1999 might not have even been the best year of the 90s.

When you start by lauding Jar-Jar you've lost some ground.

Good year. Some great films but... no. It isn't close to the best year ever.

Hmmm. Missing the whole element of Taxi Driver where Bickle is about to kill the politician (he would be seen as a madman) but, since he sees he'll be caught he kills the pimp and becomes the hero (and Schrader is basically saying they're the same thing). He only chooses to save Iris because killing the pimp was easier.

Dunno what that means to the other parts of the stuff you're saying... But it's an important aspect of the film.

So if you want to know why the era of filmmakers-first died you're looking in the wrong place if you read this article. Blaming the film-makers "bad behavior" rather than seeing how corporate ownership of the studios matched with a descent into the current morass of superhero bullshit is the error here. Risk aversion algorithms and attempts to create sure-fire formulas killed the era, not bad behavior (behavior that still exists and is romanticized - see Leo's Bear movie).

The self-indulgence and crew imperiling didn't stop after the corps took over, it just got more top-down and exploitative and less driven by a vision and more about a bottom line...

Given that the tragedy of the film is the destruction of the family - Michael's eventual dive into dad's life work will always keep them as outsiders, which the Don always hated - Luca's role was better served the way they played it. His role is to die and leave the family vulnerable in the story. He is part of building the mystique of the Don (whose own violence is always layered away in the movie - the horse head, the story of the bandleader - mysterious).

If you don't see the Don's "greatness" and his focus on family as valuable then there is no tragedy in the picture (it just becomes one thug replacing another - which is the truth, but it is made operatic by the way they present the Don in the film). Luca's character fills the needs of the story the way they did it.

Looking forward to it

I really love his work on Sicario. Taking stark modern locations and situations and turning them poetic while also keeping the film gritty as hell