Episode 1 Scoreboard

Round one of the trivia game is wrapped, and we have a good little handful of players on the board. Here are the results after one round, and the answers to the questions asked.


Rachel Thuro - 20 points
Duke - 12 points
Courtney Small - 8 points
Rhys Bendix-Lewis - 5 points
Andrew Robinson - 3 points

A good start for Rachel (being the first entry and going 5-for-6 sure helped), but with many episodes still to come, the lead is far from insurmountable. Get in the game people!

Hatter's Questions:
If Scorsese has said that he would have been a priest.
Scorsese's made docs on The Band, Bob Dylan, and The Rolling Stones
Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Francis Ford Coppola did the honours.

Simon's Questions:
There have been 8 Scorsese/DeNiro collaborations
Scorsese has directed 32 films in total (The 14 shorts didn't count)
"Ï don't want to be a product of my environment..." is from THE DEPARTED

Notes: Entries for Trivia will henceforth close at noon EST on the Friday after the show, and the prize dvd/blu-ray can be worth a maximum $30 USD on Amazon.com

"There's not only beer in that jug. There's beer and blood - blood of men! " (Simon reviews THE PUBLIC ENEMY)

That's not a line from a Martin Scorsese film - but I'll bet he wishes it was! It is a line delivered by Jimmy Cagney way back in 1931 when he managed to snag a role in The Public Enemy. Interestingly, Cagney did not originally get the role he played - instead he was cast as Matt Doyle. Luckily, at the last minute, the two actors switched Edward Woods playing Matt Doyle whilst James Cagney played Tom "I-ain't-so-tough" Powers.

One thing that we can never forget about Scorsese is his influences. One Gangster film which was a huge influence on him was William A. Wellman's The Public Enemy starring James Cagney. It was the film that broke out Cagney whilst additionally showing a true example of the rise and fall of the Gangster.

As a sample of how The Public Enemy influenced him, I wrote:

"THE PUBLIC ENEMY itself had a huge influence on filmmakers - specifically Martin Scorsese, who often says in interviews how he attended double-bills that showed THE PUBLIC ENEMY and SCARFACE when he was a child and it was part of many factors that made him the one of the greatest directors of all time, and in the first few minutes you can see the influence this has had on him."

If you want to read more, you can find it by clicking here

"Gimme Champagne When I'm Thirsty, Give Me a Reefer When I Wanna Get High..." (Hatter reviews SHINE A LIGHT)

Few people can film rock & roll like Martin Scorsese. The man has it down to a science and does it with such subtlety that a viewer never truly realizes just how much craft is in play.

The last great example of this was when Scorsese took his crew to film the world's greatest rock & roll band play a theatre show in New York. Here's a bit about what I thought at the time...


Fair Warning: This review will be difficult for me to write without letting my biases show. I'm a believer in rock & roll. I'm a follower of Martin Scorsese. And I'm deeply devoted to the Gospel according to Charlie, Ronnie, Keith, and Mick. However, I will try to set all of that aside, and give an honest account of SHINE A LIGHT. Light a candle for me...say a prayer...this will be tough...

Slight sidenote, this review was posted in my first few months of blogging...so if it seems a little rough, I plead inexperience. The full post can be found here.

"Thank God For the Rain To Wash the Trash Off the Sidewalk..." (Simon reviews TAXI DRIVER)

One film we danced around during the episode and only mentioned sparingly is Scorsese's classic TAXI DRIVER: A film Simon called one of the three essential Marty movies.

The Ballad of Travis Bickle is a film that almost demands repeat viewings, something Simon mentions in this post on Screen Insight. Here's a taste...



Because the whole film cuts so close to the bone, it has the edge of fear and horror. The eyes lingering in the car mirror and the sense throughout the film about what Travis will do - when will he crack?

His not-so-subtle racism is also a part of this which is so difficult to watch also. In a world that has become so diverse - whereby, in my opinion, racism has become hidden as opposed to being openly condoned. Travis drives through the streets rarely conversing with people - but we know his thoughts and his attitude to the African-American characters in his head. The real fear and horror is the possible parallels this might have with people in society today - violent, dangerous racist sociopaths who will inevitably crack at some point...

If you want to read more, the full review can be found here.

"Get Yourself Together Teddy..." (Hatter reviews SHUTTER ISLAND)

Thank you to everybody who has listened to our first episode so far, given us great constructive feedback to work with, and participated in the trivia game. I'm sure I speak for Simon when I say that we're happy we were able to start this crazy collaboration off with a bang.

During Episode One, Simon mentioned that for him SHUTTER ISLAND was the best film of 2010, and while I didn't completely agree, I did find the film to be an amazing cinematic experience.

Here's a taste of what I wrote at the time on The Dark of The Matinee...


"Do you really want to know?"

We've all heard those six words at some point, and in all of us it evokes a certain unease. It answers a question with a question, and tells us that we're not going like the truth. That's the feeling that lingers over much of SHUTTER ISLAND...that every single answer we get in this mystery will lead to further - and more unsettling - questions...

If you want to read more, the full review can be found here.

The Film Locker #1: Martin Scorsese and 'Goodfellas'

For me, the primary purpose of blogging and podcasting is to learn and to improve on my film interest through writing, reflecting and discussing cinema with a broad range of like-minded people. The 'dream' of joining film journalism in a professional sense is something that I do intend to work towards and, moreso, to even break in Film Academia by writing about cinema.

These 12-episodes are part of one series focussing exclusively on directors - choosing one film to extrapolate (love that word) from. In some cases, these are directors that I know through and through, in other cases they are directors I have had to research - and this podcast is a great outlet to relay the knowledge I have learnt.

It's a big job and takes a while to prepare, record and edit - but so far, it has been worth it. By keeping it as a limited run, we can reflect and improve if we decide to continue...

It is already up on itunes and can be found easily on podomatic - so, please do try and write reviews and support us if you can! We have the ol' RSS feed and 2.0 RSS and, if you link in different ways, we also have it on Google and Yahoo

Here we go:

Series 1: Episode 1 - Martin Scorsese and 'Goodfellas'