Review: HUGO

I was disappointed with Martin Scorsese's HUGO. I was ready to love it, too. I don't know why so many are saying this is the director's most personal film, just because half of it deals with the title character's last-minute love of movies. Scorsese's A PERSONAL JOURNEY THROUGH CINEMA already did that (meanwhile, MEAN STREETS and THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST are also infinitely more personal,

Film #106: The Honeymoon Killers

It was supposed to be Martin Scorsese's movie, but he was fired after the first day's shooting for taking too long on the set-ups. So the writer of the script for The Honeymoon Killers, Leonard Kastle, took over the directorial duties. A novice filmmaker, Kastle was barely known upon the movie's 1970 release as the composer and librettist of numerous obscure operas. He used the music of his

Film #71: The Last Waltz

After a lifetime on tour and in the studios, The Band--Levon Helm, Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, and Garth Hudson--decided to call it quits on Thanksgiving Day, 1976. But before they blew the scene, they staged one massive goodbye party at San Francisco's Winterland Theater...and Martin Scorsese--devoted fan and confidant of Robbie Robertson--was invited to film it all, lucky for