Scarface

I always seem to have the hardest time writing about famous movies. I think it's because I've already read and heard so much about them, that I feel like there's not so much left to say that's new. It's hard to go into a movie as infamous as Brian De Palma's 1983 Scarface and look at it fresh, even if you haven't seen it. You know the movie just because of popular culture, and you take that with you when you watch it.

I can't remember the last time I saw this movie, and I loved watching it again today. It's so over the top and so different than most crime movies. Pacino is so incredible. He has such a great range as an actor that during this movie it almost looks physically impossible that he is the same person who later put on big glasses and a cardigan for You Don't Know Jack (Ebert reminded me of it today on Facebook, as he has just watched it). There are way too many actors who just succeed on playing similar characters, often themselves. It can be funny for a while, but I get sick of it quickly, and it's always so great to see an actor really lose himself in a role like this.

JFK

I've seen parts of JFK before, Oliver Stone's infamous 1991 movie. I've met and worked with someone who has a bit of a minor role in it (Michael Rooker, in a student film I helped make at DePaul). But I've never sat down and watched the whole thing from start to finish. I've heard a lot about it - everyone told me it was very controversial, because it isn't accurate to the real events. I'm too young to really understand the JFK assassination, but I understand what is presented in this movie - obsession, unrest, skepticism. I know these feelings from other tragedies that have happened during my lifetime. How people feel is not always accurate. Like when people are interviewed directly after a crime, their testimonies are usually wildly inaccurate. The point isn't that facts - the point is how we feel. I think that's the point of JFK. It's not trying to retell the events of the assassination, which most people are familiar with. It's trying to capture a mindset of doubt and unrest, and of the obsession with finding the truth.