[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

it is not what it is about, but how it goes about it. This is about con-artists as opposed to gangsters. multiple characters give voice overs as if they are first person narrators, the progression is shown from low-rent con to high level grifter, etc.

Like Casino (also boring as all fuck), american hustle is a pointless two hours.

i didn't like casino, as it was a repetition of a repetition of a repetition, but american hustle kept me laughing. casino-- so serious! american hustle-- bad wigs!

the progression/buildup is just like any narrative structure with a climax-- i don't think it's exclusive to goodfellas.

[Rob Instigator]

The only character I actually cared about was the NJ Gov. Politto.

so, should I watch the rest of Cap America winter soldier, or should I give 22 JUmp Street a try? I recorded both on DVR during the STARZ free preview weekend.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

The only character I actually cared about was the NJ Gov. Politto.

yeah, i felt bad for him, but he was a politician

i liked the main couple (whatsisname +amy adams)

and the mexican sheik ha ha ha

etc.

j-law was great too in her role

oh and i hated the fucking fed-- well played though, we're meant to hate the douche

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

so, should I watch the rest of Cap America winter soldier, or should I give 22 JUmp Street a try? I recorded both on DVR during the STARZ free preview weekend.

cap america is pretty shit superhero crap. if you're bored with it, i wouldn't say there are deeper layers of meaning that await for you on 2nd viewing. but maybe something to have on while doing repetitive tasks.

[Severian]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

i didn't like casino, as it was a repetition of a repetition of a repetition, but american hustle kept me laughing. casino-- so serious! american hustle-- bad wigs!

the progression/buildup is just like any narrative structure with a climax-- i don't think it's exclusive to goodfellas.

But you have to (or should) admit that GoodFellas kind of perfected this narrative style. Criminals, hustlers, gangsters, gamblers... It's all been done at this point, and I feel like it originated with GoodFellas. That whole "look at how crazy our scene is... Man, we are invinci-- Oh, shit everything's unraveling" sort of story.

In Wolf of Wall Street it was Stockbrokers. In Boogie Nights (one of the earlier "GoodFellas-lite" entries, it was porn stars. In Entourage it was publicists and producers. On Rescue Me it was NYC Firefighters. (Hell, even Pulp Fiction kinda qualifies... though not all of it)

It's all a GoodFellas archetype, even if it's by Scorcese himself. In fact, he doesn't seem interested in doing much else after he finally got his Oscar. I suppose he's entitled.

I for one, haven't seen American Hustle all the way through. I can't speak to that specific film, I suppose. But I know that just about every review I read of it mentioned Scorcese.

I'd watch it if people started saying "it's kinda like GoodFellas" instead of "It's GoodFellas-lite" ... Yuck. Like, Diet GoodFellas? No thank you.

[Severian]

Did you think Man Of Steel was "pretty shit superhero crap?"

With the sequel (Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice aka The Superman movie that gives an untested Batman top billing aka whaaaaaat?) seemingly just around the corner, I've revisited Man of Steel and I can't believe people responded so negatively to it. I LOVED it. I thought it was far better than anyone has any right to expect a Superman film to be. As good for Supes as TDK was for Batman. It's a shame they'll be defiling both franchises with this Affleck knob waxing mess.

Anyway just curious. I think all the Marvel movies are standard, mostly crappy and boring superhero shit, with Guardians of the Galaxy being the undisputed most badass and original film ever to be associated with the Marvel name..: but I had a soft spot for the first Captain America, and I have not yet seen the second.

(Cap has always been, like Daredevil, one of those Marvel characters that somehow grabs me even though I'm a DC man born and bred. Perhaps because they're kind of like the Superman and Batman of the lame Marvel world? I was hoping the second Cap. Film would be surprisingly good like the first, but ... Not counting on it now)

Though shit should get pretty real in Captain America: Civil War (which really should be an Avengers movie, considering the cast of characters. But... Whatever.. I'm just typing now.)

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Severian

But you have to (or should) admit that GoodFellas kind of perfected this narrative style. Criminals, hustlers, gangsters, gamblers... It's all been done at this point, and I feel like it originated with GoodFellas. That whole "look at how crazy our scene is... Man, we are invinci-- Oh, shit everything's unraveling" sort of story.

In Wolf of Wall Street it was Stockbrokers. In Boogie Nights (one of the earlier "GoodFellas-lite" entries, it was porn stars. In Entourage it was publicists and producers. On Rescue Me it was NYC Firefighters. (Hell, even Pulp Fiction kinda qualifies... though not all of it)

It's all a GoodFellas archetype, even if it's by Scorcese himself. In fact, he doesn't seem interested in doing much else after he finally got his Oscar. I suppose he's entitled.

I for one, haven't seen American Hustle all the way through. I can't speak to that specific film, I suppose. But I know that just about every review I read of it mentioned Scorcese.

I'd watch it if people started saying "it's kinda like GoodFellas" instead of "It's GoodFellas-lite" ... Yuck. Like, Diet GoodFellas? No thank you.

i like goodfellas, one of my favorite scorsese movies, and one of my favorite movies ever, but if everything is a form of goodfellas then i wanna be goodfellas with irish butter because then i could lick myself all day. or i could be the weed goodfellas and smoke my own fingers.

in gangster films, the how great/unraveling goes at least way back to the first scarface. not the depalma scarface but the one with paul muni from 1932. go watch it!

ps- wait, little caesar was a year before

[Toilet & Bowels]

I enjoyed both Cap films. There's some decent plot stuff in the 2nd one, although from what I remember it ends up with 15 - 20 mins of shapes crashing around that is the standard climax for all superhero movies.
Were you bored of the film, or are Marvel movies getting to be old hat now?

[!@#$%!]

the best thing about the 2nd captain america was scarlett

wait was that the 2nd? oh yes! scarlett

i had forgotten

MUST WATCH SCARLETT

i loved avengers which is a joss whedon thing but the whole marvel universe is getting overly... turgid. agents of shield which i was very excited about has turned out pretty terrible and i watch mostly out of obligation. the other pieces filling the puzzle as well. thor 1 was decent, thor 2 was meh. guardians of teh galaxy supposedly fits into that universe as well and was mediocre. waiting for age of ultron on disc but i'm not holding my breath for it. too much forced shit trying to make it all connect but at the same time it doesn't really connect in some magnificent plot-- it's all just name-dropping and it's dull. "thor couldn't be here because he had to go to the corner for milk". hm yeah...

--


found a link of scorsese's favorite gangster movies

http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...-scorsese.html

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by Rob Instigator

it is not what it is about, but how it goes about it. This is about con-artists as opposed to gangsters. multiple characters give voice overs as if they are first person narrators, the progression is shown from low-rent con to high level grifter, etc.

Like Casino (also boring as all fuck), american hustle is a pointless two hours.

Id much rather sit through Casino while playing around on my phone and otherwise barely paying attention than sitting through American Hustle again while playing on my phone and otherwise barely paying attention to it cuz at least Casino has Bobby D (De Niro) in it

[demonrail666]

Originally Posted by !@#$%!

in gangster films, the how great/unraveling goes at least way back to the first scarface.

Sure but in those earlier film, the unravelling comes as the result of an individual psychosis or as a direct result of their gangster activities. What Scorsese emphasises is people unravelling due to the lifestyles that come with that activity. Not that the lifestyle wasn't a factor in those earlier films, but it took Scorsese to really put it at the centre of the genre, starting with Mean Streets (to a degree), perfected by Goodfellas/Casino and perhaps taken a little too far with Wolf (Goodfellas with calculators),

or in other words, I agree with Severian.

I also think people are too harsh on Casino. It may be a little too much like Goodfellas for its own good, but it's still head and shoulders above 90% of movies in that vein. Really, the worst anyone can say about Casino is it isn't quite as good as Goodfellas. But given so few films are, it's not a big deal for me.

[evollove]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Really, the worst anyone can say about Casino is it isn't quite as good as Goodfellas.

Play a mind game, and imagine a world where Goodfellas was never made. Casino is suddenly a groundbreaking masterpiece, no?

Coincidence: a few days ago I looked a little into the "real" Henry Hill and Tommy and Paulie. The latter two were especially terrible humans, and my biggest criticism of both films is the characters are softened a little. Tommy, at least, would've ended up a casual serial killer if he had been born in Utah or something.

Perhaps the character flaws mere muted a bit to maintain/emphasize the "lifestyle" theme?

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous

Id much rather sit through Casino while playing around on my phone and otherwise barely paying attention than sitting through American Hustle again while playing on my phone and otherwise barely paying attention to it cuz at least Casino has Bobby D (De Niro) in it

American Hustle has Bobby D in a cameo playing the same damn shit he always plays lately.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

Sure but in those earlier film, the unravelling comes as the result of an individual psychosis or as a direct result of their gangster activities. What Scorsese emphasises is people unravelling due to the lifestyles that come with that activity. Not that the lifestyle wasn't a factor in those earlier films, but it took Scorsese to really put it at the centre of the genre, starting with Mean Streets (to a degree), perfected by Goodfellas/Casino and perhaps taken a little too far with Wolf (Goodfellas with calculators),

or in other words, I agree with Severian.

i don't know many stories in western literature where "evil" doesn't get its "comeuppance" one way or another. failure through excess is nothing new. look at michael corleonne-- wants to do good, get caught up in a lifestyle, everything goes to shit. look at barry lyndon-- destroyed by "making it" where he doesn't belong. look at the life of napoleon. or alexander the great, legendarily killed by his excesses. julius caesar, triumphant & stabbed. look at the history of rome, glory & decadence. look at the great gatsby. etc. x 1000. even bruce lee was killed ultimately by lifting too much weight (broken disc --> medication --> pow) . goodfellas after all is based in a real life story. this shit happens all the time. it just doesn't happen with such great style as in goodfellas. style is the key.

goodfellas is of course a masterpiece of the gangster genre. i love that movie-- fantastically written and acted and shot and edited and a great soundtrack. it's been countlessly ripped off and it has set the standard for the gangster genre afterwards, from tarantino to the sopranos. but we cant' reduce everything to it in spite of its influence. it's kind of like saying everything is a version of the bible, or the greek myths, or don quijote (the modern novel was invented by cervantes so i guess every novel written after is don quijote?)

regardless of how good or how many times goodfellas has been copied since the 90s, my beef is not with goodfellas but with the notion that american hustle is some kind of "goodfellas lite" (i've seen that repeatedly on the internet so i don't blame this thread for that blunder). sure, it has things in common. it's a gangster period piece with a great soundtrack, and it's also based on a real-life case and a criminal's memoirs. so on the surface one could say "hm, yeah". and it has a similar narrative convention of multiple points of view (like doestoevski, or eisenstein). so one coud say it follows in the gangster genre after the genre was transformed by goodfellas-- fair enough. but it's an altogether different story, with different intentions and a different characters and emotional content. raskolnikov is not sancho-dark. american hustle is not goodfellas-lite. goofellas is not a degenerate-battleship-potemkin or an urban great train robbery.

SPOILER SPOILERS-- sorry to give away the surprise punchline but in american hustle they do get away with their crimes by actually committing more crimes (ripping off the fbi and fucking over the agent that trapped them). in spite of the massive mindfuck and all appearances to the contrary the main characters are actually not betraying each other, but helping each other out as much as they can while under pressure from the cops. sure, you don't find this out until the end, which is a bit unfair, but this happes like that. there is also no antrhopological angle here where we see mafia traditions and rituals. and they do not succumb in an orgy of darkness. in spite of the scares, there are no actual massacres or bodies in trunks. and the movie is ultimately not a tragedy, but a comedy-- a farce, even. "i fought the law and i won." the law here is not the invincible nemesis cavalry with helicopters but a bunch of incompetent bureucrats with petty/greedy agendas that can be played. goodfellas had great funny moments, but it has more dead bodies than a shakespeare tragedy and it has a sad end. in american hustle, if you're willing to entertain this cheesy formula, "love triumphs against all obstacles". it's not about "comeuppance". thematically, it's actually much more closely related to david o russell's own "three kings." just in different drag. END END SPOILERS.

so i find the comparison to scorsese a reductionist and cheap dismissal. i understand if people don't like the movie-- it's unhinged and at times goofy, and some people don't like unhinged or goofy. i do. don't put metal in the science oven.

Originally Posted by evollove

Play a mind game, and imagine a world where Goodfellas was never made. Casino is suddenly a groundbreaking masterpiece, no?

i probably would have liked it a lot more, but at the time it came across like a broken record. for me it was "uffffff, here he goes again..." i wish he had given the gangsters a break for a while. but also it doesn't have the same insane energy so it feels like a hangover when you compare it to the high that is goodfellas, even if he recycles the rolling stones for it.

[demonrail666]

You're basing too much on a casual remark. 'Goodfellas-lite'? Maybe not. Too specific. 'Scorsese-lite'? Don't see how anyone could argue with that.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

You're basing too much on a casual remark. 'Goodfellas-lite'? Maybe not. Too specific. 'Scorsese-lite'? Don't see how anyone could argue with that.

severian mentioned he saw it in several places. i've even seen "goodfellas-lite" in portuguese (it's on rotten tomatoes i think). it's a meme, and it's an incorrect one.

but it's not scorsese lite either. i can totally argue with that.

scorsese is a serious man who wanted to be a priest and makes serious movies that usually chronicle some sort of descent into darkness.

david o. russell makes wacky comedies where people escape difficult situations usually by sticking together in spite of various challenges, and loves happy endings.

scorsese's work is *tight*. russell is way more freewheeling and chaotic.

spanking the monkey. flirting with disaster. three kings. i heart huckabees. american hustle obviously belongs with this bunch. it's demented, and funny, and happy ending-- well, not spaking the monkey maybe, but it's demented for sure and funny. the fighter not as funny but same themes, couple survives all kinds of crap, even loyalty to the brother survives family disfunction. silver linings playbook not as funny, but same romantic comedy subject. i actually find him more related to almodóvar than scorsese.

clearly a different kind of auteur. nothing to do with scorsese except in the sense that everyone has to do with scorsese after him. i only remember one scorsese movie about couples, with deniro and meryl streep? they meet on a train or something? can't remember much about that one. definitely not his forte.

like i said, if everything must be a form of goodfellas i wanna be irish butter goodfellas. shit, make me a ham and butter scorsese if i must be a version of scorsese. one needs protein.

[demonrail666]

It's Scorsese lite cos he's copped Scorsese's style and taken it in a lighter, safer direction. It's a poor man's Scorsese, played for laughs. The irony there is Scorsese makes funnier dramas than Russell does comedies. (IMO)

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by demonrail666

It's Scorsese lite cos he's copped Scorsese's style and taken it in a lighter, safer direction. It's a poor man's Scorsese, played for laughs. The irony there is Scorsese makes funnier dramas than Russell does comedies. (IMO)

i won't argue that russell is a better/greater director than scorsese-- he isn't.

but russell is one of the best filmmakers of his generation. the previous generation just happens to be better. new hollywood generation >> big indie generation.

in spite of this generational inferiority, russell is definitely idiosyncratic and his own man. his movies may not be as great, but they are his own, in his own style, and they reflect his own obsessions. the reason i resent this subordination and argue so vociferously about it is because it attempts to erase that which makes him an artist in his own right.

russell makes russell movies. one can like them or not (i happen to like them a lot), but this reductio-ad-scorsese is missing the point of them almost on purpose-- it's unfair, and the unfairness is maybe justifiable from ignorance, but from non-ignorance it comes across as a form of ill will.

[demonrail666]

In the case of some of his films I'd agree, but I don't see AH as a very good example of what he's capable of. I actually think his real strength is with simpler, less flamboyant films like The Fighter. The only filmmaker from this generation who I think can really compete with Scorsese in that more manic style associated with films like Goodfellas, Casino or Wolf is PT Anderson.

[!@#$%!]

the manic in russell doesnt' come from plot and editing, but from performance and improvisation. his actors are "freer" than scorsese. except maybe for joe pesci ha ha ha ha. joe pesci in goodfellas, ha ha ha ha. so awesome.

this is why i called scorsese "tight" and the other one "chaotic." scorsese is a symphony director and russell is a saxophonist.

but anyway, i don't think russell wants to be manic or intense or anything. that's exactly my point. his roots i believe are in screwball. i think that's where to look for ancesty for him-- what he does with that genre, where he moves it to, and what he does around it. he's really not about gangsters. in AH they aren't even gangsters-- they're just a couple of petty swindlers really, forced into things. two-against-the-world, the mob thing is just an excuse for that plot. juuust like the fighter, and the fighter is not raging bull.

i agree with your assessment of PTA for possible Scorsese successor (serious business), but i don't believe Russell even wants to go there--that's really not his thing.

anyway, i'll stop talking before i get blue in the face from repeating myself. i insist he's not about scorsese at all, although it's been misread that way, and i'll leave it at that.

[Ghostchase]

Originally Posted by gmku

 

LOVED it!

Me too! But I feel sorry for them and Guy, their budget was so massive. $75 million! They are getting taken to the cleaners by Compton, whose budget was $25 million. Nothing but profit! But I would guess is just another mindless drone of a biopic. Fuck, I'll just go watch Boyz n the Hood.