Apr 12, 2011

Scorsese Overdue For Oscar When you are referring to good gangster films, you’re talking about films like “The Public Enemy,” the original “Scarface,” “White Heat,” “The Asphalt Jungle,” “The Killers,” it doesn’t have to stand out because those are among the greatest American films ever...

Apr 8, 2011

Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver One of my favorite movies.  But I found it more a portrait of an individual suffering alienation as he is unable to connect with anyone else. Effectively isolated from the people who surround him, he descends into violent insanity but is ultimately redeemed when he turns his attention away from the political candidate...

Apr 8, 2011

Can anyone think of another Serious  film  where the characters talk straight into the camera? This is done in many films. Two Examples, when deniro gets the crap beaten out of him in raging bull, we see robinson looking straight towards camera, then cut to deniro against the ropes looking straight towards camera. the shots are not meant to...

Apr 7, 2011

Casino: underrated, unappreciated gem Yeah that’s right, I said it. Scorsese Fans already know this of course. Every time I see casino on tv I say to myself “ok I will just watch a few minutes” then it’s 2 1/2 hours later and I cant stop watching. I’ve seen it many times before, including a few times in the theater when it was first...

Apr 7, 2011

In Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets There is a scene in Mean Streets where the camera catches DeNiro’s character coming into a bar and then shifts slightly down and to the left before following him over to the right. There was a film studies professor who taught a course on symbolism in film and used this as a discussion point to ask students what it...