i’ll say for the last time: i don’t dislike “after hours”; i would just put these films above it:
“king of comedy”–my favorite scorcese
“taxi driver”
“raging bull”
“mean streets”
“gangs of new york”–pete, sunhee and i saw this together and we all loved it.
Okay. But, really: why don’t you like “After Hours” enough?
My top 5 Scorsese:
“After Hours”
the short from “New York Stories”
“Goodfellas”
“King of Comedy”
“Taxi Driver”
But I liked “Gangs,” too.
Favorite as in the films I simply enjoy watching:
Goodfellas
Life Lessons
Raging Bull
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Age of Innocence
The Aviator
Greatest contributions to film:
Raging Bull
Taxi Driver
King of Comedy
Goodfellas
favorite scorsese film:
bringing out the dead
I also liked that one a lot – and it may be the last thing I liked Nicolas Cage in.
Mean Streets (how was this left off everyone’s list?)
Taxi Driver
The King of Comedy (which is, in a way, a comic remake of Taxi Driver. A Bickle to a Pupkin)
Goodfellas
Casino
Gangs of New York
I don’t know why I am reluctant to put Raging Bull up here. I guess it’s a near miss for me. I’d even put it below The Last Temptation of Christ. Maybe I just need to see it again.
Casino had also been left off – until you put it up John. I don’t generally like Top 5 lists, but what’s clear is just what an astounding bunch of movies the guy has made. Picking 5 is useless here.
And hey – a film that I absolutely love of his is My Voyage to Italy – and while I’m at it – his four hour doc. on American movies as well from ’95.
But My Voyage to Italy lets me raise a question I’d been wondering about since Gio’s strange comment a while back: Italians don’t watch Italian films. Or something like that – I’m not trying to be glib – I think the comment was pretty close to just that. May have had to do with The Leopard?
I have no basis to doubt you Gio, but I’m wondering, in light of My Voyage to Italy, if those “classic” Italian films were more of an influence on Italian-Americans than on real native Italians. That is, did the importing of these films to America provide immigrants and first generation American-Italians with (highly-stylized) peaks back to their homeland that they were desperate to see, while Italians were more content, given the choice, of watching standard American Hollywood fare, that would later be so influenced by the great directors still living in Italy?
One more thing Marty: Enough with DiCaprio! Scorsese has cast him an a bio-pic of Teddy Roosevelt now!? I have high hopes for The Departed – and for DiCaprio’s Blood Diamonds – but four features in a row with this guy is too much! Someone needs to rescue DeNiro from the nightmare of “comedies” that he’s in, and for god’s sake, that person should be Scorsese.
since i first said it on this blog, i’m obsessed with asking every italian i talk to whether he/she and his/her family and friends watch “classic” italian movies. the answer is no. are CIM broadcast on italian tv? almost never, and when they are shown, they are shown late at night. unfortunately, i know absolutely nothing about italian americans, a species that is as foreign to me as american jews, irish americans, and louisiana cajuns, though less foreign than african americans and native americans, because i’ve at least read some literature by african american and native american authors. so i cannot help with your suggestion, mark.
in the last decade, there has been a resurgence of italian cinema with very good films that italians watch. in the 90s it was calling itself something like “little cinema,” as an acknowledgement that it wasn’t even trying to imitate the italian giants of the past. i don’t know if italian auteurs still use this phrase. i like gianni amelio a lot, though he may have predated the little cinama phase.
From what I understand, Amelio is very popular in Italy, perhaps more so than here (or elsewhere in Europe). And he’s very much in the “classic” vein, whatever that may mean (I’m assuming “classic” Italian means everything from post WWII up to, but not including, early Antonioni–but is “classic” a style, or a period?). We have an Italian film professor here who is Italian (not Italian American). I’ll ask her, because she’s still very connected to her homeland.
i realize that mark with his degree in communication is only barely functionally literate, but john? “mean streets” is in my list at the very top of this discussion.
j’accuse!
I misread it: I thought you meant Meat Streams, Scorsese’s heartbreaking look at a Brooklyn butcher with a penchant for birdwatching along the East River, which featured a young Vic Tayback as a surly pre-packaged cold cuts vendor moving in on the turf of the naive butcher, played by the 2-year old Leonardo Dicaprio.
Just to follow up on Gio’s and Mark’s comments about Italian cinema/Italian audiences: my colleague, who teaches Italian cinema and is herself Italian, agrees with Gio that, yes, Italians love American cinema first–especially the younger generations. But she told me that people of her (our) generation are familiar with Ladri di Biciclette, Sciuscia, Germania anno zero.
Did Arnab say something?
never even heard of Germania anno zero, and only heard of Ladri and Sciuscia’ (meaning, i haven’t seen them). can you ask her, john, if she thinks people “our” generation saw such films on prime time tv, later than, say, 1979? cuz i don’t think it’s actually possible. and of course we didn’t have videos in such ancient times, and the theatres were certainly not showing de sica or visconti.
o forse puoi rispondere a queste domande direttamente tu, collega di john!