065 – Bringing Out The Dead

With the incoming arrival of a new Martin Scorsese film with The Irishman, naturally we had to talk about the master, right? But rare is the film that results in no Oscar nominations for Scorsese – except for this week’s film which came at the end of the director’s downward trend with the Academy. Even forgotten among Scorsese diehards, we’re unpacking 1999′s Bringing Out The Dead. A strange look at a night shift insomniac paramedic played by Nicolas Cage (leading a wild ensemble that ranges from Patricia Arquette to Tom Sizemore to… Marc Anthony), this one leaves Joe and Chris divided on its merits and place in the Scorsese filmography. The film reunited Scorsese with his Taxi Driver screenwriter Paul Schrader and served a somewhat hallucinatory, somewhat religious vision of the gritty New York City streets. Did it just get lost in the shuffle of the landmark 1999 film year or was this a victim of dwindling perceptions of Scorsese’s work before the 2000s firmly returned him to the Academy’s graces? This episode, we look at Scorsese and Cage in their transitional stage between Oscar love, offer our own 1999 Top Ten lists, and Patricia Arquette’s little corner of horror movie history. Special shout out this week to artist Athena Currier for tributing us in Inktober! Follow Us on Twitter! @Had_Oscar_Buzz Joe: @joereid Chris: @chrisvfeil