The King of Comedy (1982)

He doesn't have a demo tape and appears to have no regular gigs, instead just sits in his basement dreaming, so it is hard to empathise, but when fame as a stand-up comedian eludes Robert De Niro's idiosyncratic Rupert Pupkin, a citydweller as isolated and mad as Travis Bickle, he enlists the help of an unhinged friend (played with rabid relish by Sarah Bernhard) to kidnap tonight show host Jerry Langford, (played by Jerry Lewis essentially playing himself), in Scorsese's peculiar, darkly amusing comedy thriller that in the end says what: audacity over talent?

★★★☆☆

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Black Robe (1999)

I wonder if Martin Scorsese ever considered the title, Black Robe 2: Japan Calling for his 2017 Silence, because his movie and this 1999 Bruce Beresford epic both tell the story of Jesuit missionaries, or 'black robes' traversing new lands in the 17th Century (here it is New France (Canada), not Japan) searching for colleagues and encountering persecution and brutality as religion clashes with natives.

★★★★☆

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Silence (2016)

In the 1600s, Portugese Jesuit priests head to Japan where Christians are being persecuted and one of their own, true-life historical figure Cristovao Ferreira is missing-in-missionary-action, in Martin Scorsese's epic and looong treatment of Shusaku Endo's 1966 novel about the effect Christianity and Japan have on each other.

★★★★☆

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Hugo (2011)

Watch this, a precious, highly stylised and drama-free whimsy about an orphan boy who discovers the magic of cinema, or simply recall instead that part of each Oscar award ceremony where the presenters heavyhandedly expound film's curative properties. 

★★☆☆☆ 

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The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

I read Jordan Belfort's revolting book at the insistence of an enthusiastic friend; watching this Scorsese adaptation was my own decision to see if the appeal of the book that eluded me was something discernable in the film and it turns out the extravagant rise and fall of the Wolf ("Wolfie"), a small-time Bernie Madoff, makes for a loud, looong, obnoxious film, all kinds of non-PC and hard-to-believe, but minus the book's self-adulating tone and despite the pitiful man on display and the devastating crimes just out of sight, the movie, particularly the last half, is engaging and often very funny.

★★★☆☆

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The Departed (2006)

Some tension is eventually delivered in Martin Scorsese's remake of the terrific 2002 Hong Kong action suspense thriller, Infernal Affairs, but only after a long and unconvincing set-up featuring too much farcical humour, too many implausibilities and inconsistencies, and too many Hollywood heartthrobs and not enough gravitas for the cat-and-mouse story of a crooked cop and an undercover agent.

★★☆☆☆

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