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Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon is dead on arrival after its second-weekend box office collapsed to just $9 million. Apple Studios dropped a reported $200 million into this prestige flick and at least another $60 or $70 million to promote it. Thus far, after two weekends, it has grossed just $41 million domestic and $85 million worldwide. The problem is the 60 percent drop between weekend one and weekend two. That tells you the all-important word of mouth is pretty awful. The sycophants in the entertainment media will likely claim Flower Moon took a dive because...

Martin Scorsese urges filmmakers to fight comic book movie culture: ‘We’ve got to save cinema’ The storied filmmaker is revisiting the topic of comic book movies in a new profile for GQ. Despite facing intense blowback from filmmakers, actors and the public for the 2019 comments he made slamming the Marvel Cinematic Universe films — he called them theme parks rather than actual cinema — Scorsese isn’t shying away from the topic. “The danger there is what it’s doing to our culture,” he told GQ. “Because there are going to be generations now that think ... that’s what movies are.”...

Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci reunite in new set photos captured during the shooting of The Irishman. Based on a book by Charles Brandt, The Irishman traces the life of real-life reputed mob hitman Frank Sheeran (De Niro), who among other things claimed to have been involved in the 1975 disappearance of Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa, a mystery that to this day remains unsolved (despite outrageous claims like his body being buried under the old Giants Stadium). Al Pacino is set to make his Scorsese debut playing Hoffa. The Irishman marks Martin Scorsese’s return to gangster film...

It’s nearly 30 years since the Vatican condemned Martin Scorsese’s “blasphemous” The Last Temptation of Christ. But now the director’s new Christianity epic Silence has won the Pope’s seal of approval with a premiere screening at the seat of the Roman Catholic church. The Oscar-tipped Silence, the story of two Jesuit missionaries sent into the Japanese jungle in the 17th century, will receive its first public screening at the Vatican, in front of an audience of several hundred Jesuits. Scorsese will present the film and is expected to meet Pope Francis, a film fan who shares a passion for Italian...

A British artist, Carl McCrow, has figured out a way to increase gun manufacturers bottom line, and his own.  I can almost hear the manufacturers thinking "please throw me into that briar patch".  From nbcnews.com: LONDON — British artist Carl McCrow is asking the world's most successful filmmakers to make an unambiguous pledge: For every gun that appears in their movies, he wants them to destroy a real one. The irony is doubly delicious because McCrow has made his living with firearms art, and this is his way to feel less "guilty".  He lives in New York City.  ...

Darkness. A beat, then the following appears on the screen: “A Scorsese Documentary on Bill Clinton Is Stalled” —New York Times, January 22, 2015 Fade in on movie director Martin Scorsese — 72 years old, white hair, bushy eyebrows, horn-rimmed glasses — talking on the phone. As he speaks, the camera pulls back, showing him pacing in a nondescript conference room. Posters for Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Hugo, The Departed, Bringing Out the Dead, and Wolf of Wall Street hang on the walls.“It’s ridiculous,” Scorsese says. “I can’t believe it. Are you serious? I spent two years with the guy....

Martin Scorsese has tackled the mob, the Dalai Lama and the real-life Wolf of Wall Street. But he appears to have met his match in Bill Clinton. Mr. Scorsese’s partly finished documentary about Mr. Clinton — which once seemed likely to be released as Hillary Rodham Clinton was navigating a presidential run — has stalled over disagreements about control, people briefed on the project said. Though parts of the film were shot over the last two years as Mr. Clinton made a philanthropic visit to Africa and elsewhere, the project is now indefinitely shelved, partly because Mr. Clinton insisted on...

Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street -- a rollicking three-hour black comedy based on the true story of debaucherous con man Jordan Belfort -- has become one of the most controversial films in the director's 50 year career. The filmmaker, who has nothing left to prove after directing 23 narrative features including such classics as Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas, sees Belfort has part of a long tradition of the American confidence man who "takes your trust, takes your confidence and betrays you." While critics and moviegoers argue over whether Scorsese is celebrating Belfort or exposing...

Just wondered if anyone had seen Scorsese's new 3D movie, "Hugo". I saw it this weekend and enjoyed it and wondered what others thought? (you might want to avoid reading this thread if you haven't seen it yet)

-snip By recreating the pasta sauce that Clemenza taught Michael to make in the Godfather, and pitting it against the sauce that Paulie and Vinnie made while in the slammer in Goodfellas, I could once and for all determine which pasta sauce was better and, by extension, which was the superior film. The first step was to capture the recipes. A ton of information is given out onscreen and in the dialogue, but it takes some digging to get at it. We see two cans each of tomatoes and tomato paste on the counter in Godfather;we hear Vinnie talk about...

ZURICH, Switzerland (CNN) -- Woody Allen, Pedro Almodovar and Martin Scorsese have "demanded the immediate release" of fellow filmmaker Roman Polanski, who was arrested in Switzerland on a U.S. arrest warrant related to a 1977 child sex charge. Polanski was on the way to the Zurich Film Festival when Swiss police detained him in response to the American warrant. The filmmaker pleaded guilty in 1977 to having unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor but fled before he could be sentenced. He settled in France, where he holds citizenship. Investigators in the United States say Polanski, then 43, drugged and raped...

Ol' Blue Eyes and young red hair are returning to the big screen—separately, that is. Martin Scorsese has signed on to direct and produce a biopic of none other than Frank Siantra. Sinatra, the first big-screen film on the entertainment legend, will touch on his love affairs and marriages (two of his four wives were Mia Farrow and Ava Gardner), his friendships with John F. Kennedy and the rest of the Rat Pack, his singing and acting career and, of course, his possible Mafia ties. No actor is attached to the film, though Scorsese's go-to guy, Leonardo DiCaprio, is...

Between action and cut a million things can go wrong. And if something does, you can always just cut to something in the editing room. Most of the time. "Doing it in one" is about the bravest choice a filmmaker can make. Without shooting coverage you are leaving yourself zero options in post production. You have to get the vision in your brain to happen in three dimensional space right there on the day. And you also have to hope that that initial vision is compelling and will flow with the rest film's rhythm.

Frank "Lefty'' Rosenthal was a Chicago bookie who was sent to Las Vegas by the mob and helped turned sports betting into a billion-dollar business. The manager of several well-known casinos, his life inspired the Martin Scorsese movie "Casino.'' Rosenthal, 79, died Monday after a heart attack at his Miami Beach condo. Born in 1929 in Chicago, Rosenthal got involved in illegal bookmaking and eventually connected with mobsters. His nickname stemmed from a 1961 Senate hearing on gambling and organized crime at which he invoked the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 38 times. Throughout his testimony, he kept his left...

CHICAGO - Do you believe "The Clown" or an admitted hit man? Jurors will have to decide when they begin deliberations Tuesday in Chicago's biggest mob trial in years. They got the case Thursday night after prosecutors made a last pitch to sway them to believe the testimony of their star witness, admitted hit man Nicholas Calabrese. Defense lawyers have pegged Calabrese as "a walking piece of deception" whose testimony shouldn't be believed, even suggesting that if Calabrese says it's raining, someone ought to go outside to check. But prosecutors say it's the five men on trial who can't be...

CHICAGO - It didn't take Chicago mobster Tony "The Ant" Spilotro long to realize his time was up. "Time to say a prayer," government witness Nicholas Calabrese quoted Spilotro as saying moments before his fellow mobsters beat and strangled him in a suburban Bensenville basement on a June afternoon 21 years ago. An eyewitness account of the mob hit that helped inspire the movie "Casino" emerged Wednesday as Calabrese returned to the stand at the trial of his brother Frank and four other alleged members of the Chicago Outfit. Spilotro was the model for the Joe Pesci character in the...

STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) - "Goodfellas" actor Paul Sorvino pulled a gun on his daughter's ex-boyfriend after the man pounded on her hotel door and made threats, the daughter testified Tuesday. "He got in my father's face and said, 'Go ahead, Paul, shoot, I ain't done nothing wrong,'" Amanda Sorvino, 36, told a Monroe County judge. The judge granted her request for a protection-from-abuse order against Daniel Snee, 21. Amanda Sorvino testified Snee threatened to kill her at a hotel Jan. 3 in Stowe, Vt.; she said she locked herself in the bathroom and called both police and her father. Her...

Martin Scorsese Scores Upset at Critics Choice Awards Amid Oscar FeverSaturday, January 13, 2007By Roger FriedmanMartin Scorsese got a big surprise last night and scored an upset victory at the Critics Choice Awards in Santa Monica, Calif. His movie, “The Departed,” won Best Film and he took home honors as Best Director. It was Scorsese’s best showing ever at an awards show, and a legitimate one at that. He joked to the crowd, “It’s the first I tried to make that has a plot.” This big win for “The Departed” puts a slight dent in what looked like a sure...

LONDON (Reuters) - Mobsters in the 1990 film "Goodfellas" have beaten a fear of heights in "Vertigo" and the great white shark of "Jaws" to help the Martin Scorsese film clench the mantle of greatest movie of all time in a survey of UK film experts. Goodfellas, which featured Ray Liotta, Robert de Niro and an Oscar winning supporting role from Joe Pesci, topped the list of 100 movies in a survey of film critics by Total Film. "Goodfellas has everything, in terms of its technical brilliance, its huge influence on modern film-making and its spikiness and rewatchability," Total Film...

Well, Oscar Night is upon us again. And if Chris Rock is nearly right, I might be the only straight white man who watches the Oscars for both the pretty women almost dressed plus the primetime fun of making rude comments as the awards are handed out. I think I seen about every Academy Awards when I've been able to since my folks got a television set in 1955. It was always in the back of my mind to one night walk up and accept one of those small golden guys. I tried the acting route, even obtaining a SAG...