We’re big cinephiles over here at The Hard Times, and no, we don’t just mean we like MCU movies. Our love of film goes all the way back to the origins of the medium, 1989’s “Batman.” As experts, we can assure you that Martin Scorsese’s criticisms of modern comic book movies are not only unfounded, they are downright hypocritical.
Scorsese claims that MCU films are not “cinema.” Let’s pretend for a second that such a statement is not a slanderous indictment worthy of the death penalty and compare the MCU to the thing Scorsese values above all, his own work.
We watched every one of these snoozefests, even the black and white ones (thank you Adderall) and not one of these so-called auteurs offerings is true to the comics on which films are based. Let’s break them down:
24. Shutter Island
“What if Legion didn’t have superpowers and you saw the twist coming a mile away?” Honestly, why does he bother?
23. New York, New York
He gets so wrapped up in the romance between two aspiring musicians he forgets to even introduce Marvel’s street-level heroes.
22. Gangs of New York
Thank God the Russo brothers got a crack at Marvel Civil War in 2016, because “Gangs of New York” doesn’t come close to doing the story justice. Scorsese sets the events in a completely different time period, the character changes are off the wall—Hulk is literally just a guy with a big stick—and with zero mention of the Sokovia Accords, it’s unclear why everyone is even fighting in the first place. Plus there’s sex in the movie, EEEEEWW, gross!
21. The Color of Money
Longshot is barely interesting enough to warrant his own movie, and making him all old and washed up doesn’t do the story any favors.
20. Kundun
We’re all for an origin story of The Ancient One, Stephen Strange’s Sorcerer Supreme predecessor, but this is ridiculous. Not only does Scorsese change the Ancient One’s gender to male (wrong side of history Martin!) neither he nor the other sorcerers of Kamar-Taj (renamed Tibet in the film, a way dumber name,) do not perform magic in the film! What is even the point of shaving your heads and wearing robes if you’re just going to let China push you around and not do any laser karate?! An insane take on a rich story completely unserviced.
19. Casino
How are you going to introduce Johny Storm in the first 5 minutes and then never have him use his powers for the rest of the movie? Casino is the worst Fantastic Four movie of all time, and that’s saying something!
18. Silence
Completely misunderstanding the source material on this one. Black Bolt is silent because his slightest whisper is loud enough to make mountains crumble, not because of religious devotion.
17. The Wolf of Wall Street
Scorsese’s first attempt at an Iron Man movie and not only does he radically change all of the characters, he focuses entirely on Tony Stark’s business acumen. It boggles the mind. That’s right, not once in this film does Leonardo DiCaprio’s Tony Stark (called Jordan in the film inexplicably,) build anything, don a mech suit, or even consort with the sorcerer supreme. Jonah Hill turns in a more colorful take on Happy Hogan that, while serviceable, is hampered by the script. Happy’s use of quaaludes is more interesting when it’s subtextual like in “Spiderman: Far From Home.”
16. The Aviator
Points for exploring Tony Stark’s darker side, but he spends the whole movie trying to build a plane? Tony Stark has a million planes, and he doesn’t even need them because he’s Iron Man. What a waste of time.
15. The Age of Innocence
2015’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron” wasn’t perfect, but it’s a vast improvement over Scorsese’s 1993 attempt. He takes so many liberties with the story it is practically unrecognizable.
14. Bringing Out the Dead
It takes place in Hell’s Kitchen, he got that part right. Aside from that, this is simply not Daredevil. Matt Murdock (called “Frank” in the film) doesn’t become a costumed vigilante or even practice law. He drives an ambulance, and whether he is able to do so because his sonar sight is just more developed in this universe or if this version of Daredevil isn’t blind at all is never made clear through witty, reference-heavy exposition. Don’t even get us on Patricia Arquette’s Elektra, it does not work at all. Has Paul Schrader even read a comic?!
13. Hugo
How are you going to do an origin story for The Vision and not even mention the mind stone? This man has never read a comic book in his life.
12. The Irishman
As a die-hard MCU fan, the only parts of “The Irishman” that work for me are how fucked up and alienating everyone’s face looks and the needlessly long runtime.
11. Killers of the Flower Moon
Based on the main character’s baffling stupidity we’re guessing he’s supposed to be Peter Quill?
10. The Last Temptation of Christ
Scorsese seems to do some of his best work when not confined to source material. Here he takes one of Marvel’s most obscure characters, Jesus of Nazareth, and really just builds a whole world around him practically from scratch. Giving center stage to a character only briefly mentioned in Constantine and Lucifer comics was a bold, unconventional move and the payoff is huge.
9. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore
Once again Scorsese takes a perfect subject for an origin movie and completely butchers it. Whistler, Blade’s mentor, is one of the most captivating and complex background characters in all of Marvel. Omitting the inciting incident that caused him to dedicate his life to hunting vampires and focusing exclusively on his relationship with a waitress who wants to be a singer is a truly baffling choice.
8. The Departed
Winter Soldier did it better. Don’t @ me.
7. The King of Comedy
Worst. Joker. Ever. He doesn’t even kill anybody! By focusing on the clown prince of crime’s love of jokes and limiting him to just stalking, kidnapping, home invasion, and hijacking a television show Scorsese robs the character of the essential terror that makes him a true agent of chaos.
6. After Hours
While this competent, well-paced comedy is amusing and serves as a time capsule of the ’80s New York punk and art scene, it completely drops the ball in conveying the TVA’s importance within Marvel mythology. At no point is the sacred timeline even mentioned, and the only Loki variant is Cheech Marin.
5. Raging Bull
We applaud Martin Scorses for attempting a movie that covers the Incredible Hulk’s Joe Fixit era. He got a few things right here. The Hulk is indeed angry. He does talk, and he is grey in this iteration, true to the comics. Unfortunately, Scorsese didn’t stop with making the Hulk grey. EVERYTHING is grey in this movie! Not a scrap of color to be found. What movie did he think he was making, “Werewolf by Night?!” Pathetic.
4. Cape Fear
“Cape Fear” is actually a remake of the 1962 Gregory Peck/Robert Mitchum vehicle of the same name. It’s one of the few nearly undisputed cases of a remake greatly surpassing the original. That being said, would it have killed him to throw Hawkeye in there? Mr. Scorsese, do better.
3. Taxi Driver
Scorsese’s first Joker movie has the opposite problem of “The King of Comedy.” Travis Bickle is insane, menacing, and does indeed kill people, but where are the jokes? The guy isn’t even trying to be funny. “One day a real rain will come and wash all the scum away.” Okay, and? Where’s the punchline Travis? Between that and the lack of clown paint this thing is a mess.
2. Mean Streets
Of every live-action take on The Punisher, “Mean Streets” is perhaps the most ambitious. We never see him, he is in fact never mentioned in the film, but the entire movie is from his POV as he spies on some of the major players in New York’s criminal underworld, crouching in the shadows, waiting to make his move but ultimately becoming captivated by the complexity of their lives. Here Scorsese tries to make the case that the stories of regular people can be just as interesting as the stories of superheroes. That is of course categorically untrue, but an interesting experiment nonetheless.
1. Goodfellas
Aside from the insane decision to cut the final scene where Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist come and arrest everybody, this film is a masterpiece.
Despite the name of the Hockey team, Nordy is as tame, domesticated and teetotalling as they come, and he goes home to a nice warm glass of milk and gets a good night’s sleep after every game, and hates the thought of violence. So he’s nowhere to be found during the carnage of a hockey riot.
Not only is Thunderbug an insect, who is naturally weaker due to his cartilage based skeletal structure, but he has also been historically known to have been taken down by a bunch of silly string, so there’s no doubt that he would easily be taken down during a drunken brawl with a bunch of muscular, intoxicated hockey fans.
The only way this dude would be able to gain the upper hand over you would be if you were near any body of water, say on a boat or raft at sea. But once he’s out of the water, there’s no way you wouldn’t be able to keep distance from him, unless of course he had some type of aquatic mech suit designed to help with land fighting, but that’s just a bunch of science fiction baloney (for now).
How could a Bernese Mountain dog be anything but friendly, even when drunk, and if there were any disagreements, drunken or otherwise, would quickly fade to a bunch of overly eager hockey fans petting this good boy. Yes you are Bernie, yes you are.
Penguins are typically on the short side, and since they haven’t yet been introduced to the wonders of booze, they would most certainly fall down drunk even off half a beer, and Iceburgh is no exception. So any drunken fight would be over as quickly as it began.
This guy is from a galaxy far, far away and since he grew up on a different planet, he would be struggling just to stand up in earth’s high gravity, or he could use it to his advantage, we just don’t know. But one thing’s for certain, and that’s the fact that this dude has multiple tactical disadvantages due to his physical form (just look at those hockey stick ears) which would lose him the fight in the first ten minutes of period one.
Just look at the size of this dude, and compare him to your average human. The only way that this guy would possibly win a drunken fight is if he had rabies and bit you, which rats do have a large chance of carrying, and if you happen to get bitten you should get your rabies shots asap, or suffer a fate worse than death.
Same reasoning as Fin, but since he’s a shark, he could easily become more vicious than a killer whale, and would have the capability to actively hunt the team after they all took a team drunk piss in whatever lake they were vacationing at, which would lead to an eventual bloodbath.
Why the hell a hockey team would even consider a less fitting mascot is reason enough to throw hands, let alone deal with this strange looking mascot. He looks way too happy for how angry a sport hockey is, and even a former coach ripped out his tongue, but he does have some pretty sharp looking teeth, so he could easily bite your head off, so this fight could go either way.
Youppi is possibly the friendliest guy on this list, and he’s great to get shitfaced with, just don’t bring up anything related to Quebec, and oh boy are you opening a huge can of worms with this dude, just as he is opening a big can of whoopass on you. But keep things apolitical and you will have a legendary night on the town in Montreal (every night on the town in Montreal is legendary, but this dude just brings things to the next level)
Why the Red Wings chose an octopus and not any type of bird on fire is frankly a noggin scratcher, but that’s not the point. This guy would have ranked lower on the list, since he is aquatic, but Octopi are known to have toddler level intelligence and ferocity. Also, since this dude is from Detroit, you just know he’s packing heat, and has 8 limbs that can carry out just as much of a thrashing when he’s shooting off rounds in a temper tantrum.
At surface glance, Charlton has all the makings of a trained fighter, being a gigantic polar bear who one would assume had “Goon Training” from Matt Sundin himself. But we’re forgetting that the Leafs haven’t won a game, let alone any booze related brawls since 1992. With that track record going against him, Charlton would know better than to fight, I mean just look at how cuddly he looks.
Whatever a Gila Monster is, it just doesn’t sound all that threatening, plus we all know Vegas is all show and no action, unless of course you are an unsuspecting tourist, in which case you may get baited into a fight with a “Gila Monster”.
Known for their herbivore diet and generally benign demeanor, there is very little to lead us to believe this moose would be any threat unless you step between a mother moose and her babies, but Mick is a dude and he would probably just curl up and sleep off a night of drinking. This moose is from Winnipeg though, one of the crime capitals of Canada, so we can’t assume that this dude is all peace and love, and the next time the Jets lose, there’s no doubt Mick would but heads with a random stranger or careless motorist on the 401.
Hogs aren’t known for aggression, and with their fatty composition, you’d assume that their lack of stamina would lend to them being easily bested in one on one combat. But if Stormy joins forces with the feral hogs ripping through the midwest, and feeds them their body weight in liquor, we may have the second American Civil War slightly ahead of schedule.
Have you ever needed an album that would be perfect for chugging beers AND fistfighting your uncle? Well, look no further than the auditory ankle monitor that is “Advance and Vanquish”. It sounds like a bunch of denim-clad barbarians burned down a high school and threw a kegger in the ashes. The album is a blast, but don’t play it in public unless you’re at a hog roast. You can imagine why.
Christian hardcore was at its annoying peak in the early aughts. “The Funeral of God” had the quintessential hallmarks of a quality Christian hardcore except the title sounded juuuust atheist enough you wouldn’t be teased mercilessly by your friends for liking it. Legend says that if you put your ear up to a youth pastor’s forearm tattoos, you can still hear “The Funeral of God” in its entirety.
In 2003, your roommate was all-in on tech metal. He couldn’t go a single day without mentioning the time he saw Into the Moat or showing off his Ion Dissonance vinyl. Then 2004 happened. At first, Zeke liked DragonForce ironically, but after months of playing “Sonic Firestorm” 24/7, he magically had hair down to his ass. Relisten to this album with caution because Zeke was right. 20 years later, DragonForce’s brand of glamorous power metal is still too infectious to resist.
This technical metalcore album is awesome because they sound exactly like BTBAM without any of the, “In this house, it’s okay for men to have emotions other than horny or pants-shitting anger.” But since you’re older and want to become your municipality’s next comptroller, consider using “Between the Sheets” in your campaign to court the all-important Millennial former scene kid vote. You’ll lose by a landslide!
Premonitions of War’s “Left in Kowloon” was featured in a mid-2000s teen comedy about a plucky bunch of nerds trying to score drugs so they could hook up with their sexy high school guidance counselor. The band–playing a bunch of drug dealers–reveal they only sell narcotics to finance their dream of becoming a hardcore band. In the final scene, Premonitions of War plays a rockin’ house show while high school students mule methamphetamine into a wealthy suburban neighborhood. This album is the reason the scene loves Judd Apatow!
This album thrashes so hard, it’ll make you suspicious of the American government. The picking is fast and clean and really makes the listener wonder how long it would take to build a badass bunker in the woods. This newfound paranoia will go perfectly with your all-camo shorts wardrobe. Uncle Sam can’t kill you if he can’t see your thighs!
This album sounds the way a hangover feels. The only way to deal with the pain of hearing Suffocation’s blistering death metal is to eat biscuits and gravy and drink beer until you pass back out. In every way, “Souls To Deny” will ruin you. Don’t listen to this album unless you have the next day off.
Who said EPs don’t count on an album of the year list? I don’t remember specifying that.
Fun fact: Cattle Decap almost released “Humanure” with a scratch-and-sniff cover. Mercifully, the FDA, CIA, and Comics Code Authority declined to authorize the release of a product that smelled like the band’s fan base.
This is the kind of music you kill your favorite goat to. It sucks you have to dismember your son’s best friend to feed your family, but… it’s kinda fuckin’ awesome when you get that first hit of arterial spray, right? YAAAAAHHHHH!!! Pete was cool as fuck, but now that Necrophagist is blowing out the barn speakers, all bets are off. “THE BEEEEAAAAST WILL BE WIIIIIIIIIISE, FEEEEEAAAAAST: AN EYE FOR AN EEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEE!!!!”
The best part of this record is how it sounds like everyone making the album had radiation poisoning. It’s weird that an album that sounds so objectively bad is so goddamn good. “Everything Is Alive…” is a classic, but I’m guessing the band is still disappointed no songs were featured in the 2004 cinematic masterpiece “The Incredibles.”
“Terrifyer” is special because you can play almost the entire 21-song album in a 30-minute lunch break at your dental office. If there is a band people mostly associate with dentists, it’s Pig Destroyer. And if you need another reason to blast grindcore at work, a study I just conducted proves that listening to Pig Destroyer while you pull teeth is very fucking awesome.
I don’t get this one. “Art Damage” sounds like somebody killed the wrong Blood Brother and thought we wouldn’t notice. Truthfully, this album is only on the list because I can’t afford to lose another MySpace friend. There are so few left!
Does listening to this band automatically make you a feminist? Not immediately. But the more I listen to Behemoth, the more I love doing makeup and shopping for cute leather outfits. Since “Demigod” came into my life, my hair, makeup, and skin are fiercer than they’ve ever been! Becoming a ravenous, permanently-online Behemoth fan has truly given me my best life!
According to the Mastodon subreddit, listening to “Leviathan” 150 times will automatically grant you the English department chair position at any university. Academia could use more professors with weird body smells and infected toes, so jam this album about a sexually-charged whale hunt as loud and as often as you can. The superiority of American academics depends on you!
Were you bullied for wearing a white studded belt, girl jeans, and a size Youth Large shirt that barely covered your belly button in 2004? If so, your favorite band was probably Unearth, and the person making fun of you was most likely a 42-year-old white man with SLAYER carved into his forehead. The 2000s were a confusing time, but this album isn’t. “The Oncoming Storm” has gnarly breakdowns, a tornado destroying Des Moines, IA on the cover, and it like barely, sort-of, completely plagiarizes “Slaughter of the Soul”.
Jacob Bannon killed someone and got away with it. Hear me out. In 2001, Converge released “Jane Doe” with a decapitated woman’s head on the cover. And just when the sick thrill of putting a murder victim’s face on merch wore off, Bannon put her severed hand on the cover of the next album. You really think two consecutive albums with dismembered body parts was an artistic choice and not some sort of sick human trophy case? Mark my words, Jacob Bannon is a cold-blooded killer.
If this album had a job, it would run a junkyard. Or be the GM of a very chill Midwest cat cafe franchise. But running a junkyard full of old guitars, tattoo guns, and BMX bikes sounds kinda kickass, right? “Panopticon” goes from heavy to dreamy which is exactly how it felt when I got tetanus working in the Hydra Head junkyard. Looking back, that was a really dangerous job, and I’m pretty sure the only reason Isis broke up had something to do with their OSHA repeat-offender status. So don’t listen to this album unless you’ve had a Tdap booster in the last decade.
This throat punch of electronica-infused tech metal unleashed Greg Puciato on the masses. This thick-veined, pit bull of a man washed over the scene with a savagery unseen since the Ultimate Warrior wrestled Hulk Hogan for the Heavyweight title. “Miss Machine” may not have been able to wear bedazzled spandex around its barely-covered steroid nuts, but it absolutely body slammed me out of a few K holes. I had a frightening lack of responsibilities in 2004, okay? You’re canceled if you judge me. Doctors say ketamine is good for you now!
This album is so heavy it briefly makes you forget how utterly fucked humanity is–a true artistic breakthrough! Early aughts arts and culture were homosapien’s apex, and I say that knowing “3750” was recorded in a trash can by a bunch of feral dogs. Sure, in 2004 America was an invading force in multiple countries, but don’t Arrested Development and Michael Phelps’s 8 medals count for something? If those cultural touchstones don’t make you long for a time that’s been overly-simplified and reduced to its best parts, this greasy, 11-gigaton bomb of an album will surely remind you it was all downhill from there.
