Bang the Drum Slowly

In the book, "Al Pacino: In Conversation with Lawrence Grobel," it says that "Bang the Drum Slowly" is Pacino's favourite movie. I am sure he was joking because this couldn't be anyone's favourite movie.

De Niro plays a terminally ill baseball player, who tries to conceal his illness from his team through elaborate lying - aided by his best friend and team mate, Moriarty.

First, the whole baseball team is really mean to De Niro. Two guys ask De Niro for his height and when he responds, they tell him that they didn't know piles of shit were made that high.

There's a part where De Niro is reading some sort of book and Moriarty says, "What are you reading?" Then De Niro says, "You wouldn't believe it, but about a woman falling in love with Dracula."

The way I'm suddenly changing topics is as abrupt as that scene was cut. Also, I'm not sure if I really cared that De Niro was dying. At worst, he was a man with overactive sweat glands and a slight limp.

Everybody's Fine

"Everybody's Dead" should be the title of this film because this is the most depressing movie in the world. Why the poster looks like it is the feel-good Christmas movie of the year, I do not know.

There is a part where a drug addict steals tries to steal all of De Niro's money and then crushes his medication, and De Niro has to salvage and take the crushed pills off the floor because he's miles from home. De Niro wants to see all his children, but no one wants to see him even though their mom is dead.

Drew Barrymore has a secret hidden baby and and Kate Beckinsale is having an affair with her co-worker. None of them want to tell De Niro that his son/their brother died from a drug overdose in Mexico - not even Sam Rockwell, who plays a failed orchestra conductor.

What Just Happened

What just happened? No really, 'what just happened?' is what I thought right after this film. This whole movie was about getting Bruce Willis to shave his beard and also, trying to get a dog being shot in the head cut out of a film. The first is successful, the second is not. In between, the guy from The Devil Wears Prada is sleeping with De Niro's ex-wife The Princess Bride and he is not happy about it.



I didn't like the fancy art school flickering scene changes they tried to do either. "Sharpest comedy in ages." More like dullest film I fell asleep to on my laptop twice. Yeah. I don't know why so many big names agreed to do this film with such a weak script. Maybe I just have bad taste in movies.

Novecento (1900)

Not even De Niro and Depardieu's double handjob, followed by a epileptic seizure from the whore that was servicing them, could save this stinker.

This movie was five hours long. Five hours.

I don't know why they dubbed parts in English when they could've just put the subtitles in. I didn't feel any empathy towards the characters - there were just too many of them. Maybe you have to be in the right mood for an epic like this, but I sure wasn't.

Boring. Boring. But I know you're curious.

New York, New York

If you thought DeNiro would never do a musical, you are wrong. This underrated Scorsese gem stars a young Liza Minelli (also known to Arrested Development fans as Lucille Austero) singing and dancing her way through life. DeNiro is a saxophone player who has just come home from the war. They fall in love and have a tumultuous Ike and Tina style relationship. This film features Minelli's 'New York, New York' which Frank Sinatra later made famous. I recommend not to watch the director's commentary for this film - instead of Scorsese, it's an unidentified female's voice who sounds like a robot reading cue cards and not saying anything particularly important either.

The Last Tycoon

This movie, based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald was pretty great, but I just couldn't get into Ingrid Boulting's face. It was just wider than it was tall, kind of like Hey Arnold, but beautiful in a model sort of way. Anyway, I preferred Theresa Russell's character even though De Niro was so into Boulting because she was a dead ringer for his dead wife - creepy.

Anyway, I really wanted De Niro to get into Cecilia - I mean, look how cute she was: But it doesn't really happen. There is, however, a great scene between De Niro and Jack Nicholson...their only film scene together (ever!) involving De Niro taking a punch in the face.

De Niro is on top of his game in this film - delivering monologues that could've gone horribly wrong if played by any other actor.

Falling in Love

Today I lost my phone, so decided I needed to indulge myself in a cliched romance film. Everything about this movie was a cliche - apart from the fact that the blossoming romance is between two people who are already married, but not to each other. De Niro is married to Malcolm in the Middle's mom:


I usually hate movies involving cheating, and never root for cheaters, but what can I say, my love for Bobby and Meryl runs deep.

De Niro is looking pretty dapper in this film, and Meryl is stunning as always, but with an awful eighties haircut that looks like a feathered mullet.

If only life happened this way: meeting on a train by accident, literally bumping into each other causing the contents shopping bags to disperse to the floor, only to realize at home that you accidentally acquired his/her purchase by mistake. Accidentally meeting on a train again, then accidentally meeting at the book store where the contents of your bags flew out. Culminating in an accidental train meeting again (again); this time, with the both of you ready to commit your love. Sounds like my cringeworthy high school harmless-stalker days, minus the "accidental" and a restraining order in place of the happy ending. Only kidding.