Free Republic

AP: What made you want to make “The Saints”? SCORSESE: I go back to my early childhood and respite and the sanctuary I found in St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. Not being able to play sports or be a tough guy in the streets. And, you know, the streets were pretty tough down there. I found a sanctuary in that place. It's now a basilica. The first Catholic Cathedral in New York in 1810, 1812. It figures in “Gangs of New York.” The Know Nothings and anti-immigration groups attacked it in 1844. Archbishop Hughes fought back. It’s a place rife with...

HBO’s Atlantic City gangster drama ends its first season tonight—Allen Barra argues that its excellence is unrivaled in TV history, and has only seldom been achieved in film. In the first episode of Boardwalk Empire, directed by Martin Scorsese, Atlantic City political boss “Nucky” Thompson, played by Steve Buscemi, pensively gazes into a fortuneteller’s parlor. A short time later, we see the reverse shot—Nucky staring through the door’s oval window as seen from the inside. The shot replicates the double burn insert popular in newspapers in the 1910s and 1920s where a photo of a famous person was set in...

Arches of St. Patrick's Old Cathedral rise 85 feet. Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2010/12/03/2010-12-03_new_day_at_old_st_pats_pope_designates_historic_church_citys_first_basilica.html#ixzz175QlZeFn You can just picture Martin Scorsese as an awestruck boy inside St. Patrick's Old Cathedral on Mulberry St. - its arches flying heavenward, sunlight peeping through stained-glass saints, its organ pumping.He paid homage to Old St. Pat's in "Mean Streets" and in "Gangs of New York," where he depicted a night in 1844 when Archbishop John Hughes filled the street with 3,000 armed Catholics ready to fight an approaching mob of Protestants.When Francis Ford Coppola needed a beautiful sanctuary to contrast with his operalike multiple-murder scene in "The...

I find the entire story to be a fascinating allegory of mankind's suppression of the knowledge of God. About self-deception. About the painfulness of the truth about us as humanity...we are the villains. Now, I am sure that Dennis Lehane never intended this tale of a deluded U.S. Marshall to be seen for anything more than a thrilling exploration of one man's painful journey towards the truth. This should be obvious. But it does not take a great deal of effort, in my opinion, if you possess a robust Christian worldview, to see the allegory. You see, like Teddy, we...

Martin Scorsese is determined to make "Silence" his next movie. The helmer and Graham King's GK Films are negotiating with Oscar winners Daniel Day-Lewis and Benicio Del Toro to star. Gael Garcia Bernal is also circling the film, expected to begin production later this year in New Zealand. The drama is set in the 17th century as two Jesuit priests face violence and persecution when they travel to Japan to locate their mentor and to spread the gospel of Christianity. "Silence" is based on the Shusaku Endo novel, which was adapted by Jay Cocks. Scorsese has had the project on...

[plot] Two men from opposite sides of the law are undercover within the Massachusetts State Police and the Irish mafia, but violence and bloodshed boil when discoveries are made, and the moles are dispatched to find out their enemy's identities.

I almost never do vanity posts but I have seen three movies lately that I want to comment on. I thoroughly enjoyed two of these movies, The Guardian, and Fly Boys, in spite of fact that the professional film critics were generally dismissive of them as being cliché ridden.

Movie star Clint Eastwood is the winner of the best director award from the Director's Guild of America. Eastwood received the prestigious award in Beverly Hills, California Saturday for his critically acclaimed film Million Dollar Baby, beating out fellow American director Martin Scorsese. He was nominated for The Aviator, a biography of the late billionaire Howard Hughes. The 74-year-old Eastwood directed, produced, starred-in and wrote some of the music for his drama about a boxing trainer and reluctant mentor to a scrappy female fighter. The award makes the veteran filmmaker the favorite to win as best director at next month's...