Both deliciously funny and scary as hell; Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy is a work of ingenious, prophetic wisdom and focus. Both grounded and elevated by one of Robert De Niro's finest performances, the film slivers and slides through different forms of deconstruction and satire until the final irony hits like a ton of bricks.

Martin Scorsese's direction is magnificent here. While not as classical as Raging Bull or as lush as Taxi Driver, It feels just as pure, mainly when the camera decides to watch Rupert Pupkin in all his mesmerizing and terrifying glory. Both hilarious and creepy, De Niro embodies this complex character with glorious quirkiness and a sense of childish playfulness. In particular, the scenes involving…

Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime.
-Rupert Pupkin

Vito Corleone, Travis Bickle, Jake La Motta and... Rupert Pupkin. Those names are not mentioned together nearly often enough. The King of Comedy is one of Robert De Niro's greatest performances and his most underrated collaboration with director Martin Scorsese. Sure people here praise the film, but it's overwhelming how many people have never seen this.

De Niro's performance is so genuine that there's several scenes in the film that I find incredibly hard to watch. It's like seeing a real person filled with desperation for validation and receiving nothing but rejection time and again. At first it just looks like Pupkin is simply obsessed with…

The films of Martin Scorsese:

This film is never mentioned in conversations of the best films by Martin Scorsese, or maybe it is not mentioned enough. I consider this to be Scorsese's most underrated film. The story is short and to the point. The film does not waste a single scene, not even a single frame, and the pacing is virtually perfect. The film starts and doesn't stop until the very end. 

With that said, we gotta talk about Deniro here. Wow! What a performance. People need to talk more about this performance. His performance of the socially awkward, yet still very simpathetic and charming character of Rupert Pupkin is phenomenal. You can tell that this character's mind is running…

It’s a sharp - though occasionally sloppy - movie. Thoroughly enjoyed and my interest was maintained the whole time; Scorsese continues being the best. But I need to talk about Robert De Niro, and how his performance as Rupert Pupkin might be one of my favorites I’ve seen. 

Rupert, an obsessed, distressed, clearly unstable man, is portrayed with sheer brilliance by De Niro. A methodist by choice, De Niro sinks deep within Rupert’s disillusioned thoughts with such skill, such wisdom, and such perfection, that it shocks me his performance has barely received any recognition (well, perhaps that’s not true, but this film failed to receive any big accolades (with the exception of one BAFTA for screenwriting, which is also singularly…