A sadly fictional View-Master package and reels for the 1980 film ‘The Shining.’
 
I came across a pretty sweet mock-up of a View-Master cover and reel for the 1982 film Fast Times At Ridgemont High posted on the Australian pop culture blog Repeat Viewing. Repeat Viewing even went so far as to create authentic-looking View-Master reels noting specific scenes from Fast Times, The Shining, An American Werewolf in London, Full Metal Jacket, and Jacob’s Ladder. This sent me off to find more reimagined View-Master covers and reels, and my Internet inquiries were rewarded with many more mock-ups of films which would be even more eye-popping, viewed through the specialized stereoscopes initially introduced in 1939.

According to the Wikipedia page on the View-Master, 65% of the world’s population is well acquainted with the brand name “View-Master.” If you didn’t have one as a kid, I’d be a bit confused because they still make variations of the little nostalgic slide-show device. And I don’t know about you, but if someone, ANYONE wanted to make adult-oriented View-Master reels, I would fully support the effort. The other images in this post were done by Nathan Martin of the blog CineCraze and Portland, Oregon artist Nate Ashley. Some are NSFW. YAY!
 

By Repeat Viewing. Other fantastic fake View-Master packaging and reels by Repeat Viewing follow.
 

 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
Martin Scorsese started making movies when he was a kid. He suffered from asthma which meant he spent time a lot of isolated at home in bed. He couldn’t play like the other kids. Instead he watched them from his bedroom window running free, playing baseball and getting in fights. His bedroom window was his first viewfinder. He watched the world outside and imagined stories about the people he saw. His imagination was inspired by the movies at the local cinema—films starring Victor Mature, or those made by Powell and Pressburger.

Scorsese was raised a Catholic. He was an altar boy and his parents thought one day he might become a priest. In church Scorsese saw the power and drama contained in the religious statues and paintings—the pieta with its crucified Christ draped across his mother’s lap. The martyred saints showing their wounds and pointing to unknowable heavens. Imagery was a visceral source of communication. At home in bed he created his own movies, spending hours painstakingly drawing storyboards, frame by frame, for the imaginary films he would one day direct.

In his teens he gave up on being a priest and went to the film school at NYU. He made the short films What’s a Nice Girl Like You Doing in a Place Like This? (1963) and The Big Shave (1967). Scorsese’s greatest films are the ones informed with his own personal experience and knowledge of the world. Catholic guilt (Who’s That Knocking at My Door?); machismo posturing and violence (Mean Streets); violence, redemption and isolation (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull).

Much of this is well covered in Joel Sucher and Steven Fischler’ profile of Scorsese. Made for the PBS series, American Masters  in 1990, this documentary follows the director during the making of Goodfellas.  It contains superb interviews (most delightfully Scorsese’s parents), choice cuts from his films and contributions from actors (Harvey Keitel, Robert De Niro, Amy Robinson), producers and fellow directors—like Steven Spielberg who says the intense emotional turmoil of Scorsese’s work, “Sometimes you don’t know whether to scream or to laugh.”
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds
 
Behind the Scenes of Martin Scorsese’s ‘Mean Streets’

Behind the Scenes of ‘Taxi Driver’

 
Or the “Cab Driver” doll, to be more precise, which is part of the Brother Production company’s “Crazy Killers Collection”.

The 12” doll comes with two heads, replica army jacket, sunglasses, four different kinds of gun and even a miniature recreation of Travis’ infamous arm brace/gun rig. It’s actually pretty neat!

And it can be yours, via Ebay, for only $350.

 
Here’s a truly bizarre mash-up of Taxi Driver and some Walt Disney cartoons. It’s a tad too long for my tastes, but the execution is great. I also had a bit of a chuckle when Cybill Shepherd’s character walks out of the movie theater. 
 

 
Via Nerdcore

 
Apparently, in order to get into character for the film Taxi Driver, Robert De Niro obtained his own hack license and would pick-up/drive customers around in New York City.
 
(via Retronaut)

 
Woody Allen’s dialog from Hannah and Her Sisters almost fits perfectly into this scene from Taxi Driver, with Robert De Niro and Cybill Shepherd. It works so well that it even presages what we know happens in Martin Scorsese’s film

“A week ago I bought a rifle. If I had a tumor, I was gonna kill myself. The thing that might’ve stopped me: My parents would be devastated. I would’ve had to shoot them also.
And my aunt and uncle….It would have been a bloodbath…

...I need answers. Otherwise, I’m gonna do something drastic.”

Now if only the Three Stooges had made Goodfellas.
 

 
Previously on DM:

James Coco: Overt hostility disguised as comedy disguised as overt hostility

 
Bonus clip, Rick Moranis spoofs Dick Cavett and Woody Allen in ‘Taxi Driver’, after the jump..