2.
The golden rule of commercially successful narrative art is that the writer has to push their characters into insoluble situations, and have them find their escape. Those escapes are the watermark of quality.
Continue readingArchive for Martin Scorsese
Black Rabbit
Posted in Film, Netflix, Real Men with tags Abel Ferrara, Black Rabbit, book-review, books, Catholic, Fiction, Jason Bateman, Jude Law, Martin Scorsese, Netflix, New York, reviews, writing on January 22, 2026 by Jarrod Boyle
Carldav13 Writes:
Posted in Film, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Real Men with tags Barack Obama, Betsy, gun reform, Iris, Martin Scorsese, Rambo: First Blood, Robert De Niro, Sandy Hook Elementary School, Taxi Driver, The Wild Bunch on August 2, 2025 by Jarrod Boyle
2.
Technology, specifically the railroad and the telegraph, is shrinking the West into a place where bandits can no longer freely operate. The Bunch are trying to make one last score so they can afford to retire, but the brutality central to their existence is catching up with them.
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Carldav13 Writes:
Posted in Film, Pretensions toward cultural theory, Reading, Real Men with tags Dionysus, I Don’t Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression, Iris, Jesus, Joseph Campbell, Martin Scorsese, Mithras, Narcissus, Odysseus, Orpheus, Paul Schrader, Peter Attia, podcast, Robert De Niro, Sam Peckinpah, Siddhartha, Taxi Driver, Terry Real, The Drive, The Hero of One Thousand Faces, The Tim Ferriss Show, The Wild Bunch, Tony Soprano, Travis Bickle on July 31, 2025 by Jarrod Boyle
Maestro
Posted in Film, Netflix with tags Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Edna St Vincent Millay, Ely Cathedral, Hollywood, Killers of the Flower Moon, Leonard Bernstein, LGBTQI+, Maestro, Mahler, Martin Scorsese, Netflix, Tar on January 1, 2024 by Jarrod Boyle
Watching a narrative film made in Hollywood is a lot like riding a skateboard downhill; you look to find your point of balance and once that’s established, gravity will do the rest. That said, I found Maestro a difficult film to find my balance on.
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The Devils – A User’s Guide
Posted in Fiction, Observation, Reading with tags Dostoyevsky, Martin Scorsese, Pyramids, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, The Devils on August 26, 2020 by Jarrod Boyle
What’s it about?
What amounts to a terrorist cell in mid-nineteenth century Russia and its effect on a small fictional town of Dostoyevsky’s invention.
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Is ‘Joker’ the Best Film of 2019?
Posted in Film, Observation, Real Men with tags Anthony Lane, Arthur Fleck, Barack Obama, Batman, Breaking Bad: El Camino, Donald Trump, Gary Glitter, Gotham City, Hitler, Incel, Jesus Christ, Joachim Fest, Joker, Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, Rock and Roll Part 2, Sam Peckinpah, Sandy Hook School Shooting, Taxi Driver, The Art of the Deal, The King of Comedy, The New Yorker, The Wild Bunch, Thomas Wayne, Vice, Wim Wenders on December 26, 2019 by Jarrod Boyle
“Hitler, as the point of convergence for so many nostalgias, resentments and anxieties, became a historical figure.”
– Joachim Fest, Hitler
In the wake of the Sandy Hook School Shooting in 2012, President Obama gave a press conference during which he beseeched Americans to support the introduction of basic mental health screenings for gun buyers. Continue reading
Theme Park at its Darkest 