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Yeah, The Departed holds up great -- particularly rewatching it after becoming familiar with Hong Kong action cinema and realizing how Scorsese perfectly structured the film as an American version of the genre while maintaining the same visual and editing language. Wolf of Wall Street though is by far Leo's best performance, possibly in anything he's ever been in. I also just learned he based that character off of Malcolm McDowell in Caligula, which makes perfect sense.
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Feb 25, 2021 21:20
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I don't know I feel like The Departed hold up well except for Jack Nicholson who feels very miscast as a Boston Lobster. I'm leaving the speech to text error.
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Feb 25, 2021 21:49
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Apparently, Scorsese pursued a lot of actors for Costello before it went to Nicholson, allegedly including Al Pacino, Mel Gibson, and Ray Liotta. So, Jack wasn't his first choice. I kind of think Jack Nicholson feels off in every role he's ever had, though. He has an intense, chaotic energy that pretty much always feels apart from the setting of the movie he's in. I'd argue his best roles are ones where that quality happens to be an asset (Cuckoo's Nest, Shining, Batman.) He's good in movies where he plays a force of nature, or some incongruous component that breaks the setting he's thrown into. He sucks when he's supposed to play something subtle or lived-in, a normal-rear end character who lives in the world. Nicholson plays Costello like he knows he's a character in a movie. Which feels weird as hell under Scorsese, a director super interested in crafting believable realities for his movies. So, yeah, I agree he feels miscast even though I like Jack Nicholson in other things. The only other actor I feel this way about is Ian McShane, who likewise excels when he gets to play larger-than-life personalities, Satanic figures and the like, but feels distracting as hell when he's just supposed to be a normal person.
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Feb 25, 2021 22:51
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Xealot posted:I kind of think Jack Nicholson feels off in every role he's ever had, though. He has an intense, chaotic energy that pretty much always feels apart from the setting of the movie he's in. I'd argue his best roles are ones where that quality happens to be an asset (Cuckoo's Nest, Shining, Batman.) He's good in movies where he plays a force of nature, or some incongruous component that breaks the setting he's thrown into. He sucks when he's supposed to play something subtle or lived-in, a normal-rear end character who lives in the world. I mean I think he is basically perfect in Chinatown and Five Easy Pieces, both of which would fit your latter description. I don't disagree with your assessment of the Departed, though. Edit: and the Last Detail, which I'm ashamed wasn't my first choice there. Voodoofly fucked around with this message at 23:52 on Feb 25, 2021 |
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Feb 25, 2021 23:44
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Jack Nicholson has an almost superhuman charisma that manages to work precisely because he's neither conventionally handsome nor a welcoming presence. He's such a unique figure, there's seriously no one else like him.
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Feb 25, 2021 23:55
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The King of Marvin Gardens is good if you want to see a completely subdued Jack Nicholson
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Feb 26, 2021 00:15
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Crab nicholson....
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Feb 26, 2021 00:16
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Nicholson is great as Eugene O'Neill in Reds.
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Feb 26, 2021 00:25
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TrixRabbi posted:Jack Nicholson has an almost superhuman charisma that manages to work precisely because he's neither conventionally handsome nor a welcoming presence. He's such a unique figure, there's seriously no one else like him. I can see that. I'm realizing my perception of Jack Nicholson is not shared. I find him compelling, but I've always gotten a real menace from him, even in roles that aren't meant to feel menacing. He's charismatic, but to me that's in a Hannibal Lecter-ish way...I'm always expecting him to do or say something disquieting or strange or chaotic. I know Last Detail and Cuckoo's Nest aren't roles that are supposed to evoke that feeling at all, but even there I feel like he's Loki in disguise, some kind of mischief spirit who's there to gently caress poo poo up. I didn't bat an eye at Jack Torrance going crazy because that energy is all over his face all the time, in my opinion. It's also probably why the scene in Departed where Costello goes to the opera and does a poo poo ton of cocaine with prostitutes felt totally believable to me. Like, completely absurd and surreal, but that felt right.
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Feb 26, 2021 01:33
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I wouldn't trade Jack Nicholson in The Departed for anything. He is totally out of place, but it works beautifully. Plus he brought so many great ad-libs to the movie, like the dildo scene.
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Feb 26, 2021 02:34
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Me when Jack Nicholson is on screen in The Departed: Not Scorsese related but a great chaotic Nicholson performance is The Witches of Eastwick.
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Feb 26, 2021 06:49
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Glad to find this thread, just watched Shutter Island for the first time and it made me want to revisit bringing out the dead since they share so much stylistically. But I am surprised to see so little mention of Thelma Schoonmaker, since I realized the editing of Shutter Island is so integral to the feeling of the film. Would Scorsese even be capital-S Scorsese without her?
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Feb 26, 2021 08:55
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Jenny Agutter posted:Glad to find this thread, just watched Shutter Island for the first time and it made me want to revisit bringing out the dead since they share so much stylistically. But I am surprised to see so little mention of Thelma Schoonmaker, since I realized the editing of Shutter Island is so integral to the feeling of the film. Would Scorsese even be capital-S Scorsese without her? Absolutely not. Her editing is part and parcel of the Scorsese experience, and she is generally the first person he credits when talking about his movies and why they come together (a great testament to her talent is The Irishman, which feels about a third as long as it really is). It's like trying to imagine The Godfather trilogy being cut by someone other than Walter Murch, the mind just boggles at the concept.
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Feb 27, 2021 00:16
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If we're talking subdued/different Nicholson performances I recently double-featured the Shooting and Ride the Whirlwind, I would recommend both (but especially the shooting)
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Feb 27, 2021 04:11
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Blood Boils posted:If we're talking subdued/different Nicholson performances I recently double-featured the Shooting and Ride the Whirlwind, I would recommend both (but especially the shooting) My recommendation for him at his mot subdued would be Antonioni’s The Passenger (weirdly out of print for being one of Nicholson’s best movies)
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Feb 27, 2021 17:13
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Watched Silence and I'm a bit surprised to see criticism of Garfield's performance earlier in the thread, I thought he, along with pretty much everyone in the cast, was fantastic. Really pretty and well made film. It felt a bit longish though.
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Mar 11, 2021 14:19
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Blood Boils posted:If we're talking subdued/different Nicholson performances I recently double-featured the Shooting and Ride the Whirlwind, I would recommend both (but especially the shooting) Nicholson/Monte Hellman is one of the great unsung actor/director collaborations. Even their early B-films like Flight to Fury are fascinating and he's amazing in them.
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Mar 11, 2021 15:36
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Hopefully his next film — Killers of the Flower Moon — does not literally infer the creation of the FBI was due to “concern” over the Osage murders (this is the 1910s, the FBI didn’t give a gently caress about Indians and minorities); instead, the institution was created in order to monitor and destroy labor, socialist, communist movements in the U.S. (many of which contained minorities!) Maybe Martin will not completely revise history here?
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Mar 11, 2021 20:23
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DanteDevils posted:Maybe Martin will not completely revise history here? Eh, I don't think he tends to glorify institutions in his work. If anything, the message is usually something like, "the cops are as corrupt as the criminals," "American history is gang warfare," "Wall St is organized crime with the government's approval," and so on. If I was going to guess, the actual protagonist of Killers of the Flower Moon might give a poo poo, but the FBI as an institution doesn't really care or just cares how it looks. Gangs of New York in particular ages pretty well on this point: significant plot points involve the builders of modern America being violently racist, the Civil War being an exploitive and racist mess on both sides, and the essentially proletarian uprising of the Draft Riots being super justified. It had very little interest in sanitizing anything. Laughing Zealot posted:Watched Silence and I'm a bit surprised to see criticism of Garfield's performance earlier in the thread, I thought he, along with pretty much everyone in the cast, was fantastic. Really pretty and well made film. I'm glad I watched Silence and never want to see it again, because it is punishing in its pacing and length. But yeah, Andrew Garfield was great. I kind of wish I saw a version where he and Adam Driver switched, but I don't think I've seen a "bad" performance from Andrew Garfield. I suspect he gets a lot of hate because he's extremely handsome in a boyish way, so playing characters who aren't "supposed to be" pretty boys makes him feel instantly miscast.
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Mar 11, 2021 23:49
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Garfield is really great in Under the Silver Lake because his character manages to subvert the expectations that his good looks and charm so often impose on him.
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Mar 12, 2021 02:22
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PeterCat posted:I don't know I feel like The Departed hold up well except for Jack Nicholson who feels very miscast as a Boston Lobster. take it back  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfjbbuKUqak I have a weird DiCaprio taste, I feel he did very well as an actor in Romeo+Juliet, Titanic, The Beach, The Departed and The Quick and the Dead (for a kid). Gangs of New York, Catch me if You Can, The Aviator and The Great Gatsby I felt were good, but weaker performances.
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Mar 12, 2021 13:41
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Giggle Goose posted:Garfield is really great in Under the Silver Lake because his character manages to subvert the expectations that his good looks and charm so often impose on him. This was one of the few times I thought he was perfectly cast, although I fuckin hated the movie.
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Mar 12, 2021 13:53
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:This was one of the few times I thought he was perfectly cast, although I fuckin hated the movie. Ditto. I'm honestly surprised more people weren't completely turned off by such an obnoxious and unlikeable character in an incredibly self indulgent movie, and I say that as someone who loved It Follows.
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Mar 12, 2021 18:45
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I watched Gangs of New York a long time ago. Was browsing through clips of it and found this fight scene that's scored to this sort-of rock instrumental tune by Peter Gabriel. It's very unusual. For me the music's good but it doesn't really gel with the scene -- more of a misstep for me. But I think there are split opinions about this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ij79LQXZDEk
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Apr 7, 2021 08:00
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Spatulater bro! posted:The only Scorsese movie I've felt "meh" about is The Color of Money. Everything else has been at worst great. I think it's because it's one of his less "timeless" movies just due to the subject matter, where unless you've spent a bit of time around older types of people who have gambled a bit harder than a trip to Vegas it doesn't capture as much for you. It's not one of the Americana-type of things that's been romantacized and mythologized like Sinatra-era Vegas or Goodfellas-era mob stuff. The pool-hall famous gambler stuff doesn't have as much mythology anymore. That bar scene, and the men's-night beer-sports nights and the regular neighborhood bowling alleys where they happened don't really exist on anywhere near the level they used to and that's really where gamblers and hustlers legends were born, grew, and talked about enough to stay alive. When pool halls and bowling alleys died out and the bar scene changed, that kind of stuff died out. Hustlers, gamblers and the antics and the legends that sprung up around it all was always more barroom bullshitting rather than stuff that was really written down seriously anywhere. (I like the movie myself but I can see why somebody wouldn't find it as interesting as his other movies.)
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Apr 8, 2021 21:30
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Vegetable posted:I watched Gangs of New York a long time ago. Was browsing through clips of it and found this fight scene that's scored to this sort-of rock instrumental tune by Peter Gabriel. It's very unusual. For me the music's good but it doesn't really gel with the scene -- more of a misstep for me. But I think there are split opinions about this.
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Apr 8, 2021 21:36
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Dante posted:No that part of the movie is just weird and bad. Gangs of New York is a rough diamond, not a misunderstood masterpiece. I’ve watched it a bunch but you’re right. Some of the music choices, some of the fight sequences and Diaz’s inconsistent accent(s) are some pretty noticeable flaws.
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Apr 8, 2021 21:46
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Vegetable posted:I watched Gangs of New York a long time ago. Was browsing through clips of it and found this fight scene that's scored to this sort-of rock instrumental tune by Peter Gabriel. It's very unusual. For me the music's good but it doesn't really gel with the scene -- more of a misstep for me. But I think there are split opinions about this. At least it wasn't Gimme Shelter or another god damned Rolling Stones song. And this is coming from a guy who loves the Rolling Stones. Spatulater bro! posted:The only Scorsese movie I've felt "meh" about is The Color of Money. Everything else has been at worst great. Some of it's kind of cheesy and not all of it lands. This was 80's Tom Cruise mode where he's The Best ________ (fill in the blank) and he's real cocky, which can wear thin I agree, and some of Paul Newman's Wise Old Pool Shark poo poo was overplayed but I still like the movie. Have you ever seen The Hustler?
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Apr 9, 2021 00:39
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BiggerBoat posted:Have you ever seen The Hustler? Yep, love it.
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Apr 9, 2021 15:22
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King of Comedy is maybe my new favorite on rewatch
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Apr 10, 2021 17:56
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FunkyAl posted:King of Comedy is maybe my new favorite on rewatch The King of Comedy is excellent and tragically underrated when people think of Scorsese's catalogue. The extent to which the 2019 Joker movie shamelessly rips it off is almost criminal, honestly. The movie is that much more impressive when you remember that Scorsese was directing it while in the throes of a pneumonia infection that nearly killed him on multiple occasions. (I believe that when shooting finally wrapped on King of Comedy, he got checked right back into the hospital and spent like a month there while Thelma Schoonmaker started editing everything.)
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Apr 10, 2021 23:15
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King of Comedy is fantastic and I wish more people knew about it. It's one of my favorite DeNiro performances and Sandra Bernhardt and Jerry Lewis are terrific in it. It's one of those movies I can watch over and over again and pick up something new every time. Like how Rupert's name gets mispronounced every time some talent scout or agent interacts with him. It's also available for free on Youtube, episodically. Or at least it was about 6 months ago.
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Apr 11, 2021 00:02
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Timby posted:The King of Comedy is excellent and tragically underrated when people think of Scorsese's catalogue. The extent to which the 2019 Joker movie shamelessly rips it off is almost criminal, honestly. It is amazing how much dumber joker is in direct comprison too. It's believable to me that Rupert is just charismatic enough to mask his illness in a lot of ways, convinces a date to visit jerry lewis, tells funny jokes on tv well, while still also being dangerous and totally ignorant of boundaries. Joker is like a cartoon drawing of a crazy person who is poor.
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Apr 11, 2021 03:48
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