THE IRISHMAN, A Martin Scorsese Picture with de Niro, Pacino, Pesci, Keitel

“I kept asking Steve Zaillian if we can layer her in the story,” Scorsese said at the DGA Theater in NYC. “I decided that she doesn’t have to say anything. You see your father do something like that, I’m sorry… You see him crush the guy’s hand like that… other kids maybe, but this kid couldn’t take it. She looks at him. She knows he’s up to something and Lucy was great, but Anna ultimately was amazing in the looks. She has one line in the film. There’s something you can’t talk about. She knows it. She knows who she is. He knows she knows. Even when she’s sitting there and the police are talking about Joey Gallo being [murdered.] ‘A lone gunman walked in…’ and you see she’s looking at him.”

https://www.indiewire.com/2019/10/martin-scorsese-anna-paquin-irishman-1202185371/

I've heard Hoffa and Pacino doesn't esp sound like him. Many viewers are going to be confused by Al playing an Irish-Pa Dutch guy though.

Won't bother linking to the Guardian "writer" who at one point opines "She seems more like a symbol than a real person." BINGO, SWEETZ, YA GOT IT

he also throws away jesse plemons, bobby cannavale, jim norton... Steve Van Zandt does some blink and you miss it lip synching!

omg KJB and I both failed to figure out who SVZ was. I did wonder why they got a fire-hydrant-shaped Jerry Vale.

Jim Norton should be thrown away regularly fwiw

"acting" is when the actor says lines!!!

yeah exactly... "line count," what a clown.

anyway the Hoffa role is kinda written as heavily comic... I didn't see it as an impression. If anything my main problem is he was too much like Big Boy Caprice -- which was also his chief virtue!

Lmao

Cos

Argh stupid phone, dont mind me

"Hey, is that Paquin, and why is she just glowering?"

She hates and fears her father.

You can argue the nonverbal approach doesn't work, and that's fine, but the intention is clear.

on soundtrack choices

https://www.slashfilm.com/the-irishman-soundtrack/

(text kinda spoilery if u care)

is it true this movie is 3.5 hours long?

yes

worth it?

Ça dépend!

sure!

It feels faster than Casino, which is 30 minutes shorter... although it is paced more slowly.

but you can always go back to yr must-see 70-hour TV series

OK!

i ended up sitting next to a guy i hadn't seen in years at the theater when i saw this and when the lights came up the first thing he said was "well i've got to see that again later this week". I mean, he's nuts but i can see rewatching this at some point.

MoMA's running it for a week after Christmas, and i will likely return

This movie sucks, and nothing will ever change my mind about that fact. I haven't seen it though, and I refuse to ever see it.

but you can always go back to yr must-see 70-hour TV series

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, November 13, 2019 2:27 PM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

is this a zing directed at me? i watch like one season of tv per year lol

not at all, i was speaking to the times in which we live. sorry flopson

i will retroactively direct it at mob-film-hater Eric tho (xo)

Hey, I dug My Blue Heaven at the time.

Married to the Mob is fun iirc

Oh duh, forgot about Sister Act!

don't make me come over there

https://okinawaassault.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/vlcsnap-1320201.png

"Don't make me come over there!"

I made it a point to see this on my last night in Toronto (moved out after living most of my life there). I figured it would be good enough to inspire a long post recalling hugely influential screenings of Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, and Raging Bull (all three at long-gone Toronto theatres).

It's okay--I'll spare you all the nostalgic post. Pesci gives the best performance, but it's hardly a demanding one--he's playing not-Joe-Pesci, and you enjoy and appreciate that. I actually liked Pacino better, though. He overacts a couple of times, but on the whole, he was pretty lively and seemed to be having fun. (The Dick Tracy comparison might be valid--haven't seen it since it came out.) Bad sign for me was when "In Still of the Nite" started up right away and I felt nothing. I think that part of Scorsese might be dead to me. Thought Harvey Keitel had some real presence in his small part.

well "Still" sets the tone of a movie that could be called The Dead. I don't think he's going for a "Be My Baby" thing there, but pure irony/grimness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j1T5xjwGJQ

that was *kinda* funny the first time...

Encore du champagne.

Enchanté to you too!

I don't remember the exact beginning of the film, but I thought "In the Still of the Nite" was used to draw you into the film at a sensory/sensuous level. It's a great song. But it went right past me and I thought, "Scorsese has finally worn out that nerve ending for me." I've read lots of people say that that happened with them with Goodfellas, that the music was just layered on mechanically, but I love how pop music was used there. This is the film where that feeling caught up with me. Even Casino had a few great musical bits.

used "Sleep Walk" in Casino too

seeing this tomorrow

Me too

I'm at the 3:30 matinee showing in Dallas, and I am one of 8 people in the theater?!

it's only showing at one other place! (the theater where Oswald was nabbed)

is this weird or not? I thought it'd packed

it's all sold out here today (and i neglected to try and buy tickets til last night). there may be some at the door, so i might try for that, anything for this last hurrah of the boomer gangster epic

saw this today and liked it. and aside from needing to pee for the last 60 minutes or so, didn’t think the 210 minutes felt like it at all

some half-baked thoughts

pesci was really good - as clemenza says, playing “not joe pesci”. he was fresh as an even-keeled, genial boss, and he and pacino both looked great in their younger scenes. pacino is perfectly cast as hoffa

had some issues with de niro, partly because I found it hard to buy him as a thirty-something tough guy considering he moved like he was in his seventies or eighties, which he is. thought his character really became interesting in the final third when he was caught between jimmy and russell, but before that he seemed pretty nondescript. also didn’t feel like the subplot with the daughter really worked that well and wished there were a little more focus on his family and the female characters in general.

the music I thought was great

best scene and line was probably keitel’s “I do.” keitel didn’t have a huge part but I thought he did a lot with the part

thought this was a snore

rip, so did J.Ro

https://letterboxd.com/jrosenbaum2002/film/the-irishman-2019/

I disagree.

entering SPOILER TERRITORY....

The Brandt book adds a lot more emphasis to the mob-hit-JFK angle, with Sheeran delivering rifles headed for Texas in fall '63, and Hoffa telling Sheeran that Bufalino's words (to Hoffa) at the Philly tribute dinner were "Some people think you are not showing enough appreciation for Dallas." I suspect Scorsese didn't want the film to come off like JFK II.

Hell I figured it was his backhanded compliment to Stone the entire time. (Not per se a complaint but anyway.)

Anyway, my theater four blocks away was screening it a few times so figured I'd go for it. Felt like its length but I didn't feel the need for any sort of break -- maybe a bit restless in the final hour at points. Having just seen the full-on version of Once Upon a Time in America a couple of months ago in the same spot, that really does feel like a comparison point in ways, going big on the scope of time and overall length at least, as well as stuck with regrets and reflexive burnout at the end of it all. (And, well, De Niro but anyway.) The longueurs towards the end once the road trip's purpose is established do work, I think; he can still do quotidian better than most. CGI I thought about briefly at the very start when we get young De Niro/Pesci but after that I just let it go.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-irishman-movie-review-2019

liked zoller seitz’s take, and it’s making me sit with de niro’s performance and appreciate it a little more

Yeah, I liked his take too.

that is a good review