The Final Take with Parker Mott

3.5 Stars out of 4
(127 minutes)

Hugo (Butterfield) and Georges Méliès (Kingsley) share grins in Martin Scorsese's glorious 3D feat "Hugo".

Hugo is a remarkable feat of celebrating the history and power of cinema while flying across a seemingly sweet kid’s adventure. It will absorb film lovers, and probably dazzle young children as they enter the fully realized and alive visual world of a master – Martin Scorsese. While its story might not reach the heights of a great Pixar film, Hugo – regardless – feels like an experience. An escape into a world that is its own visual splendour. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(208 minutes)

George Harrison: "I want to live in the world, not of the world."

The story of a man suspended between spiritual and material fits right at home for Martin Scorsese. George Harrison, popularly known as one of The Beatles’ guitarist from 1960-1970, was one of these people. His life was one in constant search for inner peace to battle his external temptations. Scorsese’s goal here is to – in retrospect – discover it. This exploration spans over three hours, but this will be quite okay with Beatles fans and those who admired their music but never understood the quiet, sombre guitarist who strummed it. (continue reading…)

4 Stars out of 4
(122 minutes)
REVIEW WRITTEN IN 2008

The Stones take a bow in Shine A Light.

Shine A Light does more than remind us how good the Rolling Stones were. It’s a film that captures every movement, highlight, reaction of a concert alas helmed by venerable director Martin Scorsese. He is not new to the musical genre. He did The Last Waltz in 1978 on The Band’s last concert ever after a 16 year journey. He also did a music video for the song “Bad” by Michael Jackson in 1995, and finally, his well-known documentary on Bob Dylan called No Direction Home: Bob Dylan. After winning his first Best Picture at the Oscars in 2006 for The Departed, Martin Scorsese still is continuing to deliver some of his greater flicks in recent times. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(168 minutes)

Leonardo DiCaprio and Daniel Day-Lewis.

For a man, especially an American one, his most important treasure is his home. It has raised him, tested him, and imprinted him. Gangs of New York, directed by the always intriguing, usually brilliant Martin Scorsese, antagonizes the patriots or natives while also humanizing them rigorously. (continue reading…)

4 Stars out of 4
(114 minutes)

Travis Bickel: "You talkin' to me?"

For being written in 5 days, Taxi Driver exceeds the expectations of a typical character study. Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese had in mind an adaption of Dostoevsky’s Notes From Underground. Instead, they produced something the closest to it and its milieu was Scorsese’s ubiquitous New York. Taxi drivers have an omniscience; they travel around the entire city, familiar with the energy and behaviour it all carries. After a while, one is bound to get sick of it. Travis Bickel does.

Bickel (Robert De Niro) could be a typical antihero, but his intentions give him the will of an angel. Bickel is a rebel with a cause, who can admit that his society is in a state of decay, but he also can agree, when walking around in it, he is trying to adapt. In his taxi cab though, we see a different person: reclusive, irrational, paranoid, and ponderous. (continue reading…)

Nucky Thompson (Steve Buschemi).

Available on HBO, Sunday at 9pm/EST

Darmody: All I want is an opportunity.
Nucky Thompson: This is America, ain’t it? Who’s
stoppin’ ya?

Would you be surprised if I told you Martin Scorsese had directed the pilot to a show about old-fashioned mobsters and vibrant roaring-twenties sets? I bet you wouldn’t. HBO’s Boardwalk Empire though not completely geared under the Scorsese engine (it is produced by Terence Winter) resembles much of the director’s earlier work and a little more. It has that stunningly meticulous realism (Mean Streets) and tells a story of a life that is indulgent at first, but, we can assume, will degenerate into something rather nefarious (Goodfellas). (continue reading…)

4 Stars out of 4
(146 minutes)

"Goodfellas": My favourite film.

“It’s a masterpiece … it is a stunning script, and will make a wonderful film, and a priceless social document.” — Michael Powell to Martin Scorsese via letter

Major Spoilers Ahead.

Yes it was. Martin Scorsese’s 1990 crime tale Goodfellas is a transcendent work of wonder. It is my favourite film of all time. It enters the mind of a foot soldier named Henry Hill (Ray Liotta). He’s not a mob boss as Brando was in The Godfather nor is he a heavy shooter like Costner in The Untouchables. Goodfellas was originally to be called Wiseguys, based off Nicolas Pileggi’s novel, but it changed to Goodfellas due to a comedic TV series that preceded it, by Brian De Palma. As a result, the title tacks on a rather arrogant yet enchanting prose, one that foreshadows a life much more prestigious than it really is. Observing the story through Henry Hill creates this obscuring objectivity. He’s half-Irish so he can never be made and thus we encounter events to extents that we cannot necessarily understand or directly witness. Fascinating. (continue reading…)

3.5 Stars out of 4
(112 minutes)

Mean Streets: the film where critics knew Scorsese meant business.

“But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.” — Raymond Chandler’s ‘The Simple Art of Murder’

Mean Streets is a 1973 crime tale that is ridden under more realism than plot. These aren’t about punk gangsters exactly, but about a city burrowed under lofty sin and hidden remorse. Joyous festivities occur on the street daily and people move amuck freely as if this is their warm-welcomed home. This is Scorsese’s picture. A director who, while young, creates a film less about a winding, epical, and dominant story and more about the bitter reality of a netherworld. It’s misleading – it’s not necessarily the streets we need to fear, it’s what lurks within. (continue reading…)

3 Stars out of 4
(139 minutes)

Not so innocent in The Age of Innocence.

I was asked for a high school project, before reading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, what I thought love was. I, originally, apathetically dismissed the inquiry by using a Robert Frost line. Now, after seeing The Age of Innocence, the film compels a very Victorian, tragic notion on the definition of love. I would say love is a fortress that is conquered by the most superficial assailants. (continue reading…)

4 Stars out of 4
(151 minutes)

Leo DiCaprio gets his hands dirty in "The Departed."

I must tell you how happy I was to find out that Martin Scorsese’s The Departed was an absolute piece of work. Most of these classic directors begin to die off and run out of ideas like Spielberg is slowly starting to do with releasing certain flops like War of the Worlds. Scorsese is known for releasing certain classics like Goodfellas (one of my favourites), Raging Bull, and Gangs of New York. However, he has created a few flops like New York New York that came out to very luke-warm reviews. For The Departed, I did not know what to expect. All I knew was that it was a movie that paralleled various movies like Infernal Affairs and Mean Streets. (continue reading…)