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

I think late period Scorsese is the best.

I’d definitely be willing to argue that his last 3 are among his best.

Completely missed the first time around that the close up of a gun being fired and someone getting shot in the head near the beginning of his narration (“And then I started painting houses...myself.”) is Frank shooting Hoffa.

wow, that makes two of us - and I've seen it twice!

same here, extremely grateful for that

how could you tell, omar? i remember the splatter shot but not what preceded it.

it’s so quick that I don’t think it’s meant to be caught consciously, but it’s Hoffa getting shot. Just the split second moment of time that his life led up to and the direct and indirect fallout of that moment. That’s how long it took to define his life wholly (at least in this telling).

it was easy to tell cos Sheeran was momentarily distracted by Hoffa's GREAT ASS!!!

apart from all the cracking takes itt (yours were great omar) the other element worth picking up is pesci going as far as he can for frank throughout, but hoffa having frank's (and peggy's, in a mirroring element) love in manner that cant be bought or won, really

its not enough, in the end (how could it be, given all we know about frank and his entire persona as a tool of others?) but it really puts some weight into russ's killer line "i chose us over him"

and it adds weight also to peggy making her own decision after hoffa disappears

in the end, the importance of peggy is imo the importance frank's narrative framing puts on her- she's the judge he never was, and neither frank nor russ could ever sway her to their world, when hoffa could

also thought the hoffa/frank relationship was developed quite enough, tbh- if you couldnt buy the bond between the two guys who were as useful as any associates could be to the bosses, but knew theyd never be more than tools (albeit prized tools), then you dont buy it.

hoffa's final rebellion against this and the ending it brings about is what really sets up the questioning of the final half hour- frank could never have taken such a stand, and living with that contrast and the glare of peggy's judgement is a sparse place for a hard man to see out his slow death.

ty deems

The contrast in Frank and Jimmy’s choices is also the only two choices for guys such as that, who are used as tools. Any questioning of the “company line” will result in death and survival means doing the job that’s asked of you and you and turn can never ask why or whether there’s another way, and if you do you’d better keep it between yourself and the friend who is just loyal enough to not want to see you dead unless of course you keep asking and asking.

Instructive also to note that even for these very measured and cautious top mob bosses (Pesci and Keitel), the polar opposites of DeNiro and Pesci’s roles in Goodfellas, there’s generally only two ways out. Frank’s rare fortune seems to have been he was too in important to bother with killing and keeping in prison forever, and unfortunate enough to live long enough to die alone and apparently forgotten.

Thought of that "two ways out" during the movie, and I think there was only one person in all of those "how they met their death" inserts who died of natural causes. Those inserts also made me curious about the great mob rubout of 1979-80.

I don't agree with every take here, but Boots Riley's worth reading:

Love or hate "The Irishman", we all have to admit one thing:

With the radical direction that the working class in the US is taking right now-

Its curious timing to have a big budget "unions are corrupt" movie come out right now.

— Boots Riley (@BootsRiley) December 27, 2019

<3 Boots

I love Boots too but I think this is kind of a silly take tbh

He is an awesome person and fine actor is Boots, but I don't think Scorsese is in the deep state anti-union dept just because he's not Ken Loach.

lol

I mean it's fairly obvious that wasn't Scorsese's angle with the film, and I don't agree with every one of Boot's takes either, but a large chunk of "unions = bad" sentiment is based on poor received knowledge in this country. either that Unions "make money off of their members and do little to protect them", or "they're all Mafia infested" and the positive benefits get largely shoved to the backburner.

I don't exactly think Scorsese had any actual obligation to have that discussion in his movie, because the film was shown purely through Sheeran's lens, and his side of things has already come into hefty dispute. but it's an interesting concept Boots brings up about how it might color the perception of unions further in less discerning viewers.

idk...I'm just a big The Coup fan.

"Cos you know i'm uninsured in this biyatch
My medical plan was to not get shot"

Boots Riley has a lot of silly takes on things, tbh

Also, Ken Loach har made some pretty anti-union films as well. Because he thought they at times were corrupt and didn't love up to expectations. And so forth.

this take is the best take

"This is for my folkers who got bills overdue
This is for my folkers, um, check one two
This is for my folkers who never lived like a hog
Me and you, toe to toe, I got love for the underdog
This is for my folkers who got bills overdue
This is for my folkers, um, check one two
This is for my folkers who never lived like a hog
Me and you, toe to toe, I got love for the underdog

I raise this glass for the ones who die meaninglessly
And the newborns who get fed intravenously
Somebody's mom caught a job and a welfare fraud case
When she breathe she swear it feels like plastic wrap around her face

Lights turned off and its the third month the rent is late
Thoughts of being homeless, crying till you hyperventilate
Despair permeates the air then sets in your ear
The kids play with that one toy they learned how to share

Coming home don't never seem to be a celebration
Bills they piled up on the coffee table like they're decorations
Big ol' spoons of peanut butter, big ass glass of water
Makes the hunger subside, save the real food for your daughter

You feel like swingin haymakers at a moving truck
You feel like laughing so it seems like you don't give a fuck
You feel like getting so high you smoke a whole damn crop
You feel like crying but you think that you might never stop

Homes with no heat stiffen your joints like arthritis
If this was fiction, it'd be easier to write this
Some folks try to front like they so above you
They'd tear this motherfucker up if they really loved you

There's certain tricks of the trade to try and halt your defeat
Like taking tupperware to an "all you can eat"
Returning used shit for new saying you lost your receipt
And writing four figure checks when your accounts deplete

Then all your problems pile up about a mile up
Thinkin about a partner you can dial up to help you out this foul stuff
Whole family sleepin on a futon while you're clippin coupons
Eatin salad tryin to get full off the croutons

'Crosstown, the situation is identical
Somebody's getting strangled by the system and its tentacles
Misconceptions raise questions to be solved
Alot of b-boys are broke, alot of homeless got jobs

You can make 8 bones an hour till you pass out and still be assed out
Most pyramid schemes don't let you cash out
They say this generation made the harmony break
But crime rise consistent with the povery rate

You take the workers and jobs, you gon have murders and mobs
A gang of preachers screamin sermons over murmurs and sobs
Sayin "Pray for a change from the Lord above you"
They'd tear this motherfucker up if they really loved you

You like this song cause it's relatable, it's you in this rhyme
We go to stores that only let us in two at a time
We live in places where it costs to get your check cashed
Arguments about money usually drown out the tec blasts

Work six days a week, can't sleep Saturdays though
Muscles tremblin like a pager when the battery's low
And you just don't know where the years went
Although every long shift feels like a year spent

And you can write your resume, but it wouldn't even mention
All the life lessons learned doing six years of detention
Or how you learned the police was just some handicappers
On the ground next to broken glass and candy wrappers

Now don't accept my collects on the phone
Just hit me at the house so I know I ain't alone
And we can chop it up about this messed up system
Homies that's been killed, how we always gonna miss them

It's almost impossible survivin on this fraction
Sip a 40 to the brain for the chemical reaction
You gotta hustle cause they're tryin to push and shove you
I'll tear this motherfucker up since I really love you"

--Underdogs, The Coup (aka Boots Riley)

tl;dr

I would have thought nothing was too long for the smartest guy on the board

xp

being critical of unions and anti-union are two different positions Fred. I've been scathing of Unite in the past myself because they did fuck all to help a colleague of mine who got laid off for having the temerity to join one. But that doesn't make me anti-union.

Probably safe to say at this point that Scorsese obv has a fascination with murderous crims and the all wealth/glamour/mythology of organised crime.

Rank and File is pretty anti-union, though.

yeah that was made when unions still had sway in the UK. He probably wouldn't be so harsh now they've decimated to next to nothing!

Oh sure, Sorry We Missed You is steeped in union nostalgia.

Reading back on it, I was trying to agree with you. Even Ken Loach has made anti-union films, and still he isn't an anti-union person. Although he might be more anti-union than Scorsese? More revolutionary by nature. Although he has really kept it hidden quite well since, like, 1990.

five million ways to paint a ceo

Lol

I got in a car accident to that song once (not at fault)

are you by any chance a CEO

This was a comment posted by a daft friend of mine to me about The Irishman. Probably the most inept and useless one line review ever!

"Finished. Enjoyed the ugliness and the bad clothes but felt like goodfellas meets ken loach. Waste of my time."

Providing multi-year employment to hundreds of union workers to make an anti-union film. Oh, the irony.

I disagree with his take that this movie is anti-union. I thought the Teamsters' pension fund was the precious resource that was being contested and Hoffa's obstinance to let the mob take more was his ultimate undoing. That the mob stole from this big pool of money by corrupting people with access doesn't make the union any more corrupt than a company that's being embezzled from, or a government agency that someone is selling classified documents from.

This was a comment posted by a daft friend of mine to me about The Irishman. Probably the most inept and useless one line review ever!

"Finished. Enjoyed the ugliness and the bad clothes but felt like goodfellas meets ken loach. Waste of my time."

reading a stance on "unions" from this movie is as silly to me as imagining psycho has a stance on secretaries stealing from real estate offices

The Irishman is anti union - in particular the Screen Actors Guild. The film uses technology to avoid multi-casting roles over 50 years, costing actors jobs.

— “Brian” (@BrianJWooster) December 27, 2019

OEO otm

cosign

Second viewing, again at MoMA… if anything liked a bit more. Pacino's accent is good enough. The complaints about "de Niro moved like an oldster" are mostly gtfo.

Also an actor I used to do improv jams with in a rehearsal studio 30 years ago is credited as Hoffa Rally Teamster #1 … missed him though.

Quintessential MoMA filmgoer exiting: "Who was the Irishman?"

we are all the irishman

.

The complaints about "de Niro moved like an oldster" are mostly gtfo.

Mostly it's fine but the hand stamping bit was terrible.

didn’t understand why they could have deep faked some stunt double to do that scene. it’s the first thing people mention when the film comes up.

Super impose DeNiro's head on Conor McGregor

Oh my god I have almost an hour left in this thing.

What she said

He’s dead and there’s still almost 45 minutes in the movie.

the last 45 minutes are what it’s about

honestly i loved how long this was, feature not a flaw. it’s a life, a mess of incident

Ill probably do a straight through run tomorrow. Overdue for second watch.