Home Films/DVD Asylum

Movies from comedy to drama to your favorite Hollyweird Star.

Finally got to Raging Bull yesterday and, man!

Maybe I just wasn't meant to see it in 1980. Talk about a movie ahead of its time...

And it seems to have affixed itself to many other writers' and directors' minds over the decades.

Sopranos-type stuff now looks like a major rip-off, and a dilution.

The opening scene, you recall, the rehearsal in front of the mirror... I said to myself, Damn this reminds me of Ian McClellan's Richard III (which I love). And then by God! if Jake doesn't say, "A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!" -- the most famous line from Richard III. Could McClellan have staged his opening soliloquy in front of a mirror, having seen Raging Bull?

Everything about it was superb. And I flinched whenever he hit the women, so believable did it seem.

And didn't Sugar Ray look great? (Yeah, yeah, an actor...) And Joe Pesci in a real role?

I think I skipped it at the time because who wanted to see another boxing (or horseracing) movie? Plus I was way above such things at that time, as opposed to now, when I'm merely above them.

Saw it at the Brattle, same theatre I'd seen my first foreign movie at. Memory lane... Wild Strawberries...

Afterwards I stopped at the John Harvard Ale House for a quick one. It had been a long time since I'd enjoyed the night life in Harvard Square. Well actually it was more the early-evening life. Then I went home.

I paint the town now with a smaller brush.

The John Harvard is famous for a story I tell. I went there just after it opened, sat down at the bar and when asked, said, "I'd like your bitterest brew." The bartender drew himself up straght and replied, "Sir, our beers are not bitter!"

Last night, twelve years later: "I'd like your bitterest brew." "Coming right up! DPA! Devil's Pale Ale!"

clark



This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:
  Schiit Audio  


Topic - Finally got to Raging Bull yesterday and, man! - clarkjohnsen 12:11:15 03/18/05 (18)


You can not post to an archived thread.