Friday, October 03, 2008

When Eight is Not Enough...

(Nine if you count Shark Tale. But please, for the love of cinema, don't!)


Robert De Niro, he of the often shameless mugging, is planning to reunite with Martin Scorsese. The film will be based on the mafia memoir I Heard You Paint Houses. That might be a good thing since Scorsese could be the one man capable of pulling something great from that Raging Bull again. Their previous credits together (in chronological rather than qualitative order) are rather enviable
  1. Mean Streets (1973)
  2. Taxi Driver (1976)
  3. New York, New York (1977)
  4. Raging Bull (1980)
  5. King of Comedy, The (1983)
  6. Goodfellas (1990)
  7. Cape Fear (1991)
  8. Casino (1995)
Individual opinions may vary as to whether or not it's a good idea to chase this particular double dragon. Sometimes a nostalgia inducing reunion (from Heat to Righteous Kill ??? to stay within DeNiro-land) just ain't a good idea. Sometimes it is. Speaking of which: Can Quentin Tarantino please find a role for UMA in Inglorious Bastards? Maybe she could perform it in drag.
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8 comments:

Pivo said...

I love Uma as much as you do, but she's almost 40. Isn't time for her to walk on her own legs? Any Elle Fanning can see "Accidental husband" as a mistake in any career.

NATHANIEL R said...

So do you think De Niro shouldn't have made half of those movies with Scorsese? Cuz half of those pairing came after he was 40.

just trying to see the reasoning ;)

Anonymous said...

Seeing that list makes me wonder again: Am I the only person in the world who thinks that The King of Comedy's Rupert Pupkin is the De Niro's greatest performance? (And I say that citing him as one of my five favorite actors and admiring his performances as Don Vito Corleone, Travis Bickle, Jake LaMotta, Noodles, Louis Gara and whatever other brilliant performances he delivered in his career as much as anyone else).

Pivo said...

You've got my point. DeNiro offered notable material in "The deer hunter", "Once upon a time in America", "The untouchables" and "Wag the dog" without Scorsese's support. What about U without Q? Ulla? The avenger?? The super ex-girlfriend???

NATHANIEL R said...

pivo it's true that Uma needs a strong director and doesn't usually get them but, then, so does De Niro only he was lucky enough to get them for so long that we didn't notice.

willi i wouldn't cite TKoC as his best performance but I would maybe cite it as his best film, give or take Taxi Driver. Best performance I'd have to go with TAXI or Raging Bull. But I like King of Comedy better than Raging Bull as a film entire.

Anonymous said...

whiplashwilli - you're not the only one.

Anonymous said...

In fact if I remember correctly Scorsese thinks so, too.

James Hansen said...

It can't be any worse than anything else De Niro has done in the last decade. He can only go up from here, so reuniting with Scorsese seems like a good idea to me. I sort of wonder if it will just be (another) rehashing of stuff he's done before for Scorsese. Let's hope the Oscar win doesn't mean he is out of gas...

And you gotta love KING OF COMEDY...I'm with you whiplashwilli. I'm not the biggest Scorsese fan as it is (I like a lot of it, don't love very much) but KoC is at the top.