Mean Streets

 Year of Release:  1973

Director:  Martin Scorsese

Screenplay:  Martin Scorsese and Mardik Martin, based on a story by Martin Scorsese

Starring:  Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, Amy Robinson, Richard Romanus, David Proval

Running Time:  112 minutes

Genre:  Crime drama

Four friends live in the Little Italy section of New York City:  Charlie (Keitel) is torn between his devout Catholicism and the jobs that he does for his mafioso uncle (Cesare Danova); Johnny Boy (De Niro) is a violent, mercurial wild man whose reckless ways are about to catch up with him; Michael (Romanus) is a small time gangster and money lender who wants to break into the big leagues of organised crime; and Tony (Proval) owns the bar and neighbourhood hangout where these guys all congregate.  Johnny Boy owes Michael a lot of money, and Michael is determined to collect one way or another.  Charlie is sucked in because he has vouched for Johnny, and he is liable to pay if Johnny can't make good on his debts.   To complicate matters further is Charlie's secret relationship with Johnny's epileptic cousin Teresa (Robinson).

Martin Scorsese and Harvey Keitel had previously worked together on Scorsese's debut feature Who's That Knocking at My Door? (1968) and Robert De Niro had already made several features for Brian De Palma, but this was the film that broke all three of them into the big time.  It's shot in an almost semi-documentary style, with a constantly moving, handheld camera (the production were unable to afford to lay down tracks for tracking shots).  Scorsese had intended the film to showcase the world that he had grown up in, and it showcases the trademark criss-crossing dialogue and a soundtrack mixing rock, Motown, pop and Italian opera.  The film is sprawling and loosely plotted, but there is a spiky, kinetic energy that keeps it moving along. It's anchored by two incredible performances by Keitel and De Niro.  Harvey Keitel as Charlie is someone who is trying to be good, but trapped in a violent world, and anchors the film.  Robert De Niro gives an incendiary performance as the unpredictable maniac.  However, in the film's insular and strongly male world, people of colour and women don't really get a look in.  The only female character who really has much to do is Amy Robinson's Teresa, who doesn't really appear until the second half of the film, but she does hold her own in the boy's club.  It's an exciting, dynamic film, where sudden violence is just around the corner.  

Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro in Mean Streets

Heavy Metal

Year of Release:  1981
Director:  Gerald Potterton
Screenplay:  Daniel Goldberg and Len Blum, based on stories and artwork by Richard Corben, Angus McKie, Dan O'Bannon, Thomas Warkentin and Bernie Wrightson
Starring: John Candy, Jackie Burroughs, Eugene Levy, Harold Ramis, Richard Romanus, Alice Playten, Susan Roman, Percy Rodriguez
Running Time:  90 minutes
Genre:  Science-fiction, fantasy, horror, animation

This Canadian adult animated anthology film adapts several stories from the comic book Heavy Metal.  A young girl is terrorised by "the sum of all evils", a glowing green orb called the Loc-Nar (Rodriguez) which shows her several stories to illustrate how it has spread chaos and destruction throughout time and space:  In the nightmarish New York City of 2031, cynical taxi driver Harry Canyon (Romanus) tires to save a woman from hired killers; A nerdy teenage boy (Candy) is transported through time and space to a bizarre fantasy world where he is transformed into a bald, musclebound warrior; On a space station a witness in the trial of a criminal space captain transforms into a giant rampaging monster; In the Second World War, a badly damaged B-17 bomber heads home after sustaining heavy casualties, but, under the Loc-Nar's influence, the dead come back as zombies;   A woman (Playten), abducted by aliens, forms a relationship with a robot; A silent warrior woman avenges a brutal attack on a peaceful city.

Since it's release, this has become quite a major cult movie, although it really has not aged well.  Loaded with sex and violence, it's very juvenile and, to put it mildly, it is problematic.  Loaded with gratuitous nudity, women are almost always depicted as sex objects, and in  a couple of places sexual assault is played off as a joke.  It feels like a missed opportunity to bring adult animation and more edgy fantasy into the mainstream, but feels like a compendium of all the things that the genre is criticised for.  On the plus side some of the animation is very good, each story had it's own animation team and so each has it's own distinctive feel, and some of the imagery is really startling, so it never really gets dull. As you would expect from a film called Heavy Metal the soundtrack is packed with heavy metal and hard rock songs, which now just feels kind of quaint.  Coming across at times like the cover of a seventies rock album or fantasy paperback cover come to life, this can be enjoyed as mindless, noisy, late-night fun, but it lacks any charm, and there's a nasty quality to it that leaves a bad taste. 

An alien arrival in Heavy Metal