Scarface: Two-Disc Anniversary Edition (2003)Say hello to my little DVD! Brian De Palma's coked-up gangster circus may be one giant hunk of exploitative nonsense, but, thanks in large part…
Say hello to my little
DVD! Brian De Palma's coked-up gangster circus may be one giant
hunk of exploitative nonsense, but, thanks in large part to the
blind reverence of assorted hip-hoppers and SportsCenter anchors,
it's become something of a classic. To that utterly misguided
end, Universal's two-disc set totally kills -- if only because at
one point it includes probably the single funniest subtitle in
the history of the medium: ''[Tony muttering].'' Production
documentaries allow that screenwriter Oliver Stone named Al
Pacino's marble-mouthed psycho kingpin after quarterback Joe
Montana, while he based those chainsawing drug runners on fact.
(Still a mystery: why all the Cubans speak English to each
other.) Even better is a hilarious look at how a movie that
initially got an X rating was edited for TV, and a smart Def
Jam-produced short in which rappers sing Scarface's praise. Quoth
the Wu-Tang's Raekwon, ''That s -- - was the f -- -ing Bible.''
Originally posted Oct 10, 2003Published in issue #732 Oct 10, 2003Order article reprints