by ·Comments Off on Mean Streets and Scorsese shorts

Mean Streets (1973)

A buddy comedy for the first half, gradually piling on the struggles until Keitel is overwhelmed between allegiances to his fuckup friend (De Niro), his girl (Amy Robinson), and his criminal employers. He chooses poorly, trying to have it all – but only the fuckup (and randomly, David Carradine) gets killed, in a movie with very few guns considering the poster art is a smoking gun.

Feels like play-acting for a while, a dress rehearsal for Goodfellas, but I think that’s because these guys are such small-time gamblers. Only one of them (Richard Romanus) has a car, they scout deals for cigarette cartons, and they think two thousand dollars is an impossible amount of money. David Proval is the guy who runs a bar, and I think Victor Argo’s the big boss. Young Scorsese already knew what he liked, kicking into slow-mo when the Rolling Stones song comes on.

from the commentary: Marty was fired from Honeymoon Killers and Woodstock… Mean Streets was a record of his own young life compressed into a few-days story… Cassavetes’ Shadows is credited as their inspiration of possibility, and Corman taught the filmmaking discipline (visible in the movie are posters for Husbands, X, and The Tomb of Ligeia)

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What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1963)

Nervy montage with stills and motion and stop-motion and graphic elements, tied together with a comic narration by struggling writer Harry. Suffering a block, he throws a house party and meets a girl. Marty’s earliest short seems to be telling us: “I really enjoyed Zazie dans le metro.”

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It’s Not Just You, Murray! (1964)

Murray is here to show off his success and say it’s all thanks to Joe, who started him on bootlegging gin. Another silly little film with comic narration which feels like it’s making it up as it goes. The gangster parody becomes a Hollywood musical parody… Joe steals Murray’s wife, then we jump to an inexplicable 8 1/2 ending.

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Italianamerican (1974)

Just a good time around the table, talking about food, family and the old days. I appreciate that Marty continues eating in the foreground while his camera crew films his family.

by ·Comments Off on Boxcar Bertha (1972, Martin Scorsese)

Barbara Hershey, who also appears in two (but not all) of Scorsese’s movies where someone gets crucified, sees her cropduster daddy die then hits the Depression-era road. She and family friend Von (Bernie Casey of The Man Who Fell to Earth, In the Mouth of Madness) and railworker Bill (David Carradine, whose dad plays a railroad bigwig) meet up in various places and get into hijinks. Good performances, especially in the second half, and some sharp editing, but this is more a Roger Corman period adventure story than anything else.

Bertha caught between two Carradines:

The cops and strikebreakers in this are real pieces of shit. She meets a moneyman called Rake, she shoots a guy who calls everyone he dislikes a red, and she jailbreaks her friends… there’s a nice classic car wreck off a cliff, another gets smashed by a train, there are some shotgun murders, and Bertha and friends become professional bank robbers. She’s freed from a whorehouse by Von, but both guys finally get busted.

Von taking care of business:

Strikebreaker on the left would become a Scorsese regular, mustache guy would disappear.

by ·Comments Off on Kill Bill (2003-04, Quentin Tarantino)

I haven’t seen this since it premiered. Teenaged Me was really into Tarantino, and also Counting Crows and Gin Blossoms and the Nightmare on Elm Street movies and Wayne’s World and Tim Burton and Mortal Kombat, and most of those things are no longer good, so sometimes I forget that Tarantino still is.

Anyway, here’s what happens in Kill Bill Volume 1:

Whole wedding party is wiped out, execution-style by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.

The Bride shows up at Vernita’s house (Vivica A. Fox, lately of Empire). A quick knife fight, then relaxed conversation, then sudden death.

Flashback to the aftermath of the bloody wedding, investigated by the cop from Grindhouse, then Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) is sent to assassinate the Bride in her hospital bed but Bill calls her off at the last minute. We never find out what the Bride did, exactly, to deserve this treatment.

The Bride awakens, righteously murders the dudes who have been coma-raping her, and hits the road in a stolen Pussy Wagon.

O-Ren Ishii animated backstory, which is basically Lady Snowblood.

The Bride talks the retired swordsmith Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba of bunches of Kinji Fukasaku films) into making her a perfect sword.

The Big Finale of Part 1: The Bride shows up at the House of Blue Leaves, taking on crazed teen Gogo (Chiaki Kuriyama of Battle Royale, The Great Yokai War)…

and O-Ren herself (Lucy Liu)

“Is she aware her daughter is still alive?”

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Volume 2:

Wedding reprise, she introduces Bill as her father to groom Tommy (oscar-winning makeup artist Chris Nelson)

Budd (Michael Madsen) has a horrible strip club bouncer job and a pointless life, but he has been warned that the Bride is coming, and he gets the drop on her then buries her alive.

In flashback, Bill sends the Bride to be tutored by Pai Mei (Gordon Liu, star of The 36th Chamber of Shaolin with comical white hair), who teaches her “it’s the wood that should fear your hand,” and she destroys the coffin and emerges from the ground living-dead-style. 95% of movies would open with the training scene, then when she’s in trouble an hour later have a voiceover reminder of the training scene, then victory… it seems more effective to structure it this way (hopeless situation / flashback to training scene / solution).

Elle kills Budd via snake, and a close-quarters swordfight with the risen Bride follows. Elle loses her other eye. Frequent sightings of the movie poster for Mr. Majestyk.

The Bride visits Bill and rescues her daughter via the five point palm exploding heart technique.

“The lioness has rejoined her cub and all is right in the jungle.”