Why isolate Scorsese on the mean streets?

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2007)

There is, indeed, a lot of hype around the film, some unjustified. I agree with reviewers who found Nicholson's performance overwrought--a hambone variation on the Down-and-Dirty bit he's been doing for over thirty years. DiCaprio, Sheen, Baldwin, and particularly Wahlberg and Winstone are fine. But Vera Farmiga, however much she's hyped as portraying a "stong" character, doesn't do much for me. She's a psychiatrist who becomes involved with *two* patients, moves in with one (after only four months??) and gets pregnant, apparently on purpose (one might assume a medical professional would know where babies come from). She's an over-dressed substitute for a character. Frankly, Cameron Diaz' turn in "Gangs of New York" was much stronger.
But what really bothers me is that critics are *raving* over this slickly vapid variation on Scorsese's admittedly brilliant "Mean Streets." Why force him to repeat this formula until he's finally awarded an Oscar? I suspect it's because many in the industry don't believe a working-class Italian-American is worthy of making films of literary classics ("Age of Innocence") or historic films ("The Aviator," "Gangs of New York"). I once heard a scholar remark in a presentation that Scorsese must have been "intimidated" by the setting and characters of Wharton's novel *because* he was just a working class guy. By extension, Hollywood seems unable to believe Scorsese deserves credit for being able to "stretch" beyond his ethnic and class origins with any authenticity. Why isolate Scorsese on the mean streets? Because it's easier to typecast--even with directors.