Tag Archive: De Niro


The Irishman – goodfellas played by old fellas

Filed under: Books, Movies, Politics — Leave a comment
December 4, 2019

THE IRISHMAN directed by Martin Scorsese (USA, 2019)
220px-the_irishman_poster

Will there be mobster movies in heaven? If so, Martin Scorsese is sure to be the director. Of course, he’d insist on there being an afterlife ban on watching his work on mobile phones and would personally see to it that any films based on Marvel comics were cast into the fiery pits of hell. Netflix would be allowed through the pearly gates as a reward for stumping up the cash for his latest movie.

I find it ironic that Scorsese is now keen to dictate what and how we should be consuming movies in the 21st century.  He is quick to mount his moral high horse even though the charge of glamorizing unscrupulous criminals and cold-blooded killers is one he would be hard pressed to dismiss. I’m sure Mafia members are among his biggest fans.

‘The Irishman’ is a true crime caper in a similar vein to ‘Goodfellas’ (1990) .  Like that movie, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci have starring roles and the same narrative technique of a start to finish voiceover is deployed. This is a device I usually find irritating and this film is no exception. I believe a story should speak for itself in cinematic terms rather than relying on a constant running commentary. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

TOBIAS WOLFF – FINDING THE MAN IN THE BOY

Filed under: Books, Gender, Parenting — 2 Comments
June 3, 2014

THIS BOY’S LIFE by Tobias Wolff (Picador 1990, first published 1989)

wolffI picked this book up by chance in a second-hand store in Rimini. There was a copy of Wolff’s collected short stories too but I was more drawn to this autobiography or ‘memoir’ as he prefers to call it.

The cover promises something of the mythical America I know mainly from movies. The illustration by Irish painter Kenny McKendry shows a station wagon being filled up at a remote gas station and a young male figure standing apart in a cap and dungarees. It’s like an open air version of an Edward Hopper painting.

I also liked the author’s choice of epigraphs; one by Saul Alinsky (“He who fears corruption fears life”) and the other by Oscar Wilde: “The first duty in life is to assume a pose. What the second is, no one has yet discovered”. Both these quotations suggest an unconventional, yet worldly wisdom and humor.

I knew nothing of the writer nor that the book had been made into a movie starring Robert De Niro and a very young Leonardo DiCaprio. If you Google the book title, you get an image of these two A-list actors in Boy Scout uniforms.

I decided not to watch any trailers or clips so as not to be distracted or influenced by someone else’s views of the story. I habitually avoid synopses and reviews for the same reason; something that’s getting harder and harder to do in the age of information overload. I like coming to things with as blank a slate as possible so I can make my own mind up.

This Boy’s Life is a slight variant on Boy’s Life, the official scout magazine. Scouting is, fortunately, only one strand of the story which takes up the formative years of Wolff’s life from 1955, when he was 10, to the time when he has to choose between university or other options, I guess in his late teens. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

SILVER LININGS OUTSHINE CLOUDS

Filed under: Health and fitness, Humour, Movies — Leave a comment
April 4, 2014

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK directed by David O.Russell (USA, 2012)

After the sobering experience of watching Indonesian death squad leaders giving tips on how to kill communists in The Act Of Killing, I needed some light relief.

How about a nice Rom-Com?

I was cognizant of the fact that many films in this genre are simply not funny and most are plain dumb. Silver Linings Playbook, liberally adapted from a novel by Matthew Quick, is a welcome exception to this rule. It not only has a heart and soul but has a brain too.

The movie boasts a top class double act in the form of Bradley Cooper as Pat and Jennifer Lawrence as Tiffany. Both have a history of mental instability and possess bags of energy but poor social skills – “I don’t have a filter when I talk” says Pat, who suffers from bipolar disorder.

Tiffany, a self-proclaimed “ex-slut” is convinced that “humanity is just nasty and there’s no silver lining”. Pat, whose motto is ‘excelsior’, believes that if you get in shape and stay positive, the breaks will come. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment

BEST OF BRITISH CULT MOVIES: 30 – 21

Filed under: Books, Movies, Music — 1 Comment
November 3, 2011

Continuing my list of the fifty Greatest British Cult Movies, here is my selection from 30 -21:

30. THE BELLES OF ST TRINIAN’S Frank Launder (1954)

The first and best of the five movies in the series based on the cartoons of Ronald Searle. There are great comic turns by Alistair Sim (in two roles as headmistress and her scheming brother), Joyce Grenfell (as the games teacher) and George Cole (as Flash Harry). This, plus numerous assorted nubiles in gymslips – what’s not to like?

 29. GOLDFINGER Terence Young (1964)

You can’t have a list like this without a Bond movie and it has to be one with Sean Connery as 007. Goldfinger is my favourite because it has the best villains Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) and Oddjob (Harold Sakata) , great Bond girls Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman) and Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton) as well as having the usual  ridiculous action scenes. Continue reading →

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Read More & Comment