1058 The Irishman

Discuss releases by Criterion and the films on them. Threads may contain spoilers!
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therewillbeblus
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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#451 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Jan 06, 2020 1:32 am

At least you don’t need digital de-aging software to demonstrate a decline in maturity, self-awareness, and social skills

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domino harvey
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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#452 Post by domino harvey » Mon Jan 06, 2020 1:41 am

More like the Irishban amirite — though this one’s gonna last even longer than the movie

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#453 Post by MichaelB » Mon Jan 06, 2020 4:38 am

So David now has an answer?

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#454 Post by Noiretirc » Tue Jan 07, 2020 2:38 pm

It is what it is.

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#455 Post by FrauBlucher » Tue Jan 07, 2020 2:46 pm

How did that clown get back in? Climb through the window

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#456 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Jan 10, 2020 7:30 pm

like that infamous Beatles song?

I don't know why but I thought the scene where Frank is picking a coffin for himself funny. Not hilarious, but a bit of gallows humor. Especially when he spots the green one.

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#457 Post by cdnchris » Fri Jan 10, 2020 8:29 pm

I also had to laugh at his insistence on getting the best possible price for it.

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#458 Post by bearcuborg » Thu Jan 16, 2020 1:29 pm

I made the effort to go to The Belasco a few weeks ago, and after sometime - I found this to be a somewhat disappointing film. Granted, it was a unique experience to see a movie on Broadway as I got some lobby cards, and saw a cool 1960's decorated phone booth setup, but it was rather awkward to see this with my neck stuck looking way upward for the projection screen. Perhaps seeing this at home would have been better - the audience I was with laughed at all the onscreen info telling us how all these mafioso types died - so it constantly took me out of the experience.

For me, the youthfication never worked for DeNiro's character - add to the fact the insistence to change his eye color, I had difficulty accepting what I was seeing. Unfortunately DeNiro's acting choices didn't help, I never bought him as a naive Irish thug. He just seemed to play himself? It was like I was watching him doing a impromptu reading of some generic gangster on some lame talk show. I was reminded of DiCaprio unconvincingly playing a Ralph Meeker type in Shutter Island. The scene where DeNiro defends his daughter from the shop owner was almost laughable.

Occasionally the movie is so well made that I could see past him. His sitdown with Keitel is the funniest thing in the movie. Pesci is exceptional, I mean - he's beyond great. I would assume Pitt will win the Oscar for his incredible performance in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, but Pesci would get my vote. Additionally, if you had told me after the movie that Anna Pacquin was only in the movie for a few minutes, and had 1 or 2 lines of dialogue I wouldn't have believed you. She's the reason this movie needs to exist. She was robbed of an Oscar nomination. Her last scene brought tears to my eyes. When the movie was over I was left thinking (apart from the fact that we're all gonna die) was how wonderful an actor she is...

Pacino didn't work for me so much, but his scenes with Stephen Graham were wonderful. Ray Romano and Bobby Cannavale were impressive. Sebastian Maniscalco's Joe Gallo looked the part. Katherine Narducci is still gorgeous. Domenick Lombardozzi was laughably miscast.

The haunting score by Robbie Robertson is the unsung hero of this film. If I could compare this movie to Tarantino's latest, I would give the edge to Scorsese's soundtrack. Percy Faith's rendition of Delicado during the Anastasia hit was as good as anything Scorsese has put together. I assume they both meticulously curate a pool of hits and deep cuts, but Scorsese's choices binds the action better for me - it feels more sincere. Both films play with the truth - but where as Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is more obvious about it, The Irishman is more deceptive. At first I kept thinking Frank didn't do all these things, if there were 10 reasons to whack Joe Gallo, pissing off some Pennsylvania boss at a night club was number 11. The notion that the mob would kill Hoffa without The Chicago Outfit/Detroit Partnership is difficult to accept. However, the Forrest Gump aspect of Frank's life eventually came together, because by the end he's just talking into a void - making himself out to be more important than he really was... The last 30mins of the movie are haunting.

This YouTube clip which claims to improve the CGI clip is pretty convincing.
Last edited by bearcuborg on Thu Jan 16, 2020 2:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#459 Post by hearthesilence » Thu Jan 16, 2020 1:39 pm

cdnchris wrote:
Fri Jan 10, 2020 8:29 pm
I also had to laugh at his insistence on getting the best possible price for it.
That reminds me of Terry Gilliam's interview from Scorsese's George Harrison: Living in the Material World - Gilliam opens the film laughing at how Harrison bought a house in Switzerland shortly after his terminal diagnosis, just so that he could stick it to the "taxman" beyond the grave. It could've inspired that joke, who knows?

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#460 Post by jbeall » Sun Jan 19, 2020 10:46 pm

It's kinda funny that Scorsese blasts Marvel movies as "not cinema" for their predictability right after he'd finished making yet another movie about a working-class kid who joins the mob, works his way up, and is then involved in betrayal. I enjoyed The Irishman, but it felt very much like a pastiche of Scorsese... that just happened to be directed by Scorsese.

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#461 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:13 pm

It wasn’t just for their predictability it was for not challenging him to think or feel and serving as amusement park rides. Even if Scorsese’s latest film doesn’t work for you, it’s hard to deny that it’s going for something deeper than the experience of a roller coaster. Also, I’ll never understand how people can compare this to his other ‘gangster’ films when it actively moves against the grain of all of them de-romanticizing and basking in the banal, stripping all his ambivalence of admiration and damnation for the lifestyle a la Goodfellas away and revealing universal human truths that have nothing to do with criminality. Scorsese has been pretty open about this undoing of the glorification as well as using the milieu as a canvas for mortality in his interviews too. Everyone I’ve talked to about it in my personal life have either loved it for being so different from the expected Scorsese gangster film or hated it for being so different from the expected Scorsese gangster film. I’d actually be interested in an argument for how it’s the same old song beyond vague plot points, for even this “betrayal” works completely differently and is aimed in the opposite direction of the organization here than in the others, though I suppose one could make a stretch case for Raging Bull with his brother.

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#462 Post by The Narrator Returns » Sun Jan 19, 2020 11:21 pm

Stylistically, it reminds me less of Goodfellas than The Limits of Control, you know, a real popcorn roller-coaster movie.

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#463 Post by nitin » Mon Jan 20, 2020 6:38 am

Also I don’t know, he has made 20 other films that are not mob movies? And as TWBB says, apart from a surface plot level analysis, this one really isn’t like his other mob films in theme or tone.

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Re: The Irishman (Martin Scorsese, 2019)

#464 Post by RIP Film » Mon Jan 20, 2020 11:02 am

Well Scorsese isn’t doing much for the state of cinema with his de-aging antics. What a terrible, terrible idea. I got through the first hour and not sure I can go on.

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domino harvey
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Re: Forthcoming: The Irishman

#465 Post by domino harvey » Fri Jan 24, 2020 6:12 pm

Confirmed to be coming from Criterion later this year

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Re: Forthcoming: The Irishman

#466 Post by swo17 » Fri Jan 24, 2020 6:22 pm

But will they be bold and title it "I Heard You Paint Houses"?

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domino harvey
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Re: Forthcoming: The Irishman

#467 Post by domino harvey » Fri Jan 24, 2020 7:07 pm

They’re going to reuse the Betty Blue cover art

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Re: Forthcoming: The Irishman

#468 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Fri Jan 24, 2020 7:18 pm

Finally, Ray Romano enters the CC.

Is it weird to feel a little honored that a thread I started will now be in with the threads for the other spines?

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Re: Forthcoming: The Irishman

#469 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Jan 24, 2020 7:26 pm

It’s only weird if you make it weird

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Re: Forthcoming: The Irishman

#470 Post by black&huge » Sat Jan 25, 2020 1:43 am

I can already imagine the cover. It's every deaged version of De Niro, Pesci and Pacino layered over each ofher centered and the title is deaged every letter going from fine edged to pruny then every deaged face plastered randomly in the background a la Me You and everyone we Know AND it's a digipak

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Forthcoming: The Irishman

#471 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Jan 25, 2020 2:37 am

Maybe they will try the All About Eve packaging again, but the rubber knobs will de-age and the discs will slide on and off no problem

I wish Netflix would allow for Scorsese’s preferred title to be used, but at this point it hasn’t been pushed hard enough and the disc won’t sell nearly as well with it

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Re: Forthcoming: The Irishman

#472 Post by The Pachyderminator » Sat Jan 25, 2020 2:59 am

Wouldn't this two-titles situation be a good use case for reversible artwork?

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Re: Forthcoming: The Irishman

#473 Post by Finch » Tue Feb 04, 2020 12:38 am


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Re: Forthcoming: The Irishman

#474 Post by Constable » Fri Apr 17, 2020 3:16 pm

I have to say, I was surprised to find this film topping lists of best films of the year and I don't quite understand why people think it is so good. I would really love to hear from someone who loves this film what aspect of it they love so much.

I didn't find that the whole 3 hour story added up to much thematically or had much of a point. The only idea in it that I found interesting was the nurse not knowing who Hoffa was - all these power struggles and consequential events, only for hte next generation to not even know who this guy was.

Beyond that, there's the bit with Anna Pacquin casting moral judgment on him and him seeking some kind of atonement at the end of his life, but I didn't feel that there was anything of interest said there and his sudden desire for atonement after living his whole life in this way seemed out of the blue and unmotivated. I'm sure people will argue that was brought about by his age and his daughter's judgment, but I just didn't buy it. It felt like it came out of nowhere. I didn't feel that this guy who'd lived his whole life this way without an ethical dilemma in all that time would suddenly be bothered by these things he did and I consequently also didn't care whether he would find any resolution.

It just seemed like one event after another after another, but none of it building to any point or conclusion thematic or dramatic. Some of the storylines felt like they were there simply because they happened historically, not because they actually contribute anything to the story.

For example, why was Joey Gallo in there? He waltzes into the film and then 5 minutes later he is out of it and had that whole storyline not been in there the only thing you'd have lost is 5 minutes of running time. There seemed to be no point in it at all, unless it just went over my head.

Beyond the thematic aspect, I also did not find the film particularly entertaining the way I found all other Scorsese gangster pictures.

So, again, I was surprised when I saw that Film Comment and Sight and Sound both had it in like the top 3 of their year's best lists and I'm trying to understand why people feel it merits that kind of ranking.

Is it something thematic, is it just because it's a great, entertaining story, some other aspect?

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Re: Forthcoming: The Irishman

#475 Post by knives » Fri Apr 17, 2020 6:19 pm

There's a whole thread here with answers to those questions and more.

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