Schindler's List

Origin: U.S (Amblin, Universal) 1993
Length: 197 minutes
Format: BW/ Color
Director: Stephen Spielberg
Producer: Branko Lustig, Gerald R. Molen, Steven Spielberg
Screenplay: Steven Zaillian, from the novel Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally
Photography: Janusz Kaminski
Music: John Williams
Cast: Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, Ralph Fiennes, Caroline Goodall, Jonathon Sagall, Embeth Davidtz, Malgoscha Gebel, Shmulik Lev, Mark Ivanir, Beatrice Macola, Andrzej Seweryn, Friedrich von Thun, Krzysztof Luft, Harry Nehring, Norbert Weisser
Oscars: Steven Spielberg, Gerald R. Molen, Branko Lustig(best picture), Steven Spielberg(director), Steven Zaillian(screenplay), Allan Starski, Ewa Braun(art direction), Janusz Kaminski(photography), Michael Kahn(editing), John Williams(music)
Oscar Nominations: Liam Neeson(actor), Ralph Fiennes(actor in support role), Anna B. Sheppard(costume), Christina Smith, Matthew W. Mungle, Judith A. Cory(makeup), Andy Nelson, Steve Pederson, Scott Millan, Ron Judkins(sound)
Links: Schindler's List Wiki, Schindler's List Trailer, Schindler's Ark Wiki

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Working from a well-constructed script by Steven Zaillian, adapting Thomas Keneally's nonfiction novel - a fascinating account of the Nazi businessman Oskar Schindler, who saved the lives of over 1,100 Polish Jews - Spielberg does an uncommonly good job both of holding our interest over 185 minutes and of showing more of the nuts and bolts of the Holocaust than we usually get from fiction films.

Some things that are not in the film that actually did occur in real life:

- Shindler's wife, Emille played a major role in saving Jewish lives after he resumed living with her while he was establishing a mock munitions plant in Moravia. Also, during this time, Schindler continued to betray her with other women.

- Some Polish Jews had to bribe Schindler in order to make his list.

Jacob's Ladder (Matt)

Well this turned out to be quite a gem of a movie. After reading the description posted here I was intrigued and as it turns out that reaction was justified. This movie was one of the more original films I have ever seen.

Lets start with Tim Robbins. Wow. This guy is underrated in my opinion. His name should be right up there with the greats. Everything I've seen him in he has been amazing and this movie was no exception. The character that he was playing was really a complicated person and he made it totally believable. I can think in particular of a scene where he is overcome with a very high fever and he is forcibly placed into a bathtub filled with ice water. He had to show us a character that's sick and delirious, at the same time the character is in immense pain from the ice water and wants out but he can't escape the many people holding him in the water. It will be a while before I can get that desperate look that he had on his face out of my head. Pretty powerful stuff.

The story itself was really unique. I won't go into much detail here as I don't want to give any major plot points away but it's fairly safe to say I've never seen anything like this before. The story had a bit of a Mothman Prophecies feel to it, but that's not completely accurate because the stories are very different. The similarity in the two stems from not knowing what is real and what is not. I spent the whole movie trying to figure out what was going on and to be honest after it was over I still wasn't sure. It took a conversation with the co-writer of this blog before I got a solid grip on it and once I did I knew this movie was a winner.

The only negative I have about this movie is that I really had a hard time figuring out what was going on. As I just mentioned, I didn't get it until after the credits rolled. This can be both a pro and a con however depending on how much you enjoy thinking about a movie after you've seen it.

This beauty gets 8.5 sleeping demon hobos out of 10.

~Matt

Jacob's Ladder(John)

I love this movie. If you go into this film with no knowledge of it whatsoever, it is an absolute trip. The movie makes you think one thing is happening while an entirely different thing is taking place.

Tim Robbins is a great actor. I've enjoyed pretty much every movie I've seen him in. He delivers on the scarred war veteran, working at a post office, who just wants to get away from having to think about things.

The real thing that made me love this movie though, were the creepy moments. Stuff would happen randomly that made my skin crawl. And it seemed like every one of these moments hit home in their creepiness.

There were some confusing moments, but after I watched the entire film, I was able to connect the dots. I was also taken out of the film a few times because I kept thinking of all of the other work the supporting cast had done: McAuley Culkin(Home Alone), Jason Alexander(Seinfeld) and Eric La Salle(E.R). Every time they showed up on screen, I was thinking: "There's George" or "There's Kevin McAllister".

With that said, I highly recommend this movie. I picked it up on a whim and loved it on first watch. It definitely made me think and it's a showcase for how good a "life during and after death" movie can be.

I give it a 9 out of 10.

- John Murphy

Jacob's Ladder

Origin: U.S (Carolco) 1990
Length: 115 minutes
Format: Technicolor
Director: Adrian Lyne
Producer: Alan Marshall
Screenplay: Bruce Joel Rubin
Photography: Jeffery L. Kimball
Music: Maurice Jarre
Cast: Tim Robbins, Elizabeth Pena, Danny Aiello, Matt Craven, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Jason Alexander, Patricia Kalember, Eriq La Salle, Ving Rhames, Brian Tarantina, Anthony Alessandro, Brent Hinkley, S. Epatha Merkerson, Suzanne Shepherd, Doug Barron
Links: Jacob's Ladder Film Wiki, Jacob's Ladder Wiki, Jacob's Ladder Trailer

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Jacob's Ladder is a horror movie as ethereal journey. Most of the film takes place in the spiritual world re-envisioned as the concrete environment of New York City, where the soul of a dying man named Jacob Singer(Tim Robbins) is lost and confused in the fleeting moments before death. His journey to the afterlife stretches out into a tormenting series of flashbacks, visions and eternal questioning.

Director Adrian Lyne uses a body horror technique in which an actor is recorded waving his head around at a low frame rate, resulting in horrific fast motion when played back. Filmmakers have since achieved the effect by digitally removing frames from footage shot at a normal rate.

Raging Bull (Matt)

This is our second round with the De Niro, Scorsese duo and I have to say I liked this one much better than the other. The plot was more organized, the actors were more real, and the film overall was just well... better.

Robert De Niro is amazing. Before we started this blog I had never seen any of his early work, and I liked him purely based on his new material. The viewing of his older stuff however, has elevated him to me from more than just a good actor to more of an icon. A true movie star. His acting in this movie was amazing. I will point out as an example that often parodied scene where he is looking into a mirror and rehearsing a speech: "I coulda been a contenda". Watching his facial expressions in this scene I was just amazed. He pulled that off so well.

I wasn't sure at first about the film being in black and white. I thought it would have a negative effect on the experience of the movie. Now that I've seen it, I think the movie would have been fine being in color, but I have no problems with the fact that it wasn't. I wasn't ever taken out of the story by the lack of color and ultimately, that's what matters to me.

I was swept into the story of this boxer and I stayed interested till the end. This is by no means my favorite movie ever but I liked it. I'll give it 7 brother face punches out of 10.

~Matt

Raging Bull(John)

I think I may have liked this movie a little better than Taxi Driver. And I think the only reason is I was able to completely understand this movie. Taxi Driver was very psychotic and there were some fairly confusing plot points. However, with Raging Bull, I had no problem understanding what was going on.

Once again, De Niro delivers an excellent performance. While I'm not certain if he captured the real Jake La Motta, as I know nothing about the boxer, he definitely made me believe that I was watching a man who had a lot of security issues sprinkled in with a self-destructive nature. His rise and fall throughout the movie was entertaining to watch and reminds me of a lot of characters in other Scorsese films. Joe Pesci was great as well. He provided some excellent comic relief in my opinion.

I really didn't take much notice of the score in this movie. The thing I noticed the most regarding the sound was that all of the dialogue outside of the boxing matches was very quiet. It was hard to hear most of the dialogue. Inside the ring, however, the sound seemed like it was amped up in order to convey the chaos that was happening.

The was the film was shot was very unique. The entire movie, with the exception of a few scenes, was shot in black and white. I'm not sure if it was because it was in black and white, or if it was the angle of some of the camera shots, but this movie seemed like it was actually made in the 40s and 50s.

I really liked this movie. De Niro was amazing once again, and the movie pulled me right in. I'd have to give it a 8.7 out of 10.

-John Murphy

Raging Bull

Origin: U.S (Chartoff-Winkler Productions) 1980
Length: 129 minutes
Format: BW/Technicolor
Director: Martin Scorsese
Producer: Robert Chartoff, Irwin Winkler
Screenplay: Paul Schrader, Mardik Martin, from book by Jake La Motta, Joseph Carter, Peter Savage
Photography: Michael Chapman
Music: Pietro Mascagni
Cast: Robert De Niro, Cathy Moriarty, Joe Pesci, Frank Vincent, Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana, Mario Gallo, Frank Adonis, Joseph Bono, Frank Topham, Lori Anne Flax, Charles Scorsese, Don Dunphy, Bill Hanrahan, Rita Bennett
Oscars: Robert De Niro(actor), Thelma Schoonmaker(editing)
Oscar Nominations: Irwin Winkler, Robert Chartoff(best picture), Martin Scorsese(director), Joe Pesci(actor in support role), Cathy Moriarty(actress in support role), Michael Chapman(photography), Donald O. Mitchell, Bill Nicholson, David J. Kimball, Les Lazarowitz(sound)
Links: Raging Bull Wiki, Raging Bull Trailer, Jake LaMotta Wiki

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This boxing biopic was a personal project for actor Robert De Niro, who discovered the as-told-to autobiography of former middleweight champion Jake La Motta and persuaded director Martin Scorsese and writer Paul Schrader, his Taxi Driver collaborators, to commit to the intense, apparently unpromising material. With the Rocky movies - ironically also produced by Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff - celebrating the ring underdog who survives and triumphs standing as the most successful sports saga of all time, Raging Bull dares to deal with the anti-Rocky, a hungry contender who winds up a bloated has-been without really learning anything along the way, or finding satisfaction in his achievements.

Raging Bull has garnered a high critical reputation and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest movies ever made along with Scorsese and De Niro's other famed collaboration from that era, Taxi Driver(1976). It is one of five films that has been named to the National Film Registry in its first year of eligibility( along with Do The Right Thing, Taxi Driver, Toy Story and Fargo).

Taxi Driver (Matt)

I went into this movie with high expectations. I mean, it's "Taxi Driver", most everyone has at least heard of this movie. Just look at the film credits: Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, and look at the oscar nominations: best picture, best actor, best actress in a supporting role, music. Woah, this movie was bound to be a home run. How could it possibly go wrong?

I didn't like it. The acting was great but the story just wasn't enough to keep me interested. It seemed to just be a movie about a guy with issues who winds up taking them too far. I think I was too detached from De Niro's character to build up much of an emotional response to what I was seeing on screen. I don't mean that De Niro's acting wasn't great, because it was, just that the story wasn't sufficent to pull me in.

The music in this film was also a bit off-putting to me. Every time that sax riff would play it would jerk me out of the film, and it just didn't seem to fit to me.

Basically, this movie felt to me like it was an action movie that only had about 5 minutes of actual action. Everything else was just buildup to that moment. I think I would have liked it better had that action been a bit larger in scale but as it was it felt a bit anti-climactic (did I spell that right?).

I give it 4 awkward advice scenes out of 10.

~Matt

Taxi Driver(John)

Well, this was my kind of movie. For some reason, I am drawn to the film noir and psycho killer movies. American Psycho is one of my favorite movies. I can see where that film took a lot from Taxi Driver.

So, Robert De Niro was amazing in this movie. You could just see the transition that was taking place in his mind throughout the movie. He made me feel like I was watching a true lonely insomniac try to function in society. He had a hard time expressing things to other people and I could see the exhaustion in his eyes. The other cast complimented him well, but overall they mostly felt like set pieces for De Niro's performance.

The music was very noir-ish throughout the movie. But, there were other pieces added in that gave you the erratic feeling that let you know that this is no ordinary noir film. I loved the voice over narration that is typical with noir films.

The world of New York hasn't looked more gritty. The film definitely showed the darker side of New York. Prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, dirty government officials, you name it. It was all conveyed perfectly I thought.

Overall I really liked the movie. It was a little confusing at times, but I think that was the point. De Niro was excellent but I felt that the other cast members were only there to compliment him. I would've liked to know more about the young girl and even Harvey Kietel's character. But I realize that wasn't the point of the film so I'm okay with it.

I'm giving Taxi Driver an 8.5 out of 10.

Taxi Driver

Origin: U.S (Bill/Phillips, Columbia, Italo/Judeo) 1976
Length: 113 minutes
Format: Metrocolor
Director: Martin Scorsese
Producer: Julia Phillips, Michael Phillips
Screenplay: Paul Schrader
Photography: Michael Chapman
Music: Bernard Herrmann
Cast: Robert De Niro, Cybill Shepard, Peter Boyle, Jodie Foster, Harvey Keitel, Leonard Harris, Albert Brooks, Diahnne Abbott, Frank Adu, Victor Argo, Gino Ardito, Garth Avery, Harry Cohn, Copper Cunningham, Brenda Dickson-Weinberg
Oscar Nominations: Michael Phillips, Julia Phillips(best picture), Robert De Niro(actor), Jodie Foster(actress in support role), Bernard Herrmann(music)
Cannes Film Festival: Martin Scorsese(Golden Palm)
Links: Taxi Driver Wiki, Taxi Driver Trailer

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"Some day a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the street." So mutters tormented taxi driver malcontent Travis Bickle, played with maximum intensity by Robert De Niro in the first of his lauded lead turns for Martin Scorsese. Bickle's job shuttling back and forth across New York City - "anytime, anywhere", he boasts - provides him an insomniac's view of the city's underbelly, all those things on dark backstreets that most people never witness. But he's become so inured to the world around him that he feels numb, invisible, and ultimately impotent.
Yet Bickle is not so much outraged at the signs of social and physical decay around him as he is frustrated that he no longer knows anything else. He's also conflicted, attracted to the very things he purports to despise. Sick of himself and what he sees, he embarks on a final, desperate quest to reintegrate himself into society. "I don't believe that one should devote his life to morbid self-attention," he says, "I believe that one should become a person like other people." But in Paul Schrader's bleak, hell-on-earth script, there's no way out. Bickle is already too far gone.