Quite a statement about the senseless cycle of violence that serves as the best possible summary of Brazil. The real images of jails and rebellions seem uncalled for in the opening but they find their reason quite strongly over the final credits. In between there is a smothering amount of shooting and killing which mixes gang wars with high politics in a much more significant way than Elite Squad could ever hope to. Instead of the policeman as hero or…

Death and old age, and the act of looking back at the sense (or lack thereof) of one's life is, of course, much more meaningful now that both Scorsese and his signature actors are closer to their death. So there's some undeniably fascinating mirroring in casting De Niro and Pesci in these roles (as well as having Harvey Keitel in a special appearance), to tell this specific story - the same way it is interesting to see Pacino come up…

Two gigantic ironies jump out of the screen as one watches "Joker": one is to see a film so clearly fascinated by late 70s Scorsese in the same year Marty is both releasing a new film with Robert De Niro as his star as well as declaring the Marvel Cinematic Universe and superhero films in general as "not cinema". The other is to see a film in which the climax is a visit by a deranged Joaquin Phoenix to a…