Post #53700 by AquaZombie on Fri, Oct 3, 2003 4:53 PM

I'm not into hip hop either and had no idea it was such an icon in that culture till I watched the new doc on the anniversary "cigar box" edition which I just shelled out for (which includes the original 1932 version plus a Tony Montana money clip!)I found this very enlightening and interesting, from a "ghetto gangsta" POV - not my style, but hey, it's a big world and it's always fascinating to look at life through someone else's shades. The irony is, "Scarface" takes place during the height of disco and the fashions and music by Georgio Moroder (who wrote some hits for Diana Summer or whatever he name is) make that painfully apparent. Still, it is possibly the most quotable flick in my own social circles along with "Spinal Tap" and "Blue Velvet" (I hang with some sickies, obviously.) It's become possibly THE great all around "guy" flick, crossing all cultural boundaries. Why? Colorful macho attitude backed up by often comically over the top action. It's easily Pacino's best performance (and probably when he started "yelling" all his lines, which has become really annoying) and it influenced "Miami Vice" a guilty favorite of mine. Overall the 80s sucked outloud though I admit some nostalgia for the more outrageous aspects of it - when the decade began the 70s seemed SO over and I couldn't have been happier - as time goes by the 80s seem just as culturally embarrassing as the 70s, a time which I also often find myself remembering fondly, if not actually missing (which tells you just how hard the Zeroes blow). It'll always be circa 1962 in my head, but every era has its merits (today it's "The Sopranos," in the 90s it was Lounge revivalism, Tarantino, "Ren and Stimpy" and "Seinfeld," speaking purely subjectively)and "Scarface" is definitely one of the cinematic highpoints of that decade, along with, hmmm..."Re-Animator" and "Blue Velvet" and maybe "Blade Runner" and "Road Warrior" too, though I much prefer zombies and Lynch over cyberpunk. A great American film classic like "The Godfather"? Hardly. But "Scarface" is epic trash, and I dig its no holds barred, unapologetic wallowing in excess. Not enough of that on screen nowadays in this increasingly conservative and unoriginal society, another probable reason people celebrate it nowadays.