And you can't even use the excuse "they needed Joey to train Jake, because Jake made the mob lots of money," because Jake didn't. How does Joey get away with that? Salvy's a neighborhood mobster who seems to have some clout that seems incomprehensible to me they would let him live after that. For example: why does Joey get so angry with Salvy to the point where he beats him almost to death? I mean if he had walked in on Salvy and Vicky having sex, I don't feel like he would have even beaten him that bad. So many things in it, after really stepping back, didn't make any sense. I mean this is the GARDEN, in its heyday. The scene with Billy Fox is supposed to be Madison Square Garden for god's sake, there's not even an exterior establishing shot. It's a series of Cassavetes-esque interior scenes, followed by boxing scenes that feel like they're all taking place in dimly lit VFW halls. The movie is an almost completely random series of events throughout Jake's life, as if they flipped through his biography with a blindfold on, plopped a finger down on whatever page was open, and say "K, let's film this." The way so much of the movie is presented is confusing to me. Jake is a violent, self destructive asshole. Honestly, if you really break it down.there's no story here. I tried this time to watch it objectively and figure out what the problem was, because it seemed like all of a sudden it wasn't holding up for me anymore and had no idea why it was always one of my favorite movies. But never before did I watch it and start checking my watch, which I found very odd. I've been watching this movie for over 15 years now. (Saw it shortly after graduating high school and wasn't sure what I wanted to do or go to college for) I've probably seen it 75x or more, Im not even kidding, and was certainly a driving force for me signing up for film school 6 months later. This was an early on influential movie for me as it was for many people, I was so impressed with the acting and the way it was shot, and of course it had the gravitas of being known as such a classic, on most top 10 lists, etc. I saw this at a theater the other day (which turned out to be a blu ray, which made me furious) for the first time in a long time.
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