When Martin Scorsese sat down with friend and classmate Mardik Martin to pen Season of the Witch—later rechristened Mean Streets—he hardly thought he was changing how movies would look and move. The kid who grew up on Elizabeth Street in … Continue reading MEAN STREETS
The women are on the run. One is a sheltered housewife married to a pig of a man. The other is a waitress hiding from her past. Both are wanted in connection with a murder outside an Arkansas honky-tonk, and … Continue reading THELMA & LOUISE
A young girl spies her mother in bed with a man who is neither her father nor the woman’s husband. The young girl is Flora (Anna Paquin), the speaking child of her mute mother, Ada (Holly Hunter). Both were bought and … Continue reading THE PIANO
Three men work the line at the Checkered Taxi auto plant in Detroit, Michigan. Their lives revolve around hard labor and heavy drinking, getting yelled at by their supervisors and trying to keep their heads above water at home. They’re … Continue reading BLUE COLLAR
The Irishman begins in darkness. A small box of light at the center of the frame opens like an iris, and we see nurses and doctors. It looks like a hospital, but this is no beginning; this is the end: A … Continue reading THE IRISHMAN
What makes up a city? The people? The locale? The flavor of the food, the smell of the streets, the sounds of the crowd? When author Reyner Banham concluded his exhaustive study of the city of Los Angeles in The Architecture … Continue reading RIO, I LOVE YOU
For most, Taxi Driver is summed up by one of the most famous lines in cinema: “You talking to me?” Conveying masculinity and bravado, it readies angry men for battle. But it is misleading. It is an act, a façade. The truth … Continue reading TAXI DRIVER
2014 has seen a slew of post-apocalyptic/futuristic-themed movies, but out of all of them, Ari Folman’s half live-action, half 2-D animation seems the most likely. That doesn’t mean it is great or a particularly good movie, but its prediction seems … Continue reading THE CONGRESS
Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out. —Martin Scorsese Continue reading In Their Words — Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Michael J. Cinema 