Showbiz411

Director Martin Scorsese turns 70 on Saturday, which seems impossible to us and must feel the same way to him. What a career–and he’s busy filming “The Wolf of Wall Street” right now with Leonardo DiCaprio. Scorsese means lots of things to lots of cinephiles, from “Taxi Driver” and “Are you talkin’ to me?” to  Juliette Lewis sucking Robert DeNiro’s thumb in “Cape Fear” to Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn bringing Howard Hughes home to meet the folks in “The Aviator.” And let’s not forget the lost masterpiece of “New York, New York,” with its 11 minute musical number, “Happy Endings.” Or Sandra Bernhard coming on to Jerry Lewis’s Rupert Pupkin in “King of Comedy.”

One of my personal favorite scenes: Marty’s mom Catherine playing Joe Pesci’s mom in “GoodFellas,” and the meal that’s served at 3 am in her kitchen while a body is stuffed in the trunk of a car. And then of course there’s “After Hours,” a movie that perfectly summed up what life in Soho was like back in 1979 before big money turned it into a shopping mall.

What are your personal faves? Send ‘em in, and we’ll forward them to Scorsese. Happy Birthday, Marty, and thanks for so many great films. Looking forward to many, many more!

Roger Friedman

Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News. Friedman previously wrote the Intelligencer column at New York Magazine, He writes for Parade magazine and has written for Details, Vogue, the New York Times, Post, and Daily News and many other publications. He is the writer and co-producer of a film about R&B Music called “Only the Strong Survive,” which was released by Miramax in 2003 and was a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals.