Review #2: Taxi Driver

TAXI DRIVER (1976)

DIRECTOR: MARTIN SCORSESE

TRAILER

Considered to be an American classic, Taxi Driver is a portrait of "a man who would not take it anymore.". The man the quote from the film is referring to is our "hero" (using the term really loosely there), Travis Bickle (an amazing Robert De Niro), an insomniac who may or may not have participated in the Vietnam war, who takes a job as a cab driver so he can have something to do throughout the night. Travis, along with the audience, sees the downright pleasant people that populate New York City in the late hour of the night and the early hours of the morning, and we hear his constant thoughts on "ridding this city of all the filth", which he perceives to be his job in life. The film continues from there as he obsesses over Betsy (Cybil Shepherd) and Iris (a really good Jodie Foster), a child prostitute, giving the film more of an episodic nature than a plot-driven one.

Let me start with Robert De Niro. Wow. De Niro gives a brilliant performance as the psychotic Travis. It shows that he can be brilliant when given the right material (which has been something he hasn't been able to achieve recently >_>). Also a stand out is Jodie Foster in what, I believe is her first major film role, as a child prostitute who Travis becomes obsessed with freeing, although worth noting is Harvey Keitel as Foster's abusive pimp and Albert Brooks as Cybil Sheperd's coworker.

The production side of things is also fantastic. The editing and cinematography give the film a hallucinatory feel to it, giving the closest you can get to how Travis sees the world around him. The music to be honest isn't really that great (using mainly a moaning saxophone), but it gets the job done.

But the film has one major fault: It's. Too. Damn. Slow. There are plenty of scenes that could have easily been done away with (most notably a scene between Jodie Foster and her pimp that pretty much restates what's already been said earlier in the film) that don't necessarily bring anything worth noting in terms of character development and the actual story arc of the film itself. Another complaint is that sometimes the characters motivations are often times not really known (we never really find out why Jodie Foster likes her pimp enough to stay with him).

THE BOTTOM LINE: While Taxi Driver can be annoyingly slow, and at times we don't really know why characters are doing what they're doing, it still doesn't detract from it's status as a classic.

9/10

Review #1: Hoop Dreams (SPOILERS)

HOOP DREAMS (1994)
DIRECTOR: STEVE JAMES
TRAILER

Hoop Dreams runs at almost 3 hours (171 minutes, to be exact) yet it feels much shorter than that. Just goes to show how much Steven James documentary sucks you in to the lives of two Chicago ghetto kids (William Gates and Arthur Agee) with one dream: to play for the NBA, and the ups and downs they have while trying to achieve that dream. The movie opens at the summer before William and Arthur's freshman year, who both end up attending St. Joseph's High School, an expensive suburban school that they wouldn't be able to go to if it wasn't for there amazing basketball skills, the documentary than follows them until it's time for them to head off to college.

Trust me, the film is much better than the above summary probably makes it seem. The movie is probably the ultimate sports documentary (if not the ultimate sports movie). You become completely absorbed in the lives of the Gates and Agee families through the four years the film follows them, cheering for them during there victories, and feeling genuine sympathy for them during there defeats. The film gives all of the characters room to expand and give there opinions on the events unfolding, giving the family members and friends huge amounts of personality which surprisingly isn't common during documentaries which focus on a certain person or groups of people.

On a not-so-positive note the film probably would've worked better as a mini-series than a 3-hour documentary, since there are many events in there lives that are only skimmed through. For instance, one of the two kids becomes a dad during the course of the film, yet the film for the most part ignores it. Though you see the kid he has throughout most of the second half of the film, the experience of raising a kid and juggling school and basketball simultaneously is not explained that well, to be honest.

BOTTOM LINE: Though Hoop Dreams has it's flaws, it's depth and emotional punch make it not to be missed.

8.5/10