It was Easter of 2005 and I was one of the few who could actually work that day at the video store. The day wasn’t too busy besides the random customers, who weren’t practicing Christians, that came in to find some cinematic pleasure since the television would be dominated with The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur. As the day progressed, more people trickled in; they were probably done with their Sunday morning sermons, egg hunts, and brunch specials at the nearby Lyons. Many customers were surprised that we were open on Easter; I responded with the fact that we were also open on the day Jesus died.
There were the handful of my regulars; the ones I knew on a first name basis, the ones who came to me solely for reviews on the latest releases, and the ones who knew I was a sucker and would let them get away with not paying late fees. One of those regulars was Louise, who was a married woman and a proud mother. She came in by herself and went to the DVD action section; she probably spent a good five minutes there and then arrived to the counter.
“My husband and I are watching The Ten Commandments tonight, so I figured I would get my son something to watch,” Louise explained her proposed scenario. I looked at which DVD she had decided on for her son’s viewing experience.
“Scarface?” I’m sure I had a slightly bewildered look on my face.
“I know, great movie for Easter isn’t it?” I made a polite/fake laughter sound.
“How old is your son?”
“Sixteen. He just has no desire to watch Ten Commandments, which is too bad. It’s such a great movie. When I told him what we were watching, he thought I said Ten Things I Hate About You,” when this was said by Louise, I realized that there is a decline in motion picture history and appreciation, especially when someone hears Ten Commandments and assumes the person meant to say Ten Things I Hate About You. I wonder what the other “classics” would have been translated into:
Gone With the Wind – Gone in 60 Seconds
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – Mr. and Mrs. Smith
An American in Paris – An American Werewolf in Paris
Sunset Boulevard – After the Sunset
The Great Escape – an episode of Prison Break
After passing internal judgment, I rang up Louise and she went home happy knowing that the entire household is going to be pleased. Well, I assume as much, but maybe, deep down, Louise’s husband may have been wishing to see Scarface instead.
Knowing that our only DVD copy of Scarface just got rented out, it made me think a little bit about that specific movie. I had seen the movie twice, and both in different circumstances: once on TNT and once on DVD at a friend’s house. The former is probably the worst setting to see that movie because, as you know, TNT edits and censors their movies and Scarface is not a Disney film. So the latter was the piece in its full effect.
For the naïve readers, Scarface is an extremely violent and graphic film, hence the lack of appreciation for the TNT screening. When Louise revealed that her son was sixteen, I realized that this was the typical coming of age bracket for boys to enter their fully known appreciation of testosterone fueled action and nonsensical violent films.
Most Americans, but not all, have taken on this trend that if they shelter their children from extremely violent movies then they are going to develop into some of the brightest and most knowledgeable human beings to walk the earth. Never mind the fact that they’re playing Grand Theft Auto, listening to blasphemous music, and capturing all kinds of things off of Youtube.com, but dear god, those parents made a point of having their kids not being in the room when Training Day was on TV in order to guarantee no school shootings from their end.
However, I did not quite fall into this category. I remember when my parents were still together, they rented The Teminator and this was before third grade. In middle school, my father went through this phase of having my brothers and I watch certain movies that would make us truly a man. It was some kind of an initiation into manhood process, where the weekends we were at our dad’s house, we would watch such hits as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Exorcist, Pulp Fiction, Deliverance, and many many others. I recall watching Deliverance and viewing the scene where Ned Beatty is being raped by the crazy forest locals and I asked what exactly was going on. The most memorable part I think I encountered was having my dad explain to me that these men were having sex with him, and then there I was, confused on how a man can have sex with another man, and then making my dad even more uncomfortable with the question of how does a man have sex with another man. One of the best moments of my life is watching my father acting completely awkward trying to explain what anal sex is.
Suffice to say, I was extremely immune to the whole violent cinema world that many parents did their best to shield from their offspring. Yet somehow I came out to be a decent citizen with no motives of aggression. For my fellow friends and acquaintances, it wasn’t until freshmen or sophomore year in high school when they were finally exposed to many R rated films. Scarface was one of those that was welcoming them home.
When reaching out to the new found audience, the marketing of the movie has this voice that says, “Hey, kids! Do you want to see Al Pacino running around in a cool suit carrying a shotgun, or a machine gun, or a chainsaw, killing all kinds of people, and doing lots of lines of coke? It has a very young and a very hot Michelle Pfeiffer. Oh, did we mention that the whole time, Pacino has a kickass Cuban accent?”
Then you have the newly arrived teenagers with their jaws dropped with the reply, “Dude, it’s like you’re reading my mind!” And then somewhere, someone says SOLD!
This is just the beginning of the cultivation of Scarface for teenage boys. Throughout high school, many guys will find ways to slip the masterful quotes that Pacino says. The worst part is hearing them reinforcing the mockery of the Cuban accent. I remember when one would apologize about something, you would hear a guy state, “Es okay, mon!” Or if any large object was within the hands of a high school boy, they would discover a moment where they can get everyone’s attention by yelling, “Say hello to my little friend!” Again with the accent being overlapped into that quote.
Unfortunately the craving for Scarface does not go away come high school graduation. It manages to seep into the college experience as well. In the dorm life, people will use the walls of their dormitories as ways to represent what they are or what they appreciate. In the world of stereotypes you will find specific things in a girl’s room and specific things in a boy’s room. For a girl’s dormitory room there will be a print of Gustav Klimt’s infamous painting “The Kiss,” a magazine photo of either Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp, and a poster or album artwork of Ani DiFranco. For a boy’s dormitory room there will be some kind of series of magazine photos derived from Maxim or Stuff pinned along the walls of his desk, the poster of John Belushi with the “College” sweatshirt from Animal House, and of course, a poster of Scarface right by the bed.
The next part of the Scarface experience is when people start to get older and there is this unspoken expectation of maturity, many of these boys will start to find philosophical or theoretical elements within the movie.
“Dude, you don’t even understand! Scarface is all about the American Dream, man! Think about it, you got a foreigner coming to the States trying to find new opportunity; he pulls himself up from the bootstraps and gets to the top; he gets everything he wants; that’s what everyone is trying to do.”
Or…
“Actually, Scarface is a reflection/criticism of the Reagan era. Tony Montana (Pacino’s character, for those who don’t know) is a refugee dumped over from Cuba. Reagan dumped out many people from mental institutions in California when he was governor. Due to his economic practices, he made the middle class endangered by increasing the poor and the rich. Scarface is a juxtaposition of the rich class and the poor class, and how an individual struggles between these two. Plus, Reagan’s eighties saw the increase in drug culture which is clearly seen in the movie. That Brian DePalma is a genius.”
I would never had thought of Brian DePalma as a genius. Sad to say, this is the only film he can ride with due to its cult success among boys from the age of sixteen to twenty-five. What has DePalma got on his belt to show off? After Scarface, he had Dressed to Kill, which no one saw, the Untouchables, which is way cheesier when you watch it today, the Bonfire of the Vanities, which is still as bad as you remember it, Mission Impossible, which is the beginning of the downfall of Tom Cruise, Mission to Mars, which…raise your hand if you saw that one, and Femme Fatale, which was labeled with “From Brian DePalma, the inventor of the erotic thriller.” I am sorry, but I would not want to have that title associated with my name. What I hear from that is, “From Brian DePalma, the creator of the soft-core porn shown after midnight on Cinemax for middle-aged men to watch while their wives and children are in bed.”
Pacino is not to walk away being innocent either. Scarface marks the fall of Pacino. The movie was released in the beginning of the 1980s; prior to this, Pacino had some iconic roles as seen in The Godfather part I and II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon. He then does Scarface, and what came after that? Revolution, Sea of Love, Dick Tracy, Godfather part III (which was totally unnecessary), and Frankie and Johnny. His big comeback was Scent of a Woman, which got him an Oscar. The only thing I remember from that flick is “Hoo-haw!” being said at least 182 times, which, funny enough, is how many times Pacino says the f-word in Scarface. Now, he pretty much does films with young hip actors: City Hall (John Cusack), Donnie Brasco (Johnny Depp), The Devil’s Advocate (Keanu Reeves), The Recruit (Colin Farrell), Two For the Money (Matthew McConaughey), and Ocean’s Thirteen, which is filled with all kinds of hip people.
Aside from the pretentious interpretations of the movie and the superficial appreciations for DePalma and Pacino, Scarface still lurks around for a couple more years. In the college environment, boys will start taking some upper-division class where they read a book by Noam Chomsky and realize there are horrible things going on in the world. They then declare themselves as a liberal (although, prior to this, they probably referred to everything being gay), and will start to appreciate foreign films and documentaries. Sadly, Scarface is left behind in the dark as our boys are becoming men. This is probably around the age of twenty-two or so.
However, there is the slacker culture, or as I like to say, the Santa Cruz Local population. When working at the video store, many of the locals were proud advocates of this movie. The locals were always an amusing bunch. Their traits usually blossomed at age eighteen and died off by age thirty-three. They skateboard, drink forties, live at home until age thirty (and then move in with their best friends from high school or girlfriend), probably work at an autoshop, spend all their money on tattoos, wear some kind of ball cap with a skater brand logo, and they all absolutely hate UCSC students (except if they’re women and they’re hot, then it’s OK).
With this group, Scarface sticks around a little longer. Many of the locals probably own it, and you can find it on their shelf next to Sin City, Gladiator, Reservoir Dogs, Old School, a tin can full of weed, and their wallet that probably has a chain connected to it. However, there are a few who don’t own it because they spent all their money getting a tattoo of a surfer battling a shark on their upper arm. So those few will rent a copy.
“Anyone who doesn’t like this movie is a fucking faggot!” one local declared while I scanned the barcode of the DVD case. His fellow companion suggested that they buy a twelve pack and go watch it at Rich’s house. What I heard was that they all will go back to Rich’s house and have a good masturbation session while watching the major testosterone/ultra masculine film of all time.
The Slacker culture will usually simmer down with the Scarface appreciation roughly by the age of twenty-five because they will probably be in a relationship and the girlfriend will try to make the boy a bit more sensitive. He realizes that he if does not follow through with his sensitive transformation, he will not get any action. So, Scarface gets put away, the poster goes off the wall and up comes a poster of Led Zeppelin (which he will explain is poetry at its best) and he will go out and purchase Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers and explain how they’re extremely funny and reveal what true family values are. He has just won his girlfriend over.
With the college students owning Michael Moore documentaries and converting to vegetarianism, and the local slackers owning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because it’s art and action, they have one common thread that still reconnects their Scarface appreciation: the Scarface video game that was released last year. It picks up where the movie ended and you go around killing people with the same weapons Tony Montana had in the original. It’s a great escape for both groups because it’s not a commitment, you can leave at your will, and most likely, it’s a friend that owns it, not you, so es okay, mon.
There were the handful of my regulars; the ones I knew on a first name basis, the ones who came to me solely for reviews on the latest releases, and the ones who knew I was a sucker and would let them get away with not paying late fees. One of those regulars was Louise, who was a married woman and a proud mother. She came in by herself and went to the DVD action section; she probably spent a good five minutes there and then arrived to the counter.
“My husband and I are watching The Ten Commandments tonight, so I figured I would get my son something to watch,” Louise explained her proposed scenario. I looked at which DVD she had decided on for her son’s viewing experience.
“Scarface?” I’m sure I had a slightly bewildered look on my face.
“I know, great movie for Easter isn’t it?” I made a polite/fake laughter sound.
“How old is your son?”
“Sixteen. He just has no desire to watch Ten Commandments, which is too bad. It’s such a great movie. When I told him what we were watching, he thought I said Ten Things I Hate About You,” when this was said by Louise, I realized that there is a decline in motion picture history and appreciation, especially when someone hears Ten Commandments and assumes the person meant to say Ten Things I Hate About You. I wonder what the other “classics” would have been translated into:
Gone With the Wind – Gone in 60 Seconds
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington – Mr. and Mrs. Smith
An American in Paris – An American Werewolf in Paris
Sunset Boulevard – After the Sunset
The Great Escape – an episode of Prison Break
After passing internal judgment, I rang up Louise and she went home happy knowing that the entire household is going to be pleased. Well, I assume as much, but maybe, deep down, Louise’s husband may have been wishing to see Scarface instead.
Knowing that our only DVD copy of Scarface just got rented out, it made me think a little bit about that specific movie. I had seen the movie twice, and both in different circumstances: once on TNT and once on DVD at a friend’s house. The former is probably the worst setting to see that movie because, as you know, TNT edits and censors their movies and Scarface is not a Disney film. So the latter was the piece in its full effect.
For the naïve readers, Scarface is an extremely violent and graphic film, hence the lack of appreciation for the TNT screening. When Louise revealed that her son was sixteen, I realized that this was the typical coming of age bracket for boys to enter their fully known appreciation of testosterone fueled action and nonsensical violent films.
Most Americans, but not all, have taken on this trend that if they shelter their children from extremely violent movies then they are going to develop into some of the brightest and most knowledgeable human beings to walk the earth. Never mind the fact that they’re playing Grand Theft Auto, listening to blasphemous music, and capturing all kinds of things off of Youtube.com, but dear god, those parents made a point of having their kids not being in the room when Training Day was on TV in order to guarantee no school shootings from their end.
However, I did not quite fall into this category. I remember when my parents were still together, they rented The Teminator and this was before third grade. In middle school, my father went through this phase of having my brothers and I watch certain movies that would make us truly a man. It was some kind of an initiation into manhood process, where the weekends we were at our dad’s house, we would watch such hits as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, The Exorcist, Pulp Fiction, Deliverance, and many many others. I recall watching Deliverance and viewing the scene where Ned Beatty is being raped by the crazy forest locals and I asked what exactly was going on. The most memorable part I think I encountered was having my dad explain to me that these men were having sex with him, and then there I was, confused on how a man can have sex with another man, and then making my dad even more uncomfortable with the question of how does a man have sex with another man. One of the best moments of my life is watching my father acting completely awkward trying to explain what anal sex is.
Suffice to say, I was extremely immune to the whole violent cinema world that many parents did their best to shield from their offspring. Yet somehow I came out to be a decent citizen with no motives of aggression. For my fellow friends and acquaintances, it wasn’t until freshmen or sophomore year in high school when they were finally exposed to many R rated films. Scarface was one of those that was welcoming them home.
When reaching out to the new found audience, the marketing of the movie has this voice that says, “Hey, kids! Do you want to see Al Pacino running around in a cool suit carrying a shotgun, or a machine gun, or a chainsaw, killing all kinds of people, and doing lots of lines of coke? It has a very young and a very hot Michelle Pfeiffer. Oh, did we mention that the whole time, Pacino has a kickass Cuban accent?”
Then you have the newly arrived teenagers with their jaws dropped with the reply, “Dude, it’s like you’re reading my mind!” And then somewhere, someone says SOLD!
This is just the beginning of the cultivation of Scarface for teenage boys. Throughout high school, many guys will find ways to slip the masterful quotes that Pacino says. The worst part is hearing them reinforcing the mockery of the Cuban accent. I remember when one would apologize about something, you would hear a guy state, “Es okay, mon!” Or if any large object was within the hands of a high school boy, they would discover a moment where they can get everyone’s attention by yelling, “Say hello to my little friend!” Again with the accent being overlapped into that quote.
Unfortunately the craving for Scarface does not go away come high school graduation. It manages to seep into the college experience as well. In the dorm life, people will use the walls of their dormitories as ways to represent what they are or what they appreciate. In the world of stereotypes you will find specific things in a girl’s room and specific things in a boy’s room. For a girl’s dormitory room there will be a print of Gustav Klimt’s infamous painting “The Kiss,” a magazine photo of either Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp, and a poster or album artwork of Ani DiFranco. For a boy’s dormitory room there will be some kind of series of magazine photos derived from Maxim or Stuff pinned along the walls of his desk, the poster of John Belushi with the “College” sweatshirt from Animal House, and of course, a poster of Scarface right by the bed.
The next part of the Scarface experience is when people start to get older and there is this unspoken expectation of maturity, many of these boys will start to find philosophical or theoretical elements within the movie.
“Dude, you don’t even understand! Scarface is all about the American Dream, man! Think about it, you got a foreigner coming to the States trying to find new opportunity; he pulls himself up from the bootstraps and gets to the top; he gets everything he wants; that’s what everyone is trying to do.”
Or…
“Actually, Scarface is a reflection/criticism of the Reagan era. Tony Montana (Pacino’s character, for those who don’t know) is a refugee dumped over from Cuba. Reagan dumped out many people from mental institutions in California when he was governor. Due to his economic practices, he made the middle class endangered by increasing the poor and the rich. Scarface is a juxtaposition of the rich class and the poor class, and how an individual struggles between these two. Plus, Reagan’s eighties saw the increase in drug culture which is clearly seen in the movie. That Brian DePalma is a genius.”
I would never had thought of Brian DePalma as a genius. Sad to say, this is the only film he can ride with due to its cult success among boys from the age of sixteen to twenty-five. What has DePalma got on his belt to show off? After Scarface, he had Dressed to Kill, which no one saw, the Untouchables, which is way cheesier when you watch it today, the Bonfire of the Vanities, which is still as bad as you remember it, Mission Impossible, which is the beginning of the downfall of Tom Cruise, Mission to Mars, which…raise your hand if you saw that one, and Femme Fatale, which was labeled with “From Brian DePalma, the inventor of the erotic thriller.” I am sorry, but I would not want to have that title associated with my name. What I hear from that is, “From Brian DePalma, the creator of the soft-core porn shown after midnight on Cinemax for middle-aged men to watch while their wives and children are in bed.”
Pacino is not to walk away being innocent either. Scarface marks the fall of Pacino. The movie was released in the beginning of the 1980s; prior to this, Pacino had some iconic roles as seen in The Godfather part I and II, Serpico, and Dog Day Afternoon. He then does Scarface, and what came after that? Revolution, Sea of Love, Dick Tracy, Godfather part III (which was totally unnecessary), and Frankie and Johnny. His big comeback was Scent of a Woman, which got him an Oscar. The only thing I remember from that flick is “Hoo-haw!” being said at least 182 times, which, funny enough, is how many times Pacino says the f-word in Scarface. Now, he pretty much does films with young hip actors: City Hall (John Cusack), Donnie Brasco (Johnny Depp), The Devil’s Advocate (Keanu Reeves), The Recruit (Colin Farrell), Two For the Money (Matthew McConaughey), and Ocean’s Thirteen, which is filled with all kinds of hip people.
Aside from the pretentious interpretations of the movie and the superficial appreciations for DePalma and Pacino, Scarface still lurks around for a couple more years. In the college environment, boys will start taking some upper-division class where they read a book by Noam Chomsky and realize there are horrible things going on in the world. They then declare themselves as a liberal (although, prior to this, they probably referred to everything being gay), and will start to appreciate foreign films and documentaries. Sadly, Scarface is left behind in the dark as our boys are becoming men. This is probably around the age of twenty-two or so.
However, there is the slacker culture, or as I like to say, the Santa Cruz Local population. When working at the video store, many of the locals were proud advocates of this movie. The locals were always an amusing bunch. Their traits usually blossomed at age eighteen and died off by age thirty-three. They skateboard, drink forties, live at home until age thirty (and then move in with their best friends from high school or girlfriend), probably work at an autoshop, spend all their money on tattoos, wear some kind of ball cap with a skater brand logo, and they all absolutely hate UCSC students (except if they’re women and they’re hot, then it’s OK).
With this group, Scarface sticks around a little longer. Many of the locals probably own it, and you can find it on their shelf next to Sin City, Gladiator, Reservoir Dogs, Old School, a tin can full of weed, and their wallet that probably has a chain connected to it. However, there are a few who don’t own it because they spent all their money getting a tattoo of a surfer battling a shark on their upper arm. So those few will rent a copy.
“Anyone who doesn’t like this movie is a fucking faggot!” one local declared while I scanned the barcode of the DVD case. His fellow companion suggested that they buy a twelve pack and go watch it at Rich’s house. What I heard was that they all will go back to Rich’s house and have a good masturbation session while watching the major testosterone/ultra masculine film of all time.
The Slacker culture will usually simmer down with the Scarface appreciation roughly by the age of twenty-five because they will probably be in a relationship and the girlfriend will try to make the boy a bit more sensitive. He realizes that he if does not follow through with his sensitive transformation, he will not get any action. So, Scarface gets put away, the poster goes off the wall and up comes a poster of Led Zeppelin (which he will explain is poetry at its best) and he will go out and purchase Meet the Parents and Meet the Fockers and explain how they’re extremely funny and reveal what true family values are. He has just won his girlfriend over.
With the college students owning Michael Moore documentaries and converting to vegetarianism, and the local slackers owning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon because it’s art and action, they have one common thread that still reconnects their Scarface appreciation: the Scarface video game that was released last year. It picks up where the movie ended and you go around killing people with the same weapons Tony Montana had in the original. It’s a great escape for both groups because it’s not a commitment, you can leave at your will, and most likely, it’s a friend that owns it, not you, so es okay, mon.
3 comments:
You've figured out humanity. I celebrate you.
And I hate Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss"
I started this as a list of most overrated movies and decided it would be more fun to focus on each one as a critique on life as a whole.
Things to come...
Titanic and how you can only be a fifteen year old girl to fully appreciate this movie,
Pirates of the Carribean and how it doesn't capture the nostalgia that you think it does (because who really flashes back on their pirate ride experience?)
And the Lord of the Rings trilogy and how it made you a victim of capitalism (think buying tickets for the premiere, bought the books before hand therefore you can claim credit of reading the book AND seeing the movie, renting it, then buying the DVD, then the extended edition comes out and you buy that, and then do that whole procedure two more times, then buy the special trilogy set after all that).
Dude, you are gonna get some great Google hits from the title of this post. And you deserve them. Whatta guy!
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