Doomsday's Andrei Tarkovsky Love Fest

He was needlessly in The Good Shepherd.

I liked Eight Heads in Duffel Bag when I saw it in high school. I'm afraid to re-watch it, in case it sucks.

Cape Fear is awesome. One of my faves.

Here's a movie to watch before Doomsday Jr arrives

It's.... a movie.

Wait, is there a Doomsday Jr?

Congrats. You should let us name him.

And now the continuation of....

Doomsday's Exploration of the Scorsese Filmography

Casino (1995)

View count: Several times



1995. That was the year Casino, Scorsese's Las Vegas-set gangster film starring Robert DeNiro, Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone, was released. On paper it's a winning formula and in practice it still is. The only downside to 1995 is that it was released just five years after Scorsese's last true masterpiece, Goodfellas. Immediately people started remarking on the very obvious comparisons between the two and why wouldn't they? It has all the hallmarks of a Scorsese gangster film right down to the 50s/60s doo-wop soundtrack, nevermind the fact that the movie takes place in the late 70s-early 80s. For a long time I held the same mindset, that Casino was just a rehash of Goodfellas in most respects. Was it Scorsese taking another swing at Oscar gold by repeating a winning formula? Was he wanting to go back to his gritty roots after The Age of Innocence? At first glance I thought it was the mark of a director doing what he did best, but as I got older though I started to see Casino as much more than that.

Casino is a Scorsese gangster film once again written by Nicholas Pileggi. The movie is narrated by the main characters and profiles the rise and fall of the fictional mob-run casino Tangiers. Robert DeNiro is Sam Rothstein, a pro-handicapper turned casino manager who runs the Tangiers. His primary concern is the meticulous operation of the casino, right down to the number of blueberries in the muffins. In the meantime the mob is quietly siphoning cash out of the expertly-run casino and sending it back to Kansas City. Sam's childhood friend Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci) is a borderline sadistic mob enforcer sent by the higher-ups in Kansas City to make sure the siphoning goes off without a hitch while Sam keeps the casino in business. Before long Sam decides to complicate his life by marrying Ginger (Sharon Stone), an ex-prostitute who still holds attachments to her conniving pimp Lester (James Woods). Soon Sam's personal life begins to spiral out of control, Nicky's reach for power begins to make things for the mob unravel and the FBI slowly makes a case to bring them all down.

As stated, to point out the similarities to Goodfellas is to point out the obvious. Even Joe Pesci, as good as he is here, seems to be playing Tommy Devito in everything but name. That view however is a pretty surface-level view to take. There is much more to Casino than just the mob component. Often times you forget that Sam is even associated with organized crime. For the first act of the movie you're too busy getting immersed in the whole lifestyle of 1970s Las Vegas. Sam is forced to deal with cheaters, hustlers and employees who may or may not be trying to scam him. His job and his life are the Tangiers. Even when Ginger comes into the picture the movie is more of a profile of Sam as he juggles his affairs of running the casino and pleasing a wife who never truly loved him in the first place. As Sam laments that he's in a loveless marriage with a greedy wife and has a reputation tarnished by a mobster friend, his primary concern is still the operation of the casino. It's an extension of himself, an extension as far reaching as his own bedroom where he monitors the tables before sleeping. The mob component of the film isn't even the most interesting. It's fun to watch Pesci outsmart and outfox the FBI but the real action is watching DeNiro operate behind the scenes of the Tangiers. Sam's life is structured, ordered and organized. He operates the Tangiers as a mirror reflection of his own life. As goes his life, so goes his grip on his prized casino.

For Scorsese himself, I wouldn't necessarily regard Casino as a milestone in his career although it's still a fantastic movie in its own right. It was released when Robert DeNiro was an actor who didn't have twenty years of garbage under his belt. Joe Pesci gives maybe his last really solid performance, although The Irishman might make me walk that back. It's also more of a character piece than people give it credit for. As I said earlier, it's a movie that gets better with age as you see it as less of a 'gangster' film and more of a drama. Unfortunately for many people it's still a movie that lives in the shadow of Scorsese's previous and superior mobster film. Casino certainly does stand on its own merit but the shadows of other films are still apparent. Had it been released a little down the road it might have been received a little differently but if you can look past the obvious similarities it's another feather in the cap of a director perfecting his already finely tuned craft.

Sharon Stone's last scene is one of my favorites.

You have Kundun next. Don't badmouth Departed just yet.

Movies from Boston are generally crap.

And now the continuation of....

Doomsday's Exploration of the Scorsese Filmography

Kundun (1997)

View count: First time



It never occurred to me until I started watching all of Martin Scorsese's movies in order how diverse a filmmaker he was. I'm sure at one point I had considered how he had taken on a few different types of genres but it's hard for me to think of another filmmaker who is truly willing to take any subject, any time period, any theme and make his mark on it. I know I sound like a broken record but it's once again a point that's driven home with Kundun, a movie about the 14th Dalai Lama. Admittedly I know little about the Dalai Lama, the tensions between Tibet and China, or Buddhism in general. What I do know is that the Dalai Lama is a respected and admired spiritual figurehead even today which makes Scorsese's interest apropos.

Kundun it is revealed was the name of the first Dalai Lama. Since his death the Buddhists have believed that he has been reincarnated which continues the succession of Dalai Lamas. The film opens with a group of monks 'discovering' a young boy living with his family in Tibet. The monks administer a test where they show the boy ordinary items, some of which belonged to the previous Dalai Lama. The boy selects the appropriate ones and is soon named the 14th Dalai Lama. As he grows older though he sees how the world changes around him, first by reading of the atrocities of World War II and shortly thereafter witnessing the terrors that Communist China led by Chairman Mao Zedong would bring to his native Tibet. As communication breaks down and the Chinese forcefully bring Tibet into their fold, the Dalai Lama is forced to flee to India where he has remained ever since.

Scorsese has been a filmmaker that incorporates religion in many of his films to varying degrees, whether it's devout characters, themes or just iconography in the background. The spiritual aspects of this film journey away from his Catholic Christian roots and naturally centers around Buddhism. As stated I know little about the actual tenants of Buddhism and even less about the history of the Dalai Lama but Scorsese attempts to show how the Dalai Lama is revered by his followers rather than just giving us a historical narration. Like I said previously, one of the first scenes shows the Dalai Lama as a little boy who is asked to choose from a variety of items. Each one is correctly picked as those that belonged to the previous Dalai Lama. Later in the film the Dalai Lama proclaims that he remembers 'where he left his teeth.' He walks to a small cabinet and produces a pair of dentures, dentures that also belonged to his predecessor. Did these events actually happen? Who knows, but with these little happenings Scorsese is giving the audience the perspective that his followers would have. The belief that your spiritual and cultural leader is the reincarnation of all previous spiritual and cultural leaders is a pretty important tenant to those following that particular faith and while Scorsese doesn't quite explore it, he does lend it credence for the sake of his film. On the other hand though, there are some things that Scorsese didn't explore much either.

My first initial thought when watching Kundun was that it was very much in the vein of Bertolucci's The Last Emperor. Both deal with a child taken from his home and installed into an extremely powerful role, The Last Emperor's case being Pu Yi becoming the Emperor of China at age 3. Kundun's script however, written by the late Melissa Mathison of E.T. fame, feels much more like a sequence of events rather than a reflection on a life. Little characterization and a seemingly rotating roster of supporting characters forces Kundun's main conflicts to be external rather than internal and the internal exploration would have made the character of the Dalai Lama and the film itself much more interesting. Every conflict, every crossroad is met with an 'okay, now what?' response from the film. It felt difficult to feel the real gravity of what was happening since most of the film took place in the mountains and monasteries of Tibet. Even exploring the brief interactions with Mao, possibly the worst mass killer in world history with the implementation of his Great Leap Forward, would have added some heft that the film was so severely lacking. Perhaps the point of the movie was to stress the isolation that the Dalai Lama was feeling by keeping the film focused on his own perspective but that didn't make the film personal, it made it feel dull. I kept saying to myself 'let's see more of this, let's explore that, what happened here?' but much of it felt so glossed over that it almost makes me want to watch The Last Emperor again to see how a film so thematically similar succeeded where Kundun failed. Unfortunately, for me this is in the 'thumbs down' camp of Scorsese's films. Maybe my mind will change after another viewing, I just don't think I'll feel the need to revisit anytime soon.

If my memory serves me correctly, this is the last of Scorsese's features that was brand-new to me. From here on out I'll be revisiting films that I've seen several times (The Departed), films I've seen once and hardly remember (Bringing Out the Dead), ones I enjoyed more than I thought I would (Shutter Island) and ones I didn't like nearly as much as everyone else (Hugo). We'll see if my thoughts change on any of them.