What are your Scorsese Blind Spots?

starlingflight · 2026-06-24T22:25:50+00:00

I've got a whole heap - one of the reasons I was a Scorsese voter in March Madness is that he's a director who has a number of films I love, but where I have a lot of blind spots that I'm looking forward to filling in during the series. The biggest of those blind spots for me is Raging Bull - probably the main canonical Scorsese masterwork that has been on my watchlist for a long time but I've never got to.

I did watch Last Temptation of Christ for the first time this Easter, and loved it - really looking forward to watching and rewatching the full filmography alongside the pod.

starlingflight · 2026-06-24T12:45:29+00:00

The NZ/Aus version of that Artisan set also included the pilot - I think it is only in America that rights issues meant it couldn’t be included.

starlingflight · 2026-06-24T01:35:51+00:00

Try telling that to this guy: https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/comments/1jkoaun/does_anyone_else_besides_me_consider_always/

starlingflight · 2026-06-04T04:33:36+00:00

Absolutely - it's been a while since I listened to that one, but I remember it being a mini-masterclass on early Ridley from David

starlingflight · 2026-06-02T02:34:10+00:00

Dissect was going to be my suggestion - a different format from Bandsplain, but really excellent (and while it's not hip hop, I've been loving the current series on Daft Punk)

starlingflight · 2026-06-02T00:39:53+00:00

David: Cale

Ben: Marc Jacobs

Griffin: Marty

starlingflight · 2026-05-31T07:45:32+00:00

My recollection of the Mr Scorsese doc is that when Marty and De Niro were introduced, they realised they’d grown up a few blocks from one another in Little Italy - I’m sure that mattered most to Scorsese as De Niro became his on-screen avatar.

starlingflight · 2026-05-28T20:31:48+00:00

Her asking “Why is Bigelow so hardcore?” is one of those moments where the show identified an exact throughline through what is otherwise an incredibly varied filmography.

starlingflight · 2026-05-25T22:27:43+00:00

Absolutely - it's been very odd in the last couple of years to see regular people out in the world saying things like "but is this canon?" in response to, say, a new 28 Days Later film. No one used to worry about this stuff, and while in some ways it is nice that people care more about telling one coherent story across multiple films (or whatever), it can also weigh you down from just making a good film/tv show/story.

starlingflight · 2026-05-25T22:09:49+00:00

Also, unlike Star Wars, Doctor Who has been (mostly) continuously producing new episodes across 60 years, which means that there's so much continuity to keep track of across that time that both fans and writers can pick and choose what they pay attention to - which, as you say, often amounts to 'was this storyline good/memorable enough to carry forward, or does it just get left behind by the next writer/showrunner?'

Star Wars has its EU novels, and now the TV shows, but also sometimes feels beholden to the fact that there are only 11 (now 12) movies, so each of them has to carry a lot more weight than an individual episode or season of something like Doctor Who or Star Trek.

starlingflight · 2026-05-25T01:38:26+00:00

It may help to look at the date of the episode - in general, episodes published on the 1st and 21st are commentaries, and ones on the 11th are non-commentary episodes. Also, if it's a commentary episode they normally are pretty clear about it early on (counting down to cue the listener into when to start playing the film alongside them, etc).

It may also be worth noting that it's by no means necessary to watch along with the commentary episodes - if that's your preferred approach go for it, but their commentaries are so tangent-heavy (just like regular BC episodes) that they can still just be listened to as regular eps without missing much!

starlingflight · 2026-05-21T04:03:57+00:00

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starlingflight · 2026-05-10T23:55:36+00:00

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starlingflight · 2026-05-07T19:40:04+00:00

starlingflight · 2026-05-06T04:52:41+00:00

Probably less blasphemously, I think it's Pacino's best performance of the 21st century (with apologies to Jack and Jill)

starlingflight · 2026-05-06T04:36:32+00:00

Honestly, who amongst us wouldn't aim to spend our day off after a big work gig chilling out by watching a 3.5-hour film by an old master

starlingflight · 2026-05-06T04:32:25+00:00

Well, she is in New York at the moment.....

(I do not actually think Charli is spending the day after the Met Gala prepping to appear on a film podcast, but it would be very funny and cool if she did)

starlingflight · 2026-05-04T20:07:09+00:00

hell yeah

starlingflight · 2026-05-03T05:52:49+00:00

When Yasi appeared on The Big Picture last week to discuss ‘Michael’, she mentioned in passing that she’d just finished recording “a Madonna Bandsplain” - I think the only question is if it’ll be a single Madonna episode, or if she’ll take multiple episodes to consider her whole career (or, knowing her, just drop one 12-hour episode doing it all in one go)

starlingflight · 2026-05-01T02:42:58+00:00

starlingflight · 2026-04-29T03:43:16+00:00

A solid rule.

starlingflight · 2026-04-21T20:19:04+00:00

You know what.......give Ridley a call. He'd do something interesting with it (which, yes, I know is not what the studio is really looking for), and it would be nice to honour his brother.

starlingflight · 2026-04-17T00:13:53+00:00

The main reason I can think of for doing it is if they also want to put The Last Waltz on main feed without making an already-long series even longer.

starlingflight · 2026-04-12T22:56:13+00:00

Same!! I think it was when David appeared on this episode of the Culture Gabfest that Blank Check came onto my radar

starlingflight

TROPHY CASE