Doomsday's Andrei Tarkovsky Love Fest

And now the continuation of....

Doomsday's Exploration of the Scorsese Filmography

The King of Comedy (1983)

View count: Fourth or fifth time, give or take



There's a scene in Taxi Driver where Travis walks into the campaign office of Senator Palatine and angrily confronts Betsy in what becomes a very awkward exchange. You feel sorry and embarrassed for Travis while thinking 'I can't believe he's doing this.' That feeling of discomfort is the feeling you have throughout the entirety of The King of Comedy. It's a dark 'comedy' about a struggling stand up comedian whose persistence knows no bounds. He lies, deceives and ultimately kidnaps all in pursuit of his dreams. He's a darkly tragic and delusional character to the point where you really can't imagine or expect what he will do next. It's what could make The King of Comedy a subject of some great discussion; is it just a weird film or is it secretly, genuinely brilliant?

Robert DeNiro stars as Rupert Pupkin (can you think of a more perfect name for this character?) in his fifth performance in a Martin Scorsese movie. He's a man with a dream to become a famous comedian and talk show host just like his idol Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis who performs his character as the straight man through the entire movie) and desperately tries to get Jerry, a huge celebrity, to give him a shot. Jerry of course couldn't care less but Rupert is convinced that Langford sees greatness in him. Following several awkward exchanges where Rupert sneaks his way into Langford's limo, stalks him at his network office and even drops by his home, Rupert finally decides to kidnap Langford and threatens to kill him unless he can perform his routine on the Jerry Langford show.

Rupert is a cartoon character amongst a city of normal people, the sole exception being a fellow obsessed fan and fellow kidnapper played by Sandra Bernhard. When Rupert isn't out in the real world he's in his basement rehearsing. He's not rehearsing his routine, he's having fake conversations with Langford. He's pretending to be a guest on Langford's talk show. He's pretending to talk to the cardboard audience that he set up in his basement to resemble an actual studio. When he isn't living in his fantasy world he goes about convincing people that he knows Jerry and that he's going to be a big star. He's already convinced himself of the same things and has such conviction to his delusions that it's easy for other people around him to follow along. Again, Rupert is anything if persistent and the ending of the film shows that persistence is key as Rupert finds himself banking off the kidnapping and performance, finding fame and fortune as an author and performer.

The culmination of the entire movie is Rupert finally opening for the Jerry Langford Show. It's actually a pretty incredible scene for a couple reasons. First, the jokes that Rupert performs are terrible although that would be expected. The second is that Robert DeNiro really hams it up and it's amazing to watch. If you love comedy as much as I do you'll see that DeNiro was really trying to be as awful of a comedian as he could be and he's great at it. Being the method actor he is, I wouldn't be surprised if he went to local stand-up shows and open mics to get a grasp as to what really makes a bad comedian. Rupert is unnatural, his delivery is forced, his energy is much too high, he pauses and telegraphs his punchlines. He's the epitome of a hack and DeNiro nails it. What's also funny about Rupert's act is that throughout the movie you see him fantasize about being friends with Langford but you don't see anything in the way of actual comedy. When he shows up to the network office to talk about getting a spot on the Langford show he doesn't even have material. He has to go home and record a tape of jokes he had written down. It's likely that Rupert had never even performed comedy up to that point, he was only obsessed with the idea of being a somebody in a crowd of nobodies. Maybe Rupert and Travis have more in common than I thought.

The movie itself wasn't a hit. In fact it was a dud at the box office and it's not hard to see why. For a movie titled 'The King of Comedy' there isn't much in the way of comedy yet it's hard to really work it into any other genre. Ultimately you could describe it as a dark comedy but there's little to no actual humor other than some physical gags like Langford being tied up in a mountain of duct tape or DeNiro dropping his gun while abducting Langford, a funny scene which looked like an accident more than anything and was fortunately kept in the movie. The rest of the film consists of that awkward embarrassment and tension that you feel for a character. It's one thing to feel that in your gut during a certain scene or two in a film but it almost becomes hard to watch when it's throughout the whole movie. Still, this is a movie that I do have a certain appreciation for and I really admire the characters and performances that were made here. I can't think of another movie that's similar to The King of Comedy in terms of tone and execution and that's probably because nobody would try to emulate it. It may not be Scorsese's best film and it won't be the one he's remembered for but it's just as ambitious as anything else he had done up to that point, but like many dark and offbeat jokes it just might have gone over everyones heads.

There's nothing comics like more than watching another comic fail. It's like watching a car crash, you can't look away.

I'm convinced that DeNiro and Scorsese had this in mind when making The King of Comedy. It's car crash humor for stand up comics.

And now the continuation of....

Doomsday's Exploration of the Scorsese Filmography

After Hours (1985)

View count: First time



This movie is perplexing to say the least. Taken at face value it's a wacky, strange film about a guy named Paul who meets a girl at a diner, goes to her apartment and a night of terrible happenings ensue. The thing is, I'm not sure how else to take it if not at face value. I don't really think it's meant to be taken otherwise. It's a movie that's more focused on the experiences that Paul has to endure while meeting a wide array of characters. Paul doesn't have an arc, there isn't some huge revelation nor is there any purpose or reason for Paul to go through some shift in order to justify whatever journey he's on. It's Paul and a load of bad luck. That isn't a bad thing though, after all it's not trying to incorporate any of that into the film. It's a movie that's stylistically impressive, it's definitely a product of its 80s time period and certainly isn't boring, it just does what it sets out to do.

Many of us have had one of 'those nights' where things take a sharp, often dark turn from where we wanted to be. For Paul, it begins as just another night at his local diner. There he meets a girl named Marcy who gives him her phone number. He quickly calls her and she invites him over. He meets Marcy's roommate Kiki, a goth type who is working on a paper mache sculpture. Paul quickly realizes that Marcy might not be everything he imagined and soon leaves. Thus begins his journey of trying to get home, complete with suicide, angry mobs, thieves, kidnappings, being witness to a murder, ice cream trucks and worst of all, raised subway fares. It's a night that pushes Paul to limits that he didn't even know he had.

Like The King of Comedy, After Hours is probably best classified as a 'dark comedy' and like the other movie it's hard to pin down exactly where the comedy lies. I suppose the humor is strictly situational as the movie doesn't contain traditional jokes or dialogue that help make it memorable. In fact it doesn't have much of anything that could be labeled as 'funny.' Instead it's a running gag of bad luck for Paul. Not just bad luck, it's a web of interconnected events that play off each other in a warped, cosmic cause and effect execution that convinces Paul that this night will be the end of him. It's a very unconventional comedy on the heels of another unconventional comedy for Scorsese. My thoughts on the movie might seem a bit scatterbrained and that's because they are. I'm not entirely sure where to come down on this movie because I'm trying to find a point to it when I know there really isn't one. So much is happening to Paul as he tries to make it home that you want to sympathize with him. You want to root for Paul especially as the tension builds but it's hard. It's hard because you don't know Paul. You don't know why he's a word processor (his day job), why he doesn't like it, you don't know what else he wants in life and you don't know what he did to deserve the worst night in the history of bad nights. The movie hinges on the crazy circumstances where Paul finds himself and in that sense it works well but even then it starts to feel like a series of events rather than a complete narrative. I had a good time watching After Hours and it's certainly a movie I'll revisit and reconsider, I just wish it gave me more to latch onto.

Well maybe I'll oversell The Color of Money and it'll be a wash.

I used to write a lot of stupid one-line reviews at IMDb, back in the 90's when they used to allow such shenanigans. My "review" for The Color of Money was... "Although lacking the cultural significance of Michael Jackson's Bad, The Color of Money proves to be Martin Scorsese's greatest achievement in music videos."

Tom Cruise played the greatest douchebag on film. Crazy to think this movie came out the same year as Top Gun. What range!

1. The Departed (2006) - $174 million
2. Cape Fear (1991) - $163 million
3. The Aviator (2004) - $139.3 million
4. Shutter Island (2010) - $139.2 million
5. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) - $126 million
6. The Color of Money (1986) - $121 million
7. Taxi Driver (1976) - $112.7 million
8. Gangs of New York (2002) - $112.6 million
9. Goodfellas (1990) - $95.8 million
10. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974) - $86 million

Marty has never been a box office darling. Studios make his movies cause they respect his work. If he made The Color of Money it's because King of Comedy and After Hours weren't exactly Taxi Driver and Raging Bull.

Based on memory, I agree.

No. You are wrong.

Doomsday knows darn well my feelings about the 1990 Oscars. Andy Garcia was robbed. His character in Godfather III was the better developed one - incest and all. Joe Pesci has like 5 minutes of screentime in Goodfellas and it was just making jokes, killing people and then getting shot in the head. I don't know how he even got nominated. His character in Home Alone is definitely more fleshed out and he has Daniel Stern to play off and all the physical comedy. When people think Joe Pesci they think My Cousin Vinny (his defining role and more worthy of an Oscar), Home Alone, Lethal Weapon and THEN that one scene in Goodfellas.

He's gone full troll.