I have watched a lot of movies since the Irishman, but it is the one that captures my stray thoughts. It should have had Gimme Shelter though.
If you approach it as fiction maybe? Scorsese’s Netflix Movie Bets Big on the Confessions of a Mafia “Hitman” Who Made It All Up I kind of want to read it too, but am on the fence.
While I did enjoy this I don't think the plot and script managed to justify its runtime. I also couldn't help but thinking that this felt like an inferior version of Once Upon A Time In America as both are epic crime films, both star Robert De Niro, both are three hours plus, both take place over several decades and even the Teamsters Union is a plot point.
I feel like the length and script is the whole point... so much but so little happens, everything is forgotten or regretted in the end... totally reflects the themes of the film.
I need to watch Once Upon A Time In America. I picked up the DVD on sale for $1 years ago and it's just been collecting dust.
Had to end my first watch of this at the part where De Niro calls Hoffa’s wife due to a flight ending. Can’t wait to finish the rest tonight after work.
Watched this a second time on Christmas and while it's an accomplishment with everyone involved, I still don't see it superior to his other crime genre movies like Goodfellas, Casino, or Wolf of Wall Street. I feel like come awards season it'll be another lifetime achievement reward he already had with The Departed.
This was definitely better than Casino and The Departed. I need more time to sit with it before I'm ready to say it's better than Wolf (which we've obviously had six years to live with at this point), but yeah Goodfellas is still tops in terms of Scorsese's entire career. It's as close to perfect as it's possible for a film to be, in my opinion, and is probably my favorite film of all time if you put a gun to my head and forced me to choose. But this is definitely at least in the same conversation as Wolf.
It was Thelma Schoonmaker’s birthday a couple days ago. A queen at the top of her game who weaved narration and flashbacks and narratives from multiple chronologies, sometimes all playing out at once, in the Irishman. 80 years old coming off some of the best work of her career.
As far as legit de-aging goes this looks shockingly better (low res as it is). Not even sure if a professional vfx artist made this or not; the tech is pretty accessible to use. Guessing the filmmakers made Deniro appear as he does to get a better likeness to the real Frank Sheeran, which it is.
^Idk the faces look too smooth and shiny in most of those shots. Ya they look younger, but they also look like video game renders to me. Here's a featurette on the de-aging VFX used for the movie.
Really cool. As expected, the vfx team mentioned they wanted the de-aging to look more like the characters than the actors when they were younger, but I didn't know they used CG models for those shots (instead of digital airbrushing software or something). Amazing!