The Soundtrack Series: Martin Scorsese

The Soundtrack Series marches on, this time turning its gaze towards Martin Scorsese. His appreciation for the Rolling Stones is certainly famous, but that a list like this could be filled out with only one Stones selection proves that he’s not a one-trick pony. It wouldn’t be hyperbole to suggest that Scorsese’s use of music in his films in the early 1970s revolutionized film. Here are a several examples of his best soundtrack efforts.

Infographic: Scorsese at a Glance

Martin Scorsese celebrated his 70th birthday a few weeks ago. Even though it’s almost a month later, it wouldn’t feel right unless his birthday was properly acknowledged here at TDYLF. After all, the man is a national treasure, both for his efforts to preserve classic cinema and for his own tremendous films. To honor the man who’s been as important as anyone to film history in his 70 years on earth, I’ve finally given him the infographic treatment.

25, By the Numbers

This weekend, I completed my biggest movie-related goal of 2012. With Goodfellas (1990) on Thursday and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) on Saturday, I officially watched my 24th and 25th classic or non-new release films on the big screen this year. I’m not going to go crazy and make an infographic for it- how much of a narcissist would someone have to be to make an infographic about themselves?- but there are a lot of neat facts and figures about the 25 that made up my movie journey this year.

15 Images of Martin Scorsese on Set

A lot of things happen to a movie before anyone actually sees it on screen. Most of what happens isn’t even seen on screen when it’s a finished product. The behind the scenes stuff makes up the guts of a film, and I’m in favor of bringing some of that to light. Here are 15 pictures of Martin Scorsese plying his craft throughout his career, on set.

Do That To Me One More Time: The Movies We Watch Again and Again

The other day, I was having an email conversation with my friend Marty. I mentioned that I had seen Taxi Driver over the weekend. And that prompted Marty to tell me a small story about his relationship with that particular movie. “I was working on a huge art project when I was in college,” he said. Marty is now an award-winning graphic designer and art director. “It was a 10-part drawing series that had to do with crime. I was given the subject matter of a guy who robbed a liquor store, killed the clerk and was then given the death penalty,”  he continued.

Deconstructing Taxi Driver (1976)

Thanks to the awesome folks at Destroy the Brain, I had an opportunity to see one of the most critically acclaimed films- Taxi Driver (1976)– from one of my very favorite directors, Martin Scorsese, on the big screen over the weekend. I had only seen Taxi Driver once before, about six years ago, although a great deal of it had stuck with me. All the same, the gap between viewings made a spectacular film seem extraordinarily fresh to me. I picked up on a great deal more the second time around.

Movie Scenes, Movie Theaters

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As the clichéd saying goes, “Art imitates life”. And thus, since film is a form of art, it also imitates life. And films that imitate life wouldn’t exist if people weren’t populating theaters to watch them… which is a part of life. Naturally, films have featured some really great scenes in movie theaters. Here are some of my favorites.

Taxi Driver (1976)
The unimaginably awkward Travis Bickle scores a date with the beautiful Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) and takes her to the movies. The punchline- the horribly uncomfortable punchline that makes the viewer wince- is that Bickle’s idea of a dream date is taking her to a pornographic film, even despite her protestations upon realizing where he’s taken her. 

Martin Scorsese-Themed Breakfast Cereals

If pop culture can give us breakfast food like C3PO’s and E.T. Cereal, I think they can do better. C3PO and E.T. might sell a tasty cardboard-like product to kids, but what about for the adults? Don’t we eat cereal as well? Here’s my proposal for some cereals that revolve around Martin Scorsese films:

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STR PL8S

Personalized plates of some famous movie characters, including a handful of this year’s Best Picture nominees.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, Star Wars: A New Hope

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Dicky Eklund, The Fighter

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100 Things I Love About the Movies

I passed a milestone recently here at TDYLF. Thanks to the help of the editors over at IMDB, I passed the 100,000 Hits milestone on Sunday (with a whopping 80,000+ of those hits coming just since September 30th). To celebrate, I’m beginning a brand new series called “100 Things I Love About the Movies”. To be sure, there a LOT more than 100 things that I love about the movies. As such, this has the potential to become a series- 100 Things I Love About Horror Movies, 100 Things I Love About Foreign Movies, and on and on. I present to you the first edition of “100 Things I Love About the Movies”.