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OT: I Have Seen "The Irishman" (QT/Scorsese's Family Plot?) (NO SPOILERS)

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
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"The Irishman" is due to "lock in" on Netflix in a couple of weeks; I believe it will be pulled out of theaters.

But I chose to take the trouble to see it in a theater so it is now pretty much fully a movie to me.

This was not the case with 2018's "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs" by the Coen Brothers, which I could only view on Netflix but which, I still determined, was my favorite "movie" of 2018 even if I never got to see it on the big screen. It FELT big -- and fully "movie-ish" on the small screen, if a bit small scale in story content at times.

In my personal little movie world, "Netflix has done it again" for 2019, because I'm choosing The Irishman as my favorite movie of 2019 -- with a catch:

It has to share the title. I'm giving "The Irishman" and "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" a TIE. I've never really done that before with my favorite of the year choices over 70 years of film, though I've sometimes "changed my favorite" over time(Its a Mad Mad World has recently replaced Charade as my favorite of 1963, and its not a tie.)

The only other tie on my personal list of films WAS "Favorite movie of the 70s" which for many years was a tie between The Godfather and Jaws. But over time and multiple watchings of both films, I found that The Godfather was always gripping all the way through, with great scenes of dialogue and murder set-pieces; Jaws tends to "bog down a bit" with the three men at sea, it was great to spend time with them a FEW times, but not everytime. So now The Godfather is my favorite of the 70s. (Jaws is still my favorite of 1975.)

So these things matter to me, and I'm amused (by myself) with WHY I'm awarding Irishman and OATIH a tie.

First of all, in the years since 1990, Scorsese films and QT films have each racked up a lot of "favorite of the year" slots for me:

GoodFellas
Casino
The Departed
The Wolf of Wall Street

Pulp Fiction
Inglorious Basterds
Django Unchained
The Hateful Eight

...and Jackie Brown is my favorite QT film, simply bested in 1997(on my list) by LA Confidential.

...and Reservoir Dogs is A favorite of 1992, if not THE favorite(My Cousin Vinny and Unforgiven are above it.)

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So there's that.

And there's also this:

Clocking again from 1990 -- and since QT starts his career with Reservoir Dogs in 1992, I can't find any years in which a QT movie AND a Scorsese mob movie came out the same year. Not in 1990(the year of GoodFellas), not in 1995(the year of Casino), not in 2006(the year of The Departed) not in 2013(the year of The Wolf of Wall Street.) There were NO QT films in ANY of those years.

So its kind of a big deal that QT and Scorsese have finally gotten "the year together" in their type of movie. That's ANOTHER reason for the tie.

But there's yet ANOTHER REASON STILL for the tie:

Having now seen both OATIH and The Irishman (in the same year), I'm rather convinced that they are, for their filmmakers -- the same movie.

Yes, indeed.

It goes like this: both films are significantly different from the more flashy QT and Scorsese mob movies before them; both films are rather "quiet"; both films are rather long and slow; and both films are somewhat flawed when stacked up against the great ones before them.

And yet: both films are so good in their respective, auteuristic ways that, TOGETHER, they deserve a tie. They are a "team" of contemplative movies from near the end of a career.

QT is ...what...20 years younger than Scorsese? And yet he says he'll write and direct only one more movie. So OAITH is near the end of his career. Scorsese at 76 could make movies for 10 more years(see: Eastwood) but this one stars four old men(DeNiro, Pacino, Pesci, and Keitel) and suggests that we won't get THIS team ever again.

These are "autumnal films."

And this: Scorsese has made The Irishman at 76, the same age Hitchcock was when he made his FINAL film, Family Plot. Scorsese's film is much bigger deal than Family Plot: bigger budget(by 100-fold); bigger stars, bigger deal in the press(though "Family Plot" got a lot of newspaper and magazine articles because of Hitchocck's fame.)

But here's the thing: one noticeable aspect of Family Plot was that it seemed like the flim of "an old man director." It lacked pace, it lacked excitement -- and as one friend told me of Family Plot at the time: "It looks real easy to direct." A lot of medium shot scenes, the faint air of a TV movie, not directed at full pressure, by an old director content to sit in his chair and let the younger folks carry the load.

Astonishingly to me, The Irishman played much the same way! Does age 76 do this to a director?(Who isn't Clint Eastwood?)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Now The Wolf of Wall Street roared at superfast speed and that was only 6 years ago, but it does feel like Scorsese slowed this one down to match the age of his cast and its contemplative tone.

So we will have to see what the NEXT Scorsese film brings: if it is superfast like The Wolf of Wall Street, then The Irishman was just an "affectation for effect." If Marty slows down in his next film as well, well, maybe age STILL matters in a director.

Another link to the QT film this year in the Irishman is: the changing of a certain style.

QT got rid of his "Chapter One" "Chapter Two" format in OAITH. In The Irishman, though Scorsese opens the film with his usual mix of 50's/60's/70's rock and blues music...the music eventually fades away in this one, I noticed. The movie becomes very quiet, none of that in-ya-face pizazz that made GoodFellas and Casino and The Departed excite from the very first minutes (The Wolf of Wall Street too, except that one went over the top in youthful sex and drugs reveries.) I was -- surprised? shocked? -- to find Marty throwing away his chance to keep us excited with music in The Irishman.

I will say that even on the big screen, there seemed to be something just a little "Netflixy" about The Irishman. Again, the feeling that Scorsese wasn't going "full throttle" here, and that the episodic story was a little less rich and complex than those others. Yes, it does have an "epic" quality, but to this seasoned fifties/sixties buff, it seemed like "once over lightly " on events that have been given greater depth in other movies: JFK's mob-backed 1960 Presidential win, The Bay of Pigs, The Cuban Missile Crisis(hey there, Topaz!), the mob in and out of Cuba, JFK blown away, Watergate and...of course...

RFK versus Jimmy Hoffa.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

About 27 years ago, Jack Nicholson played Hoffa(with a fake nose) and here's Big Al Pacino playing the same guy all these years later and well, its fascinating: Hoffa as impersonated in the idiom of two great "prestige actor superstars"; I love BOTH performances. The other character shared by Jack and Al was The Devil; I think maybe its time for Al to play The Joker in Winter and make it a compleat set.

And this: most of us of a certain age know that Jimmy Hoffa(a powerful labor boss of the 50's and 60's who went to prison and tried to get his union back in the 70's) "disappeared" in 1975, from "The Red Fox Restaurant" in Detroit, never to be seen again, very likely a mob hit.

What's fascinating is that "Hoffa" in 1992 gave us one "imagined version" of what happened to Hoffa and "The Irishman" in 2019 gives us a DIFFERENT version of what happened to Hoffa, and, well: take your pick. I love the Nicholson version, but THIS one is meant to matter more as a matter of emotion and theme.

But to me, the Hoffa/JFK/Cuba/Watergate stuff in "The Irishman" works against it. We've seen other movies about these things. Casino gave us the workings of a casino and the thrill of Vegas in all its greed, sex, and gangster glory. GoodFellas was the first movie to show us gangsters at a rather gutter level animalistic "dumbth." The Departed injected a heavily plotted Hitchcockian thriller into a Boston IRISH gangster mileau, and The Wolf of Wall Street was its own fantastic, highly sexualized extravaganza.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Let's talk about about The Wolf of Wall Street versus The Irishman. With "Wolf," Scorsese told a decidedly YOUTHFUL tale of corruption: Leo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill were YOUNG(and looked younger than their real ages) and led a YOUNG squad of financial con men on their sex and drug driven escapades, with beautiful YOUNG women along for the ride(all the while being mentored by YOUNG Matthew McConaghey in one classic scene of Wall Street debauchery.)

All the youth of The Wolf of Wall Street pretty much dissolves into a small squad of tired but dangerous old men in The Irishman. DeNiro, Pacino and Pesci are all in their 70's now; Keitel is 80, Pacino is 79 and all the "de-aging CGI" in the world cannot take that age away -- even the de-aging pretty much takes them back to middle age, less some "young DeNiro footage." The grudges of old age are as much a part of The Irishman as the superconfidence of youth in The Wolf of Wall Street.

And the sex matters: the young men of Wolf are going to be driven by the testosterone OF youth in seeking continual sexual pleasure. The old men of The Irishmen are past that -- these are old men with "handsome" wives of long standing DeNiro's relationship with a daughter who grows from a child actress into Anna Paquin keeps the emphasis on "family." Sex simply doesn't matter in The Irishman. (And it DID, not only in Wolf, but in Nicholson's oversexed old gang boss in The Departed, and the wife/girlfriend traditions of the Mafia in GoodFellas and Casino.)

l

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I"ve noted before all the historic casting events in The Irishman: Pacino's first Scorsese films(and he dominates it as Nicholson dominated HIS first and only Scorsese film); DeNiro returns to the fold after being forsaken for years in favor of Leo. Pesci returns from retirement. Keitel goes back to Mean Streets and Taxi Driver.

And there are "QT" connections: Keitel "made" QT by getting Reservoir Dogs made and playing the lead. And Keitel is in Pulp Fiction(as The Wolf!) and his voice is in Inglorious Basterds. One of DeNiro's greatest roles ever is in Jackie Brown. And Big Al just gave us a nice cameo in OAITH (his presense in both films is another reason for their tie.) Maybe Pesci can come out of retirement one more time in QT's final film!

I think I will use another thread to do a "MAJOR SPOILERS" piece on The Irishman, but the truth of the matter is that there AREN'T many major spoilers in the film. We all know that Hoffa disappeared, so the movie is moving towards that(and then past it.) The movie shows nothing of mob involvement in the JFK assassination, but makes the usual case that the Mafia SHOULD have wanted JFK dead(he won with mob backing and his brother came after the mob.) But we've heard that story before.

No, to the extent that The Irishman is compelling(and sorry, nope, it is not as compelling as GoodFellas, Casino, The Departed, or The Wolf of Wall Street), it is almost entirely a matter of character and characters, of inexorable forces, of friendship and betrayal. And of time and aging itself, the great levelor which is perhaps the theme of THIS movie that the other Scorsese films before it could not have.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

[deleted]

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

A bit about the acting here:

DeNiro and Pacino played father and son in The Godfather II, but since DeNiro was Don Vito in flashback as a young man, they had no scenes together.

DeNiro was the crook and Pacino was the cop in "Heat"(1995) but shared only one dramatic scene together (before coming together again for the shoot-em-up climaxes.)

DeNiro and Pacino did a bunch of scenes together and shared the whole movie in "Righteous Kill"(2008) but alas it was a very pedestrian movie (not bad, just pedestrian.)

So finally in "The Irishman," DeNiro and Pacino get to work together in a bunch of scenes and its a really good movie.

But I kept coming back to this: in their one dramatic scene together in "Heat," when crook and cop have a friendly cup of coffee together that ends with mutual professional death threats("I like you, but I will kill you if I have to"), those two guys 24 years ago looked GREAT; DeNiro tough and brooding with a goatee and 'stache; Pacino tan and handsome with a big head of full, long hair. They were trim, middle-aged handsome movie stars in that movie, in that scene. Well, 24 years later, in The Irishman ...they're old and paunchy. And wearing bad haircuts and boxy suits, and only their voices and their history carry forth the stardom.

And this, which is very funny: "The Irishman" makes a point that Hoffa likes his bodyguard confidant DeNiro to stay in the same hotel suite with him when they travel; eventually they are in twin beds, side by side. Its not a particularly gay situation but they definitely become like an "old married couple" having pre-sleep pajama talk -its a very nifty use of these two superstars and their history.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Meanwhile, Joe Pesci. My companion saw "The Irishman" under duress because she couldn't STAND the high-pitched voice and crazy bully manner of Pesci in the 90's(says she; he was actually quite charming in My Cousin Vinny and he won an Oscar for GoodFellas.) Well, she found Pesci a "revelation" in The Irishman: quiet, intelligent, sympathetic(to a point.) I'll use her review as mine: its great to see Pesci come back in an entirely different way.

Well, almost different. His gangster is the kind of guy who talks quietly but makes decisions that often lead to death. He's always dangerous and his sympathetic qualities are, in the end neutralized by his pragmatism. Its just business.

Harvey Keitel is barely in the movie, but every time you see him...Scorsese AND QT come flying out of the screen. He's playing a mob boss, and he gets one good scene in which he gives DeNiro a warning about invading the wrong turf and -- you take him very seriously. He's Harvey Keitel. In the same restaurant booth with Robert DeNiro(from Mean Streets and Taxi Driver with Keitel.) And Joe Pesci's in that booth too(Keitel says "If you didn't have (Pesci) as a friend, you'd be dead" in so many words.

Ray Romano. I think he's a near-billionaire from Everybody Loves Raymond but here he is as a mob lawyer and keeping up the comedy that's always part of a Scorsese picture. He's his own kind of superstar.

Stars are rare these days, and The Irishman has five of them and they are part of the value and entertainment(and nostalgia) of this film.

Oh, and whoever the guy was who played the gangster Tony Pro (Stephen Graham is his name, but I don't know him) gets a classic pair of verbal confrontations with Pacino that are funny and deadly serious at the same time. He's the sixth star of The Irishman. (Pacino is always calling Tony Pro "the little guy" -- which is funny coming from short Al Pacino.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

bump

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

it seemed like "once over lightly " on events that have been given greater depth in other movies: JFK's mob-backed 1960 Presidential win, The Bay of Pigs, The Cuban Missile Crisis(hey there, Topaz!), the mob in and out of Cuba, JFK blown away, Watergate and...of course...
RFK versus Jimmy Hoffa.

Robert De Niro *is* Zelig, no, *is* Forrest Gump, wait a minute.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Anyhow, thanks for the (non-spoiler) reviews. I'm looking forward to watching The Irishman. It does sound like the autumnal Goodfellas vibe here represents a fusion of Scorsese's interests. He's made quite a few (relatively - compared to Hollywood not to 'slow cinema' from Tarkovsky to Bilge Ceylan) contemplative movies before - Last Temptation, Kun Dun, Silence - now Scorsese has embedded one of his contemplative movies inside a once-over-lightly version of his signature gangster epics.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Robert De Niro *is* Zelig, no, *is* Forrest Gump, wait a minute.

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Indeed...its kind of Zelig done DURING the Forrest Gump Baby Boomer years....but it just doesn't feel as "inside" as Goodfellas and Casino did...those movies really EXCITED me, but as much with their inside dope about Mafia life(GoodFellas) and Vegas casinos(Casino.) The Irishman is covering terrain we know, a lot of us.

Funny thing: lots of "experts" are debunking this film's explanation(from the real-life man played by DeNiro) for "what happened to Hoffa" as totally untrue. Don't bother me. Hoffa's disappearance is a mystery that can be "explained" any which way. It was GREAT how they did in the Nicholson "Hoffa," pretty good here -- and I remember yet a THIRD portrayal in a painting in the magazine pages for a Playboy story on organized crime in the 70's(they had Hoffa getting shot in his kitchen.) I don't think any one of these three explanations is the "real one." (I never saw the Hoffa mini-series with Robert Blake...I wonder how Hoffa got it in THAT one?)

For all of this familiarity, I never left my seat in the movie theater to use the restroom during the 3 and 1/2 hour The Irishman...it gripped me, I guess.

I'll probably like it more after a few viewings. On Netflix...

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Anyhow, thanks for the (non-spoiler) reviews.

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Tried to keep them non-spoiler on this thread. I did a SPOILER review thread elsewhere -- maybe you can join that one after you see it.

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I'm looking forward to watching The Irishman. It does sound like the autumnal Goodfellas vibe here represents a fusion of Scorsese's interests. He's made quite a few (relatively - compared to Hollywood not to 'slow cinema' from Tarkovsky to Bilge Ceylan) contemplative movies before - Last Temptation, Kun Dun, Silence - now Scorsese has embedded one of his contemplative movies inside a once-over-lightly version of his signature gangster epics.

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I think that's the key to this one, yes. Its why I'll be curious to see if Scorsese goes back to a "super-fast filmic style" next time(like The Wolf of Wall Street or GoodFellas.) If he can "go fast again," we'll know Scorsese has it in "older age." If he stays slow well...I'm feeling slower these days, too.

I didn't notice til I read it: This is DeNiro's first movie with Scorsese SINCE Casino. 24 years. A long time for an actor who "always" seemed to be Scorsese's go to lead. Once Leo took over(for greater bankability I fear) some wag said that DeNiro "must have felt like Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights, suddenly replaced by a new young guy as the top male porn star.") Hah.

Rumors put DeNiro AND Leo in the next Scorsese, the one from the non-fiction book about bad guys killing off Oklahoma Native Americans in the 1920's(not the 2020's!) for their oil-filled lands. DeNiro's the bad land baron behind the killings ; Leo's the cop/FBI guy on his trail. If it gets made. Its a bestselling book right now.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

In the last couple of weeks I've watched GoodFellas, Casino, The Departed, and The Wolf of Wall Street in preparation for The Irishman and the question again is begged:

Can the age of a director actually be seen on screen? And how is it that the age and tiredness of the director can manifest in everybody else's work, too? The editing, the camera movement, perhaps even the acting?

Family Plot remains a better demonstration of this than The Irishman. Alfred Hitchcock at 76 was a much more tired and unhealthy physical specimen than Scorsese at 76. It is noted that Hitchcock practically directed Family Plot from a wheelchair...actually a converted car that was DRIVEN onto the soundstage. Hitchcock couldn't walk long distances on his own anymore.

Which reminds me "conversely": Spielberg once advised new directors to "invest in a good pair of comfortable tennis shoes" so as to be able to move quickly back and forth on the soundstage and on location...the "movement" begin part of the PHYSICAL part of directing.

Well, I doubt Hitchcock ever wore tennis shoes to direct in his life, but the "planted" nature of Hitchcock's direction in Family can be seen all the medium shots of two people talking...as if Hitch was just too tired to have the camera moved for close-ups and other angles. That said, Family Plot is not without some flourishes: the ultra-low angle on Karen Black opening the car door when the bishop's red robe protrudes; the high angle that captures Bruce Dern stalking the widow Mahoney in the graveyard, and the quick flutter of Hitchcockian visual edits that make the kidnapping of the bishop become an expressionistic jumble.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Back to Scorsese: HIS camera races around in so many of his movies; I not quite sure how he does it. In Casino, we have a great sequence where, as DeNiro tells us "who is watching who on the casino floor" the camera races from the dealer to the pit boss to the floor boss to the casino assistant manager to the casino manager to the "great eye in the sky."

I don't recall the camera in The Irishman EVER racing around like that -- which is the way it raced in GoodFellas and other gangster movies, too. We shall see if Scorsese ever returns to such speed.

Which reminds me: this year we've got the Historic Clint Eastwood edging ever close to being the most successful actor and director in the history of Hollywood.

He's releasing the Oscar-bound Richard Jewell next month at the age of 89(as a director only.) Last year, he acted on screen and directed(at age 88) and got a hit out of The Mule.

I figure Old Clint simply HAS to make it past 90, direct a film in his 90s and..importantly...appear ON SCREEN one more time in his 90's...over the title, and then he will have achieved something NO star or director did before him.

That said, I've seen a lot of his movies over the past 20 years and...they are a sparse, perfunctory lot. Clint makes rather simple and boring movies; the achievement is IN the age he is while he makes them.

"Sully" intrigued me because it had a lot of "big action" CGI: footage of jet planes crashing fatally(in Tom Hanks dreams) and without death(in the real incident.) How did Old Man Clint handle all those effects? I expect by shipping the work out to Silicon Valley and then looking at the finished product like the rest of us.

And yet: he got the hit of the year in American Sniper(people came out to the movies who never came out to the movies) and major Oscars with Million Dollar Baby a mere 15 years ago and...maybe something with Richard Jewell.

But: Eastwood's movies have been "old man movies" since, oh...Space Cowboys?

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

More ponderings on The Irishman and Once Upon a Time In Hollywood as a "matched pair":

Both films end with an "alternate view of the facts", though in different ways. OUAITH comes up with an alternate version of the Manson Murders and The Irishman gives us a view of the never-known-how murder (probably) and disappearance(definitely) of Jimmy Hoffa that is alternate to...the version of Hoffa's disappearance than climaxes the 1992 Jack Nicholson film "Hoffa."

In both cases, the movies tell us: "This is the movies...we can tell or re-tell history any way that we want."

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 5 years ago

I wonder what you thought of the de-aging CGI since you saw it on the big screen. It seemed hit and miss to me, but tried not to think about it. It seemed like the three stars had too much makeup on. Maybe I'll watch parts of the movie again to judge the CGI.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 5 years ago

RFK vs. Jimmy Hoffa was one of the better parts haha.

I could not get into The Irishman. None of Scorsese's gangster films are in the same level as The Godfather or The Godfather: Part II. I enjoyed Goodfellas and Casino, but they are a little better than The Godfather: Part III.

As I thought, the movie was way too long and the scenes became repetitious when we get to the 60s. It doesn't make much sense of how Jimmy Hoffa became so powerful just because he had connections to the crime family and became their financier. Robert De Niro does a good job of playing the neutral and even tempered Irishman who rose to power throughout all this. I suppose it's Scorsese's version of what happened in the 60s.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 5 years ago

Mine is a little nit in terms of what you said, but I realized The Irishman is a skosh under 3.5 hrs when looking for a theater yesterday; I was going to see it today or tomorrow. It violates the unwritten two-hour rule where any event like a movie, sports event, concert, etc. goes beyond that then they start to lose the audience. I can see the movie not selling concessions, so it's why not a lot of theaters picked it up. It's only playing in one theater in my city about 30 mins away. Thus, this explains why it is going to Netflix in my book. It would be fine on Netflix as one can pause it and come back another time. I'll have to get a Roku stick or something as my internet does not connect to my PS2 anymore to get Netflix or anything online. Some entertainment box that is.

ETA: Maybe I'll go anyway as it's a lot less hassle watching a 3.5 hr movie ;).

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I was talking to some people "out here" the other day and I offered this theory: I've sat through three and a half hour business meetings that were more boring that three and a half hours of a gangster movie(which at least means there will be some murders along the way; that's why they are gangster movies.)

In any event, I return to report that I've now watched The Irishman on Netflix, about a week after seeing it on a very big screen at a theater and -- well, its interesting.

I'll note again that Hitchcock's 1959 movie North by Northwest didn't reach TV(CBS network) until 8 years later! (1967), with a theatrical re-release in between (1966) .

Of similar (but different) note: after a few years in the 80's where folks had to wait two to three years got a movie like Star Wars or Raiders on VHS, in 1989, Warner Brothers announced that its summer blockbuster Batman would be available at Christmas on VHS. Thus did the "window" close (and soon the summer 2019 hit Once Upon a Time in Hollywood will be on DVD for Xmas; it is already available on cable/digital.)

But anyway, here is The Irishman on the small screen a week after I saw it on the big screen and....well, its good both ways, but BETTER on the big screen. Movies are better to watch that TV shows, that's just the way it is.

But the second view allowed me to catch quite a few things I didn't catch the first time.

For instance, Scorsese's camera DOES switch from person to person to person ala GoodFellas and Casino..."he's still got it." And IN that scene(set in Pescii's "drape store") there is some sort of instrumental from the 50s/60s that drove me nuts...I KNOW it from childhood, but I just don't know what it is. Very catchy, kinda(maybe?) Italian?

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I also looked for things I read between showings:

The movie has a score at times(done by Robbie Robertson, Scorsese's old pal from The Band) and...well, its not there much.

Better: there was a young actress who was hilarious near the end of "GoodFellas" as a pot-smoking sullen type who refused Ray Liotta's demands to drive to the airport to fly contraband overseas "until I get my lucky hat!" She wouldn't fly without her lucky hat.

I don't know where that gal's been since 1990, but she's in "The Irishman" as Jimmy Hoffa's pert and handsome wife.

There are other things I noticed this time around, but I guess they are for the MAJOR SPOILERS thread, so I'll go there later.

PS. As a spontaneous experiment, i watched The Irishman in one room while a cable channel played the usual Thanksgiving screening of The Godfather (and later, Godfather II) in the other. I could stroll back and forth between Pacino and DeNiro young, and Pacino and DeNiro old. It was kind of fun. I simply paused The Irishman to watch some Godfather, or walked away from a commercial during the Godfather(s) to watch The Irishman. But The Irishman got my attention all the way through...

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 5 years ago

>>But anyway, here is The Irishman on the small screen a week after I saw it on the big screen and....well, its good both ways, but BETTER on the big screen. Movies are better to watch that TV shows, that's just the way it is.<<

How big is your small screen? If I can get my projector to project move than 200', then likely it will be like cinema with giant faces on the screen. I think that's what makes the difference as you probably sat close, maybe too close, if you did not notice the angles of the people talking to each other on the screen and to you. With people's faces equal of smaller than you on the screen, then you'll tend to project your own thoughts and views into the movie more. That's just a theory on my part.

How can a flaw in a movie detract from it? At the movie, if you notice the following then it may bother you. On a smaller screen, you may miss it.

If you know about the flaw, then it's a moot point. If you don't and catch it on the small screen, then my kudos to you!

ETA:
https://youtu.be/D0J_J_0DQhg

My bad, they have edited the mistake out in later versions. This is a nice HD one.
https://youtu.be/kiV3J_e977Q

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

>>But anyway, here is The Irishman on the small screen a week after I saw it on the big screen and....well, its good both ways, but BETTER on the big screen. Movies are better to watch that TV shows, that's just the way it is.<<

How big is your small screen?

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I really don't know. Its pretty big, and mounted high on a wall for a slight "theater screen" effect.

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If I can get my projector to project move than 200', then likely it will be like cinema with giant faces on the screen. I think that's what makes the difference as you probably sat close, maybe too close, if you did not notice the angles of the people talking to each other on the screen and to you. With people's faces equal of smaller than you on the screen, then you'll tend to project your own thoughts and views into the movie more. That's just a theory on my part.

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Two or three times in my life, I've gone into a movie theater so late that the only seats available are the front row. Its a weird experience, sitting there(almost LYING there) on your movie seat, staring up at these GIANT human faces that are distorted in close-ups. I saw "Rain Man"(1988) that way and "regular viewings" of it on TV just aren't the same.

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How can a flaw in a movie detract from it? At the movie, if you notice the following then it may bother you. On a smaller screen, you may miss it.

--

Agreed.

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If you know about the flaw, then it's a moot point. If you don't and catch it on the small screen, then my kudos to you!

ETA:
https://youtu.be/D0J_J_0DQhg

My bad, they have edited the mistake out in later versions. This is a nice HD one.
https://youtu.be/kiV3J_e977Q

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I'll take a look.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 5 years ago

Did you catch the flaw or mistake? If you look at the bottom right corner you can see the shadow. People saw this at the cinema. Obviously, it's much more noticeable at the theater. This is by a great director, Stanley Kubrick, so inexcusable. Still if it was shot on film, then it would be more difficult to erase unlike digital or HD today. I think he noticed it, but it's one of those things you can't re-shoot.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

I just watched The Irishman (lousy title - a real failure of nerve not to stick with I Heard You Paint Houses) on Netflix.

I resonate with a lot of ecarle's observations, esp. that it had a static, lightly-directed TV-ish visual quality. I'm hard-pressed to think of any real visual ideas unless you include the onscreen death information, which I liked. The comparison with OUATIH struck me too. Both could do to lose at least 45 minutes of inconsequential, unmemorable jabber. In particular the hour from Hoffa getting out of jail to his getting whacked could (I think, I'd need a second viewing to be sure) be montaged down to about 20 minutes.

The de-aging tech was OK apart from the fact that de-aged DeNiro never once convinces as an actual 30-something human being. Honestly, old age makeup has been perfected since at least The Exorcist. A better film would have cast age-appropriately for the '50s segments & then done aging makeup from there. As it was, '50s scenes with Keitel, Pesci and De Niro were disorienting since everyone reads as some crazy shade of aged. I had to pause and find out online how old everyone was supposed to be to calibrate.

For me The Irishman felt a little too familiar on a basic story level: Goodfellas after all follows a half-Irish guy into the mob, and '50s, -60s mob tangling with Cuba & Casinos & Congressional hearings is Godfather 2 territory. These comparisons don't do The Irishman any favors; those films are just much more exciting, with much more colorful characters.

Not a serious Best Picture contender for me, maybe not best anything else either.

Am really looking forward to watching Marriage Story on Netflix next week. Between Endgame, Jojo Rabbit, and Marriage Story, Scarlett Johansson is having one of the greatest actress years in movie history (up there with Stanwyck's 1941: The Lady Eve, Ball of Fire, Meet John Doe). Can she get an Oscar (Stanwyck missed in 1941 & was never so deserving again)?

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I just watched The Irishman (lousy title - a real failure of nerve not to stick with I Heard You Paint Houses) on Netflix.

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Yes, they rather stick the "real" title up front in the movie anyway...each word interspersed with "highway lines ahead" footage to illustrate the ominous road trip being taken by DeNiro, Pesci and their dying-to-smoke wives..

That said, I'm not sure "I Hear You Paint Houses" would quite sell the movie correctly...though its a great phrase(some of that inside-stuff we loved from GoodFellas) -- it means "I hear you are a hitman" i.e. kill people, i.e. paint houses with the spurting blood of your victims.

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I resonate with a lot of ecarle's observations, esp. that it had a static, lightly-directed TV-ish visual quality. I'm hard-pressed to think of any real visual ideas unless you include the onscreen death information, which I liked.

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That was GREAT. Funny-grisly and a reminder that this is another reason why The Sopranos ending sucked.

Those on-screen notes of the way each character dies ties into something pretty important to GoodFellas and Casino...both movies showed gang life as the most exciting life one could lead -- money, women, power -- but with a built-in problem: you usually die violently sometime. It all ends. Scorsese, ostensibly a "Catholic filmmaker" of a sort, always makes sure his bad guys get killed...or ruined..in the end. That goes for "The Wolf of Wall Street" too(though I've read that THAT real-life crook prospered after prison.)

And finally, the freeze-frame nature of those notes comfortably told us "don't worry, this IS a Scorsese movie...even on Netflix." Scorsese's freeze frames are sort of like Hitchcock's "travelling camera POV shots" -- the auteur is announced. (But hey, Hitchcock used freeze frame most effectively in Torn Curtain -- the ballerina -- and Frenzy -- Brenda Blaney's moment of death.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

The comparison with OUATIH struck me too. Both could do to lose at least 45 minutes of inconsequential, unmemorable jabber.

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Ah, but our inconsequential, unmemorable jabber is someone else's "great scene." I remain perplexed that OAITH was most praised for the two sequences I personally felt were the most "non-QT" in the movie: Sharon Tate at the movie theater and Rick Dalton on the "Lancer" set. Honestly , critics thought that was brilliant. But wait...Brad Pitt isn't in either of the scenes.

More to the point, and it worries me: QT got a lot of praise over OAITH for the scenes that were NOT violent, were NOT potentially "offensive." Its like he's being housetrained and praised for it.

There are some "purely political" film critics out there now(particularly on Ebert's site, where they now dole out their reviewers on a racial basis writing racially-based reviews) and they found fault only with two scenes in OAITH: (1) The mocking of Bruce Lee and (2) the "violence against women" at the end. The latter I found ridiculous -- the women being violated on screen -- in real life BUTCHERED a pregnant Sharon Tate as she begged for mercy. As for the Bruce Lee bit...well, OAITH will not be shown in China because it has that scene(QT would not remove it for China.) So there you have it: a Communist country censors a movie. How far we have come.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

In particular the hour from Hoffa getting out of jail to his getting whacked could (I think, I'd need a second viewing to be sure) be montaged down to about 20 minutes.

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Here, we differ. To me , that particular segment of the movie is where "all the good stuff is." Including the best scene in the movie.

But I think I will move this discussion to the "MAJOR SPOILER thread" to get into it...

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Am really looking forward to watching Marriage Story on Netflix next week.

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I dunno. Marital breakups and the strife inherent to them("Your best friend becomes your biggest enemy") is painful stuff to watch. (Well, in a bad divorce. Nicer ones CAN take place.) And how did this odd-looking fellow Adam Driver become such a star? Its pretty amazing, really. I guess he's a pretty great actor...

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Between Endgame, Jojo Rabbit, and Marriage Story, Scarlett Johansson is having one of the greatest actress years in movie history (up there with Stanwyck's 1941: The Lady Eve, Ball of Fire, Meet John Doe). Can she get an Oscar (Stanwyck missed in 1941 & was never so deserving again)?

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I'd say: yes. You've just shown me the front runner in the Best Actress race. Aside from your Stanwyck analogy, there seems to be a trend at the Oscars for an actress or actor with TWO big roles in a year to win for ONE of them. Example: Richard Dreyfuss won for The Goodbye Girl in the year of Close Encounters, too. Pacino was nominated for BOTH Best Actor(Scent of a Woman) AND Best Supporting Actor(Glengarry Glen Ross) in 1992; he won Actor. Jessica Lange was nominated for BOTH Best Actress(Frances) and Best Supporting Actress(Tootsie) in 1982 -- she won Supporting Actress.

So ScarJo is set up that way for 2019...as is Brad Pitt, great in OAITH and good(I hear) in Ad Astra.

Oddly enough, Endgame maybe works against ScarJo because there is actorly resentment for people who become zillionaires for very little effort(i.e. those Marvel actors.)

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

I dunno. Marital breakups and the strife inherent to them("Your best friend becomes your biggest enemy") is painful stuff to watch.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

This film divorce has an extra frisson of danger because its real world basis is so well known: writer-director Baumbach divorced Jennifer Jason Leigh & Baumbach has officially said he felt he had to clear the script with JJL. Will our knowledge that Baumbach took up with Greta Gerwig next affect how we see whatever end the movie gives Adam Driver's character?

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Aha...one of those ...things(it has a foreign name) of a movie ("clef" in there?)

And I'm afraid that Hollywood marriages have their own weird cachet...fidelity seems to be an issue, artistic ego can get troublesome, etc.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Oddly enough, Endgame maybe works against ScarJo because there is actorly resentment for people who become zillionaires for very little effort(i.e. those Marvel actors.)

Maybe that's a problem... but I tend to feel that ScarJo is due a lot of credit & good will for having squared the circle of modern Hollywood: yes she's fabulous as Black Widow, but she's also done the hard yards of anchoring blockbusters more by herself with things like The Island, Lucy, & Ghost in The Shell (with varying degrees of success). And she's also consistently been in excellent smaller films her whole career: Ghost World, Man Who Wasn't There, Lost in Trans, Match Point, The Prestige, Vicky Christina Barcelona, Hitchcock(!), Under The Skin (one of the films of the decade in my view), Her, Hail Caesar, and now Jojo Rabbit & Marriage Story. A ScarJo film festival is damn watchable! I'm not sure whose festival would be better among recent actors. She's absolutely due just the way DiCaprio was a few years ago....assuming she wants to campaign for it & that Marriage Story is as good as promised.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I'm not sure whose festival would be better among recent actors. She's absolutely due just the way DiCaprio was a few years ago....assuming she wants to campaign for it & that Marriage Story is as good as promised

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Sounds like a good list of acheivements; and I know you have high regard for Under the Skin...as do others putting together their 2010's best lists.

And she WAS good in Hitchcock as Janet Leigh; we got a sense of what it means to be a "star" who is also a semblance of a "regular person" and how hard that shower scene was to shoot(they added the fantasy of Hitchcock himself stabbing at her in a frenzy with the fake knife, additionally disturbing.).

Plus let's not forget(and I'm not kidding)..."Eight Legged Freaks," a 2002 movie about a giant spider invasion of an isolated Arizona desert town and its near-deserted shopping mall.

My "official" favorite movie of 2002 is "Chicago," one of the few times the Best Picture Oscar winner was my favorite; but I liked the songs, choreography, ambience, and I've also named it because it was the favorite of a close older male relative who must have seen the damn things five times in a theater, not too long before his death.. He was a movie buff, and I think he wanted to go out watching beautiful women over and over and over.

Still, close on the heels of "Chicago" for 2002 for me as my favorite movie that year, was "Eight Legged Freaks," mainly for its full commitment to recreating something of a 1950's Big Bug movie with all the CGI available.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Still, close on the heels of "Chicago" for 2002 for me as my favorite movie that year, was "Eight Legged Freaks," mainly for its full commitment to recreating something of a 1950's Big Bug movie with all the CGI available. I mean when the spiders attack in this one, there are SCORES of them, all big, some bigger(a whopper tarantula) attacking the denizens of the small town in moments careful to spare the blood and yet somehow maximize the terror(they tend to leap on their victims like Mother leapt on Arbogast) ...all while being, kinda funny. Its like "The Birds" with all the great effects and none of the family psychodrama.

Anyway, the lead(for a last time in a movie?)is David Arquette, but he's paired with a mother-daughter team of two beautiful women: Kari Wuhrer(beautiful, no stardom obtained) as the town sheriff and young ScarJo as her cool daughter (here a teenage beauty). Arquette and the very attractive Kari Wuhrer didn't make it in movies...but ScarJo did, and "Eight Legged Freaks" is one of those movies that show us how a good actor/actress can survive an "entry level job" with flying colors. Its a really fun movie, with a great sense (a REAL sense) of how a small group of people can try to eke out livings in the literal desert...fine enough background to the fantasy of the attacking spiders(created by toxic waste, natch.)

So put THAT one on your ScarJo list! Its on mine.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Oddly enough, Endgame maybe works against ScarJo because there is actorly resentment for people who become zillionaires for very little effort(i.e. those Marvel actors.)

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Maybe that's a problem..

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Well, I akin it to all those years Paul Newman could not win an Oscar, even for very good performances from Hud to The Verdict. I think he was just considered too SUCCESSFUL to give the award to, for the longest time. Tom Cruise is currently in this category, and he seems to have given up taking vehicles that are Oscar worthy(Born on the Fourth of July, Magnolia.)

But Marvel is different, I guess. J-Law is in X-Men, Brie Larsen went from Oscar TO Marvel(as Captain Marvel) Gwyneth Paltrow(long after her Oscar) is in Iron Man(its just about her only noteable work these days), etc.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

"Eight Legged Freaks" is one of those movies that show us how a good actor/actress can survive an "entry level job" with flying colors. Its a really fun movie

Thanks for the recommend. I'm *very* arachnopobic so it'll be a no-kidding trial for me on that level. John Goodman's '90s film, Arachnophobia, almost fried my brain & I've steered away from any-spider-related material since.

BTW, I didn't know that Kari Wuhrer did movies. She was a 'pretty girl' game show co-host on MTV in the '90s, and I kinda thought that she never went beyond that. It's always interesting who thrives & who doesn't in Hollywood. There was another MTV-gal, whose name I've forgotten, who got her big break as the 'distractingly hot chick' in the Farrellys' bowling comedy, Kingpin. It felt at the time like she was going to go on to bigger & better things but no. And ScarJo was distinctly second banana in Ghost World to Thora Birch (who'd already broken through in American Beauty). But Birch has virtually disappeared since! What the hell? (Some family troubles I gather but it's still a bit mysterious.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

"Eight Legged Freaks" is one of those movies that show us how a good actor/actress can survive an "entry level job" with flying colors. Its a really fun movie

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Thanks for the recommend.

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Well, ultimately its a pretty silly movie, but boy does it deliver the big CGI spiders -- it takes about an hour to get to the "good stuff" but the final attacks are massive.

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I'm *very* arachnopobic so it'll be a no-kidding trial for me on that level.

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I wrote a long post on this film over at its page here, and I get into that. Other than snakes, spiders are the scariest creatures alive -- those mandibles, all those legs, all those eyes, how they scuttle, and how the venomous ones can kill you. And some suck the fluids out of their victims.

We're lucky that they are so much smaller than us. The Incredible Shrinking Man drew great terror as the hero shrunk to the size where a spider could chase overpower him -- scarier than Psycho, back when I saw it.

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John Goodman's '90s film, Arachnophobia, almost fried my brain & I've steered away from any-spider-related material since.

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That one posited teeny-tiny poisonous spiders killing people, but saved a realistic 20-inch long Big Boy for the final attack on the hero -- it kept jumping out at him from above, below and the side -- , very scary for arachnophobes ...like me.

"Eight Legged Freaks" goes the Big Bug route -- they are giant (see: Tarantula and Earth Vs The Spider for scary 50's versions.) It takes a little of the edge off.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

"Eight Legged Freaks" goes the Big Bug route... It takes a little of the edge off.

I've seen ELF now and agree that it's much less of nerve-jangling than Arachnophobia. The size diff. is part of that but so is the spiders making almost puppy-like voices/noises! This was intentionally comic (it reminded me of Mars Attacks).

The film was OK I suppose. It didn't give ScarJo much to do, which was a shame.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Between Endgame, Jojo Rabbit, and Marriage Story, Scarlett Johansson is having one of the greatest actress years in movie history (up there with Stanwyck's 1941: The Lady Eve, Ball of Fire, Meet John Doe).
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I'd say: yes. You've just shown me the front runner in the Best Actress race.

Having seen Marriage Story now, I'm no longer predicting ScarJo for Oscar. ScarJo's very good but the film is ultimately subtlely tilited against her in a bunch of ways.
1. A lot of the flashier dialogue on her side of the story is given to her character's lawyer played by Laura Dern. Dern's role is unambiguously a stellar support & apparently she's great in Little Women too. There's normally only room for one 'It's time' Oscar narrative & this year Dern is *it* I'm afraid.
2. Baumbach's ultimately just more on the side of his counterpart Charlie (Driver). He gets most of the sympathy as the official 'loser' & ultimately the film accepts the view that Nicole (ScarJo) is more boring, more shallow, more of a home-body, more comfortable doing Hollywood hack-work, not at all a tortured genius like Charlie, etc.. The film feels like it's always sliding away from Nicole & ScarJo. There isn't quite enough there for ScarJo to play I'm afraid. Women are going to resent that and this may doom Driver's Oscar chance too.
3. I suspect that many Hollywood insiders aren't going to like the flattening out of Nicole's pre-Charlie backstory into essentially early '80s, Fast Times Jennifer Jason Leigh. But Baumbach got together with JJL in 2001, by which point JJL was fully developed as a truly gifted, daring, even genius actress, one of the best of her generation; think Last Exit To Brooklyn, Hudsucker Proxy, Short Cuts, Georgia, Dorothy Parker & the Vicious Circle, and so on. I'm guessing that, for example, people like QT & anyone he blabs to are *not* voting for MS for *anything* out of loyalty to JJL.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Having seen Marriage Story now, I'm no longer predicting ScarJo for Oscar.

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Hmm. But a nomination at least. Is she good in JoJo? Is she in it much? She's pretty negligible in Endgame, even though something important happens to her(which I didn't believe, I never do, in these Marvel movies.)

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ScarJo's very good but the film is ultimately subtlely tilited against her in a bunch of ways.
1. A lot of the flashier dialogue on her side of the story is given to her character's lawyer played by Laura Dern. Dern's role is unambiguously a stellar support & apparently she's great in Little Women too. There's normally only room for one 'It's time' Oscar narrative & this year Dern is *it* I'm afraid.

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Well, maybe an award for each of them: Actress for ScarJo, Supporting for Dern(but Dern can only be nominated for Little Women OR Marriage Story, unless they push one or the other for Actress and the other for Supporting.)

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

2. Baumbach's ultimately just more on the side of his counterpart Charlie (Driver). He gets most of the sympathy as the official 'loser' & ultimately the film accepts the view that Nicole (ScarJo) is more boring, more shallow, more of a home-body, more comfortable doing Hollywood hack-work, not at all a tortured genius like Charlie, etc..

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Bound to happen, eh? Its HIS story to tell, based on HIM. (Recall that Heartburn was told from the real-life woman's POV, so Jack Nicholson was a dog, Meryl Streep a heroine.)

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The film feels like it's always sliding away from Nicole & ScarJo. There isn't quite enough there for ScarJo to play I'm afraid. Women are going to resent that and this may doom Driver's Oscar chance too.

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"A pox on both their houses." And honestly...Driver married to SCARJO? Have you seen her real-life beaus?

Divorce is a sensitive topic, especially these days. Recall that in Kramer vs. Kramer, ultimately Streep was the villain, and Hoffman(after some "personal re-education") the hero. I recall a pretty even-steven divorce tale with Albert Finney and Diane Keaton(Shoot the Moon, I think.)

Speaking of Diane Keaton, some wag wrote of Annie Hall, "Woody Allen makes a movie about how his girlfriend dumped him, and wins the Oscar." Of course, it took a few more years for Keaton to dump him.

Love is wonderful, but marriage is HARD.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

3. I suspect that many Hollywood insiders aren't going to like the flattening out of Nicole's pre-Charlie backstory into essentially early '80s, Fast Times Jennifer Jason Leigh. But Baumbach got together with JJL in 2001, by which point JJL was fully developed as a truly gifted, daring, even genius actress, one of the best of her generation; think Last Exit To Brooklyn, Hudsucker Proxy, Short Cuts, Georgia, Dorothy Parker & the Vicious Circle, and so on. I'm guessing that, for example, people like QT & anyone he blabs to are *not* voting for MS for *anything* out of loyalty to JJL.

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Hmm..yeah don't do a "roman a clef"(sp?) about somebody that people know and like. Plus her daddy got decapitated(that would be Vic Morrow, on The Twilight Zone set.) She'll always have a sympathy vote.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Hmm..yeah don't do a "roman a clef"(sp?) about somebody that people know and like.

Ha, yes! Vulture has an interview today with JJL's divorce lawyer, effectively the basis for Laura Dern's character in the film. They shot in her office.
https://www.vulture.com/2019/12/laura-wasser-laura-dern-marriage-story-character-interview.html

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

And honestly...Driver married to SCARJO? Have you seen her real-life beaus?

Y'know I'm just realizing that I've no idea of ScarJo's dating history. I just heard from her interview with Colbert a few days ago that she's currently seeing Colin Jost from SNL. He's no Adonis nor is he super-rich or -smart or -successful, so I'd say ScarJo casts her net wider than perfection. Driver & her do *seem* believable as a couple (albeit one that has a few too many fundamental tensions to last) in the film.

[–] jasonbourne (1027) 5 years ago

OUATIH is another film I am waiting for Blu-ray or streaming. At first, I thought you meant OUATIA (1984) with Sergio Leone. That's even longer and short of a midnight zonker flick, probably the longest movie I ever sat through. It's better upon later viewings. Even with a good director and good reviews, I am going to think twice about seeing a movie that long today. When I was younger, then I may do it based on word of mouth or reviews, even convince friends to go. With this, sometimes you bomb though. I bombed with Dune (1984). However, I may have made up for it with Blood Simple (1985) and Witness (1985). I dunno. They're still talking to me to this day haha.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

OUATIH is another film I am waiting for Blu-ray or streaming.

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Today is December 1, and I think it will be on Blu-Ray in a couple of weeks. You can already rent it off of cable TV("digital.") So..you are very close to seeing it if you want to. I recommend it, with reservations.

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At first, I thought you meant OUATIA (1984) with Sergio Leone.

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Ha, well, that "title format"("Once Upon a Time in the West," "Once Upon a Time in America") is certainly being borrowed from Sergio by Quentin Tarantino. QT's is like this, though: "Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood." Do the Leones have those extra dots?

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That's even longer and short of a midnight zonker flick, probably the longest movie I ever sat through.

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Interestingly, the current 3 and 1/2 hour "The Irishman" is being compared to OAIT...A! because of its length and DeNiro's epic aging process in the movie. Also , one reviewer wrote: "The Irishman is the saddest gangster movie since Once Upon a Time in America.

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It's better upon later viewings.

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So are OAIT...H...and The Irishman, IMHO. Sometimes you have to get past what DOESN'T work in a movie(on a first viewing) and dig in on what DOES work, and why it does.

I also found with my second viewing of The Irishman I was able to get more lines memorized, and the order they are delivered. Very important to "analyzing why a movie works."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Even with a good director and good reviews, I am going to think twice about seeing a movie that long today.

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I have found that as I get older, longer movies are easier to watch for me(over three hours) and they go pretty fast. Part of this is because time DOES go faster when you are older, but as I say elsewhere, I've done three-plus hour business meetings that are more boring than any movie. You learn to adjust.

When I was a kid, my parents(cruelly?) took me to Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago and they seemed interminable. But I recall finding The Godfather -- with its quick pace and many murders -- to be an easy three hours to watch.

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When I was younger, then I may do it based on word of mouth or reviews, even convince friends to go. With this, sometimes you bomb though. I bombed with Dune (1984).

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Dune got cut in many lengths, didn't it?

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However, I may have made up for it with Blood Simple (1985) and Witness (1985). I dunno. They're still talking to me to this day haha.

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Blood Simple and Witness weren't that long. I guess you are saying that Dune wasn't very good but the other two made up for it, right? Which I think is true. I haven't seen Dune, though.

[–] liscarkat (18393) 5 years ago

Who gives a crap? Go post about "The Irishman" on "The Irishman" page.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

The Irishman is doing well in the early critical awards:

National Board of Review [who most recently chose Green Book & The Post as their best films!]
Best Film: “The Irishman”
Best Director: Quentin Tarantino, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Best Actor: Adam Sandler, “Uncut Gems”
Best Actress: Renée Zellweger, “Judy”
Best Supporting Actor: Brad Pitt, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Best Supporting Actress: Kathy Bates, “Richard Jewell”
Best Original Screenplay: Josh Safdie, Benny Safdie, Ronald Bronstein, “Uncut Gems”
Best Adapted Screenplay: Steven Zaillian, “The Irishman”
Best Foreign Language Film: “Parasite”

New York Film Critics Circle
Best Picture: “The Irishman”
Best Director: The Safdie Brothers, ‘Uncut Gems’
Best Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
Best Actress: Lupita Nyong’o, “Us”
Best Actor: Antonio Banderas, “Pain and Glory”
Best Supporting Actress: Laura Dern, “Marriage Story” and “Little Women”
Best Supporting Actor: Joe Pesci, “The Irishman”
Best Cinematography: “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” Claire Mathon
Best Foreign Language Film: “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho
Best First Film: “Atlantics,” Mati Diop

AFI
Motion Pictures of the Year
“1917”
“The Farewell”
“The Irishman”
“Jojo Rabbit”
“Joker”
“Knives Out”
“Little Women”
“Marriage Story”
“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”
“Richard Jewell”
Special Award (=first prize?): “Parasite”

And I was very struck by the amount of Scoresese affection in the NYTimes critics end of year wrap - the two critics gave TI #2 & #4 rankings:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/movies/best-films.html

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

You can see some things "shaping up" there...

...like Pesci vs Pitt in the Supporting Actor category. They are the standouts in their respective films(and there's a Scorsese/QT match-up) . Advantage Pitt?(Pesci already has an Oscar and has been out of the game for years.)

and.

Kathy Bates(Richard Jewell; as the mother of the wrong man, she looks wrenching and triumphant) vs Laura Dern(but she's got two movies on that one list; always an edge up.)

No "Actor" love yet for Joaquin Phoenix as Joker. A billion dollars does not (yet) a nomination make(but he'll get Oscar nominated.) Meanwhile: uh..Adam Sandler?

Interesting that Parasite got a "Foreign Film" win -- that could be its ultimate fate at the Oscars. But then Slumdog Millionaire was "foreign."

The AFI list is probably a helpful guide to the Oscar Best Picture list...but then its also like the kind of Ten Best of the Year lists upon once which Topaz and Frenzy sat, with nary an Oscar nom between them. (Here that would be "Knives Out" a fun and lightly political whodunit; I saw it this week, liked it.)

Alas, I couldn't get past the NYT paywall beyond a tantalizing glimpse of some "billion dollar movie" dissing. (And again I say ,maybe a TRUE worldwide blockbuster should have made 6 billion; plus there's ticket prices and inflation to think about .)

Scorsese probably WOULD be getting some "New York love"(from the Times and elsewhere.) But then QT has Hollywood staked out with his entry.

Richard Jewell could be a "sleeper." the true life plot reeks of something that was unfair whatever your political persuasion; and I think Eastwood will promote it with his righteousness on view. Problem is: he makes such PERFUNCTORY movies.

[–] swanstep (2715) 5 years ago

Netflix has a 23 minute 'The Irishman In Conversation' doc.. It's mostly just a recorded conversation between Scorsese, Pesci, Pacino & De Niro, but it's fun, interesting, worth a look.

Of particular interest to me (surprisingly): discussion of the special camera rigs they used to shoot the film so that they could capture all the data they needed to do the digital de-aging *without* having any visible (Scorsese thought performance-ruining) special markers/dots all over their faces. In fact the actors *did* have dots on their faces but those dots were only visible in infrared, hence a couple of the cameras in Scorsese's basic rig were just capturing infra-red.

The full camera set-up with, I believe, 9 different lenses capturing in parallel looks insane! It looks at *least* as cumbersome as the huge cameras, esp. VistaVision, that Hitchcock had to struggle with. Notwithstanding that the overall tendency has been for pro-level cameras to get smaller and lighter, top directors still push boundaries and always seem to find new ways to make life difficult for themselves.