Friday, October 19, 2007

Iconic Movie Photos: Taxi Driver and Scarface










The movie Taxi Driver, directed by Martin Scorsese, was released in 1976, and has been considered one of the most influential movies of all time. This still is taken from the movie, and shows the main character, Travis Bickle (Robert DeNiro), who is currently sinking into insanity, buying guns, and training himself to be a killing machine. In this iconic scene in movie history, Travis is demonstrating his loneliness and instability when he looks into his mirror after drawing his gun a few times for practice, and says one of the most known lines in movie history. "Are you talkin' to me?"




This is a picture that shows Al Pacino saying an even more well known movie line, maybe the most well known and overly, poorly, distastefully imitated line from Scarface, 1983, "Say hello to my little friend!" I saw this movie two years ago for the first time two years ago and loved it. Although, I get sick of every tv show and comedy movie ever made somehow incorporating that line into the plot of their stories- the definition of butchering. I saw at least 10 parodies before i actually saw the movie! Nevertheless, that last scene in Scarface is still one of my favorite scenes of all time, and that photo is synonamous with the bloodbath that follows Tony Montana's famous line.



Sunday, October 14, 2007

Grindhouse, Part One: PLANET TERROR


Although it was a box office flop, this double feature by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino is one of the best times i've had at a movie theater. Grindhouse is a throwback to the 70's type grindhouse double feature movies that i was never around for. I got the idea of it though, and the style the movie was presented seemed authentic- they had certain parts in the movies when the screen looked like the film was ripping or burning, and a few times, a scene would cut out, replaced by the words "missing reel". Robert Rodriguez's film, "Planet Terror", my favorite out of the two, came first, and it started things off with a powerful kick. The song in the opening credits will be engraved into your mind for weeks and it will make you want to go see GRindhouse agian. The whole idea of this movie, as well as Tarantino's movie, "Death Proof", was to push the limit of gore, profanity, horror, etc. so far into the sky that it was literally hilarious. When you see this movie, you will laugh so hard that you want to puke. Or, for those with a weak stomach, you might just puke. In Planet Terror, Rose Mgowan plays a stripper in a town that is becoming overrun by zombies, who loses her leg and replaces it with a machine gun that she uses to kill zombies while riding on the back of motor cycles. If that isn't enough, Bruce Willis plays a small role of an ex: American soldier who fought in Iraq and killed Osama bin Laden, but is now back in the states, infected with a virus, and causing all sorts of havoc. Quentin Tarantino has a cameo as well as a rapist who gets killed by Rose Mcgowan. i dont think i need to say any more.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

The Departed


The Departed is easily the best film of this decade so far. Its no wonder why it won the Oscar for best picture in 2006. It had an all- star cast of Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, Alec Baldwin, Marc Walburg, and Leonardo DiCaprio (my opinion of him, which was mostly based on Titanic, completely changed after his performance in this). Out of all of his movies, Jack Nicholson's role in The Departed is my favorite. His character, Frank Costello, is the boss of the Irish Mob in Boston. The part was originally supposed to be played by DeNiro, but he was working on something else. From the very beginning, he hooks you in with the opening monologue. A really great part was when he came out of the back room with blood dripping from his hands to his forearms, also when he was having a conversation with DiCaprio with the decapitated hand in his hand- Both times, he was having conversations as if everything was normal. The sountrack to this movie was phenominal, and I really liked that Scorcese used "Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones again after using it in both Goodfellas, and Casino, 2 of his other best crime dramas. The Departed locked in Martin Scorcese as my favorite director of all time. The only downside to it is I doubt there will be another one that matches this in a long time.