[demonrail666]

I'm not keen on that scene at the end, in the car, either. I've not read the theories around it but it doesn't seem to fit. The gun-finger would've been one of the greatest, most iconic endings ever.

Originally Posted by Severian

THIS FUCKING SCENE.

I'll see your Donovan and raise you ... that look

[Severian]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I'm not keen on that scene at the end, in the car, either. I've not read the theories around it but it doesn't seem to fit. The gun-finger would've been one of the greatest, most iconic endings ever.


I'll see your Donovan and raise you ... that look

Hah. My Donovan's better

[latorami]

gotta watch it today

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by Severian

It's detached from the kind of "GoodFella genre" that he's created — Mean Streets, GoodFellas, Casino, The Departed, Wolf of Wall Street — so it's odd that it feels kind of like the definitive Scorsese film, even after all this time.

I'd say Taxi Driver helped define a certain moment in American cinema (alongside stuff like The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, The French Connection, Annie Hall) more than Scorsese himself. When American Hustle was criticised (rightly or wrongly) for being too indebted to Scorsese, it was obviously referring to Goodfellas and Casino which I think were the moments where he first really established his own instantly recognisable style. Equally we all know the 'Scorsese' influence on The Sopranos has nothing to do with Raging Bull, or Last Temptation of Christ.

Arguments about his greatest or best film is another matter but in terms of definitive, I think it has to be Goodfellas.

Personally:

Definitive = Goodfellas
Best = Goodfellas
Favourite = Goodfellas

[!@#$%!]

yep, goodfellas on all counts

[evollove]

Good arguments for Goodfellas' influence, but as far as quality how is RAGING not the obvious choice?

Originally Posted by Severian

But from what I can tell, it's the most artistically nature film among the nominees.

Yeah, and it doesn't need to be. That kind of annoyed me. The realism was gripping, the arty shit not so much, but that could just be my overall taste.

SPOILER??: The ending of Moonlight isn't depressing, but isn't boisterously happy either. Quietly optimistic.

Originally Posted by ilduclo

held my interest, I guess mostly based on the acting.

Damn near everyone acts well nowadays, have you noticed? Even in shitty movies the acting is better than most "good" acting in most 80s films. There must be some genius acting coach in Hollywood we don't know about.

So really, really good acting has to go even further.

I predict Mahershala Ali will win for supporting actor.

I'm not a huge Casey Affleck fan, but as far as leading roles go he really goes the extra mile, and I predict he'll win. He uses his somewhat expressionless style to his great advantage here, a perfect match of actor and role. And he doesn't mumble nearly as much as he does in other films (or in real life).

Although Denzel is a wonder in FENCES. Everyone is, and I predict Viola Davis will win best supporting actress.

Tough competition from Michelle Wiliams, who does a lot with a little. And Octavia Spencer is very likable in Hidden Figures, so she might win just for that.

(Fences a weird movie. It is so amazingly well acted, shot and written. Maybe too good? I struggled the first time through and decided to give it another chance. Can't go more than 5 minutes. It's so boring. Yet so damn good. Can't figure it out.)

Haven't seen Hacksaw or Hell or High Water and haven't finished LaLa.

Wow. No nom for Amy Adams? And I think dude who played the scientist should've gotten a supporting nom. It'll probably lose best adapted screenplay to Moonlight, but it shouldn't.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by evollove

Good arguments for Goodfellas' influence, but as far as quality how is RAGING not the obvious choice?

I knew someone was going to mention this. It's true, Raging Bill is a tremendous film, one of the greatest performances by anyone ever, but the story is relatively insular (it is a bio-pic after all). So the scope of Taxi Driver is much broader. I think the films are kind of like mirrors of each other in a way.

And if the jury will allow it, I'd like to illustrate this point with one of my beloved Christopher Nolan references...
Taxi Driver and Raging Bull almost take on equal opposite perspective in terms of film making. One is broad, colorful, deceptive and potentially dream-induced (Taxi Driver) and the other is down and dirty, microscope zooming in on a cancerous soul (Raging). Kind of (but not really) like how Inception and Interstellar approach similar ideas from the diametrically opposed perspectives of dream/individual mind and... well, interstellar travel/the Fucking universe, through and beyond time.

As a character study, Taxi Driver is, I think, the better film. Raging is the truer film.

But I have to go with symbols and demonrail on this one...

Definitive: GoodFellas
Best: GoodFellas
Favorite: GoodFellas

^ as close to the great American film as last quarter of the 20th century offered, prior to Pulp Fiction.

I'm going to watch Good Fellas tonight. Watching the "Atlantis" scene got me pumped.

EDIT: Obviously I just wants to mention Chris Nolan. No need to tell me how my comparison doesn't work. I'd make it again. Chris Nolan!

[!@#$%!]

raging bull is great, often named in many best of the 80s lists as top choice of many critics

but

perhaps it's the black and white distracting me from important elements, but that didn't become a widely imitated trademark

rather, it was goodfellas

also goodfellas is a lot more fun than raging bull. the spectacle of the masochist it fantastically done, but the story itself doesn't match it for my taste. all that violence and abuse.

in other words, for me the greatness of raging bull is visual above all.

the story in goodfellas has multiple characters, is complicated, scenes are edited in parallel, you get a big picture of things in motion, and there i think it's better than raging bull. also humongously entertaining and rewatchable.

but... it's just opinions on taste so very subjective

--

hey! i had this on hold for a while so i had not read severian's post yet. might add something else

--

lol chris nolan. i can't relate, but it's your right. i still prefer memento.

for me raging bull is a better film than taxi driver for sure. taxi driver is more iconic cuz it came earlier with the ultraviolence, raging bull is more demanding and therefore less popular but it's magic. travis bickle's mohawk is recognizably everywhere and belongs on a t-shirt like che guevara, lololol. but raging bull is really fucking great.

[evollove]

Won't argue Goodfellas is watchable. And influential. And fun, although it probably shouldn't be. Real people really died. Tommy in real life was as repugnant a human as you can find.

But I get emotionally worked up watching Raging while I don't at all with Goodfellas.

I don't know the people in Goodfellas. Don't know Travis. But I know people like Jake and probably even have some Jake in me.

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by evollove

Good arguments for Goodfellas' influence, but as far as quality how is RAGING not the obvious choice?

It'd be the other candidate for sure. I watched Raging Bull again a few months ago and my only tiny criticism of it is the actual boxing scenes don't always work for me. Whereas I just can't fault Goodfellas. There's not a false note in the entire film. Not a single moment where I'm watching it and thinking, 'ah, I wish he hadn't done it like that' And considering how long and epic and ambitious that movie is, that's an astonishing achievement.

[!@#$%!]

[this was for evollove]

oh i'm not relating any of that to real life people or event. i fucking hate psychopaths. these actors are all "likeable" which is why they're "stars". they don't have dead eyes. and all the murders are fake.

i guess i can't have raging bull on constant replay because it's so fucking heavy. i mean, it's depressing. all that anger and bad luck and the guy getting beaten to shit in front of us. yes, i relate to him too, but that makes it even more painful to watch. for raging bull i need an appointment.

goodfellas has the benefit that, while not being an apologia of criminality, because it shows a lot of horrible shit and death, it does have a lot of humor in the plot. so it's more balanced, emotionally. it's not just one heavy burden after another.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

It'd be the other candidate for sure. I watched Raging Bull again a few months ago and my only tiny criticism of it is the actual boxing scenes don't always work for me.

well yeah they're a bit fake but they're fake like the shooting at the end of taxi driver is fake and the killings in the wild bunch are fake.

slowed-down, zoomed-in ultraviolence.

(yes, i threw in the wild bunch there, on purpose. peckinpah was first.)

anyway there's a point to it though, which is-- to highlight it.

because until then movies we "bang, you're dead" and little children pointing the finger at each other was just children's games they learned from tv

guns were toys, punches were toys

but after that--

the pointed pistol-finger has come to mean what it really always had meant but we were not allowed to see. now the people doing those gestures aren't little kids in the playground anymore.

sure those scenes in raging bull they're fake but they're brilliantly fake, like good art should be.

but okay, i get that maybe you see the fakery so much that you can't feel it anymore. fair enough. that shit can happen. especially after countless immitations and repetitions wear it out.

[demonrail666]

I'm hoping we're all in agreement that Raging Bull is a stone-cold masterpiece because it is. I just think that with Goodfellas Scorsese made something that isn't only flawless (IMO), it appears to have had no precedent. I can't watch it and relate it to any film made before it, not just in terms of gangster movies but movies period, whereas I can see clear links in Raging Bull to stuff like neo-realism, Brando, film noir. I'd go as far as to say that Raging Bull was a film he had to make to really unburden him of his obsession with film history, allowing him to finally tackle film on his own terms. Raging Bull is like a farewell love letter to all those obsessions.

[h8kurdt]

Alright, best Scorsese films from each decade Go!

[h8kurdt]

70's-Taxi Driver (although Mean Streets is a close second)

80's-The King Of Comedy
This may sound like the contrarian choice, but I honestly love this one. I re-waatched it a couple of months back and it holds up as one of his best. De Niro is just brilliant in it. It's no surprise Scorsese said it was De Niro's best perfomance. Raging Bull is just as incredible, mind.

90's-Couldn't be anything else but Goodfellas can it?
Casino is a great watch, too, but one too many flaws.

00's-The 'Depahted'
Jack Nicholson...

10's-Wolf Of Wall Street
Hugo was MASSIVELY overrated in my eyes

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

but okay, i get that maybe you see the fakery so much that you can't feel it anymore. fair enough. that shit can happen. especially after countless immitations and repetitions wear it out.

It's not that they're fake it's that the style is perhaps too explicit in its references to old newsreel footage, old Burt Lancaster movies, etc. It's a bit too 'knowing'. Like I said in my last post, a bit too in love with movie history. But seriously, I don't want any of this to sound like I'm criticising the film cos I'm not. Raging Bull has a beauty that no other Scorsese movie comes close to. Not just visually but for its pathos - however brutal. It's beautiful in the way Ford could be beautiful. Turning monsters into almost Shakespearean myths.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

I'm hoping we're all in agreement that Raging Bull is a stone-cold masterpiece because it is. I just think that with Goodfellas Scorsese made something that isn't only flawless (IMO), it appears to have had no precedent. I can't watch it and relate it to any film made before it, not just in terms of gangster movies but movies period, whereas I can see clear links in Raging Bull to stuff like neo-realism, Brando, film noir. I'd go as far as to say that Raging Bull was a film he had to make to really unburden him of his obsession with film history, allowing him to finally tackle film on his own terms. Raging Bull is like a farewell love letter to all those obsessions.

man, you've been on a roll lately with your aesthetic judgments. seriously good observations and connections.

i'm gonna go think about the sources of goodfellas a bit. haven't watched it too recently.

i'll say this though, off the cuff: while i'm not generally fond of too much talking in movies, here the voiceover by the narrator is essential. it's what holds all the pieces together together. that's not straight-up from detective novels like blade runner (blade runner works better without the voiceover). it's something else. anyway. off to think about it.

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Alright, best Scorsese films from each decade Go!

i'll need a moment. i have to go think about the "influences" on goodfellas ha ha ha.

hmm...

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

Alright, best Scorsese films from each decade Go!

70s - Head says Taxi Driver heart says Mean Streets
80s - Raging Bull
90s - Goodfellas
00s - Gangs of New York - deeply flawed but far better than its critics make it out to be.
10s - Wolf of Wall Street

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by h8kurdt

80's-The King Of Comedy
This may sound like the contrarian choice, but I honestly love this one. I re-waatched it a couple of months back and it holds up as one of his best. De Niro is just brilliant in it. It's no surprise Scorsese said it was De Niro's best perfomance. Raging Bull is just as incredible, mind.

Now that's a movie I actually wish I hadn't seen again because I had such fond memories of it. But watching it again recently, it wasn't terrible, but it really let me down. And Scorsese saying he thought it was DeNiro's best performance is I'm sure just him being flippant. It's maybe his most surprising performance but no way his best. Although I'm convinced that the best DeNiro performance wasn't in Taxi Driver, Goodfellas or even Raging Bull. It wasn't in any Scorsese movie; it was in The Deer Hunter.

[!@#$%!]

i was thinking for goodfellas maybe altman could be a predecessor, but the way altman ran his ensemble casts is totally different

then i read this and thought of cassavetes--because he mentions him a lot, lol

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/05/21/mo...pagewanted=all

funny thing though, in that retrospective they paired goodfellas with the original ocean's 11 (i haven't seen it)

but i can see some cassavetes in goodfellas. not towering over it or smothering it at all though. as an inspiration, sure.

dammit, this board, when it works, it's fucking great.

===

70s i haven't seen all of them (i've been trying to see alice doesn't live here anymore and boxcar bertha) but taxi driver sort of defined the decade no? i like mean streets but it's a little clunky.

80s easily raging bull. i also like after hours a lot but it's not the same caliber. but i like after hours a lot--it's hilarious.

king of comedy is okay. didn't do it for me. a less violent travis bickle.

last temptation i saw only in the 90s so i think of it as a 90s movie. it's very good and ambitious and looks great etc but somehow it didn't leave a mark with me. maybe it was confusing. maybe i need a rewatch.

90s goodfellas evidently. i didn't like casino and i've promised to watch it again thanks to you guys suggesting it deserves a reappraisal outside the shadow of its predecessor. which i'll do in due time

cape fear was a tight little remake that's often ignored. why? i haven't seen kundun.

00s i have not seen all. like gangs- i haven't. but i liked aviator a lot more than i expected. supremo editing. really good movie. btw, the character has echoes of raging bull-- the loneliness of bad brains.

i don't know why but i didn't like the departed. too... i don't know. i just didn't. fuckit.

10s too soon to tell and again i haven't seen them all, but i think everyone who's seen it can agree that wolf was a superb spectacle. then again goodfellas steals its thunder doesn't it? ha ha ha ha. echoes again.

i still have to watch hugo and his latest