Mean Streets 1973, directed by Martin Scorcese.

I'm a sucker for recency bias, and I really should know better. But like this movie, I'm going to be rash and impulsive and say this is my favorite mob flick, AND my favorite Scorcese picture. What got me to watch this was what I now know is a clip of the opening sequence that I stumbled upon on Instagram Reels and saved months ago to the theme of Be My Baby by The Ronettes.
While organising a film club at my workplace, I thought this would be a great start considering we have fans of Scorcese and of mob movies in general.

I am absolutely, absolutely blown away by this movie. It is chock-full of symbolism, catholic imagery. Scorcese's political side is peeking through here with strong things to say about violence, racism, sexism, and homophobia. I really loved how fire was played with my scorcese and used to say something about all of the charachters. Yes it is a simple metaphor, but combined with Scorcese's absolute STYLE it really shines. Wanted to add on there's lot's of existentialism associated with the french new wave here. While watching this movie I really was thinking back to all of the Scorcese interviews I seen, the way he talks about how important the camera is the audience, when he talks about how he refuses to glorify violence, you really see it here.

The Cyberpunk RED book says that Cyberpunk is all about Style over Substance. This movie is in no way Cyberpunk, but that core rule is in this movie and OH LAWD that film grain is sexy, this whole movie just LOOKS so goddamn beautiful. and I really have to reccomend it to anyone who likes mob movies, and especially to fans of Scorcese, De Niro and Harvey Keitel.

That's my rambling done, go watch this! when you have the chance. Goodbye