#11 — Nick Nolte as Lionel Dobie in the “Life Lessons” segment of New York Stories (Martin Scorsese, 1989) Of the once bankable, respectable actors who’ve fallen on hard times, typified by mediocre film role options, no descent is more … Continue reading Greatish Performances #11
Humpday (Lynn Shelton, 2009). While I don’t always give the background on my viewing choices, I will note that this finally made its way from out queue to our screen in preparation for watching Lynn Shelton’s excellent follow-up. I’m mostly sharing that to give myself a public chastisement. Humpday is pretty terrific, providing a surprisingly plausible narrative progression to an utterly implausible scenario. Mark Duplass and Joshua Leonard play old college buddies whose reunion after several years apart winds up involving an odd pledge to make a man-on-man pornographic film together, in direct opposition to their heterosexual tendencies, for Seattle’s … Continue reading Jason, Milestone, Minnelli, Scorsese, Shelton
#30 — The Last Waltz (Martin Scorsese, 1978) I have a strong memory from when I was a kid, and by kid, I mean an age that I could accurate convey using nothing more than the fingers of my two … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Thirty
George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Martin Scorsese, 2011). It’s very fun to watch Martin Scorsese in this later phase of his career in which he clearly feels empowered and has the accumulated goodwill and respect to make whatever damn movie he feels like at any given time. If that means he’s sometimes going to flip through his record collection and say, “Hey, what about this guy?,” so be it. This documentary on the Quiet Beatle isn’t hugely revelatory in any way, but it’s a nice, creative compendium of the life and art of someone whose undervalued membership in … Continue reading Greengrass, Nolfi, Scorsese, Van Dyke, Winer
New York Stories (Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Woody Allen, 1989). I remember reading Roger Ebert’s review of this anthology film and thinking he cheated by giving individual star ratings to each of its three segments. After all, no one going to movie theater had the option of just paying for a third of a ticket to see the one part of the film he recommended. Now that I’ve seen it, however, I completely get why he chose to take that approach: one part of the film is significantly better than the others. Woody Allen’s segment is amusing but … Continue reading Allen, Coppola, Cukor, Gunn, Mills, Scorsese, Winterbottom
I remember watching Martin Scorsese’s excellent 2004 outing The Aviator and feeling certain that scenes that revolved around subject Howard Hughes operated as an obsessed director in old Hollywood represented a peak of personal filmmaking. For all the amazing work … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2011 — Number Five
#1 — Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980) By his own account, Martin Scorsese thought Raging Bull could be his final film. His previous fiction feature, 1977’s New York, New York, was widely considered a disaster. A costly “film noir musical,” as … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 80s — Number One
Though I’ve had plenty of time to get used to it, I still find it very odd to think of the director Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and The Departed presiding over a movie largely targeted at children, or at … Continue reading Hugo’s not afraid to cry, Hugo is an okay guy
There are a few things I will always, always, always be ready to do. One of them is expounding on my admiration for the films, artistry and general cinematic passion of Martin Scorsese. I was given the opportunity to do just that for the current Best Living Directors series. I did the best I could, but it always feels like there’s more to say, more to write about the way he both honors and reshapes classic Hollywood narrative storytelling. Someday I’ll get it right. I also wrote a new film review about a film that’s about as grimly nutty as … Continue reading Spectrum Check
Beginning with a novel by Dennis Lehane that was adapted into a screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis, director Martin Scorsese built an intentional lurid psychological melodrama filled with existential trick shots and mental trap doors. After a decade of intensely focused … Continue reading Top Ten Movies of 2010 — Number Three
Coffee for Two 