For the first time in more than two decades, I sat down and watched “The Color of Money” (1986). Wow. It really holds up. Really. It’s not about billiards. Or Tom Cruise channeling Charlie Sheen. Or Paul Newman’s pornstache and tinted glasses. It’s a character study on gamblers, con artists, what motivates them and what brings them down. Pure Scorsese. Newman recreates his Fast Eddie Felson character from “The Hustler” (a 1961 classic), but you don’t need to have seen it to enjoy this one. And it’s nice watching Cruise play an actual character instead of Tom Cruise Action Hero.
Archives for posts with tag: Martin Scorsese
The old man has told this fable many times before, but it’s been a while. Delighted to have an audience, he can’t help but take tangents and add embellishments that make the fable as drawn out as a four-day drive from Philadelphia to Detroit. Still, there’s the same cast of characters portraying the survivor’s tale of allegiance versus betrayal, honor versus law, the family business versus the business of family. But with one more deep directorial breath, Martin Scorsese twists the ending. In “The Irishman” (2019), we’re left to wonder whether it would have been better to have lost bravely.
An organized crime story isn’t truly epic unless it’s told in Italian with a New Jersey accent. At least it feels that way sometimes. That’s an observation, not a value judgement. And yet there are so many other geographic and/or ethnic storytelling styles. You’d think someone could deconstruct the mob genre, substitute Martin Scorsese’s sensibilities for, say, James Dickey’s, and produce something totally different but qualitatively familiar. So John Brandon writes a novel, writer/director/actor Clark Duke interprets it, and “Arkansas” (2020) proves me right. It’s the “what,” not the “who,” that matters most. That’s an observation. And a value judgement.
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