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We might make this a regular feature here at Last Movie Outpost, An Unpopular Movie Opinion. Where Outposters can attempt to defend the indefensible, and the rest of us can argue about it.
I get to go first, because I missed the meeting where we voted on it.
The plan is simple. I will state a genuinely held (by me) opinion about something in the world of movies that I know is potentially unpopular, and I will try and argue my point.
My unpopular opinion is:
Martin Scorsese isn’t that good a director
Here’s my argument. Firstly, he has made some great movies, Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, Wolf of Wall Street, Gangs of New York and, to a lesser extent, Casino. Apart from that, he’s movies are average, too long and boring.
Looking through his catalogue, I have to admit, I haven’t seen a few of them, probably because I don’t like him. Mean Streets never appealed to me, neither did Raging Bull, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore or The Last Temptation of Christ.
Just Boring
I have seen The Aviator once, maybe twice. Overall, it’s pretty dull. I know he loves to work with DiCaprio, but trying to make him a 50-year-old just didn’t work.
I’m going to say this, The Departed, is a great story, but the movie and direction sucked. There are moments when he is trying too hard to direct. The camera swopping around and just moving for the sake of movie it. If it wasn’t for the story, which was a remake, it would just look stupid.
Hugo was a great idea, but again, badly executed, with way too much CG. It took what should have been an amazing story, and just dragged it out. I found, by the end, that I had no vested interest in the main characters at all. This annoyed me, as I do love George Melies.
Cape Fear is badly done as well. Again, great story and a remake but it just got boring towards the end. Also I didn’t think De Niro was all that good in it.
Shutter Island is good, but only for one viewing. Once you know the twist, it’s not worth revisiting.
Scorsese is probably best known for his gangster movies and, herein lies a huge problem. They are pretty much the same thing. I will give him Goodfellas, it’s a very good movie, with some great performances.
I said, to a lesser extent Casino, and I’m going to including The Irishman, were both just “gangster movies with Bob De Niro and Joe Pesci doing gangster stuff”.
The Irishman was boring as hell, at 3 hours long, nothing happened in it! I know it was about the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, but, as a Brit, I have no interest in who he was. I had to drag myself through it and I would never suffer it again.
His latest, Killers of the Flower Moon, I gave it an hour and again, nothing happened. I tried to get into the characters, but there was nothing of interest in them. There was no way I was going to get through 3 hours of it.
Good, but Not Great
As I have said, Martin Scorsese is a good director, but he’s not great. He obviously has his place in cinema history, but I think people’s view of him is very overrated.
Movies like Age of Innocence, Silence, After Hours, The Last Waltz, I haven’t even considered watching. Whenever he had a new movie coming out, again, I just couldn’t be bothered to even try them.
Recently he was banging on about Marvel movies are “not cinema”. Sorry mate, but when I saw Avengers: Endgame, in a packed cinema, me and the other patrons had an amazing time. I couldn’t have had a better cinema experience than that. He said:
“It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.”
I found more human interest in Infinity Wars and Endgame than I have ever in any of his movies. Cinema is about telling a story, that conveys an emotional, psychological experience. Whether that be aliens attacking Earth, a simple story of revenge, or anything else.
There, I said it, I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I still think Martin Scorsese is overrated and just not that great. His movies are too long, boring and just not worth the sit-through. Do you agree?
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