It’s a mediocre movie that hasn’t aged well, though Pacino makes it one worth watching.
It’s also one of the three most quotable movies ever, IMO (the other two being The Princess Bride and This is Spinal Tap).
Glad you asked.
I don’t know what the reason, but I live in a fairly integrated city, spend time in the malls (shopping, not chaising tail), have younger relatives who are into the scene, and work and live on the edge of town where I see plenty of inner city people. I even work with a few right now.
I have never, ever (that I can recall) seen the image of a white person worn on a black person. Ever. Malcom X, Jordan, MLK Jr, etc, < those guys you see all the time.
Like I said, I’m not sure what the reasons may be, I’m just sort of shocked that now I find out that the reason they pick this certain image is because it represents a sort of evil. And a ficticious white person at that (the movie character being the image, not AP himself). Not heart-warming by any means.
Weirdest thing, I was just talking with a friend yesterday about how the movie really hasn’t aged well. It’s hard to sit through now.
On the otherhand GodFather I & II and GoodFellas have both stood up really well and are just as good.
I don’t doubt that. I’ve seen a few, but not many. One guy in St. Louis last Saturday had Che Guevara on his chest. A woman in Indy was wearing Marilyn Monroe. And a goofy guy I once worked with had a George Jones t-shirt. He’s into country music.
I’m a 56-yr old white guy, and I wear B.B. King and Keb Mo. Oh, by the way, happy birthday, B.B.!
jrfranchi writes:
> Weirdest thing, I was just talking with a friend yesterday about how the movie
> really hasn’t aged well. It’s hard to sit through now.
> On the otherhand GodFather I & II and GoodFellas have both stood up really
> well and are just as good.
I’m not sure what you mean by “hasn’t aged well.” Even when it came out, Scarface was considered kind of a junky movie. Even when they came out, The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, and GoodFellas were considered great films.
Eve, 1932 called. They want their Zeitgeist back.
Save me some, willya?
I watched new Jack City last night and there was a bit in there where they’re watching Scarface and imitating Pacino’s character.
So I guess my vote goes for the hip/hop culture theory as stated earlier.
Incidentally it was always an iconic movie at my university [Scottish university mid nineties] due to it’s quotability.
Scarface’s iconography is only recently popular. The movie’s been an influential part of hip hop for decades, Tony Montana is only portrayed by a white guy and the character’s an honorary nigga.
You can’t be a credible baller, a playa, a pimp, a professional athlete or hip-hop head or serious wannabe without seeing or owning DVDs of Godfather I and II, Goodfellas, Scarface, Cooley High, Black Caesar and Hell Up In Harlem, Krush Groove, Breakin’, Do The Right Thing and Malcolm X, The Last Dragon (as a goof) Dead Presidents, Ghost Dog, Love and Basketball and Set It Off, Morgan Freeman in Se7en and Street Smart, the Scary Movie and Scream franchises, King of New York, Eddie Murphy’s Raw and to a lesser extent New Jack City, Deep Cover, the Matrix Trilogy, Faces of Death, Enter the Dragon, Braveheart, most of the Tarantino ouevre (you can skip True Love and mmaaaybe Jackie Brown), Hard Boiled, Denzel in Training Day, and a smattering of movies with Jet Li, Chow Yun Fat (I already said Hard Boiled, right?), Freddy, Chucky, Jason Voorhees, the Terminator, Rambo and the Blade Trilogy.
Own any two dozen of the above and you’re in.
Oh, yeah --and this year’s Hustle & Flow (a future classic) and the first two Friday movies w/ Ice Cube, and Boyz in the Hood.
[QUOTE=Askia]
Chow Yun Fat (I already said Hard Boiled, right?)
[quote]
I never heard of hard-boiled fat. How do they do it?
In what? A day-glo jumpsuit and cuffs?
In style, son. In style!
I guess as an 18 year old we all loved the movie when we rented it, now much later I can’t sit through it.
jrfranci writes:
> I guess as an 18 year old we all loved the movie when we rented it, now much
> later I can’t sit through it.
It’s not a matter then of whether the film has aged well. It’s a matter of you aging well. Your taste has improved and gone past this film.
Agreed, better way to look at it.
I would say it’s move like "if you can get into an 80’s excess mood (and be comfortable) you will still like this movie (assuming you ever did).
I feel the same way about Miami Vice.
I think the revival is due to the 20th year anniversary in 2003. By that time the Hip-Hop Community had fully integrated and adopted it (and their entrepreneurs began to really exploit it) and that it has just taken a while for it to mainstream itself to typical SDCS folk.
Two cites
A. FAt Joe has a Tatoo. P Diddy has seen it 60 times
B.
I*t’s the movie we all watched 100 times," says Kevin Liles, president of Def Jam/Def Soul and executive vice president of the Island Def Jam group. “It became a ghetto classic, especially to inspire people for that American Dream.”
Liles has co-produced a 20-minute documentary tribute to the conection between “Scarface” and hip-hop that will be a feature on the 20th anniversary DVD release of the movie.
Liles has also assembled a CD of songs influenced by the movie, from Grandmaster Flashs’s “White Lines,” N.W.A.'s “Dopeman,” Jay-Z’s “Streets Is Watching” and, of course, Geto Boys member Scarface’s “Mr. Scarface Is Back.” Both are due in stores Sept. 16.
Liles believes the message of the movie, and the message that has filtered through the rap world, is a cautionary tale of power and ambition gone out of control. “It’s a thing where people wanted to have all the money, all the girls, all the cars, all the houses, and even if you get everything you want, it can destroy your life.”*
I still can’t believe that rapper on “Cribs” had Scarface blinds in his bedroom!
I’ve always attributed it to the rise in popularity of the post-punk, San Diego band blink-182.
Without totally hijacking this thread, I, um, question how many rappers take that advice to heart.
It seems to be fairly common for some viewers to understand a movie in a moralistic way (for Scarface, that would be to believe that the movie is about how getting everything you want will destroy your life and get a lot of other people killed at the same time), while other viewers will “not get it” and miss the moral of the film, although some film critics would claim that these other viewers are the ones who “really get it.” After all, the moralistic way of looking at Scarface and to dismiss some of its hardcore fans is to say that Al Pacino’s character is destroyed at the end by his desires and that the fans who think that he is a hero are just too stupid to notice that he is killed and gets a lot of other people killed by the end. Some film critics would say that the film quite deliberately does make Pacino’s character into a hero for some of the film’s fans, because their view is that it’s O.K. to go down in a gunfight as long as you get what you want for a short time. These fans would say that the philosophy of the film is “Live fast, die young, and go out in a blaze of glory.” Personally, I would say that the film is trying to please both sorts of viewers, those who want to take it in a moralistic way and those who want to believe in the blaze of glory interpretation.