POP FILTER VS THE CLASSICS
POP FILTER
VS
RAGING BULL
Clocking in at 129 minutes, Raging Bull is the longest pro-domestic violence propaganda film of all time. Actually it might be making a statement AGAINST domestic violence. I can’t honestly tell. All I know is that it’s a long movie about boxing where you probably see equal number of punches perpetrated against women as men. Actually, pound for pound, there was not a ton of screen time devoted to actual boxing matches, which begs the question as to why everyone hails it as one of the best sports films of all time.
The film follows the career and personal life of boxer Jake La Motta, who is a grade-A asshole. He is played by a very intense Robert DeNiro so yeah, sure, the acting is really good, but I spend the majority of my waking hours avoiding violent assholes, so I don’t need to spend 2+ hours becoming intimately acquainted with this particular asshole. Ok, I did enjoy the scene where he beats up Joe Pesci. Every movie could use a scene like that. Ok, not every movie, because that would require Joe Pesci to be in A LOT more movies, which isn’t worth it, even if he gets his ass kicked.
The only redeeming trait of Jake La Motta has is that he doesn’t trust the mob. Seriously? That is the only good thing I could find about him? No thanks. I seriously don’t know what kind of point Martin Scorsese is trying to make with this one. I’m of the opinion that if a film is difficult to watch than it better make a point. No point here. Dude was an asshole. End of story.
No lie here, I seriously have nothing else to say about this film. The movie seems authentic and well made, but does terribly at making me give a fuck. The only way I could slightly care enough to keep typing is to read silly anecdotes about the film. Did you know that someone counted how many times they say the word Fuck in this movie? They use it 114 times, which seems like a lot until you realize if they had only been allowed to say it once per minute, there would still be 15 minutes of movie in which the word fuck was not said. Such a disappointment. If only they had trimmed the movie a little bit, they could’ve had a 1:1 ratio (and I would have 15 more minutes of my life back).
I really wish I had been a newspaper editor back in the day when this movie came out and could’ve come up with snappy movie review titles. “Raging Bull is Heavy on the Rage…AND the Bull” would’ve been a good one…maybe also “De Niro & Scorcese Snort a Mountain of Cocaine on Set” or “If You Saw Joe Pesci Get Smacked Around in The Preview, You Saw The Best Part.” Ok maybe those last two are a bit lengthy for a review title, but you get the idea.
Thankfully biopics don’t often get re-made, so we won’t likely have to see this exhibition of obnoxious attitude another time around. Luckily some other famous dickhead will be enough a trainwreck that we will see a similar story before too long. Yippee. I am sure the Barry Bonds story will be equally uplifting. -LF