stretch in our countdown of 1993's best movies the number two film on my list this year was by the great director Martin scorsi it was called The Age of Innocence and it told the story of characters in the Upper Crust of New York Society in the late 19th century Daniel de Lewis starred as a man engaged to marry the proper daughter of an important family but instead he falls in love with her cousin a divorced Countess who has just returned from Europe his fiance is played her by Winona Ryder the Countess is played by Michelle Fifer she thinks I want to marry her at once to get away from someone that I care for more the age of innocence is the kind of film that builds up its power steadily until the final scenes in which we feel the emotional Legacy of a lifetime of repression the people in it almost always behave in a subtle and reserved way not saying what they mean concealing their emotions benath the good manners of an orderly Society so it's a shock when we realize what passion what scheming and plotting and Intrigue is seething under that very proper surface I like the word seething because scorsese's other films his best known films Taxi Driver Raging Bull were very much about seething but upfront here it's it's there yes it's taking another form and I think if people go to see this picture thinking of could the same man have made this picture I think that that will inform this picture in a way that'll make it very exciting for I think you're it's on my it's on my best list too that's good our first film is Casino Martin scorsese's latest mobster story about the mafia's last days of running a major Casino in Vegas it's set in the 70s and 80s and the film looks great is memorably acted and yet it breaks no new ground for scorsi or his actors and therefore for all of the pyrot Technics casino is a bit of a let down at its best and most original casino is sort of a docu drama on the operation of a casino as in this sequence narrated by the film's casino boss Ace Rothstein played by Robert denero the boxmen are watching the dealers the flooran are watching the boxmen The Pit Bosses are watching the floor men the shift bosses are watching The Pit Bosses the casino manager is watching the shift coures I'm watching the casino manager and the eye in the sky is watching us all now here's the well acted but not very fresh part of the story as Dao's character has to deal with his always in trouble Boyhood friend an ultraviolent mob enforcer named Nikki Santoro played by Joe peshi oh no who wants a 50,000 Mara don't just give give him 10 that's it 10 I'll be right down it's going to come up with 10,000 just the way you want 10,000 50,000 go get it the weakest storyline in casino is the Love Story involving dairo and AEM FAL a artist and hooker played by Sharon Stone what's the matter what do you mean what's the matter made a lot of money for you I want my cut what money I've se you spending from me what money look at the stack of chips don't give me that I want been watching you all night me I want steal anything from you get lost get L yes get lost [Music] yes oh long timeo every tough character has a weakness in Casino stone is Dino's weakness and she in turn has a soft spot for her pimp a loow life Hustler played by James Woods if you ever come back again ever to take her money next time bring a pistol that way you got a chance I love looking at casino each shot is beautifully composed and the Quasi documentary scenes are sometimes thrilling but the characters are familiar based on the book by Goodfellow screenwriter Nicholas pedi and as I watched this movie repeatedly I felt that director Martin scorsi America's best may have come to the end of this mob millu he's told this story in different times and places in much more exciting ways one note I wish that I could show you some of the many violent scenes in casino but the distributor isn't releasing any of the brutal beatings they're trying to sell this as a love story but it's a love story Casino doesn't work so a mixed review But ultimately thumbs down for me thumbs down yep I'm astonished why I uh you think this was fresh uh I at the very least Gan it's thumbs up and I think it's a lot better than that and I'll just point out one thing you didn't like the relationship between Dao and Sharon Stone to me that was fascinating this is a breakthrough for scares who throughout his career has always had this same kind of male female relationship involving the guy who loves the woman up to a point and then decides that she's no good or not good enough for him in this film here's a guy who tries to be reasonable who feels that he can and control and figure out the odds on everything and he gets a woman who won't be controlled like that who is a wild card and that is why not only his life comes to Pieces but because of this relationship with this woman the mob loses out in Vegas entirely it's a fascinating story about how just the lust and love between these two people eventually led to the Mob Leaving Vegas all together I think that you read the picture the wrong way I think that exactly what happens is in in in a shot of a big lion and I'll leave it like that you understand the dynamic that really pushed the mob out of Vegas it was corporations not one man's you're talking about the fact that the junk bonds took over from the teamsters fund as a source of financing that in itself is a fascinating other aspect of this movie one of the things about the movie I liked is the amount of information it has how the casinos operate how they enforce security how they took care of that guy at the blackjack table by giving him a phony heart attack so they could get him into the back room and on the docy drama stuff is all of the personal stories did you never felt that you had seen this stuff before the personal stuff peshy you hadn't seen that stuff with I had seen it in this way and nevertheless even if I had I saw it before in Good Fellas that was a great movie it was your choice of the best movie of the year to actually tell people you don't think they should see Martin Scar's casino is shocking to me I can think of 200 movies this year that I would tell them not to see before I would get to this one is a very watchable movie certain sections of it are watchable I'm really grading this as a piece of work by Scorsese and this is not his best work well as by somebody else how would you grade it would it be thumbs up if it was from some other director uh I don't think so Roger I think I would have said that this is a uneven piece the number five movie on my list is Martin scorsese's casino and although some people rejected this film as a return to his familiar Mafia Turf I felt it was a departure from anything he's ever done before he found a completely new style using the lot of voice over narration to cover a lot of documentary information about the way that the mob gained and lost control of casinos in Las Vegas during the 1970s listen to the words in this scene narrated by Robert dairo as the casino boss and see the way scares used a fictional character to convey factual information the dealers are watching The Players the boxmen are watching the dealers the floor men are watching the boxmen the Pit Bosses are watching the floor men the shift bosses are watching The Pit Bosses the casino manager is watching the shift bosses I'm watching the casino manager and the eye in the sky watching us all Martin scares is consistently our best filmmaker and no one else could have conveyed so much information and drama in the same movie and still filled it with so much energy it's fact it's fiction and it's something new and you can sense scorsese's Delight as he shares his story with us Casino one of the best well here's where we've been disagreeing on this picture I don't think that narration is all that knew there's more of it but in Good Fellas there was narration too used by scy the other thing is here I do feel it was familiar Turf I would have been more interested As He suggests at the back end of the picture that the most interesting characters now are the new corporate gangsters if you will or at least the corporate officials running uh Las Vegas which is devouring like that mg mg on line a great shot at the end of the picture sure it's technically great he is our an extraordinary filmmaker but I didn't care about a single person and I don't and I think you you didn't mention a single relationship in your review and I think that's very revealing I did when I reviewed it on the show Jee I didn't have a lot of time here I'll tell you this I would like to see Casino too about Vegas in the 80s that'll be fun people sometimes ask me how they can become more familiar with the great films of the past my video pick this week could be a good place to start it's an extraordinary documentary nearly four hours long by Martin scorsi probably our best American director titled a personal Journey with Martin scorsi through American movies and as the title suggests it's a guided tour by scors sessi through his favorite films his favorite directors his favorite scenes genres and techniques here he is talking about Ilia kazan's 1963 film America America the story of so many immigrants who came to this country from a very very foreign land traffic come on now yes you will move it along let's go and I kind of identified with it and was very moved by it actually I L I saw myself myself making this same Journey but not from Anatolia rather from my own neighborhood in New York which was in a sense um a very far in land uh made that Journey from that land to movie making and notice how even the titles of duel in the sun thrilled him as a young movie G the opening titles alone I was mesmerized bright blasts of deliriously vibrant color the gunshots The Savage intensity of the music the burning Sun the overt sexuality you watch this documentary and you want to race out and see a 100 films it's called the personal Journey with Martin scorsi through American movies it's available right now on laser dis and it'll be coming out on tape in a couple of weeks it's my video pick of the week okay our first movie is bringing out the dead and it's a great film filled with fire and passion that reunites the team of director Martin Scorsese and riter Paul shrer the same two men who made taxi driver ragie bull in the Last Temptation Of Christ like Taxi Driver bringing out the dead is about a man on the edge of Madness who cruises the night streets of New York trying to bring help to people who don't always want help his name is Frank and he's played by Nicholas Cage and a lot of his work is emergency on the job improvisation Larry call for back up 63 zebra 1085 4 44 and8 oh you didn't let me finish we have rules against killing people on the street okay it looks bad there's a special room at the hospital for terminating it's a nice quiet room with a big bad you mean that yeah that's Mark Anthony is a derang man who's a regular client they know him by name Frank has a different co-pilot every night one of them is played by John Goodman who distracts himself from the job with thoughts of his next meal oh no what I just remembered I'm so stupid I had be L man last night I can't the same thing two nights in a row Frank is way past being burned out and he keeps trying to quit the captain threatens to fire him but never does I'll find you tomorrow even better than that what was I thinking about I could forward you some sick time how about a week a week's not going to do it a week's not going to do it you saying no going do it that's Arthur nascarella reminding me a little of the dispatcher in tax driver Patricia Arquette co-stars and as touching as the daughter of a dying man that Frank has brought back to life this city it'll kill you if you're aren't strong enough well the city doesn't discriminate gets everybody bringing out the dead doesn't give Frank the relief of being in a story with a beginning and an end his life is a loop of endless emergencies Nicholas Cage is right for this role and scari throws other characters at to create a disjointed Rhythm Of The Paramedic endless job Cliff Curtis is especially effective as the owner of a drug house although I've admired scorsese's recent efforts to break out of his city streets mode in good films like the age of innocence and kundan bringing out the Dead shows him at the top of his form in a powerful film about a man who tries to do the right thing but never seems to get anywhere well you know even though Paramount is selling this is kind of a very Scorsese movie with a lot of fast moving images all tape fear it's really a lot more like last notation of it's a lot it's very passionate very Catholic uh the story of this man trying to find redemption or looking for it because he doesn't believe he really can do his job anymore exactly and it's interesting that scorsi went back and got pul Raider to write this screenplay because the two of them I think are on the same wavelength when it comes to this kind of material as they were in Last Temptation Raging Bull and Taxi Driver here is a guy who suffers because of his inability to really do anything good he wants to help and he can't and he's out there every night just being driven crazy Crazy by the weight of suffering that comes down on him yeah well I think he's decided he's God I think that's a lot of a lot of this movie is that he's decided he's God and he doesn't have the touch and by the end of the movie he realizes perhaps he's not God and he should give himself some Absolution but this is not an easy movie I mean a lot of people are going to have a hard time with a story because really Cage's character goes as you said earlier in your thing from really from A to B this is not a long story this is not your typical Nicholas Cage experience but it is a wonderful Powerful movie and its subtlety and what life scour Daisy brings to it his movies are alive they vibrate with these characters these locations the kinetic energy the camera work he's got the three unwise men in the movie exactly walking through and being crazy all three of them you look at one of his movies and you just wake up and you say other people are kind of sleepwalking compared to him yeah it's amazing the number five film on my list is bringing out the dead by Martin Scorsese and this is about a harrowing three days spent with Nicholas Cage as a paramedic in New York's Hell's Kitchen in one scene after another this great director evokes fear dread guilt and passion swore that you'd fire me if I came in late and you swore before I'll find you tomorrow freeing out the dead was a rare box office failure for Scorsese and the critics didn't exactly line up behind it either but since all of the skill and craft and art were there why didn't more people respond positively to this film I think maybe it's because the film is so sincere so heartfelt in a time when audiences like their tragedy to be Lac with irony like in American Beauty scares doesn't put his movies in quotation marks he means them and bringing out the debt is about the existential choice to keep on trying and hoping even when nothing seems to work and all hope seems to fade I really respond viscerally to this film as I did to a lot of his films well I did too it also seen by seen you said you mentioned it that way before for me the problem with it is more just the way it it does or doesn't hang together I thought for one thing it's in the shadow of Taxi Driver it's very like uh kind of a later look at some of the things he did early in his career that colors it a little and I thought on its own it doesn't really cohere that much I did admire a lot about it you know all great artists though and I think he is a great artist uh have a consistency in their themes and in their obsessions over a period of time and this is another driving through the city of Hell movie like taxi driver but I think that here you have more hope I mean Nicholas Cage wants to redeem he wants to cure he wants to help and are you all right amen thank you Jesus Oh Thank You Lord oh thank you Jesus that is the last time you do this to be marus my video picked this week is an extraordinary film to copy John Cusack and High Fidelity is one of the top five films of 1999 but somehow it got overlooked at the box office and I don't know why any film by Martin scar sesi is an important event and bringing out the dead was dark and powerful and filled with emotion it start Nicholas Cage is a paramedic with an emergency response team in the Hell's Kitchen District of New York he's being ground down by this job I had to concentrate to keep my mind from wandering off on these short trips it was the neighborhood I grew up in and where I'd worked most is a paramedic and it held more ghosts per square foot than any other Patricia our C plays a woman who has just lost her father and the cage character finds a resource of hidden tenderness they just smoed him just the second floor to I seeu he coded they shocked him too many times I'm sorry but most Knights disappear in a blur of urgency and Chaos there's an underlying spiritual level in bringing out the dead I think there's supposed to be a little of Jesus Christ in the paramedic the same Christ who almost despaired as he was hanging on the cross but as in all scari movies there was also laughter and joy amazing supporting performances and ceaseless kinetic energy bringing out the Deb was one of the best films of last year and it's my video pick of the [Music] week my number one film of 2002 is Martin Scar's brilliant Blood Red Epic Gangs of New York which should finally bring him the best director Academy Award he's had coming for nearly 30 years using some of the most impressive set pieces in recent film history scores he plunges us into the bows of lower Manhattan in the middle of the 19th century a place teaming with violence greed and Corruption you're a great one for the fighting Bill I know but you can't fight forever I can go down doing it and you will what did you say Daniel de Lewis is the notorious Bill the Butcher and Leonardo DiCaprio is Amsterdam whose father was murdered by Bill years earlier he gave me this you know that was the finest beaing I ever talk my face was Pulp my guts was pierced my ribs was all mashed up when he came to finish me I couldn't look him in the eye these killers and thieves and hookers and dirty politicians are in the midst of big history but they don't even see it it's as if the Civil War is a distraction from the battles at hand until the outside world comes crashing down on the slums Gangs of New York is an American story a classic Western Saga that happens to be set on the East Coast it would be the perfect first bill on a double feature with 25th hour two great stories set 150 years apart on virtually the same Turf in New York you know it is a very very good film I don't think it's in the top rank of Scar's work but it would be in the top rank of anybody else's work and I want to say when we reviewed it on the show I think that in our discussion I was too negative I was trying to make points you know in conversation with you and I wasn't in touch with the fact that although I don't have it on my top 10 list nevertheless it's a very good film as scares is a considerable director he's an important resource there are so many memories oh absolutely there's so many memorable images from this movie that keep resonating with me weeks after having seen it so it's a very good film this is the Howard Hughes You Meet In The Aviator he's a Fearless Visionary and the sky was the limit for his most abiding passion Leonardo DiCaprio captures the heart of a man compelled by dreams of flight he broke speed records gave rise to the Spruce Goose and barely defied death in numerous plane crashes give us your position 2,000 ft over I don't know Beverly Hills Hughes also brought his pioneering Spirit to the big screen with movies including Hell's Angels it was completed as a silent film but then immediately he reshot it with sound Hughes spent millions of his own money to get it right this is what the people want silent pictures are yesterday's news so I figur we got to re-shoot Hell's Angels for sound how much of it all of it before you even ask I'll tell you an additional 1.7 million we got that much no the other fixation in the aviator's life was beautiful Wom and especially movie stars Kate Blanchett is outstanding as Katherine Hein she's already nominated for some major Awards and I think she's going to be up for an Oscar we have to be very careful not to let people in or they'll make us into freaks Jean harlo and Ava Gardner were among his other romantic conquests they're played by Gwen Stefani and Kate beckensale You Can't Buy Me Howard so stop trying don't buy me any more diamonds or sapphires or any other damn thing you can buy me dinner how about that the unflappable producer was undotted when the film decency board objected to shots of Jane Russell's cleavage claudet colar Rita Hayward Betty grael and the lovely Miss Jane Russell Hugh was already becoming an obsessive recluse when called to defend his wartime interests by a crooked senat I'll have him dragged here to Washington I want to see the whites of his life we are in a street fight and I'm not going to lose DiCaprio does an amazing job of showing us the decline of this powerful figure as crippling phobias take over Martin scors say he is a director well equipped to tell stories of impossible Dreams Come True and stay in the course he's achieved another visual Masterpiece we see the tortured Spirit of a man who could challenge any adversaries except his own demons you have called me a liar and a thief and a war property sometimes I truly Fe with that I losing my mind you couldn't make up a movie plot more extraordinary than the life of Howard Hughes this is an enormous remarkable undertaking from America's greatest living filmmaker I'm predicting that this will be Martin scorsese's biggest hit since casino and it's great to have him back at the top of his game I give The Aviator four stars I'm roer Ebert ABC7 News he'll go faster I'm a okay the first movie as we know is The Departed and they say there are only two art forms native to the United States Jazz and comic books and if I could add a third to that short list it' be Martin squarey pictures yes one of the five best filmmakers who ever breeded this back to reclaim the Mean Street genre he reinvented decades Back The Departed is a remake of the 2002 Hong Kong crime Thriller infernal affairs it's the story of two moles a wolf and sheep's clothing working for the Boston mob and a hard case good guy deep undercover for the Massachusetts State Police who infiltrate one another's respective turfs and play a Southeast style Wicked SM game of cat and mouse in his third outing with Scorsese Leonardo DiCaprio is Billy cigan the fresh out of the police academy stady Martin Sheen and Mark walberg's Hush Hush unit recruit to send into a Boston Crim Lords organization you want to serve the Commonwealth this is your chance we need you pal you've already pretended to be a costan from South Boston every weekend Sergeant perfect do it again for me what none of them know is that the mobs already got a black op of their own go in courtesy of Matt Damon he plays Colin Sullivan an ambitious deceptive and devilishly Charming badge whose loyalties lie more with the crooks than the cops you better get organized quick hey last time I checked I tipped you off and you're not in jail getting the feeling we got a cop in my crew yeah I know I'm kind of getting that feeling too he's one of yours inside look Frank if you don't relax if you don't relax I can't relax the man buying for The Souls of the moles is Frank Costello The Psychotic my boss played by screen Legend Jack Nicholson he's clean and if I can slander my own environment it makes me sad this uh regression plus I don't know if it's beyond some like Queen and to pull you out of the stadies and send you after me I just can't know Scorsese is a master Storyteller backing him up as an All-Star cast led by a pair of career best performances from Damon and DiCaprio as well as Sublime supporting performances by Alec Baldwin Ray Winstone Martin Sheen Mark Walberg and Vera faraga and even though Nicholson's doing a variation on as Batman and Witches of Eastwick evil incarnate roles he's still one of the most fun actors to watch it work this this marks the first time the acting and directing icons have ever teamed up and hopefully it won't be the last I give the Departed a massive thumbs up best movie I've seen so far this year I love your comparison to to movies like mean streets and obviously there's some Echo the thing is like most people will go in there and be like well it's not good Fells it's not casino and but he's done those movies and in a world where like The Sopranos has kind of taken the mob ball and Ram with it he's he's kind of recreated this has more of an edge I like the fact in the In This Very opening monologue Nicholson's Frank Costello used this racial slur which lets us know right off the bat he's not going to be cuddly Jack he's not going to do the eyebrow tricks and all the things he's a killer he's a guy who's literally got blood on his hands we're not supposed to like him there's an insane scene of tension and it's it's one of those scenes where you're like wow they did it without any dialogue when at one point in the movie uh Matt Damon's character uses uh the phone of the guy who's in charge of the undercover unit to call Leonard DiCaprio they don't know who each other really are and there's this quiet like felt like minute minute half two minutes maybe where they're just on the phone listening to One Another breathe without speaking and it's more gripping anything you've seen in a horror movie because it has earned that moment Kevin with all the great stuff that has come before that this is a great film we've come to the moment where we each announce our picks for the top film of 2006 for me it's The Departed Martin Scorsese should already have at least two best director Oscars maybe he'll finally win for this film but either way I think it's the best movie of the year his brutally funny and violent re imagination of the Hong Kong classic infernal Affairs is also his most entertaining film in years nobody in the history of movies does neighborhood gangsters likes gesi this time he takes to the Mean Streets of Boston Matt Damon and Leonardo dicapri are two of our best young actors they're in films that were already on my list here they play opposite sides of the same coin both so deep undercover that at times it's almost impossible to tell who's the good guy and who's the criminal getting the feeling we got a cop in my crew yeah I know I'm kind of getting that feeling too he's one of yours inside look Frank if you don't relax if you don't relax I can't relax and then there's Jack Nicholson reminding us that before he became Jack the movie star in capital letters he was a great movie actor with a seemingly endless supply of creativity and madman energy you sure it's not the [Applause] FBI you old past day situation like this how kill everybody everybody works for me Nicholson's mob boss is a sadistic racist Pig and there's no charm or winking self-consciousness in this performance he's not one of those characters we love to hate we just hate him The Departed isn't the greatest movie about midlevel gangsters ever made for one reason and that reason is Good Fellas but in a year in which a lot of people are touting Dream Girls I'll take these nightmare guys I would also mention Mark Wahlberg who I think is just terrific in this movie as as the kind of the the the guy who's trying to trying to unravel this whole this whole thing I I I had a lot of fun at that movie Martin scorsi directs or at least follows MC Jagger in China a light 30 years after the seminal and Innovative the last Walt scorsi and an Allstar roster of cameramen fashion a much more conventional concert film there are some Choice Snippets of interviews and some behind the scenes stuff but this is essentially a filmed record of a single concert at the Beacon Theater in New York City before the music kicks in Marty and Mick connect via speaker phone my worry about the was they whiz around all the time and it's very annoying to the audience and to everyone on the stage and it's dangerous it would be good to have a camera that moves that that swoops down and in and out yeah and tracks us you know along the side somehow looking cagier than the crew of The Black Pearl but rocking harder than guys young enough to be their grandsons the stones blast their way through some some of their greatest hits first [Music] song I Saw shine a light on IMAX the effect was intense and overwhelming but I mean that in a good way Scar's cameras swoop in and around Jagger and Keith Richards giving a startling close-ups and capturing the amazing energy of these 60s something war horses as a concert film though sh a light is a must SE if you're a Rolling Stones fan as I am if you're not it's probably going to be a long two hours yeah some of those close-ups are just close enough to make you think you're looking at a topographical study of the Grand Canyon or something these guys have had a lot of work done you know yeah yeah but it is it's a very satisfying picture and you know I suppose there's a little bit of bitter Sweetness in that it's not nearly as interesting as the last wallts and some of the other you know music based films he's made but um what you're talking about is just kind of an Old Pro dealing with a bunch of Old Pros on stage and it's not about forging any kind of new form for the document or anything but it's just really just about catching these guys in sort of the aut of their lives you know but that mean kind of brings up the question then why did Score says he do this if it was just going to be pretty much a standard concert film I mean he's such a great director I think he just wanted to pay tribute to one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time yeah there's a slightly corporate whiff I think to this overall thing because just the way they're marketing it right Stones Scorsese IMAX you know and in a way though that's reason enough to go those three reasons and they do work together and these guys can rock and Jagger the energy if you can harness that energy we could all of our all the environmental problems of the world that's right and also we should say too Buddy Guy very good probably the best musical number I'd say with one of the best bring and then we'll get up in the ring join with the radio audience throughout the world and have a brief interview with Ray Robinson now we're waiting for the time to be announced and it is being handed between the commissioner and Eddie flick the fight was stopped on a signal from Joe trying to H ladies and gentlemen the winner by a technical knockout in 2 minutes and 4 Seconds Of The B round and the new world middleweight boxing champion Su Robinson

Channel: Vanilla Skynet

Views: 7,206

Keywords: Martin, Scorsese, siskel, Ebert, review, Roger, gene, compilation, Chicago, New York, Films, director, filmmaker, mean streets, taxi driver, raging bull, king of comedy, after hours, color of money, last temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, cape fear, New York stories, age of innocence, casino, bringing out the dead, gangs of new York, aviator, departed, shine a light, American, personal journey

Id: _Pg6uNUF-3A

Length: 111min 0sec (6660 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 02 2024