Isaacs Picture Conclusions

SHITFEST 2015 ~ SUMMER: SCARFACE (1983)

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Scarface – Shitface(d)

Scarface is an overglorified piece of gangster garbage“

You heard it hear first folks. Never before has one dared take on Brian De Palma’s ‘masterpiece’ with such distaste and admonishment. What’s that? You can’t believe the cult aficionados haven’t hunted me down and hung me from a helicopter yet? Well, believe it baby.

But maybe a story first. This is how I would have preferred Shitface to play out.

—-

“I need to know,” Tony began “what you put in this drink?”

It was clear by now that Mr Tony Montana was tripping serious balls. Never before had anyone sampled hallucinogenic gin and Mr Tony felt like a giddy school boy let out to play early. It hadn’t take long for the toxic liquid to take effect, a matter of minutes in fact, and while his drug overlord pals puffed on their cubans in an oversized house on a security conscious estate, Tony looked beleagured and out of sorts. “Shitfaced” one amused observer noted. Then things took an unexpected turn when Tony quit drooling on the floor for a minute and leapt to his feet.

In a loud, overzealous tone Tony yelled at the top of his voice to no one in particular,

“You wanna fuck with me? Okay. You wanna play rough? Okay. Say hello to my little friend!”

At which point he proceeded to drop his trousers and scream wildly. His adolescent member swung with freedom like a windmill on a breezy summer’s day. This got a chuckle from his sobre cohorts but Mr Alejandro Soza was not amused. His party had been ruined by a cuban thug in a $50 suit and he wanted to cry.

“NO MORE GAMES!” Mr Soza bellowed across the room. At which point the Twister and Monopoly were put away and everybody left disappointed. There’s nothing drug barons love more than playing Monopoly with real money but Tony had ruined everything. His mother always told him he destroyed everything he touched but he had always been either too obtuse or too stoned to see it, so he never really cared. Callous asshole. What a shitfaced callous asshole.

Mrs Elvira Montana always waited for Tony to return from his self-obsessed friends before heading to bed. Tonight was no different. Right on cue Tony waltzes into the lobby and begins his stoner drivel about capitalism, of which Elvira has heard an awful lot. “You know what capitalism is? Getting fucked.” Tony spurted.

Elvira turns to the mirror and whispers, laughing to herself, “Now there’s a line my NA peer group can get on board with.” She tunes back into Tony’s smash-mouth to catch the end trails of his bi-weekly speech.

“…no sir-ey. The kind of capitalism that means you’re crawling around on the floor, dribbling some bullshit that will get you nominated for Best Actor.”

At that she shut off the lights and let him be.

[Three months later] – (a.k.a. because everything in between is shit).

It was 21 July 1983 and it was Mr Tony’s turn to host the drug party. He was excited for his new shipment to arrive so he could begin preparation for the soirée of the season. The ever loyal, ever doomed, Manny could be seen outside signing for deliveries. Elvira was upstairs folding napkins in between eating her fingers and the other goons were polishing silverware and hoovering (vacuuming) the carpet. Mr Tony was in fantastic spirits, it was 10am and he hadn’t quite got through his second kilo of Colombian Marching Powder, a new record! His sponsor would be pleased.

By 9pm the party was in full swing. Engrossed in a game of Cluedo six guests could be seen seated at a lavish dining table set for ten. Although Star Wars Monopoly was their favourite Mr Tony liked to save the big guns for later when everyone was a little loose; or, when nobody could tell the difference between Mos Eisley and the Coruscant Senate. The Colombians produced some potent gear, only the finest powder in all the land, no Peruvian Dancing Dust in sight and yet there was an intruding air of unease.

 

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~ Seriously guys. ~

For it wasn’t to be Mr Tony’s night. From across the smoke filled room, through the french doors, and over the twilight pool Tony could be seen by everyone, fondling a pink statue. Clearly Tony had ignored Elvira’s wise advice, ‘Don’t get high on your own supply.’

From a distance Elvira sighed “Look at him, utterly shitfaced.” Tony, shrieking now, “Come on, pelican! Fly, fly away.” A bystander simply stated “Errr, they’re flamingos dumbass! Go home, you stoned.” To which Mr Tony was furious. He stormed around in a strop until everyone left and he was alone with his thoughts and his cat, a big stripy cat, the sort you’d find at the zoo or a psychopath’s house.

In another of his regular drug induced hazes Tony crawled from room to room yelling “here pelican, pelican, pelican” like his cat wasn’t good enough anymore. Which is a little harsh, after all it’s not Ruby. The poor pussycat purred lamely in the corner, watching with a confused dichotomy of envy and disgust as her owner stumbled around, eyes glazed. Shitfaced.

Amidst the chaos Tony caught his pussy’s eye and sidled over so as not to scare her off, but she was neither bothered nor threatened. She simply retorted “You fuckin’ kiddin’ me man? Are you fucking’ high, man?” Tony just stared a stoner stare and blinked slowly, mouth aghast. Then suddenly an earth-shattering ROAR and a SLASH to the face.

‘Mr Tony fainted! Use next Pokémon?’

—-

I had much more fun writing that than sitting through nigh on three hours of incoherent poop. We’re here then we’re there. We’re up then we’re down. We’re in then we’re out. I thought this was supposed to be some gangster classic but I’m getting a serious Katy Perry vibe.

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“Shay hallo to my hlittle fhwend.”

I’m sorry what now? For one of the most famous scenes in gangster cinema Shitface relies solely on this one moment and the film spends 2 and half hours building upto a 23 second clip we can find on YouTube. Fortunately for me this is Shitfest where anything goes so I don’t have to worry about offending anyway, frankly dearies I don’t give a damn.

Shitface is an overglorified piece of gangster garbage that paints the rise and fall of Hannah Montana as she stumbles from party to party all coked up and twerking her slutty money maker. Nope, that’s the true story of Miley Cyrus, my bad.

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Shitface is an overglorified piece of gangster garbage that paints the rise and fall of Tony Montana as he stumbles from bar to bar all coked up and shaking his power stick. That’s better.

Everything feels false, emotion is underplayed and there’s a heavy reliance on Tony doing something drastic to save each scene. He’ll shoot this guy, he’ll shoot that guy, he’ll say fuck a lot; fuck does he say fuck a lot. BORING! Even Elvira says “Can’t you stop saying fuck all the time.” as if Palma was having second thoughts or Pacino was improvising willy nilly or Pfeiffer just couldn’t stand it anymore.

Then there’s the shitty scenes that are meant to be tense but are way too distracting for me to care about. I found the loco MC cracking wise at the Babylon more entertaining than the action and that’s mainly because I was trying to figure out what was so damn funny, seriously why is everyone in hysterics in that scene?

I even got a bit bored half-way through and stumbled across this beaut,

Immediately more entertaining than Al Pacino dancing around a phony hardman Cuban accent that’s for sure.

Some call this an ‘iconic’ Pacino performance, I prefer the term ‘grating’.

Shitface is shit.

****

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Shitfest Social is scheduled for July 22 at 12:30 U.S. Central time – the movie is Preservation and the drink of the day is Rumplemintz. Be there or be square!!

110 comments

    • GaryGreg828

      Telltale, you should give this a watch from the beginning so that the scenes are in context. I watched a scene of this out of the blue before I had watched it, and I was bored out of my mind, and switched channels and went on assuming it was dull. A couple years later I was at a friends house and he had Scarface and when i said I hadn’t seen it he insisted to put it on and I told him if I was bored after 30 minutes to turn it off; but once I saw the opening sequence and then the interrogation with Tony Montana, got an idea of his backstory and watched the journey unfold it was really good. And I actually don’t like gangster movies. I actually hated “Good Fellas”. lol. So, if you like gangster films then watch the first act and see if you find it a little more interesting than before.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply
  10. GaryGreg828

    I think there were some elements of the story you were missing here:

    The opening scene was masterfully done:

    *Giorgio Moroder’s score is a classic. The music playing over the opening sequence as we watch the immigrants flee Cuba over to the USA in hopes of a better life is amazing.

    *Then we open up to Tony Montana being interrogated by Immigration and we learn about who Tony Montana is, and the first thing I always noticed about this was how masterfully Pacino portrayed Montana; following his Micheal Corleone, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and Justice For All performances, he turns around and embodies an entirely different character and makes the character look like who he is, when in reality Pacino and Montana sound nothing alike. This is a performance of a lifetime.

    I think so many became captivated by the character not b/c of the profanity, but b/c Pacino and De Palma created a different character than we had seen before at that time in 1983, and pop-culture took to the “never back down” and “no kow-towing” persona that emulated strength and confidence.

    *The problem with his character and that persona is when his thirst for money and power became unquenchable. Greed bares dire consequences.

    And that’s the moral of the story, which I think is a good one.

    I agree there was a bit too much profanity, but that’s the case in many films. If we were to toss every movie out there that had excessive F-bombs then we could throw in “Good Fellas”, “Pulp Fiction” and “The Departed” among many others.

    With that in mind, this is shitfest and the good thing about Isaac’s rules is he allows us to submit anything, regardless if he or anyone else may personally disagree, so, you can tell me to say hello to your little friend, and drop a missile launcher in my face. 🙂

    And the “Say hello to my little friend!” line really was such a small part of the movie. You know what I thought was intriguing was when Montana refused to blow-up the car once he discovered there were kids in there; ironically, what ultimately destroyed Tony and his empire was his heart.

    I just thought the story was really good and had strong writing…

    Good write-up, regardless. 🙂

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply
  11. emmakwall

    This post is absolutely fucking genius and I LOVE IT when people rip apart a popular movie. Hahahahahaha – in your face.

    He always annoyed me when he’s mouthing off at the end, I love the word FUCK and even I got tired of it. Just shoot him already.

    Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant post James!!!!!!!!!!!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  21. Pingback: July 2015 Favourites | FILM GRIMOIRE

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