Scarface: The (bad?) idea of a ‘third’ impact



In my post Scarface: First and Second Impact, I explained why Scarface is one of those iconic movies that truly changed my life. I even created a “samaze” of Al Pacino as a tribute to the film (see it at the end of this post). Following the 1932 version (directed by Howard Hawks, with a screenplay by Ben Hecht, based on the novel by Armitage ... More

Burn Notice Vs Leverage? I’d better get burned!

It has been a long time I didn’t talk about TV shows, last time was in June 2008. Since then I had the pleasure (well it is not always such a pleasure…) to watch new shows and I have had some great surprises. Among them is ‘Burn Notice’, a comedy-drama/action show created by Matt Nix. I wasn’t expecting much from this show, ... More

Annie Leibovitz, Susan Sontag, Sarajevo and Keith Haring

I unfortunately didn’t have much time left to hang around lately but there are some exhibitions I couldn’t miss. “Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005“, a major retrospective of Leibovitz’s work, was definitely one of these. Last September, I spent an entire afternoon at the Maison Européenne de la ... More

From Scarface to Smokin’ Aces: the art of the gun scene

I love gunfight scenes in movies, but very few directors have truly mastered the art of the gun scene. I was young when I first saw Tony’s death scene in Scarface (1983), and it was both shocking and thrilling (read more about my Scarface experience here). Tony knows he’s going to die, but he goes out firing, hurling insults as if he’s invincible. ... More

Davis, Flynn, Dietrich… They did it their way

The period between the Great Depression and World War II, from the 1920s through the late 1940s, is known as Hollywood’s Golden Age. I’m a huge fan of films from the 1930s and ’40s—the era when Bette Davis captivated audiences as Mildred Rogers in Of Human Bondage (1934), battled with Jack Warner, and worked with Cary Grant to run the Hollywood ... More

Scarface: First and second impact

Some movies have fueled my creativity and inspired me to write my first short stories, and Scarface is definitely one of those life-changing films. I first saw it as a young teenager, and it hit me hard—maybe I was too young to fully handle a movie like that, which might be why it’s so vivid in my memory. I’ve rewatched it a few times since then, and ... More