Still gang-renous

Last week I announced I was starting a new series on my blog called Second Chances, in which I would begin re-watching movies I did not like as much as most people did, then reconsider my stance. This is the first entry in that series, which will usually run on Tuesdays.

There's a brilliant and justifiably famous scene at the beginning of Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York in which a gang of Irish immigrants called the Dead Rabbits prepares for battle against a particularly rotten gang of so-called "natives." To the tune of an ominous, slightly discordant flute and drum battle song, a band of ragtag Irishmen, led by a stoic Liam Neeson, marches through the catacombs of their New York headquarters. They pass all manner of men sharpening swords and making blunt instruments blunter, as more and more grim warriors join the horde. Death is in the air, and everyone knows it. As the song increases in intensity, then stops dead, with Brendan Gleeson kicking open a door to an empty, snowy courtyard, the viewer has been worked into a frenzy of anticipation.

And this is when you should stop watching Gangs of New York, because nothing that comes afterward is even remotely in the same league.

Even the battle that follows is more cartoonish than genuinely brutal. And it just goes downhill from there.

This is how I felt about Gangs of New York when I saw it back in the theater in 2002, and it's how I still feel after watching it again this past Saturday. The fact that it was nominated for best picture that year, and that one film fan I respect listed it in his top ten for the previous decade, made me wonder if I'd gotten it wrong. Nope.

My biggest problem with Gangs of New York, that I often cite to people, is that it reminds me of a production of Oliver Twist. That's not a great way to describe it, in and of itself -- there have been very excellent productions of Oliver Twist over the years, and the one Roman Polanski made a couple years ago was quite realistic looking indeed. However, in this case, I am using the insult to attack the authenticity of Gangs of New York, and also the whole silly world of pickpockets that seems very Dickensian and somehow precious. A movie that has Cameron Diaz as a pickpocket doesn't seem like the gritty Martin Scorsese I know and love -- it reeks of pageantry and falseness.

Like the sets and costumes. Gangs of New York's drab production design is not "good drab." It looks like some Disney version of drab, with paper-thin sets and costumes you could have picked up from the local Spencer Gifts. It looks like someone wanted to throw a stage version of Oliver!, and maybe that's what I really mean with the Oliver Twist comment. The level of believability of anything that happens in the movie certainly makes me think that they could break into song at any moment.

And Leonardo DiCaprio's narration? It's as excessive and stultifying as Ray Liotta's narration was essential and fulfilling in Goodfellas. In fact, I'd argue that Gangs of New York is the perfect example of why narration usually does not work, and is in fact considered a lazy narrative device.

If the narration is bad, then the dialogue is worse. I was struck by how it's one of those movies where secondary characters -- or members of a crowd -- take turns shouting out lines of dialogue that describe what's at stake in every scene, in totally unambiguous terms. Where's the nuance? Cheesy.

I should pause one moment to say that Daniel Day-Lewis is, as usual, electric in this film. His Bill the Butcher is gloriously menacing. But the quality of the acting by everyone else is so poor, Day-Lewis' performance gets swallowed up. Besides, I still think he's ten times more frightening in There Will Be Blood.

But if there's any one moment in Gangs of the New York that stands out for me, explaining better than anything else why this is a bad movie, it's the scene where DiCaprio's character has amassed a loyal following of rebellious Irish, ready to resurrect the Dead Rabbits. In probably the cheesiest bit of staging in Martin Scorsese's entire career, these characters stand in silent defiance, holding candles, on several levels of a town square, like they're holding a candlelight vigil. I don't remember the exact wording of DiCaprio's narration in this scene, but it's cringe-worthy. All I could think when I saw that was "This is a Martin Scorsese movie?"

Second Chance Verdict, Gangs of New York: Still terrible.

Switcheroo randomness

Being able to receive movies through the mail is a great thing -- we all agree on this. However, sometimes it results in some rather funny possibilities for human error.

Someone's got to sit there stuffing the envelopes at the local Blockbuster or Netflix shipping center. I'd like to imagine that it's done by some kind of robotic arm -- maybe one of those robotic arms that's out of work now that all the American car plants are closing -- but it's probably just some person making minimum wage. And that person is fallible.

Which is why, for example, I received the 2007 version of The Hitcher rather than the 1986 version last August. I'd already seen the 2007 version, and I wanted to see how the 1986 version compared. (Unfavorably, I decided -- I rather liked the 2007 one, and found the 1986 one disappointing by comparison).

That kind of mistake is easily understandable. But sometimes, they aren't.

Like yesterday, for example. My wife and I sat down to watch Elegy, a movie I'd heard was good but otherwise didn't know much about. I'm scheduled to review it.

However, when I opened the Blockbuster shipping envelope, this is what I got:


I've tried to figure out what Gangs of New York and Elegy could possibly have in common that would have caused this movie to get stuffed in the Elegy envelope. (The DVD jacket was for Gangs, but the outer envelope said Elegy. I've gotten DVDs in the wrong jackets before, though). They wouldn't have been filed consecutively by title. Their subject matter is not similar -- Gangs is of course about the violent coming-of-age of old New York, while Elegy is about the relationship between a professor and his student. They're both dramas, but that's about it.

Human error, I guess.

This particular switcheroo was a bit more irritating just because of how much I disliked Gangs of New York. In fact, I think it may be my least favorite Martin Scorsese movie. For a director whose work is unfailingly realistic, I found this movie to be stagy and absurd -- it reminded me of some kind of production of Oliver Twist.

But Blockbuster's pretty good about this kind of thing. You just report the error and they immediately ship the correct title. No questions asked.

I suppose if you decided you really liked a particular movie, and really hated another particular movie that you happened to own, you could just report a shipping error and send them back your copy of the crappy movie. How would they know? If Gangs of New York could be sent instead of Elegy, there's simply no logic to the potential for mistakes. Why couldn't they have shipped you Freddy Got Fingered instead of Citizen Kane?

Well, I won't abuse the honor system they've put in place. Blockbuster has always been good to me in the past. When I never got Two Can Play That Game (don't ask me how I remember this) several years ago, they just sent me another one. They never considered -- or at least didn't let on that they considered -- the possibility that I just decided I wanted to keep Two Can Play That Game. (Because really, who would?) But if I made a regular habit of it, they'd probably catch on.

As I wait for the real copy of Elegy to arrive, I figured I might as well use my useless Gangs of New York for something. So I brought it to the store and used it to pick up Rachel Getting Married. Since they're sending me another Elegy, I really shouldn't be allowed to have another movie out from the store -- that'll leave me with one more DVD than my three maximum I'm supposed to have at any given time.

Okay, maybe I'll abuse their honor system just a little.