The Irishman

The Irishman is an epic mob drama by the master mob dramas, Martin Scorsese. Here, Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro) narrates, elaborating on his various dealings and connections with the mob and the notorious Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino).  The sprawling three and a half hour film takes us within the mob underworld, Hoffa’s rise and unravels the mystery behind Hoffa’s disappearance. 

De Niro, Pacino and Joe Pesci lead this film masterfully. The trio provides great chemistry and friction between their characters that keeps the film engaging. Their performances span decades of their respective characters, from young, eager men, raising and providing for their families in their own corrupt ways to older, slightly wiser and wearing their sins as heavy armor. The digital effects to take these actors in their seventies and make them appear much younger is done very well and does not feel awkward or fake like other film’s attempts. Moreover, it’s the little details in the way De Niro, Pacino and Pesci portray their characters at various stages in their life that makes their performances and characters to naturally believable. 

Visually this film is a modern beauty. Each shot is thoughtfully constructed. The color pallets are rich and strike a mood and tone to each time period. Some of my favorite moments were the slow-motion shots, which seemed extra striking colorful. The moment in a crowd with everyone reaching for an assassins gun felt like a renaissance painting in motion. 

While I adore the acting and cinematography of The Irishman, the story was lackluster for me. Perhaps I just found a lack of emotional connection. Besides Frank’s daughter Peggy, we don’t get much about how this mob life affects their families.  Or perhaps it was just too long, I began to lose interest around the two hour mark. Even the second time I watched it, and I guarantee you I would not have given this movie another shot if it was not available for streaming. Thank you, Netflix. However, the last hour of the film really picks up some steam to the end.

The Academy has nominated The Irishman for an astounding ten Oscar awards. They include Best Picture, cinematography, adapted screenplay, costume design, production design, film editing and visual effects. Joe Pesci and Al Pacino are nominated for best supporting actor. And Martin Scorsese is nominated for best director for the ninth time.

Overall, The Irishman is a sprawling, epic, visually impressive and meticulously put together film. If you can find three and a half hours to spend with it, I do recommend you give it a watch. Especially if you’re into mob movies or stories about old, evil white guys who speak in code.

“I heard you paint houses.”

Oscar Predictions 2012

I guess I can’t put this off anymore.  The Oscars will be presented on Sunday and this year I believe I have seen more nominees than in any year since I began this blog, (29/53 total nominees).  However, this feels like one of the most unpredictable years I have ever witnessed.  So, here are my somewhat informed, probably completely wrong Oscar predictions:

Cinematography

Life of Pi, no other film comes close to its visual beauty.

Costume Design

Haven’t seen 3 of these nominees…Why not Anna Karenina? Pretty dresses often help in this category.

Sound Mixing

Leaning towards Les Mis, mostly because of the mix of cannons and singing.

Editing

Zero Dark Thirty, I just feel it.

Sound Editing

Django?  I mean come on, how many westerns have won this category?

Visual Effects

The Hobbit, maybe because I saw it in HFR 3D.

Makeup and Hairstyling

The Hobbit again.  Did you see all those crazy beards?

Original Song

Skyfall for Skyfall because Skyfall.  Anyone else psyched for a the Academy’s tribute to Bond films?

Original Score

Life of Pi, mostly because I really didn’t notice the other scores much and found this so beautiful.

Animated Short

Head Over Heels.  Inventive, imaginative and a lot of heart.

Feature Documentary

So, I thought I saw all of them this year (it would have been my first year to do so!) but I kinda accidentally skipped The Gatekeepers and saw The Imposter instead.  I don’t know what I was thinking.  So..The Gatekeepers! Cause it would be just my luck to miss out on the best.

Foreign

Amour, duh.  Did Up or Toy Story 3 lose best animated when they were also up for best picture?  No.  It’s in the bag.

Animated Feature

Ok, let’s break it down: ParaNorman and Frankenweenie seem to be treading in the same territory and may step on each other’s toes.  Pixar didn’t bring their best work with Brave, that may cost them.  Wreck-It Ralph depends on pop culture too heavily.  Therefore, The Pirates!

Best Actor

As much as I loved the other performances, especially Cooper’s, I bet Daniel Day-Lewis gets this.  He was a phenomenal Lincoln.

Best Actress

This feels like such a weird category this year.  Seriously, our ladies’ ages range nearly 80 years.  But I think it will fall in the middle, on Jennifer Lawrence.  She was such a force in SLP.

Supporting Actress

Anne Hathaway.  Nuf said.

Supporting Actor

This is tough, partially cause I’m still waiting for DiCaprio to be nominated.  But it might be De Niro.  He owned his scenes.

Original Screenplay

As much as I want to root for the sweet, quirky and wonderful Moonrise Kingdom, I feel like Django will take it.  And Tarantino’s speech will be awesome.

Adapted Screenplay

SLP had such a great script, I loved every conversation.  I really hope it takes this one….and more.

Director

First…the camera might just pan over Affleck as whoever is presenting is blathering on for irony.  Poor Ben.  Honestly, I’m happy if it’s David O. Russell or Ang Lee. If I had to bet on one, it would be Lee.

Best Picture

In the 3 years that I have been keeping this blog, it hasn’t been this hard to pick a favorite for BP.  There was only one film I didn’t really like (Lincoln) but it’s still so good.  Honestly, you might have better luck tossing the names on a dartboard and blindly throwing to pick it.  Lincoln, Argo, Django, Les Mis and ZDT all have some historical elements and could split that vote.  Then again, Hollywood loves stories of itself in their movies (remember the Artist and Hugo last year?), therefore I can’t count Argo out just yet.  Amour isn’t easy to digest.  Beasts is really indie.  That leaves Life of Pi,  SLP and Argo.  Now that is tough, two of these 3 are my favorites.  However, there has been a curse lately that director follows picture…so there goes Argo.  Now, I’m predicting Lee to win director, so naturally his film will take the cake.  There, Life of Pi to win best picture…but I’m not sure.

Also, Seth MacFarlane will use his “Stewy” voice no less than 8 times.  And I will make it a drinking game.

Let me know what you think and enjoy Oscar night!

Silver Linings Playbook

Have I ever told you how much I love it when a great, heartfelt comedy makes it into the Best Picture nominations?  Of the year’s nine nominations, Silver Linings Playbook is the most lighthearted film and it leaves you smiling and warm inside.  Best of all, it feels like it did so effortlessly.  Over the past 20 years, I can count the comedies nominated for best picture that made me feel this good on one hand: As Good As It Gets, Little Miss Sunshine and Juno.  I love adding another rare treat to that list.

Bradley Cooper plays Pat, a man trying to reinvent himself after being diagnosed and institutionalized with bipolar disorder.  This time away has separated him from his wife.  The details connecting the status of his marriage and his time the mental institute are revealed perfectly, so I won’t spoil the ride.  His institutionalization seems to have been well for him, he has gotten in shape and is enthusiastic about the positive attitude he is trying to maintain.  It is awkwardly endearing how he is so eager to tell everyone his excelsior motto and how he is practicing to be a better husband.  You know that nearly everyone sees him as a huge loser.

While Pat’s family sees that he is doing better, there is still room for improvement.  He refuses to take his medications, claiming to not like how he feels on them, and it’s not easy for an aging couple to force their grown son to do anything.  His social skills are lacking, sometimes Pat seems to blurt things out with no filter.  His late night rantings, from being upset over the ending of a A Farewell to Arms, to feeling the urgent need to watch his wedding video, become a disturbance heard all down the street.

Through a friend, Pat meets Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), whose husband recently died.  While Pat’s poor social skills stem from his mental issues, Tiffany’s may come from a mixture of grief and just not having much to care about anymore.  Her instigative scenes with Pat are beautifully raw while still keeping everyone at a distance.  Lawrence has a sweet way of making Tiffany rudely real, vulnerable yet strong and one of the most level headed characters in the film.  She and Pat strike up a friendship and a deal: Tiffany will deliver letters to Pat’s wife if he will enter a dance competition with her.

I didn’t expect this to be a dance movie, and it isn’t, but watching Cooper and Lawrence move together is wonderful.  As they practice, we are watching an unspoken bond form.  It becomes a big release for them both, better than their therapy sessions.  Romantics will hope for love to bloom, and us realists will just be happy that Pat is sleeping well at night and not bringing up his wife as much.

Pat’s family is loving and supportive, but beautifully flawed.  His father,  Pat Sr. (Robert de Niro), seems obsessive compulsive about his rituals when watching sports.  However, they come from good intentions; he just wants to spend time with his son, and seems to think of Pat as a good luck charm for the Philadelphia Eagles.  He also has a short violent history that has him permanently banned from the Eagles’ stadium.  Pat’s mother, Dolores (Jacki Weaver), is a sweet and supportive aging woman who seems to have spent most of her life dealing with the different bits of crazy coming from her husband and son.  She is weathered from it, but also stronger, smarter and more understanding.  What I couldn’t understand was how she lets her husband place such steep bets on football games and how he personally involves Pat in them.  But what do I know, I’m just an outsider looking in.

Silver Linings Playbook is nominated for eight Academy Awards, and they are all the big ones too.  Cooper, Lawrence, De Niro and Weaver are all nominated for their performances, earning the film a nomination in each acting category.  The film has also earned recognition in best picture, editing, adapted screenplay and David O. Russell is competing for best director.  That’s a lot of deserved recognition from a sweet modern dramatic comedy.

I loved Silver Linings Playbook for all that it was and wanted nothing more from it.  There was a good dose of human comedy, some drama without harsh tears and a way to find happiness in this strange world.  While Pat’s mental illness is the stem of his problems, the film doesn’t preach, objectify or or let it define his character.  It is just part of this human experience.  The big dance scene is a wonderful climax that I wouldn’t dare ruin for you, but it made me think back to Little Miss Sunshine in the best way possible.  This is an unexpectedly honest and sweet film that, like its characters, doesn’t apologize for being a little off beat.

“I just see that you made an effort, and I’m gonna be better with my wife.  I’m working on that.  I wanna acknowledge her beauty.  I never used to do that.  I do now.  Just practicing.  How’d Tommy die?”

The Deer Hunter

Under Michael Cimino’s Oscar winning direction, The Deer Hunter is a film about three friends from a small steel mill town in Pennsylvania who experience the horrors of the Vietnam War together.  The film starts with a good long look at the men on the eve of their departure.  After a hard day’s work, they stroll down to the bar, sing and drink like they’ve got all the time in the world.  Steve (John Savage) is getting married that evening, but only Steve’s mother feels the hurry.

The wedding scenes of the film take their time, showing the men’s last hurrah together.  The reception doubles as a going away party for Nick (Christopher Walkin) and Mike (Robert De Niro).  And as Steve and his bride, Angela (Rutanya Alda) drive off to spend a night together, the rest of the boys go deer hunting.  The hunt scenes have a mysterious, poetic vibe about them, especially to Mike.  Then the film drops us straight into the madness of Vietnam, where Nick, Mike and Steve are captured and forced to engage in a game of Russian roulette.

The Russian roulette scenes are the most memorable parts of the film.  It becomes a symbol for the intense and random violence that was the Vietnam War.  Each of these scenes are an amazing mixture of suspense, horror and violence that are not for the faint of heart.  With each pass of the gun is the possibility that these men will blow their own brains out, but if they don’t play, they’ll be killed by their captors.

Somehow out of this violent madness, Mike finds a refreshed will to live and carry on stronger than the rest.  We understand that when Mike comes home, he has been changed by his terrible experiences, but he doesn’t show it as much as Steve and Nick.  I’d rather not spoil anything, but they have a great deal of physical and psychological issues to deal with.  Christopher Walken doesn’t earn that Oscar win for nothing.

While at times I didn’t exactly enjoy watching The Deer Hunter, I can appreciate its intensity and quality.  The film did what it was supposed to and did so very well.  After spending so much time at the bar and wedding, I could not help but become very invested in the characters, affected emotionally by their situations and held my breath at every pull of the trigger.  If you can stomach the intense games of Russian roulette, checking out The Deer Hunter is worth it.

“You have to think about one shot.  One shot is what it’s all about.  A deer’s gotta be taken with one shot.”

Goodfellas

“As far back as I could remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.”

The way Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) tells it, being a gangster was the best life he could imagine.  Better than being president.  Like being a movie star with muscle.  It meant he was somebody in a neighborhood full of nobodies and anything he wanted was just a phone call away.  Like he says, “It was a glorious time.”

Based on Hill’s real life story, he first got into the mafia as a young teenager, working for Paulie (Paul Sorvino) and his boys.  We see him as just a kid, breaking car windows, running away as they blow up and making more money than most of the grown-ups in the neighborhood.  When his parents get a letter from school saying he hasn’t attended in a month, Paulie roughs up the postman, making sure no more letters from school arrive at Henry’s house.  It looked like this kid had it made.

When Henry is grown, the mafia has only gotten bigger and though he’s a young man, he can live like a king.  He starts dating Karen (Lorraine Bracco) a Jewish girl, who soon figures out his life of crime.  She knows she could have gotten out and had nothing to do with Henry right away, but she admits that it attracted her to Henry.  After they marry, she learns a lot about being married to a gangster from the other mafia wives.  She gets used to the late nights and soon she says it does not like crime, but enterprising.  They have quite an exciting life together, being able to get into the nicest clubs whenever they want and all, but when Henry does time in jail, Karen is suddenly all alone, with no contact from Paulie or the other guys.

After Henry is released, he’s warned by Paulie to be more careful and don’t do anything without telling him first.  But Henry is eager to get back into business and starts selling drugs, is involved in a big heist with Jimmy (Robert De Niro) and has to help Tommy (Joe Pesci) whenever he gets a little crazy and kills a guy or two.  If you screw up in the mafia, it does not take much to get you whacked, even by your friends.

Of all the colorful mob characters in this film, Tommy is the greatest.  To me, he seems like a little guy who tries to overcompensate and can turn crazy on you over nothing in a heartbeat.  His “Funny how?” scene towards the beginning is just a small taste of how Tommy can can turn one little thing into a huge deal.  The tension he gives off always makes us nervous, we never know if he’ll just laugh it off or kill someone over nothing.  Even better than when he does just explode and blow someone away, is the way he can be so calm and nonchalant about what he’s just done.  Two things are certain: never bust Tommy’s balls and Joe Pesci completely deserved that Oscar win.

One of the most iconic scenes of Goodfellas is the long shot showing Henry and Karen going in the back entrance of a club.  The camera follows them all around, where Henry seems to know the way around easily, even through the bustling kitchen.  Everyone who greets him is handed $20 bills and someone carries in a brand new table and sets it up right in front of the stage, like they have it waiting just for him whenever he arrives.  This perfect long shot shows just how much of a big shot Henry is here and Karen notices.

If there were an award for Gangster Film of the year, Goodfellas blew away all the competition of 1990, especially The Godfather: Part III.  This look at mafia life feels very laid back and charismatic in comparison to others.  We see that Henry has come from a very humble background, just the oldest kid from an Irish/Jewish family, which makes him more relatable.  The narration that switches between Henry to Karen makes this all feel more personal and help us understand exactly what is going on, both within the mafia and within the family life.  And Martin Scorsese once again directs like a genius, with his depictions of harsh violence ranging from brutal and disgusting to a hauntingly beautiful montage.  If you can handle the violence and 2.04 F-words per minute, you’ve got to put Goodfellas on your must-see list.

“One day some of the kids from the neighborhood carried my mother’s groceries all the way home.  You know why?  It was outta respect.”

Awakenings

Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) is a new doctor working in a ward full of comatose patients.  In his last job, he was content working alone with earthworms, here he seems uneasy and out of his element.  The ward is referred to as The Garden, meaning the vegetable like patients only need feeding and watering, but Sayer wonders if there is more to their condition.  He soon discovers that they cannot move by their own will, but must borrow the will of something else.  For example, when Sayer throws a ball towards a man, he will catch it.  So Sayer starts putting one patient, Leonard (Robert DeNiro), on a chemical regiment hoping that it will awaken him from his vegetative state.  Like a medical miracle, it works and Leonard is beautifully awake, aware and busting with life.  Through his amazing results, they seek donations to start the other patients on the medicine and soon the once frozen, eerie ward is full of lively people.  Sadly, the treatment is only experimental and the conditions may not be permanent.

The idea that these people, who seem frozen in time, yet aging, can still be thinking and aware through this condition is sad and can be hard to comprehend.  These poor people have been unable to communicate or be active for decades.  To suddenly be awake, aware and able to go out into a new world and live makes these people want to run and make up for the time they have lost.  I can’t help but think about how terrible it must be to be trapped alive within yourself with no way to get out.

Thing is, people can do this to themselves without being in a catatonic state.  Dr. Sayer seems to be stuck within his shy shell.  Being around so many people -catatonic or not- seems to make him long for his old job, just working with earthworms.  But after watching his patients spring to life one after another with a new thirst for human connection, he begins to have a new appreciation for the little moments he takes for granted in his life.

Robert De Niro gives a heartwarming performance as Leonard, who has been in a catatonic state since his teens.  From a mouth agape statue, to a perfectly functional man, still young in his mind, De Niro’s range of character here is astounding.  The strong relationship between Leonard and his mother is very sweet and has endured over the decades, but as Leonard realizes how much time has passed him by, he has a sudden need to cut the apron strings.  What’s most wonderful, is the excitement about all the new things that have happened over the years that Leonard wants to see and learn about, but we’re heartbroken when he degenerates before out eyes.

It’s all very sweet, miraculous and heartbreaking.  The greatest message this film holds isn’t one of hope, but one of nourishing the human spirit.  It’s so easy to let anyone (catatonic or not) just slip into a dormant life, and Awakenings reminds us of the power of just being awake and alive.

“What we do know is that, as the chemical window closed, another awakening took place; that the human spirit is more powerful than any drug – and THAT is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. These are the things that matter.  This is what we’d forgotten – the simplest things.”

The Mission

In the South American jungles of 1758, the Spanish have been colonizing the natives.  Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) has successfully built a mission that not only gives the people religious structure, but protects them from the slave hunters of Portugal.  Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert de Niro) is a notorious slave trader who winds up in prison after killing his brother in a fight of passion.  Father Gabriel goes to visit Rodrigo and offers him penance if he comes to serve in his mission.  Eventually, Rodrigo converts and begins studying to become a Jesuit priest.  When Spain decides to sell the colony back to Portugal, this mission will be overrun and the people killed or sold as slaves.  The priests are ordered not to retaliate, but Rodrigo rallies the natives to protect what is theirs while Father Gabriel tries to simply carry on his peaceful mission while death and destruction happen all around him.

While The Mission won top honors at the Cannes Film Festival, it only won one if its seven Oscar nominations.  The film took award for Best Cinematography easily with all its beautiful shots of the natural landscape.  There are wonderfully composed shots of water running down the steep cliffs, mist rising up from the pools below and the daring men scaling the cliffs against the rushing water.  This seems like the only path to the mission, but once one makes up that cliff, the jungle is just as beautiful and lush as the water.

One of the most revealing scenes about Rodrigo is when Father Gabriel gives him an odd sort of penance for killing his brother.  As they journey through the jungle and up these cliffs, Rodrigo has a heavy net full of pieces of armor tied to him, like a makeshift ball and chain.  Rodrigo takes this burden seriously and even after Fielding (Liam Neeson) cuts it off of him, he ties it back on.  Even when he’s hanging on the side of a cliff with this ball about to bring him down to the rocks below, Rodrigo keeps it attached.  Fielding asks Gabriel how long Rodrigo must carry the stupid thing and Gabriel simply responds, “God knows.”  After putting himself through that sort of torture and danger, it’s not surprising that he willingly becomes a priest.

The Mission seems to be one of those films that puts more meaning and untold story into its images.  Near the beginning we see natives put a man on a cross and send him floating down the river.  The image of a cross being lost into the mist of the falls is startling, beautiful and so thought provoking, yet we are never explicitly told who was on the cross or why.  The story of betrayal by the Spanish, the ones who came to convert and protect these people is only one layer of the film.  What you see and how your mind can interpret it is a much richer layer.

“Your Holiness, a surgeon to save the body must often hack off a limb. But in truth nothing could prepare me for the beauty and the power of the limb that I had come here to sever.”

The Godfather Part II

If you have any love for Francis Ford Coppola’s original Godfather, than that love only gets expanded in his The Godfather Part II.  For me, my first full viewing of The Godfather just teetered on really good, it almost fell under great.   After finally seeing Part II in one sitting, it pushes the both films over the edge and Part II is even more marvelous than the original.

The film is broken into two stories.  We flashback to see Vito as a child who travels to America on his own and his beginnings that turn him into a powerful and ruthless mafia man.  In the present, Michael is being tested and has to regain control of the family and prove his worth.

After Part I, character of Vito is a legend, but we only saw pieces move at his command, never by his own hands.  Seeing Vito’s youth is an eye opening experience into what molded this character.  As a boy in Sicily, his entire family was murdered by Don Ciccio and he had to escape to America.  As a young man in the 1920’s, Vito (Robert de Niro) observes the corruption within his New York neighborhood and murders his way to the top, earning respect and fear, thus beginning the Corleone family.

In the present time, Michael (Al Pacino) is dealing with some issues of trust and control within the Corleone family and trying to expand their business into Hollywood, Las Vegas and pre-revolution Cuba.  Early, there’s an assassination attempt on his life from someone very close and he has to figure out who is responsible.  Later, in Washington DC there is an investigation on the Corleone family going on where Michael is pulling strings and denying all accusations that we witnessed in the first film.  But there could be one witness the family can’t get to in time.

One of the key scenes of this film, that I remember seeing as a young kid, is when Vito assassinates Fanucci (Gaston Moschin).  The neighborhood festa is going on, some of those images stayed with me as a kid, especially the Jesus thing with money all over it people are carrying in the street.  As Fanucci, sticking out with his white hat,  moves through the congested street, Vito is on the rooftops slowly keeping an eye on him.  It looks like Vito has planned a way into the building from the roof, and methodically has a towel waiting to help unscrew the light-bulb and hide the gun.  The suspense tightens as Fanucci enters the building, notices the light-bulb and we watch Vito wait, the light-bulb flickering and revealing him in the shadows.  The shooting is ruthless, one bullet would have done the job, but Vito shoots Fanucci twice then straight into his mouth once he’s fallen on the floor.  Then Vito goes home to his family and holds baby Michael.

This scene always made me wonder a few things.  Do the brothers know this history about their father?  Do they realize the violence he was capable of, the people he had killed?  Does Michael truly know the ruthlessness he is expected to live up to?  To some extent, I believe the brothers are still just boys stuck playing their father’s game.  But Michael is slowly starting to live up to his father.

Robert DeNiro won an Oscar for his performance.  Really, whole film full of great acting including four other acting nominations, but DeNiro has an odd talent over the rest.   He has this uncanny ability to look like Marlon Brando’s old saggy faced Vito only thirty years younger.  The personality is there and I found a few choice moments that I didn’t see a famous actor, but a portrait of the young Vito.  You know that moment in The Kids Are All Right where Julianne Moore says she keeps seeing the kids’ expressions in Mark Ruffalo’s face.  It’s like that, only not natural but a really weird talent that DeNiro must possess, because I was not expecting that.  Watch and see if you see it as well.

Let me put up a little “SPOILER ALERT” sign, I want to talk about a twisty moment.  If you haven’t seen the film, skip to the next paragraph.  Okay, One aspect I find especially interesting is Michael and Kay’s relationship, especially toward the ending.  Throughout the film, Kay (Diane Keaton) is pregnant and Michael is hoping for another boy to hand the business down to.  But Kay has an abortion, she tells Michael she doesn’t want to bring any more of his children into this world.  Notice, this is the late 1950’s, the feminist movement is just around the corner.  This makes me ask, will the family fall because of the wives, sisters and daughters?  I ask politely, please don’t ruin this for me in your comments, I have yet to see Part III, but I know not to have great expectations.

No matter how Part III turns out, I never realized I could love The Godfather series so much.  As a kid, my dad showed me a few scenes as he flipped channels: the horse head, Fanucci’s assassination, bullets flying through Michael and Kay’s bedroom window.  These were unusually violent scenes for a small kid and they really stuck.  We usually skipped the talk, the less exciting explanations of these violent events and I was left for years thinking that The Godfather was just a weird bloody film.  I don’t blame my dad for leaving out the meat of the story and just showing me the saucy blood, he knew what images would stick with me.  One day, I hope to see Part I and Part II back-to-back, no skipping around.

“You father has plans for your future.”

Taxi Driver

A word of caution to the more conservative audience:  Taxi Driver is set in a city where all the shady creatures and sights are all out crawling the filthy streets and it takes a lonely, insomnia stricken, socially inept young man slowly sinking into a moment of insanity to “flush it all down the fucking toilet.”  You still there?  Alright you brave souls, let’s go deeper.

Travis (Robert De Niro) is an unstable Vietnam veteran who drives a taxi at night because he can’t sleep.  As he drives, he sees all the creatures of the night, hookers, their pimps and low-lives of all forms.  Travis is one of the few drivers who will pick these people up and they’re not the best customers.  During the day, when he’s not driving, he writes in his journal, sits in x-rated theaters just to have a place to go and visits Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) a young woman working for a political campaign he wants to befriend.

Being around all these sleazy types of people seems to desensitize Travis.  When he takes Betsy on a date he takes her to an x-rated theater.  Travis is either extremely stupid in a social sense or has become so used to x-rated things that he doesn’t even imagine Betsy objecting.

After things don’t go well with Betsy, Travis seems to become more isolated and we worry more about him.  He buys guns, aims them out the window and rigs himself full of guns and knives under his old army jacket.  When he shows up at a political rally, we worry that he’ll snap and shot everyone, but that’s not his cause.  He finds that when he meets a young girl working as a prostitute.

Poor Iris (Jodi Foster) seems like the forgotten afterbirth of Woodstock.  She has only half formed ideals of feminism and being hip and thinks she knows what she’s doing, but she’s just a twelve year old prostitute.  When she has breakfast with Travis, we see she’s still just a kid, maybe a little brainwashed but not completely hopeless.  Anyone with a sense of decency would want to help her out of that situation, but few have what it takes to go through with it.  Thankfully, Travis is slipping into a mindset that is up to the task.

In all, Taxi Driver is grim, gritty, filthy, thought provoking, beautiful and amazing.  Too much?  Sadly, I believe it’s those first few adjectives that turned the Academy away from giving Taxi Driver the honor of best picture.  The characters of Rocky and Travis are very similar (lonely, socially awkward and looking for purpose), but one becomes an inspiration and the other a ruthless vigilante.  The decision might have come down to whom do we want our society to see more?

For me, Rocky is for kids and Taxi Driver is for adults.  The film making is better, shots more beautiful, the story is more thoughtful and De Niro is an amazing leading man who carries the weight of the whole film.

“Now I see this clearly. My whole life is pointed in one direction. There never has been a choice for me.”

Raging Bull

Shot in stark black and white, Raging Bull was Martin Scorsese masterpiece as he was reborn into the film industry.  The story is that of real life boxer Jake La Matta.  It begins as he starts his professional boxing career and we watch him rise and fall both in and out of the ring.

Raging Bull is a boxing movie, but it’s nothing like Rocky.  It’s a sports movie, but nothing kids should see.  Jake isn’t a hero, you don’t even like him unless he’s punching someone.  He’s completely self absorbed, he expects his wife to sit at home for him while he’s training all day and out drinking all night.  His brother and manager, Joey, isn’t much help, but can see the slope Jake is heading towards.  Like all fighters, he’s never satisfied, but he takes it to self destructive points.  He’s always suspicious of his wife cheating and his brother’s intentions.  In most of the family scenes I was just waiting for Jake to explode and finally punch his wife’s head through the wall.  He’s a dangerous ticking bomb that’s better left in the ring.

And that’s where some of the best parts of Raging Bull are.  The boxing ring itself seems to be in a mystical place, like a bright island in a dark ocean surrounded by people.  There are no walls or ceiling, the hanging microphone seems to just float in the smoky air.  Then the bell dings, the crowd cheers and fists are flashing at top speed.  The editing is so quick and precise with out a single wasted frame, if you blink you might miss something.

It’s so violent too.  Remember how shocking the shower scene from Psycho was?  Scorcasee looked to that for inspiration during one particular boxing scene and the result is one of the most beautifully violent moments in film history.  Flashbulbs and punches act as the knife, the ropes around the ring keep the boxer from escaping, the blood sprays and flows all down his face.  In one dizzying swoop, the camera lets us sway and fall with the boxer.   And like watching blood flow down the drain, we hear the crowd roar and see the rope dripping with blood.

Robert de Niro put his blood, sweat and gained sixty pounds for his Oscar winning role as Jake.  Besides the physical toll in the brutal boxing scenes and working for months on getting fat, the portrayal of a violent man on the edge of complete combustion is astounding.  De Niro makes us afraid of Jake, we’ve seen his power, the violence he’s capable of.  He lets himself get pushed more and more and we’re just waiting for everything to snap.  De Niro builds the tension perfectly so we’re able to enjoy the fall and take a sigh of relief.

If you can’t stand blood, violence or the F-word 114 times (yes, IMDB counted it for me), then Raging Bull is not for you.  All others, I strongly encourage you to see a cinematic masterpiece.  And pause it if you need to get up, otherwise you could be sitting on the can hearing, “Oh, your missing it!  He just beat the shit outta him with a car door!”