Movie Notes: The Deer Hunter
Synopsis
In a small Pennsylvania town, just-married Steven (John Savage) leaves for Vietnam with friends Michael (Robert De Niro) and Nick (Christopher Walken).
Movie Notes: Everybody’s Fine
Synopsis
Widower Frank Goode (Robert DeNiro), feeling estranged from his four adult children scattered across the country, decides to pay each a surprise visit.
Movie Notes: Taxi Driver
If Taxi Driver were made today, I fear it would be retooled into a romantic comedy: Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) and Tom (Albert Brooks) would be the main characters, with Travis Bickle, the taxi driver (Robert DeNiro), reduced to a weirdo Betsy hopelessly dates, discarded well before the third act. After a political campaign rally, where a tense assassination attempt is thwarted, Tom proposes to Betsy, and they drive off to a romantic weekend in the Hamptons.
Movie Notes: Raging Bull
Raging Bull, directed by Martin Scorsese, follows the rise and fall of boxer Jake La Motta. It works as an allegory of class struggle: how someone from the lower classes is unable to “make it” on his own, and must receive help from the system in order to get ahead. From the first frames, it’s obvious Raging Bull isn’t a feel-good sports flick. We see boxer Jake La Motta (Robert DeNiro), framed (or trapped) between ropes a boxing ring. With the camera inside the ring, the violence is close-up and immediate. A woman screams, a fight breaks out in the stands: blows are not confined to the ring. This is the America Jake La Motta calls home: where brutal, callous violence is everywhere. This theme recurs throughout Raging Bull, from fights in bars and night clubs to domestic violence between men, women, and their family members. The violence affects the way Jake interacts with the world. Jake argues with his wife about a steak and flips over a kitchen table. Jake’s brother Joey (Joe Pesci) threatens to stab his kid’s hand with a knife before even worse violence is inflicted on him.
Movie Notes: The Untouchables
Synopsis
Federal agent Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) is determined to enforce prohibition in 1930s Chicago, defying notorious gangster Al Capone (Robert De Niro). Ness solicits the help of beat cop Jim Malone (Sean Connery) and others, forming “The Untouchables.”