Five Films Only - Martin Scorsese

In terms of the current and upcoming directors, it's hard to not see some of their influence come for Martin Scorsese.  With a filmography that spans over 50 years, this man was a major influence during the Hollywood Renaissance, along the likes of Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola.  He has also received an Academy Award nomination in each decade since 1980 and also has three films among AFI's 100 Years, 100 Movies list.  With the current release of The Irishman on Netflix and another upcoming film (covid-19 willing), I want to examine and explore what are his five films you should watch among his filmography.


Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence - Taxi Driver

If there is a film that screams "LOOK OUT FOR MARTIN SCORSESE" Taxi Driver is the one that launches him into the film world.  It ranks among the top 100 films on the AFI list and top 100 film quotes of all time (you talking to me?).  

What I believe makes the film timeless and valuable is the depiction and character study we get for that New York 1970s era.  It was grimy, ugly and filled with crime.  We study a character that is starting to loose grip with his own sanity yet question if it's because of him solely or the environment around him.  We get to see a violent shootout at the end that isn't doing so to glorify violence but to show how disgusting violence is.

The influences this film had to cinema today is still relevant today.  Joker, which garnered an Oscar for Joaquin Phoenix, doesn't happen without Taxi Driver.  

Personal Favorite - The Wolf of Wall Street

Scorsese excels at making characters that are downright despicable into entertaining figures.  Jordan Belfort (who Leonardo DiCaprio should've won an Oscar for) is that type of character.  Objectively, Belfort is a drug addict, womanizing, sleazy Wall Street mogul that is manipulating the system to his favor and is one of the reasons the 2008 crash happened.  Yet Scorsese takes us within that lifestyle, shows us the glam and debauchery, how enticing it might be and rips it out with hard realization.  At the end of it, you smaybe sympathize with Belfort, which in it of its own a marvelous feat because towards the end of his journey, there really shouldn't be any emotional feelings towards him.

What also makes this my personal favorite is up to this point, all I've know Scorsese for is his take on the gangster genre.  He uses humor here and there to liven up the mood but for the most part, it's playing everything straight.  This film, though, is an outright black comedy.  The crass and humor that happens throughout drives home the point of how wrong this all is yet you can't help but laugh at their mishaps.


Fan Favorite - The Departed

Scorsese in a cop thriller that stars DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg?  Whoever said they weren't hyped for this when first announced was a liar.  And it definitely showed.  When ranking Scorsese films through IMDb user ratings, Rotten Tomatoes user ratings and domestic box office receipts, this film ranked among the top three of each category.


Unless you were privy to Infernal Affairs (a great film in of it's own right) beforehand, the twists and turns were truly riveting.  He mastered the the thrill of the chase.  Even though the symbolism is sometimes heavy handed (and if you don't see that rat, you are blind), I believe what drew the masses to this film is Scorsese doing something different with a genre that is largely predictable.  A lesser director would've made a film about a cop trying to find the mole in a mob.  Scorsese delves into DiCaprio and Damon's characters livelihood and what tolls they go through living a double life while trying to complete their task.

Did We Get This Wrong? - Casino

I remember the first time I saw this film and thought to myself, this isn't Goodfellas.  It's still good but it ain't no Goodfellas.  It had the same director, same co-writer and two of the same stars so maybe my expectations were much higher than they should have been.  Like critics beforehand, I have to believe they had the same mindset as mine.  Mike LaSelle of the San Francisco Chronicle sums it up pretty well for critics of that time.  "The best De Niro - Pesci  scenes in Casino only call to mind better ones in their other Scorsese films, GoodFellas and Raging Bull."

Among Rotten Tomato film critics and Metacritic ratings, Casino ranked 18 and 17 respectively among Scorsese's filmography.  Yet among IMDb user ratings and RT user ratings, they are ranked 4th and 6th.  

So why such a discrepancy between the audience and critics?  Can it simply be that critics hold Goodfellas in such high regard that watching Casino they will always be linked?  It seems too simple but when I read user reviews and critic reviews making a comparison between the two, the audience is a lot more forgiving.  Audiences like that Casino is in the same brethren as Goodfellas while critics feel that one product is inferior to the other.

Critical Darling - Goodfellas

Taxi Driver is the film that made everyone take notice of Scorsese.  Goodfellas is the film that changed how a genre is viewed and is the benchmark to where every film wants to be.  Francis Ford Coppola showed you what the dynamics are within in the mafia with The Godfather.  Scorsese flat out shows how cool it would be to be a gangster.  

Like I've stated before with The Wolf of Wall Street, he is great at making despicable characters fun.  We all know that Henry (Ray Liotta), Jimmy (DeNiro) and Tommy (Joe Pesci) are all terrible men.  Yet they have a code and a family that supports that code.  They show you the extravagant lifestyle you can have (the one tracking shot through the back of the restaurant is one of the best you'll see in film to this day) but the jobs they have to do in order to maintain what is theirs (killing everyone off that knew about the last job heist).

The critics absolutely love this film, ranking it the second highest among RT critic scores.  The film was nominated for five Academy Awards (won for best supporting actor) and won best film among film critics in New York, Los Angeles, Venice and Boston to name a few.    

Roger Ebert summarized it best for critics alike when he wrote, "most films, even great ones, evaporate like mist once you've returned to the real world; they leave memories behind, but their reality fades fairly quickly. Not this film, which shows America's finest filmmaker at the peak of his form. No finer film has ever been made about organized crime - not even The Godfather."

Five Films Only - James Bond 007

It's fitting that my first list would be about the James Bond films.  It was one of my most anticipated films to watch in 2020 (hopefully still if the world finds some semblance of normalcy).  My first 007 film was GoldenEye and I thought Pierce Brosnan was the gold standard for who James Bond is supposed to be.  Boy was I wrong as I started to re-watch the classics.  Everyone that knows about Bond has either a favorite of theirs, whether is the Bond women, gadgets or anywhere in between.  So let's break it down and see what are the five films that would encapsulate the Bond domain.

Fan Favorite - Casino Royale (2006)

After the disappointing end of Die Another Day (worst ranked film among users on RT and IMDb), I thought this series is done for.  I knew I was.  What I thought was cool, tongue in cheek Pierce Brosnan from GoldenEye simply became tired and weird toward the end of his run.  They decided to give a reset to Bond, doing what essentially is a prequel to our favorite spy.

This film had competition because during the summer, The Bourne Identity released and was a smash hit.  An action spy thriller that took itself more seriously, it was now the first great spy film in the 21st century.  If they were to fail this reboot, I don't believe this franchise would recover.

It hit on all the right cylinders.  Casting Daniel Craig (who at that time, people knew from either Layer Cake or Road to Perdition) was relatively risky but paid off.  He is the opposite of what Brosnan was, more serious, more stoic and hit those one-liners with more seriousness than comedic.  Martin Campbell came back to direct (GoldenEye) and his visual flair was on display, especially the opening parkour action set piece.  Also with the rise of Texas Hold'Em Poker, this story was ripe for people to see how Bond would be showing down with his chief rival Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen).

What puts Casino Royale over the top as a fan favorite was, for this new generation, we found a Bond Girl that wasn't more than a sexual conquest.  Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) was the perfect foil for Bond.  She's wise-cracking yet serious, focused yet vulnerable, she's anything but weak.  Her emotional bond (no pun intended) to James was what fundamentally shaped him as the series continued.  It's been a really long time since there was a woman that captured Bond's heart since...

Did We Get This Wrong - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

It's amazing how time can help age a film, for better or worse.  I can only imagine how much pressure there was on George Lazenby to follow up Sean Connery after five films.  The box office didn't react so well, grossing $573 million (adjusted for inflation), which is well below the mark for every Connery film except Dr. No.  

The world wasn't ready for Lazenby's take on Bond.  "His lines carry about as much conviction as an insecticide salesman at a flea circus" said Donald Zec, a critic for the Daily Mirror in 1969.  Ian Chrisitie, film critic of the Daily Express, says: “I don’t believe for a moment this chap George Lazenby is James Bond."  I agree wholeheartedly.

Yet retrospective reviews put OHMSS among the upper echelon of Bond films.  And I can see why.  The film dresses down the mystique of Bond and makes more human.  We feel the uneasiness that comes with the job and we feel the vulnerability he has when around Countess Tracy di Vicenzo, played magnificently by Diana Rigg.  For my money, she is the best Bond woman in the history of the series.

Filmmakers of this current era have stated that OHMSS is influential to them.  Christopher Nolan has described his film Inception to being his Bond film.  Nolan says, "What I liked about it that we’ve tried to emulate in this film is there’s a tremendous balance of action, scale, and romanticism and tragedy and emotion. Of all the Bond films, it’s by far the most emotional. There’s a love story and Inception is kind of a love story as well as anything else."

Critical Darling - From Russia with Love (1964)

Dr. No was the start but From Russia with Love is the film that showed what the future can hold for Bond and the franchise.  We got to see some of the Bond tropes, like the cold opening, the car Bond will be using, our Bond woman and gadgets he would be using (introducing Desmond Llewelyn as Q for the first time).

The film was short and concise in storytelling yet felt larger than life.  The final fight scene between Bond and Grand (Robert Shaw) still holds up to this day.  We get to see the muscles of what SPECTRE are capable of.

Critics love the film, having Connery catapulted to a different stratosphere from where Dr. No was.  Looking at various best ranked Bond films, From Russia with Love averages among the top three out of all the Bond films there.  It has the third highest ranking among critics on Rotten Tomatoes and second on Metacritic.  As online film critic James Berardinelli succinctly writes, "By combining solid storylines, tightly-paced action sequences, memorable villains, and Sean Connery in top form, Russia [...] mark the cinematic apex for Ian Fleming's 007."


Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence - Goldfinger (1965)


Goldfinger is the gold standard for Bond films.  It is the template to which every subsequent film thereafter follows.  We get the bombastic action sequences.  We get the over the top villain.  We get the cool henchman Bond has to overcome.  We get the killer song and opening title credits.  We the Bond woman that will be his foe or ally.  We get all this, times ten.


The film is second highest grossing in Bond history (adjusted for inflation), it's the number one ranked film according to Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes critic scores.  It's number two among IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes user scores.  Not only did it do well during it's time, it still stands among the best as time passes on.

Personal Favorite - Skyfall (2012)

Skyfall could've fallen under any of these categories but I claim it for myself as my personal favorite.  I remember watching for the first time in theaters and thinking what a great return for Bond.  The action was more coherent than Quantum of Solace, Craig was having more fun yet maintained his seriousness and the story finally put characters that we've been accustomed to into the forefront of the story, making them active rather than expository.

The second time I viewed it, I was astounded at how great of a film it was on its own.  I noticed things I couldn't formulate into words before, like the beautiful cinematography of Roger Deakins to the nuisance score of Thomas Newman.  Director Sam Mendes grew up loving James Bond and he took particular care of it, being the first Academy Award winner to helm behind the camera.  Yet I didn't realize how much homage he did until three weeks ago.

Cooped at home during a Stay-At-Home order, longing for the last Craig outing in No Time to Die and recently invited to join Greg from Movie Date Night for his James Bond Fantasy Draft (where you can start listening here), I decided to marathon all of the 007 films.  All of the knowledge I absorbed during that marathon I started seeing throughout Skyfall.
 
Mendes used the Bond formula, inserted easter eggs that sometimes only the die hard aficionados would geek over, and elevated it into a film that transcends just being "Bond."  Not only do I have it as a top ten film of the 2010s, but it is also the best Bond has offered thus far. 

Welcome to Five Films Only

Welcome everyone to Five Films Only, the blog site where I will try to come up with the definitive five films in any genre or category. 

Now you might ask yourself, how is this different from any other "top five" list?  For starters, it won't be just my personal favorites.  The goal is to try to make an objective list in a subjective medium.  Rather than list qualifications on what a film should have to be considered as part of the five, the idea each film to represent criteria and from there, I will personally rank them.  Here's how we would do them.

1. Personal Favorite - It's my blog, I get a say no doubt.  This is simply what I rank as my favorite, nothing more, nothing less.

2. Critical Darling - This category is for the critics and the awards circuit.  It's the one that got to be on the best-of lists and take some hardware home along the way.

3.  Fan Favorite - Films don't have legs unless they are beloved by fans.  Categories I will look at also include user-based reviews and box office numbers.

4.  Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence - This here is a legacy nomination.  One that stood the test of time or changed the way we looked at the genre in it of itself.

5.  Did We Get This Wrong? - There will always be a film that divides the critics and audiences.  They deserve to be on this list because sometimes the critic gets its wrong or sometimes the audiences have no idea what they were thinking.