=Whew!= So we finally got marathon man in the mail, and decided tonight was the night to watch both that and taxi driver, in one shot. Let's start with...
TAXI "you lookin at me?" DRIVER
Good movie. Dark and creepy, makes me never want to get in a cab EVER. Or run for political office for that matter. Robert DeNiro is a lovable psychopath who drives a taxi and is in love with Sybil Shepherd (and you can't blame him, she looks hot in this movie) but it's not in the stars for them, especially after he takes her to an, um.. "adult" movie theater on their 2nd date. She's apparently not into that. Women, right? So then he gets all pissed off and goes a little nuts, almost hits 12 year-old prostitute Jodi Foster with his cab, buys a lot of guns, tries to assassinate the senator who Sybil was campaigning for (unsuccessfully) and then decides to become Jodi Foster's sweet old Uncle Crazy and gives her money to go back home and live a normal life. Lots of twisted stuff going on. Our overall assessment of this one is: It's well done and DeNiro is excellent, but it doesn't live up to the best picture of the year, Rocky. So lets move on to...
MARATHON "is it safe?" MAN
Another very good movie. More of a mystery/action type flick than the full-on creepfest that taxi driver was. Hoffman is a history student going for his PhD, writing his dissertation on his father who was innocent of some charges that we never really figured out; had something to do with the McCarthy hearings. Hoffman's brother played by Roy Scheider is a double agent for the US and the leftover Nazis, particularly the head leftover Nazi played by sir Lawrence Olivier. Scheider is killed because Olivier thinks he's going to rob him when he gets a bunch of diamonds, and then he thinks that Scheider shared information with Hoffman, so he tries to kill him too. Here's the beauty: he uses dental torture. FANTASTIC. I had a dentist appointment today and my teeth hadn't even completely healed yet while we were watching this, and it was pretty traumatizing. Anyway pretty much everyone dies at the end, just like in Taxi Driver. Actually the two movies had a lot of weird little similarities, but I can't remember most of them now. So the overall consensus is: Another good movie, felt more modern than Taxi Driver and a little more engaging in general. Adam was happy to watch any movie with Lawrence Olivier that wasn't Hamlet (best picture, 1948)
Between the two we both enjoyed Marathon Man more than Taxi Driver, which actually surprised me. We had gotten a more positive response to the taxi driver pick than marathon man. Neither of them, however would have gotten our vote over Rocky for best picture.
Stay tuned sometime in the near future for our post on our next year and the movies we chose (they've already been drawn, but it's after midnight, and I'd rather go to bed and make you wait)
GOODNIGHT!!!
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I agree - neither of them are as good as Rocky, but they are good in their own right. Of what I remember (no comments, please!), Marathon Man, to me, was the more compelling movie. I've always hated dentists!
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