Recently
I had some happy memories of when my dad and I would watch movies together. He
really likes character actors and Italian-American actors with grit, so he
would find movies starring John Turturro or Stanley Tucci. I remembered how my
dad would find movies like Unstrung Heroes starring Turturro, a forgotten but
good movie with a touching performance by Michael Richards, or Big Night, a
wonderful comedy about two Italian brothers
(Tucci and Tony Shalhoub) running a restaurant in the 1950s. We watched The
Daytrippers, an indie movie about a Long Island family making a day trip into
NYC, featuring a bunch of 90's indie movie stars (Tucci, Hope Davis, Parker
Posey, Liev Schreiber). We watched The Pope of Greenwich Village, an old crime
drama starring Mickey Rourke. I even saw Rounders when it came out based on his
recommendation because of the leading actors (Matt Damon, Edward Norton,
Turturro, Martin Landeau, John Malkovich). I really like character dramas and
small movies, and feel like I got some of my taste in movies from my dad.
I picked up The Pope of Greenwich Village cheap on DVD a few months back and really enjoyed watching it again. It features so many great performers and Mickey Rourke really was the man at that time. When Paulie comes to see him after his thumb has been cut off, Rourke’s reaction as Charlie is astounding. As he watches Paulie fall apart, and starts to cry, it’s easy to see why critics at the time considered him the next Brando or James Dean.
ReplyDeletePS. The scene with the cop and the horse physic is hilarious.
It is a really good film. I saw it years ago, and I liked the scenes set in Irish neighborhoods in places like the Bronx and Queens. Mickey Rourke had this working-class rogue attitude to him that was rough around the edges, he was great to watch.
ReplyDeleteGeraldine Page just blew me away in her scene where she is pretty much telling someone to go to hell and that they would have to deal with her if they messed with her son, I was frozen stiff from her powerful performance.
I agree, the scene after Paulie's thumb was cut off was devastating. I haven't seen the film in ages, but I have fond memories of it because I watched it with my dad, who is a fan of Rourke as well as many character actors who came from tough city roots.