MovieChat Forums > The Irishman (2019) Discussion > What's Important -- and Ironic -- About...

What's Important -- and Ironic -- About The Irishman

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
11 replies | jump to latest

After the Beatles broke up in 1970...but before John Lennon was killed in 1980...the world dreamed of a "Beatles reunion."

Around 1975, somebody wrote a spoof book(not much of a best seller) about what might have happened if the Beatles HAD re-united in 1975. The book's idea was funny: the Beatles cut an new album of new songs, promoted it "On Columbia records and tapes" and...it was only on the charts a little while, then plummeted and stopped selling. And the Beatles couldn't sell out their concerts anymore. And they were reduced to opening at a "Day on the Green" show FOR The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac.

A funny idea when you think about it.

And we are living it with The Irishman.

It was meant to be a big deal. DeNiro's first movie with Scorsese in 24 years. Pacino's first movie with Scorsese. Pacino re-unites with DeNiro. Joe Pesci comes out of a ten-year retirement. Harvey Keitel -- star of Mean Streets(Scorsese's first hit) re-unites with the other star and director of that movie and "Taxi Driver."

And..as evidenced by a lot of posts on these threads..a lot of people don't much care. The quality of the movie itself seems to have overrun "the event."

What if the Beatles re-united and...nobody cared.

Well, SOMEBODY cares about the Irishman...but not everybody.

So consider this one last thought: These guys --actors and director -- are all pushing 80 or past it(Keitel.) You will never see them all together in one movie, ever again. Pesci may never act again. Scorsese may never make another gangster movie. And, frankly, some of these actors(and maybe the director) will likely die within the next 10 years and they will only be memories.

The Irishman may not be GoodFellas or Raging Bull(or even Casino) but...its something special.

The Beatles re-united.

Maybe we will care later...

[–] degree7 (821) 5 years ago

Maybe in hindsight we should all thank our lucky stars the Beatles never reunited.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Maybe in hindsight we should all thank our lucky stars the Beatles never reunited.

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The book about a failed Beatles return, as I recall was called "Paperback Writer"(get it?) and got a write-up in the LA Times but I don't recall ever seeing it in a bookstore. Its the article about it that I recall -- which included a fake poster that looked something like this

DAY ON THE GREEN

THE EAGLES
FLEETWOOD MAC

and Jimmy Buffett
with Linda Ronstadt

And "The Beatles" ("I Want to Hold Your Hand," "Love Me Do.")

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Heh.

Always interesting about The Beatles to me was how once they split it, we ended up with a lot of great songs from their solo acts -- but never really with songs that sounded like The Beatles. Paul McCartney without the more acerbic John Lennon to ground him seemed to get cuter and cuter in his songs ("Silly Love Songs," "Let Em in.") Lennon had some great ones(Instant Karma and the forever Imagine) but a lot of avant garde stuff. Harrison had that mega three-disc "All Things Must Pass" album in HIS voice. And then Ringo became a jolly hit maker with "It Don't Come Easy," Back Off Boogaloo" and the power lost love ballad "Photograph."

in ANOTHER LA Times article, their rock critic Robert Hlburn tried to "re-construct" "the Beatles in the 70's" by putting their various solo songs together. One album might have had McCartney's Another Day , Lennon's Instant Karma and Harrison's My Sweet Lord. That didn't really work either.

No...the Beatles lasted just long enough(the 60's to 1970.)

[–] christomacin (4655) 4 years ago

Well, Scorsese didn't marry a crazy Japanese performance artist, so there's that difference.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Well, Scorsese didn't marry a crazy Japanese performance artist, so there's that difference.

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Heh...but Illena Douglas came close! Her performance in "Cape Fear".....

[–] WuchakTheBitch (100) 4 years ago

It just seemed like this movie didn’t make much of an impact on anything. It’s only been a year and barely anyone still talks about it. It hardly made any impact on pop culture. I can’t think of a single catchphrase or quote from it. It honestly feels like a glorified HBO movie.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

It just seemed like this movie didn’t make much of an impact on anything. It’s only been a year and barely anyone still talks about it.

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That's an interesting point. Goodfellas and Casino both really dominated for months afterward. And The Wolf of Wall Street -- which has no murders but "feels" like Goodfellas and Casino, had ITS day in the sun. I know that the POINT of The Irishmen was to show us how old age comes to gangsters in a different way than to the rest of us(even as a bunch of gangsters don't even make it to old age) but Scorsese himself seems to be moving slower with this one.

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It hardly made any impact on pop culture.

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Interestingly, I don't think much else did in 2019, either. Tarantino's movie got a lotta ink(what with Brad and Leo and Manson and a happy ending) and Scorsese TOGETHER with Tarantino made for some stories that year but...I dunno...Parasite?

And there's been nothing in 2020. So The Irishman COULD have lasted.

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I can’t think of a single catchphrase or quote from it.

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Nothing famous. Though I think the scene in Miami where Pacino goes off on Little Tony for "bein' late" has that Scorsese comic edge to it. Indeed, I think that there are six good dialogue scenes in the movie in which Pacino, DeNiro, Pesci play off each other in different combinations. I wrote an OP on that elsewhere here.

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It honestly feels like a glorified HBO movie.

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Well, Pacino and DeNiro have already made a few too many of those -- especially Pacino -- so, yeah. It also feels like a Netflix movie(which it is) and that's even a little worse. I went to the trouble of seeing The Irishman on the big screen that one week it was out, and it felt SOMEWHAT like a movie that way, but not really.

Irony: it cost $200 million to make , so that's why it went to Netflix(they could pay it) and the money mainly went to "de-aging" the main actors, which ended up getting panned.

[–] Sandman81 (1509) 4 years ago

Fun analogy, but not an apples to apples comparison.

Had the Beatles reunited, people would have expected that it would be for multiple albums and for several tours, for who knows how many years.

The Irishman was a one shot deal, and we all knew that heading in. It was a reunion of all the factors you listed above and everyone accepted that it was the last time we would see these guys together, and in Pesci's case in probably anything. And everyone was just happy to see these guys doing the kind of movie we loved watching them do one last time.

And it was hit when it came out. It had the critical acclaim and Oscar nominations, though no wins. And according to Netflix it was a commercial success as well, although there's no real way of knowing exactly how much. Yes it had its detractors, but for the most part people did like it (96% from critics, 86% audience on Rotten Tomatoes). I wouldn't but to much stock on what people post on this board on the internet in general.

I do agree that it did kind of just come and go.

[–] BourbonKing (5777) 4 years ago

That's a funny idea for a spoof book, but it actually came to fruition in the 80s and subsequent decades with lots of iconic 60s bands.

I'm not sure I feel the analogy to Scorsese reuniting with Bobby, Joe, and Harvey, let alone finally working with Alfonso though. If anything, this Netflix movie is like Marty's attempt at his own "Once Upon a Time in America" but using biographical elements from the American underworld.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

Fun analogy, but not an apples to apples comparison.

Had the Beatles reunited, people would have expected that it would be for multiple albums and for several tours, for who knows how many years.

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I will take those points, certainly. I'm not a big defender of my little ideas, hah. I suppose the analogy I sought was this: there seemed to be this real excitement surrounding The Irishman that all these actors and Scorsese were going to do this thing and then -- it just didn't seem to much matter. Therefore, the "what if?": what if The Beatles came back and nobody really cared.

The REAL problem, I suppose, was time itself. I don't REALLY think the Beatles would have come back to no reaction. Pacino, DeNiro and Pesci are not so much in a lesser league but a different place. Younger audiences simply don't have the connection to DeNiro, Pacino and Pesci so this project could not excite them. It was for us older folks with a history with these paisans.

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The Irishman was a one shot deal, and we all knew that heading in. It was a reunion of all the factors you listed above and everyone accepted that it was the last time we would see these guys together, and in Pesci's case in probably anything.

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Yes, Pesci coming back was for me -- the real thrill of the picture. Pacino and DeNiro are already turning up in other projects(some of them, pretty bad, not Scorsese level). But Pesci, I believe, ain't coming back. Moreover, Pesci in The Irishman gave us a much more quiet and subdued character than his livewire performances of the past. He SURPRISED us. And he was very good -- and dangerous in a new "old man's" way.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

And everyone was just happy to see these guys doing the kind of movie we loved watching them do one last time.

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I was. Elsewhere in this thread I may seem to side AGAINST "The Irishman," but I'm very much FOR it. I'm very big on "the history of movie stars" and The Irishman gives these guys a final bow(Harvey Keitel, too, just not a lot.) Pacino gets a good scene with Pesci -- they never acted together before to my knowledge.

All of the lines and all of the timing in the Miami "You're late" scene are good and it has a unifying, weird "brown beige" color tinge to the scene that suggests The Godfather in broad daylight.

There are some pretty good other exchanges, like this one:

DeNiro: Tony has big problems with this.
Pacino: WHICH Tony? They're ALL named Tony!
DeNiro: Fat Tony.

(Later in the movie)

Pacino: So who am I in trouble with? Don't tell me -- Tony.

And I like when early in the movie, DeNiro plants this phrase "When they say they're concerned, you're dead."

So an hour or two later, DeNiro says to Pacino;

DeNiro: They're concerned.
Pacino: Well, I'm concerned.
DeNiro: You don't understand. There is a LOT of concern. They are VERY concerned. There is WIDESPREAD concern.

..its there, if you go looking for it. Good lines, good acting. FUN exchanges -- as usual with Scorsese -- even as death is on the menu.

[–] ecarle (14979) 4 years ago

I'll try this other analogy in lieu of my "Beatles re-unite...but nobody cares" analogy.

In 1978, Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds stood back to back and shared a Time magazine cover. "America's Tough Guys" I think it said. Though Clint had hit big first from Spaghetti Westerns and Dirty Harry, Burt had caught up with the megahit Smokey and the Bandit and...hence, the cover.

So for years after that cover, studios tried to get a "Clint and Burt movie" on the screen. There were a couple of near misses, but in 1984 -- 6 years after that Time cover -- writer-director Blake Edwards (a known name) got 'em. The movie was called City Heat.

But there were problems. Edwards quit the movie -- meek actor-director Richard Benjamin took over. An actress or two was fired and replaced. Burt broke his jaw in a fight scene.

But the real problem was City Heat itself. It came out at Christmas against a movie with a new young comic named Eddie Murphy. Beverly Hills Cop wiped out City Heat and Clint and Burt TOGETHER couldn't beat Eddie. Beverly Hills Cop even "stole back" the catchphrase on the City Heat poster -- "The Heat is On!" - for the BHC poster.

So..maybe not like the Beatles...but indeed like Scorsese and the Boys coming back...nobody CARED that Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds starred together in a movie in 1984. It was too late. They had both cooled off. Burt more than Clint -- I've always felt that Clint waited and waited to agree to work with Burt until Burt had a few flops and less clout.

Timing is everything. New young audiences arrive and don't care.