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The Irishman |OT| The Goodfellas are Back in Town (Open Spoilers )
- Thread starter Naijaboy
- Start date
I usually like long movies, but this was too long for me with the middle dragging. Just not my type of film I guess, I need more flair and a compelling lead. It has its place though, very ballsy of Netflix to fund this
it goes back to that first conversation with russel, about war. he's scared of dying - but when the fighting starts, he just gets to work. the 'fighting' is his mob/union life, and when it's over, he's fearful of death again, especially the finality of it. it's why he gets a sturdy coffin placed in a mausoleum as far from the ground as he can.
I get the direction of her character, her presence fell flat, to me. That and I liked the casting of little Peggy so much, who did such a wonderful job with the same emotions, having her grow up into Anna Paquin was disappointing
I thought Pacino was great in this, and I have to credit Pacino for doing a pretty good Great Lakes type accent throughout the film. That said, there are some amazing scenes with Pesci where he literally doesn't have a single line but communicates so many things just using his face. I'm mainly thinking of the meeting with Angelo (Harvey Keitel) that happens when De Niro is caught about to blow up the laundry service in Delaware. I think of the main three De Niro's performance was the least interesting, but he also had most of the deaging CGI scenes so that should be taken into account. He's still got some amazing scenes, like the Howard Johnson's scene with Pesci ("I had to put you into this thing or you would never let it happen.") and particularly the scenes after he's left prison.
That last 30 minutes starting from when they all ended up in jail really messed me up. I've got a lot of swirling feelings about the movie right now but I really like it. The long runtime didn't feel excessive at any point. Pretty well paced all things considering.
That ending hit me harder than any ending to a movie in a very very long time.
Feels like such a sad but fitting goodbye to this genre for Scorsese. I'm gonna miss it.
I couldn't agree more. Pesci was amazing and it is definitely my favorite film of his now. He is always playing the same guy in pretty much every movie he is in - Guy that can make you laugh and in the same moment rip your throat open. In this he gets so much space to just settle into his character. He is commanding and fearful but like you said so much of that is conveyed in his presence and the looks he gives. I just really loved everything about the movie because it feels like everyone just got as much room and screen time as they deserved
I am halfway through watching and god damn does it feel good to be watching a sprawling gangster epic, especially one by Scorsese. I love the look on Pesci's face when Keitel's character is pulling Robert De Niro up about trying to bomb the laundry company 😂
Finished watching a few minutes ago and just started again. At home with my parents and my mom is fascinated by seeing Bob, Al, and Joe and on screen.
Thise last few scenes with stroke-Russ were painful to watch. Pesci had this Baby Yoda innocence and it was so sad seeing him like that.
Thise last few scenes with stroke-Russ were painful to watch. Pesci had this Baby Yoda innocence and it was so sad seeing him like that.
Thanks. I saw it. Very clever. Can't wait to watch it a second time.
Just finished my third viewing, this time in 4K HDR. This shit is goddamn God-tier. Probably gonna be an all-timer for me. 10/10.
Way more low key than I expected. Scorsese really goes to length to show the fall from grace years. It hit me hard.
to be fair i watch it on my phone in like half hour chunks so there *could* be a chance i might have missed some things
Super late because I was too lazy to do the 2FA to log into for weeks (yeah) but I liked The Irishman... though it felt 45 mins too long. Should've...
Also tons of unnecessary slow-mo over music.
wrapped up after Hoffa was killed. Also the subplot of him being a "bad" parent wasn't developed enough for anyone to care.
Also tons of unnecessary slow-mo over music.
Easily Pacino's best performance since Insomnia.
This is one of the best films of the decade, for sure.
This is one of the best films of the decade, for sure.
The Irishman in 1 GIF
The part of The Irishman when
they're eating bread in jail.
Scorsese's Limelight. While the filmmaker isn't so obnoxiously-shameless at the attempt as Chaplin--he doesn't paint the tears on his cheeks--like that of the silent legend's, this effort at self-consciously belting out a swan song also shrewdly-conceived as a paean to his own myth, drones on and on until it becomes, by turns, tedious, gratuitous, and rather discomfiting. Overlong by a plurality of the running time, The Irishman serves as something of an analog to a storied musical group's autumnal "Greatest Hits" album, with an overgenerous-heaping of all the old hits spun at half the speed, in a lower--and, consequently, less compelling--register.
Perhaps in mind of Leone's sprawling curtain call, Once Upon a Time in America--coincidentally, also starring Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci--Scorsese decelerates his trademark nervy pace down to a crawl, while pouring on the elegiac tone by the barrel. However, unlike the operatic Leone--and despite the impressive $160 million budget--the conception here seems pinched and insistently prosaic. Although Pacino's belated appearance in the film's second hour finally bestirs the torpid proceedings a bit, these surface ripples merely reflect the vibrancy of works past. Underneath, it's all still waters, running more thick than deep. This is a tired movie, in which the weariness of its declining and departing elderly characters contrives to be less responsible for this impression than the drop in artistic vigor. I can't recall a Scorsese picture so slack in invention--one scene after another plays out in simple two-shots--so undistinguished in staging, so nondescript in look (this must be the flattest mise en scène of Scorsese's career).
It doesn't help that the film is sabotaged out of the gate by its associations: not only can The Irishman not help but pale next to the director's better, more vital outings, verisimilitude--and, thusly, gravitas--is critically undermined by the reliance on digitally de-aged stars. This deleterious impact isn't as acutely felt with Pacino, whom is new to the Scorsese ouevre. But particularly with the legacy of Scorsese's earlier collaborations with them, I'm not at all sure how we are expected to respond favorably to DeNiro's and Pesci's thoroughly-unconvincing younger avatars. I'm flummoxed as to whether I should feel insulted or sorry for Scorsese and company, if this is the best they could manage.
For instance, DeNiro's Frank Sheeran is purported to have been a combat soldier in World War II. Whereas when we first meet him in the film's initial flashback as an (early? mid?) 1950s truck driver, I'll be damned if this droopy, hunched avatar doesn't already seem north of half a century. With Pesci, it's really difficult to get a handle on exactly how old his Russell Bufalino his meant to be in these early scenes, since he already looks geriatric and then doesn't prove to appear that much older when the film jumps ahead 20-odd years. The effect is not only disconcerting in itself in an "uncanny valley" sort of way, but since his aged stars cannot help but bring their septuagenarian energies and silhouettes to these avatars, the film is unable to bring off its pivotal juxtaposition: that between the swagger and gusto of youth, and the infirmity and resignation of old age. Without this contrast, the poignancy Scorsese shoots for at the film's denouement can't fail to fall well short of the mark.
In this respect, The Irishman is doomed by the filmmaker's wishful aspiration to exploit this project as the handsome, hefty bow with which to tie up his illustrious career. If only Scorsese had had the better judgment to instead go with younger actors he could convincingly ripen with more dependable methods, and forego a little of the tidy theatrics of casting DeNiro and Pesci, he might have pulled off this stirring "final bow". As it is, as with Chaplin, this self-conscious straining for a dramatic exit ultimately comes off more ponderous than affecting.
Perhaps in mind of Leone's sprawling curtain call, Once Upon a Time in America--coincidentally, also starring Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci--Scorsese decelerates his trademark nervy pace down to a crawl, while pouring on the elegiac tone by the barrel. However, unlike the operatic Leone--and despite the impressive $160 million budget--the conception here seems pinched and insistently prosaic. Although Pacino's belated appearance in the film's second hour finally bestirs the torpid proceedings a bit, these surface ripples merely reflect the vibrancy of works past. Underneath, it's all still waters, running more thick than deep. This is a tired movie, in which the weariness of its declining and departing elderly characters contrives to be less responsible for this impression than the drop in artistic vigor. I can't recall a Scorsese picture so slack in invention--one scene after another plays out in simple two-shots--so undistinguished in staging, so nondescript in look (this must be the flattest mise en scène of Scorsese's career).
It doesn't help that the film is sabotaged out of the gate by its associations: not only can The Irishman not help but pale next to the director's better, more vital outings, verisimilitude--and, thusly, gravitas--is critically undermined by the reliance on digitally de-aged stars. This deleterious impact isn't as acutely felt with Pacino, whom is new to the Scorsese ouevre. But particularly with the legacy of Scorsese's earlier collaborations with them, I'm not at all sure how we are expected to respond favorably to DeNiro's and Pesci's thoroughly-unconvincing younger avatars. I'm flummoxed as to whether I should feel insulted or sorry for Scorsese and company, if this is the best they could manage.
For instance, DeNiro's Frank Sheeran is purported to have been a combat soldier in World War II. Whereas when we first meet him in the film's initial flashback as an (early? mid?) 1950s truck driver, I'll be damned if this droopy, hunched avatar doesn't already seem north of half a century. With Pesci, it's really difficult to get a handle on exactly how old his Russell Bufalino his meant to be in these early scenes, since he already looks geriatric and then doesn't prove to appear that much older when the film jumps ahead 20-odd years. The effect is not only disconcerting in itself in an "uncanny valley" sort of way, but since his aged stars cannot help but bring their septuagenarian energies and silhouettes to these avatars, the film is unable to bring off its pivotal juxtaposition: that between the swagger and gusto of youth, and the infirmity and resignation of old age. Without this contrast, the poignancy Scorsese shoots for at the film's denouement can't fail to fall well short of the mark.
In this respect, The Irishman is doomed by the filmmaker's wishful aspiration to exploit this project as the handsome, hefty bow with which to tie up his illustrious career. If only Scorsese had had the better judgment to instead go with younger actors he could convincingly ripen with more dependable methods, and forego a little of the tidy theatrics of casting DeNiro and Pesci, he might have pulled off this stirring "final bow". As it is, as with Chaplin, this self-conscious straining for a dramatic exit ultimately comes off more ponderous than affecting.
I think the third hour massively elevates the film from "Goodfellas/Casino III", previously it was very enjoyable and extremely well acted without being particularly new material. But the solemn final hour really hit the mark and makes the rest of the film better in hindsight.
We can blabber about the digital effects all day, and no, De Niro's were rarely quite right (I think what hits it is he moves like an old man, even when he's only meant to be in his 40s), but I will say that other than the very first scene of him, the effects on Pesci were flawless. He just looks like 90s Joe Pesci again. Pacino too, very strong work. I don't know why it wasn't as effective with De Niro, but in any case, you forget about it within a half hour anyway. Oddly enough the one that was jarring was the sudden switch from little girl to Anna Paquin, who is almost 40, when I assume the character was meant to be about 19/20 in that first scene after the switch.
We can blabber about the digital effects all day, and no, De Niro's were rarely quite right (I think what hits it is he moves like an old man, even when he's only meant to be in his 40s), but I will say that other than the very first scene of him, the effects on Pesci were flawless. He just looks like 90s Joe Pesci again. Pacino too, very strong work. I don't know why it wasn't as effective with De Niro, but in any case, you forget about it within a half hour anyway. Oddly enough the one that was jarring was the sudden switch from little girl to Anna Paquin, who is almost 40, when I assume the character was meant to be about 19/20 in that first scene after the switch.
I can't think of a worse end not involving torture than being a crippled and cancer ridden widower whose only family despises him, everyone he ever worked for or with is dead, his sole life's "accomplishments" are completely forgotten already, and he's spending his last days having to arrange his own funeral because no one else will.
I thought it was pretty good but nothing compared to those two movies.
I did like that De Niro delivered his voiceover as sometimes stumbling over his words or saying the wrong thing as it's meant to be the elderly Sheeran saying it, not a thing you normally see in film narrations that are usually smooth and detached.
Goodfellas and Casinos might be more thoroughly enjoyable since this one is slow in the third act, and I understand liking them more, but I only just watched those two movies for the first time in the last month. Not saying you're necessarily biased if you've known those movies for a long time but I do feel like that makes me feel a little less biased towards them. There's just so much to this one and it all feels legit. It's an epic.
The dialogue exchange with everyone being named Tony made me chuckle. A few years back I was meeting a friend at a restaurant here in Howard Beach NY called Lenny's, a predominantly Italian joint. I called out 'Tony!' when he walked in and four guys all looked up toward me. :P
More than the de-aging tech, I couldn't get over De Niro having blue eyes. It just looked..... wrong. o_O;
More than the de-aging tech, I couldn't get over De Niro having blue eyes. It just looked..... wrong. o_O;
Noper
As a postscript, has Anna Paquin ever been more wasted in a movie? Anyone?
That's what I thought as well. He says "What kind of man makes a phone call like that?" and when asked to elaborate, doesn't. While it could be referring to the call he had with Jo, I feel like he tried to call or did call Jimmy.
No. He was referring to when he called Jo (Hoffa's wife) after the hit.