An American crime film directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Ray Liotta and Paul Sorvino.
A young man grows up working for the Italian mob. He marries a Jewish woman and they try to have a family while he is involved in gangster stuff.
This is a pretty classic and well known crime film. I hardly think anything that I could say about it would add to what has already been written. What I liked most were the heavy narration and juxtaposition of family normalcy with violent crimes. It makes for good contrasts when scenes switch. Name a film element and it was done well. If you haven't seen it, you must. I rate it awesome.
American comedies directed by Chris Columbus, starring Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Candy, John Heard and Catherine O'Hara.
A boy's family leaves for Christmas vacation in France, but forget to bring him. While they are away, burglars try to break into the house. Then he gets on the wrong plane and ends up in New York City while his family are in Florida. The same burglars show up.
When I began taking college video production classes, I realized how cool the original Home Alone was. Everything is done straight up, by the book. Every shot is identifiable and everything is planned for clear communication. Casting did a great job. On an interesting note, Catherine O'Hara (Mrs. McCallister) voiced Malicious in Witch's Night Out (1978) and played Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice (1988). The second film was not as good as the first and buggered belief even more. I rate the original best and the sequel adequate.
A British American crime comedy directed by Tom Schulman, starring Joe Pesci, George Hamilton and Dyan Cannon.
A mobster loses his bag of decapitated heads at an airport baggage claim. They are picked up by a young man on vacation with his girlfriend's parents. Insert standard stupid American comedy plot here.
Dumb and stale. The plot seemed like every other American comedy with a missing item I've ever seen. Like it was copied and pasted from a previous film. Joe Pesci plays a great mobster (obviously) and David Spade makes great comic relief in a Stephen Chow deadpan delivery, but with Jim Carrey absurdity. The humor(?) was not very funny, except 1 scene: Joe Pesci is sleeping in a hotel room with the heads on a table and dreams that they sing to him. Video looked exactly like every other film from 1993 to 2001 or so. Audio had dialogue I could hear and Mr. Sandman on the soundtrack. I rate this poor because it was not good, but I've seen much worse. You probably should not watch it.
A British American drama directed by Nicolas Roeg, starring Gene Hackman, Mickey Rourke and Joe Pesci.
A gold miner makes a discovery and becomes rich in 1925. Years later, he fears that his daughter and her boyfriend are trying to get his money. There are also mobsters who actually are out to get his money.
What was that? I have very little idea of what I watched. The plot was not communicated clearly. Scenes would happen and seem to have apparent meaning, but what came after would make it seem like it was a dream or someone telling a story. Far from feeling like I knew the characters personally, frequent costume and acting changes kept me guessing who the characters were. The video was done quite well, once we discount the story-telling aspect. The scenes that looked best were set in 1925 when the man was surrounded by wolves or walking through the cave full of gold. The audio was passable. I could hear everything and it was mixed properly. Overall, this failed to meet one of the primary objectives of film in general: to tell a story. Subsequently, I have to rate it poor.
An American crime comedy written and directed by Barry Levinson, starring Joe Pesci, Christian Slater and Victoria Abril.
A failed actor in Hollywood has his car radio stolen. He is so angered by this that he enlists his buddy as a camera man to catch the thief. They do and deliver him to the police with car radios, the video tape and a poorly written note. The police believe that there is a gigantic vigilante gang because of the note and the failed actor takes on the role of the gang leader. Together with his camera man, they engage in more vigilante activities with video until the police catch on to them.
This started out foolish and hokey, but ended up being not so shabby. I initially hated Joe Pesci's character and thought that he was over-acting and horribly cast. As the plot went on, it became more clear and I liked it more. The video and audio were pretty standard for 1994. I think Levinson made better musical choices in the '90s than the 2000s. The ending made sense to me, but I won't spoil it. I noticed product placement on the Sony Watchman at 1:26:00 and that they ran past cleaning carts at 1:29:52. There was a repeated scene where the friends were sitting by the pool and the main character's phone would ring. He would always say "Is that my phone?" and his buddy would always tell him "No.". It was actually always his phone. Overall, a movie that develops as it goes. I rate it adequate. If it had been as strong at the beginning as at the end, it would get awesome or best.
An Italian American crime drama directed by Sergio Leone, starring Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Joe Pesci, Burt Young and Treat Williams.
A group of boys in New York City start an organized crime gang. After a conflict with a rival gang, one of them goes to jail for many years. When he gets out, he finds that he has an aversion to this type of work.
I watched the super-long four hour version and liked it. The plot held my interest and the variety of characters was good. I thought that relatively few of them showed much depth or development. The phone ringing in the beginning was maddening. There must have been some other way to do that scene. I found the rape scene in the car disturbing to watch. The version that I got had some inconsistencies in the video for some reason. It could have been a bad copy, could have been intended that way or those could be the deleted scenes edited in without color correction. The video style and acting are what impressed me the most. Everything was shown so clearly with such convincing characters that it didn't feel like watching a staged movie. Overall, exceptional. For a four hour film to hold my attention attests to it's greatness. I rate this awesome.
A crime film directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci.A mafia gangster runs a casino profitably until an old friend shows up to help. The friend gets into trouble against mob rules. The new money skimmer for the casino keeps track of the skims, which gets them all in trouble and the casino owner marries a rebellious woman who gets into trouble with everyone.Apparently, this film held the record for number of times people said fuck in a full length feature at 422 fucks. That's a lot of fucking fucks! I believe that Joe Pesky was responsible for most of them. The plot is convoluted and a little unclear, but the narration is awesome. Obviously the characters are "real characters" if you know what I mean. I'm rating this adequate.
A drama by Oliver Stone, starring Kevin Costner, Kevin Bacon, Joe Pesci and John Candy.A man researches the death of John F. Kennedy in preparation for a trial.When I watch a film that is named after a person, I usually expect that person to be in the film even if another actor has to play their part. This was not the case. The film begins with news footage of Mr. Kennedy being shot. Besides this glaring defect, the film was pretty good. I liked how the characters were portrayed and the subject matter was interesting. It would have gotten a good rating if it had a different name. I'm going with adequate.
