After hundreds of e-mails of concern, people thinking we were dead (or worse) and begging us to keep blogging...we're back. Raging Bull sat on top of the blu-ray player for the last 4 months, but we finally sat down to watch it.
1980 Drama directed by Martin Scorsese. We watched the 2009 blu-ray release, which looked incredible.
I'd seen Raging Bull over ten years ago, and didn't remember being that impressed by it. This time around, I was pretty blown away by the film.
Raging Bull stars Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta, a middleweight boxer and general psychopath. We watch him tear through opponents and family members alike, alienating most everyone in the film. This is De Niro at his best. Some of the most intense scenes I've ever seen acted, and lets not forget the 70 pounds that De Niro put on to play the aging LaMotta. They had to cut shooting short because De Niro was having trouble breathing, he was so huge.
At times hard to watch, with a very unlikeable protagonist, it was still impossible to look away from Raging Bull. Gripping, intense, and powerful, I give it a 9.0.
Fun fact, De Niro took up boxing while training for Raging Bull, won a couple fights, and was touted by LaMotta himself as one of the 20 best middle weight boxers of all time.
The film was fantastic. Other than some dropped lines and a very ambiguous biblical quote at the end, I loved it. Scorsese took on this film after nearly dying from a drug overdose, was convinced it was to be his last feature, and spend an inordinate time with Raging Bull in post production, and it shows. Well worth watching.
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