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Friday, 10 January 2003 23:19![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
apollaBack from Gangs Of New York!! Loved it, totally loved it! Read on for more, although beware: it's spoileriffic!
I’ve just come home from seeing Gangs of New York. Or, I should say, I came out of the cinema over an hour ago and am still buzzing, shaking and on the edge of tears. I was going to review it properly, objectively and constructively as all good academic people do, but sod it.
I love this picture. The stuff Empire and all the other said weren’t great? I liked it. The only thing I don’t like is that Liam Neeson departs the movie so early on. But then, it’s sort of the crux of the story, so I don’t mind.
Music? All good. Some great rock stuff going on during the early battle scenes. You might imagine this to be incongruous with 1846. No, no. Perfect. The rest is a blend of the old Irish stuff and folk songs with highly pertinent lyrics. U2 have done the song on the credits, but we can’t have everything, can we?
Sets? Fantastic. Some of it is that CGI stuff that always looks impressive but never very substantial. But Scorsese’s done it right by rebuilding the Five Points in Italy. I suspect that DiCaprio and his mates have had to do a lot less green-screening than Hayden & Ewan or Viggo & Orlando. And personally, I see this as a very good thing.
Daniel Day-Lewis? He does far more than just an impression of some bloke called De Niro. He is Bill the Butcher, the bigoted, Nativist git who blights the movie. And yet he’s sometimes likeable and I could almost understand his point of view. Almost. He is the archetypal Scorsese American anti-hero. Like Jake La Motta, Travis Bickle and Henry Hill, he’s violent, bloody, unmerciless. He’s also got a sense of honour and regret. He knows his time is coming to an end and he hates that. I disagree with about 90% of what that character said, but just like Jake and Travis and oddly hard to out and out hate.
Leonardo DiCaprio? Good. Finally, he’s delivering what I’ve always maintained he could: acting worthy of that Brando bloke. It wasn’t perfect, particularly the accent (which was probably meant to be a little bit mixed) but he’s just proved to the world that he’s not just that dumb pretty face screaming ‘Rose!’. Perhaps combined with Catch Me While You Can, he can finally put the bloody nightmare of Titanic behind him. His legions of fan girls won’t be pleased with his bloody portrayal, but in that case I recommend the Man in the Iron Mask instead.
Cameron Diaz was OK. She wasn’t bad, she didn’t suck but she didn’t set the screen alight. I found some of the romance a little rushed, but on the bright side, we didn’t have any of those horrible, contrived love scenes. Most of it was well done but part of me wonders if it wasn’t just a little pointless. But then, I know it’s written down somewhere that there has to be a love interest, preferably of both sides. And she was pretty feisty.
The stuff Empire didn’t like towards the end where the plot diverges into two parts, I liked a lot: the Big Picture and the Little Picture together, esp. when the Big Picture encroaches into the world of Five Points. And the action scenes are so… violent (what else to expect from Mr Taxi Driver?) but not to a disgusting, gratuitous degree. Or at least, not in my view. They’re also fast-paced and dynamic, as all fights should be. I like at the beginning, the virgin-white snow and then five minutes later, an expanse of this dodgy looking red/brown sludge made up of snow, mud and blood.
I liked the story itself quite a lot. I think perhaps they could’ve done a bit more with what Amsterdam thought and felt rather than giving as much over to Bill’s ideas, but I think he’s probably a bloke of few words anyway.
My favourite moment without a doubt, is when the Nativists are off to destroy the new, unfinished Irish Catholic church. They turn the corner to find every Irish man, woman and child surrounding the building, refusing to back down. It is, as they say, the spark. I don’t get many opportunities to be proud of the Irish in the movies. They’re usually portrayed as drunken, pig-ignorant bogmen or of course, amoral terrorists. This time, there were real characters. Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected anything less from a man who understands all too well what it’s like to be an ‘Other’. I was proud of those people (this being based in truth, after all) not because they were Irish or ‘my’ people, but because they were people who stood up for what they believed in, be it God, the Pope or just the plain old American dream.
Once more, a movie that doesn’t just reaffirm my faith and love of the movies, but one that makes me want so badly to make some of my own, some that will mean as much as this does.
And the end shot of NYC over the years, beautifully blended until the present day. Or rather, to modern New York. Marty was brave enough to leave those two towers most defiantly in. And as to Amsterdam’s closing comment: We will remember you and your real counterparts. Martin Scorsese just made sure of it.
And now, I must go. Haven't actually started packing up yet properly and I leave in about six hours. I though I might try to get some sleep before that. :)
Stay lucky all!
I’ve just come home from seeing Gangs of New York. Or, I should say, I came out of the cinema over an hour ago and am still buzzing, shaking and on the edge of tears. I was going to review it properly, objectively and constructively as all good academic people do, but sod it.
I love this picture. The stuff Empire and all the other said weren’t great? I liked it. The only thing I don’t like is that Liam Neeson departs the movie so early on. But then, it’s sort of the crux of the story, so I don’t mind.
Music? All good. Some great rock stuff going on during the early battle scenes. You might imagine this to be incongruous with 1846. No, no. Perfect. The rest is a blend of the old Irish stuff and folk songs with highly pertinent lyrics. U2 have done the song on the credits, but we can’t have everything, can we?
Sets? Fantastic. Some of it is that CGI stuff that always looks impressive but never very substantial. But Scorsese’s done it right by rebuilding the Five Points in Italy. I suspect that DiCaprio and his mates have had to do a lot less green-screening than Hayden & Ewan or Viggo & Orlando. And personally, I see this as a very good thing.
Daniel Day-Lewis? He does far more than just an impression of some bloke called De Niro. He is Bill the Butcher, the bigoted, Nativist git who blights the movie. And yet he’s sometimes likeable and I could almost understand his point of view. Almost. He is the archetypal Scorsese American anti-hero. Like Jake La Motta, Travis Bickle and Henry Hill, he’s violent, bloody, unmerciless. He’s also got a sense of honour and regret. He knows his time is coming to an end and he hates that. I disagree with about 90% of what that character said, but just like Jake and Travis and oddly hard to out and out hate.
Leonardo DiCaprio? Good. Finally, he’s delivering what I’ve always maintained he could: acting worthy of that Brando bloke. It wasn’t perfect, particularly the accent (which was probably meant to be a little bit mixed) but he’s just proved to the world that he’s not just that dumb pretty face screaming ‘Rose!’. Perhaps combined with Catch Me While You Can, he can finally put the bloody nightmare of Titanic behind him. His legions of fan girls won’t be pleased with his bloody portrayal, but in that case I recommend the Man in the Iron Mask instead.
Cameron Diaz was OK. She wasn’t bad, she didn’t suck but she didn’t set the screen alight. I found some of the romance a little rushed, but on the bright side, we didn’t have any of those horrible, contrived love scenes. Most of it was well done but part of me wonders if it wasn’t just a little pointless. But then, I know it’s written down somewhere that there has to be a love interest, preferably of both sides. And she was pretty feisty.
The stuff Empire didn’t like towards the end where the plot diverges into two parts, I liked a lot: the Big Picture and the Little Picture together, esp. when the Big Picture encroaches into the world of Five Points. And the action scenes are so… violent (what else to expect from Mr Taxi Driver?) but not to a disgusting, gratuitous degree. Or at least, not in my view. They’re also fast-paced and dynamic, as all fights should be. I like at the beginning, the virgin-white snow and then five minutes later, an expanse of this dodgy looking red/brown sludge made up of snow, mud and blood.
I liked the story itself quite a lot. I think perhaps they could’ve done a bit more with what Amsterdam thought and felt rather than giving as much over to Bill’s ideas, but I think he’s probably a bloke of few words anyway.
My favourite moment without a doubt, is when the Nativists are off to destroy the new, unfinished Irish Catholic church. They turn the corner to find every Irish man, woman and child surrounding the building, refusing to back down. It is, as they say, the spark. I don’t get many opportunities to be proud of the Irish in the movies. They’re usually portrayed as drunken, pig-ignorant bogmen or of course, amoral terrorists. This time, there were real characters. Perhaps I shouldn’t have expected anything less from a man who understands all too well what it’s like to be an ‘Other’. I was proud of those people (this being based in truth, after all) not because they were Irish or ‘my’ people, but because they were people who stood up for what they believed in, be it God, the Pope or just the plain old American dream.
Once more, a movie that doesn’t just reaffirm my faith and love of the movies, but one that makes me want so badly to make some of my own, some that will mean as much as this does.
And the end shot of NYC over the years, beautifully blended until the present day. Or rather, to modern New York. Marty was brave enough to leave those two towers most defiantly in. And as to Amsterdam’s closing comment: We will remember you and your real counterparts. Martin Scorsese just made sure of it.
And now, I must go. Haven't actually started packing up yet properly and I leave in about six hours. I though I might try to get some sleep before that. :)
Stay lucky all!
