HDL WEEK 8 POWER RANKINGS — HEAD EDITION
Stepping in to pinch hit for Czar Hallahan this week allows me to wax poetic about the GOAT of Filmmaking Mr. Martin Scorsese. In just a week’s time the 37th film of his illustrious career will hit select theatres, and you can bet your sweet ass that I will be plopping my fat ass into a seat, despite having Netflix and the ability to see it a month later with my subscription, and watch the master at work. Does any of this matter to the power rankings? No. Do you immediately wish Hallahan was here to give his weekly rankings? Maybe. Are you still reading this? Of course, you are! Because work sucks, our wives talk too much, and the kids are slowly melting our dreams away like the North Atlantic ice shelf.
So, in honor of the man, the myth, the guy who did enough coke in the 80s to kill a small Chechen village, we will be labeling each team as a Scorsese picture. With any director, outside maybe David Fincher, there are hits and misses. You can’t spend most of the Reagan administration whacked out on the Bolivian thunder powder and expect to keep dropping hits, but as with Marty’s flops some teams in the league are about as coherent as a nine-year coke binge.
12th Place (Michael Altbaum) Kundun
If you are thinking what the hell is Kundun? Well Kundun is a 1997 biographical picture about the 14th Dalai Lama……and you’re already asleep. Well that’s about the short and skinny of Mike’s team this year, asleep. Wake them up when the draft comes in a loaded class. I see A-bomb making real head way this offseason and coming back with a real force next year, much like Marty did post Kundun with Gangs of New York.
11th Place (Steve Calhoun) Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
This Scorsese picture is about a Mother and child who drive cross country to start over. This is more about the title and how you can’t make a trade with Calhoun. Much like most of Scorsese’s films you got to get a sit down, hope you don’t get whacked because of it, and maybe you get a little bit of what you want. Most of the time though you go to the boss and he stonewalls you with silence.
10th Place (Ian Crosby and NewMike) After Hours
The biggest flop of Marty’s career, it has a bunch of people in it you don’t know and poorly underperformed. Hey! Sounds just like Ian and Mike’s team! They lost to me last week due to Sony Michel’s 3 TD game. Sony is very much available, just like After Hours probably is at the Berlin Dirt Mall where Mike and Ian discuss Rutgers football over warm churros. Shit’s bleak but so is their team. Free betting advice friends — Rutgers is about as good as a two-dollar hand job in North Philly, take Liberty and the points.
9th Place (Andrew Bartell & Frank Venuto) The Color of Money
The Color of Money is a sequel to The Hustler, this is only sequel Scorsese has made to date, and it fits our team perfectly. Tom Cruise plays a wired young punk who thinks he knows it and Newman plays the sage veteran who doesn’t have time for his shit, just like Frank and me! This was just about the time Scorsese started getting himself clean and sober, he would go on to direct 11 films that all received at least one Oscar nomination. Will Frank and I have the same success?…..Uhhhhh let me talk to Frank and I will get back to you on that.
8th Place (Dan Marino) Taxi Driver
Is this Scorsese’s best film? No. But it is a fan favorite and cult classic. Just like how the league feels about Marino! This film hits like a hammer and describes a scum filled New York City where Bobby DeNiro finishes the movie as an unlikely hero after a murder spree where he saves a young Jodie Foster. For the owner who smells the NYC air every day on his commute and actual sees Taxi Drivers on the daily I saw no better film to pair him with. Now if only Dan would go full mohawk and get Christian Bale eating only apple cores skinny would this get really weird.
7th Place (Nick Sarlo & Hark) Casino
There is a scene in this film where Joe Pesci has Bobby DeNiro meet him in the Nevada Desert and Pesci spends the next two minutes berating DeNiro for hosting a public access tv show when the Midwest bosses just want him to lay low and not fuck up. This is what I imagine happens when Hark and Sarlo discuss potential trade offers. I will let you all decide who is Pesci and who isn’t Hark.
6th Place (Billy Davis & Ryan Miller) Bringing Out the Dead
This is a wild fucking ride of a movie where Nic Cage sees ghosts as an ambulance driver and images of things that aren’t real. Which is Billy pretending that Ryan is his real friend and not some crisis actor paid to have us think Billy has friends outside the HDL. This movie is one hundred percent something Willy D and “Ryan” have never seen, but they are young whipper snappers with lots to learn. Find this on your fancy interweb device Billy and do a bump or two and start livin’ man. Eventually you will have a couple kids, a big kid career, and wish you spent more time as a member of the Bolivian Ski Team watching a master’s films.
5th Place (Chris Black) The Departed
SPOILER ALERT……The end of this film is Mark Wahlberg clipping Matt Damon right in the head. This is the film Marty won his Oscar for Best Picture and Director for, when everyone knew he should have won it about three or four times prior. Just swap out results and you got Chris’ current situation. We clipped Cleve with a headshot in a Boston condo and Chris is left picking up the pieces. Fitting that Chris and Wahlberg are Pats fans that 86’d strong jawed everymen……this has been sufficiently awkward. Moving on.
4th Place (Adam Milsted & Brett Poulton) The Wolf of Wall Street
It’s all a house of cards, and junk stock that’s about to go down in a blizzard of booger sugar, or that’s what the rest of the HDL has been saying about this team since we started this league. Milzy is DiCaprio the hotshot, tall drink of water that always seems to end up on top. Even after the Real-life Jordan Belfort went to prison for scamming the whole fucking world he still makes bank off books, this fucking movie, and speaking engagements. Some guys are just always winning. Brett is Donnie Azoff. For those of you who haven’t seen it that’s Jonah Hill’s character.
3rd Place (Dave Hallahan & Scott Lederer) Gangs of New York
What better way to describe these two owners than with a film based around corrupt New York Tammany Hall 1860s politics. The only way the system stays in place is if the people think the system is working. This is a beautiful film by Scorsese a real tour de force of direction, acting, and overall scope. I rag on this team a lot in slack and have had my run in with their Bill the Butcher — hey Scotty! — but you have to respect them. They take on all gangs: Forty Thieves, The Bowery Boys, The Dead Rabbits, etc. But manage to stay at or near the top. Well done.
2nd Place (Dave Falcone) Goodfellas
Listen, before you go yelling at me about how I could give Falcone Goodfellas remember how this film ends. Ray Liotta has to eat egg noodles and ketchup and live everyday like a schnook. Will this happen to Dave? Well he doesn’t have a co-owner anymore to rat out to the Feds so probably not. I can’t decide which character Falcone most likely resembles in this film. Is he Pesci? A fly off the handle type? No. Is he DeNiro? The smoldering ring leader? Little bit, little bit. Liotta? Well maybe the current Chantix pitchman version of Liotta. I will give Falcone the ego boost and let him think he is whichever character he wants to be. They all end up in a bad way by the end, we can only hope that is what happens for his HDL this year.
1st Place (Troy Altbaum) Raging Bull
This film is a masterpiece and Troy’s team is a fantasy football equivalent. The 1980 black and white genre biopic is easily Scorsese’s best work. DeNiro was able to get Scorsese clean for just enough of the filming to show the true brilliance of his work. Troy was able to clean up his team and create a similar tour de force. Unfortunately, though history is not on Troy’s side for any trophy or mug. The 1981 Oscars saw Robert Redford take best director and best picture away from Scorsese a huge shock at the time. Is there a Redford type upset out there? As long as it’s not Brett then everyone will be cool with it.
This was fun, you’re all welcome, best of luck this week.
