ONE OF SCORSESE'S WORST?

I liked it...and I think "one of Scorsese's worst" is a bit over stated...One of his worst is better than many people's best...Some of the other movies you listed are sooooo incredible, its not fair to compare another movie to them because under that light even a decent movie will look bad.

Of course when I saw Color of Money, i was working in a rec/pool hall and had seen the Hustler recently...It had a good story, good music, memorable scenes...So i'd have to say that i liked it....and when i see it now and again i still like it.

The interplay in how fast eddie was once the young hustler and now is the old pro...and how the hustler never learns and never listens...how even for the old pro life isnt so easy....how things arent always how they appear...ou cant just lose a game, but you have to lose convincingly....lots of good philosphy stuff...overall enjoyable.

Totally agree and I'm a big Scorsese fan. I saw it first about 15 years ago and was pretty keyed up as I had heard about the werewolves of London scene and I'm a Warren Zevon fan. Also it came in the same decade as two of Scorsese's strongest films in my view - In fact my pick of all Scorsese films is still King Of Comedy, mainly due to De Niro's performance. Also, of course, the brilliantly original After Hours came in this period. Anyhow I digress....The point being that I was disappointed when I first saw it 15 years ago. I saw it yesterday in HD though and decided to give it another chance. It remains for me a weak film for a few reasons. Firstly the pacing and narrative is very pedestrian and I think this is the reaction to the box office duds of King Of Comedy and After Hours, this was made to appeal to the largest possible audience. To me it suffers from a distinct sequel feel and a desire to make the film commercial, anyone who thinks this is better than The Hustler needs their taste checked. Marty's visual flair is all here but everything else seems oddly almost anti-Scorsese to me.

The other main problem I have with it is the acting. Newman seems far too restrained and to me seems to be phoning his performance in, honestly don't feel his heart is in the project (which makes it all the more ironic he won the Oscar for it). Tom Cruise on the other hand plays against an almost uninterested Newman by hamming it to the nines, Cruise is practically eating the scenery - way way way over the top. Also while the character is clearly supposed to have flaws Cruise manages to make him totally repellent I feel. For this reason would be interesting to know the relationship between Cruise, Newman and the rest of the crew on set. I will say Elizabeth M. turns in a decent performance but there is something very misogynistic about the character here, she does all her talking in an early notable scene and then stands around delivering very short lines while looking pretty. Also the dynamic between Newman and Elizabeth doesn't work in any manner. It feels creepy and the most mysogynistic scenes all come from this idea of her flirting and showing her body to Newman before he pins her up against a wall and manhandles her a bit. Its a very mean spirited horrible role for her, she seems to have no redeeming qualities. I can only put this down to the film being a reflection of the times. Having said all this I still find Cruise to be the main problem, while the film has elements of comedy cruise cannot pull it off and by the end the film takes itself far too seriously. An odd film and by far Scorsese's worse misfire, not considered bad at the time it has to be said though. But while other films which fared much worse at the box office have been lauded with age (After Hours, King Of Comedy, Bringing out The Dead) this has been forgotten. Above all else I think the main reason for this is there was little to remember here, other than Cruise's grotesque performance (note that Cruise wouldn't work with Scorsese again so Marty could not have been too impressed).

no way! this movie was Brilliant!
now , looking back for you first time viewers it might seem not that good when you compare everything elese marty has done.
but I saw it in the 80's a couple years after it came out I think the first time I saw it was around 1988 or something, I was 15 or 16, not a fan of pool, not really a big fan of hollywood, except a couple films, ET, star wars, indian jones or stuff, I was just a kid, but I thought it was cool at the time and I wanted to go out and play pool,
I watched it again in the early 90's about 5 years later when I was in college , played pool, worked in a bar with a pool table, had been with a couple girls, been in bars , meet those kinds of characters in pool halls, and had a little bit of life experience.
had seen scarface so I knew the actress, had seen goodfellas, so I understood the director marty scorsese and who and what he is, I knew paul newman, had seen the hustler and of course knew tom cruise.

so when I watched it that second time, I really feel in love with the lighting, the mood the director of photography used, how he lit the movie.
Michael Ballhaus would go on to work with marty again in
Goodfellas , The Age of Innocence, Gangs of New York and The Departed.
also you can get a sense of his mood with films like mambo kings, sleepers and Dracula.. so
for me, I loved Color of Money for that reason first.
Then the fast pace of the movie, the excitement of the pool life, and of course
the music sound track, the hustling nature of the characters, and the brilliant acting from the cast.

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First of all, this is arrogant to say, but this isn't where I expected Eddie to be at 60-something. IOW: I don't believe this is how he turned out, so it was tough to buy in from the start.

And... it is a very "80's" movie and it feels more like a Hollywood movie than a 'Scorcese' movie. IOW: it looks like a LOT of directors could've made it. I think the Cruise is a little too young and the music only adds to the "80's" vibe.

And yeah, it's a mistake to do a sequel to The Hustler if yer not gonna swing for the seats. IOW: it would look a LOT better if it wasn't Hustler II.

There are worse Scorcese movies (and if you ask me, he hasn't had a truly -great- movie in a good while).

>>Certainly nowhere near Goodfellas, Casino, Mean Streets, Gangs of New York, the Departed, Hugo, etc. I also watched it right after watching the Hustler (which probably didn't help matters) because the Hustler was so much more interesting.

Gotta confess that I stopped reading as soon as I saw you putting classics such as Mean Streets and Casino alongside boring movies like Gangs and Hugo. Are you for real? This is a much better movie than the kind of sh*t he makes these days

Can't disagree, this is probably the worst Scorsese film I've seen. It's more typical of the mainstream dross that polluted cinema screens in the 80s than the rest of Scorsese's work. In short it's shallow, formulaic and boring.

The real tragedy is that Newman won the Oscar for this garbage rather than any of the excellent performances for which he had previously been nominated. I guess the Academy must have been feeling sentimentally inclined that year.

I think it's much better than Hugo, and anything with Leo too. The directing itself is just amazing. Almost steals the show. Along with Newman.

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