The Irishman: A Crushing Disappointment

[Kirk Gallaway]

5 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

Which is all beside the point. Stone wasn't making a porno flick. If Shaw was a "sexual deviant," one of the characters could inform us he was a sexual deviant. Who would need to see it?

 

 

Exactly, Joe there are a lot of politically correct reasons why you don't want to overly emphasize that Clay Shaw was gay, and had whatever wild parties they say he had.. The media even  tried to  spin the trial that Shaw was being prosecuted for no other reason than he was gay. But they did show little fleeting cuts of the party, as I recall.

The crime is huge, you don't want to cloud the motive behind the murder with a lot of exposition about some of the plotters being perverted gay guys, who threw wild gay parties.....blah blah blah. As Ron says, it's not a porn flick, That's such a hot diversion, it really cheaply  eclipses the historical importance of the event and the evil motives behind the plotters deeds.

Edited January 9, 2020 by Kirk Gallaway

[Joseph McBride]

I typo'd the title I HEARD YOU PAINT HOUSES. That is not

only the title of the book but might be considered the title

of the film. Its main title card at the beginning calls it simply I HEARD YOU PAINT HOUSES. At the end, the same

title appears, following by a separate card reading THE IRISHMAN.

I'm not sure why this happened, although there were reports

De Niro preferred I HEARD YOU PAINT HOUSES, which would

be a better title. So maybe it was a compromise. When I was

on Variety -- until the Peter Bart regime changed the rules -- we

had a policy of using the title that appears on the screen in our reviews, not

the title in advertising if it is different.

[Joe Bauer]

17 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

Exactly, Joe there are a lot of politically correct reasons why you don't want to overly emphasize that Clay Shaw was gay, and had whatever wild parties they say he had.. The media even  tried to  spin the trial that Shaw was being prosecuted for no other reason than he was gay. But they did show little fleeting cuts of the party, as I recall.

The crime is huge, you don't want to cloud the motive behind the murder with a lot of exposition about some of the plotters being perverted gay guys, who threw wild gay parties.....blah blah blah. As Ron says, it's not a porn flick, That's such a hot diversion, it really cheaply  eclipses the historical importance of the event and the evil motives behind the plotters deeds.

Kirk, I agree.

You don't want to cloud the motive search with a lot of exposition about the extremely perverted sexual proclivities of some of the main characters. I only mention Shaw & Ferrie and their deviations to argue my point that Stone's insertion of the Willie O'Keefe scenes was really pretty tame compared to what Stone could have shown with those two characters.

Stone also could have gone heavier into Jack Ruby's Carousel strip club scene and shown more of his girl's graphic performances if he really wanted to spice up his film's sexual appeal. However, he didn't.

In watching JFK again I noticed in a scene the showing of a table name block with the name partially blocked out by I believe a plant on the table.

The name was General Edward Lansdale.

How much weight did Oliver Stone give the Lansdale connection in the JFK assassination plot?

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Ron Ecker]

6 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

How much weight did Oliver Stone give the Lansdale connection in the JFK assassination plot?

 

It was Stone and screenwriter Zachary Sklar or their staff who found among Lansdale's papers at the Hoover Institute a claim check from the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, where JFK stayed the night before his death.There was no identifying mark on the claim check. They drew no conclusion but wrote "it is fascinating to find he was in Texas that very week" (having retired from the Air Force on November 1 and driving by way of Texas to visit a son in Arizona). (From JFK: The Book of the Film, p. 183).

 

[James DiEugenio]

It was actually John Newman who they sent down there to do a search to see if Lansdale was in the area at the time.

The gay milieu in New Orleans was portrayed to provide a nexus point for Shaw and Ferrie to know each other outside of the intel connection.

Its kind of funny though, because Shaw had to deny this stuff after Garrison indicted him.  So he said he did not know Ferrie.  But as I have noted, the FBI was informed by a guy who said that he was introduced to Ferrie by Shaw.   But the informant said, he knew that Shaw was much to conservative to associate with someone like Oswald.

Which leads to another lie by Shaw, that he was a Wilson/Roosevelt/Kennedy liberal.

[Ron Ecker]

37 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

The gay milieu in New Orleans was portrayed to provide a nexus point for Shaw and Ferrie to know each other outside of the intel connection.

 

My only objection to all that was one line of dialogue that was totally unnecessary and by itself made the movie not suitable for "family" viewing. Of course I use the word "family" as I knew it way back when. All I have to do nowadays is watch cable shows like Ray Donovan and see how today's parents and their kids talk to each other around the dinner table (F this and F that) to know that my idea of "family" is very obsolete.

 

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by Ron Ecker

[Joe Bauer]

1 hour ago, James DiEugenio said:

It was actually John Newman who they sent down there to do a search to see if Lansdale was in the area at the time.

The gay milieu in New Orleans was portrayed to provide a nexus point for Shaw and Ferrie to know each other outside of the intel connection.

Its kind of funny though, because Shaw had to deny this stuff after Garrison indicted him.  So he said he did not know Ferrie.  But as I have noted, the FBI was informed by a guy who said that he was introduced to Ferrie by Shaw.   But the informant said, he knew that Shaw was much to conservative to associate with someone like Oswald.

Which leads to another lie by Shaw, that he was a Wilson/Roosevelt/Kennedy liberal.

Was it credibly established that Lansdale was in the Fort Worth/Dallas area at the time of the assassination?

Also, regards the discovery of Shaw's S&M paraphernalia including whip, chains, black cape, etc.

Does anyone expect a person of Shaw's social standing to be open and honest about this kind of personal activity? Shaw was a man of many secrets well beyond average.

Edited January 9, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[James DiEugenio]

As I recall, John told me that Lansdale was on a trip and staying at a nearby hotel.

[Joe Bauer]

9 minutes ago, James DiEugenio said:

As I recall, John told me that Lansdale was on a trip and staying at a nearby hotel.

Lansdale was "staying at a nearby hotel." ???

You mean Newman told you Lansdale "was" staying at a Dallas/Fort Worth area hotel during the time JFK was killed?

Do you personally believe this report of Lansdale's presence there at this time?

And do you believe Lansdale may have had some connection to the event?

Do you believe the well known photo of the suited man walking by the tramps in front of the Texas School Book Depository Building as they were being lead to police headquarters right after the shooting of JFK was Lansdale as Fletcher Prouty believed and General Victor Krulak seemed to agree with?

[Douglas Caddy]

The Irishman is among the five films nominated for an Oscar

https://apnews.com/907139138b9271a3cfb4637e4e2f4334

 

[Joe Bauer]

19 minutes ago, Douglas Caddy said:

The Irishman is among the five films nominated for an Oscar

https://apnews.com/907139138b9271a3cfb4637e4e2f4334

 

Just a curious side note:

According to the Mojo website, tickets sales for the Irishman are $960,000 internationally.

Ticket sales for domestic are tied into different venues besides movie theater ticket sales and Mojo has no listing for these.

However, The Irishman's competitor film "The Joker" has a listed ticket sales total of over 1 BILLION dollars so far.  Over $750 million internationally and over $350 million domestic.

It shouldn't, but that mind boggling discrepancy will probably play into the politics of Academy Award winner choices. Yet, who knows?

[David Andrews]

14 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Just a curious side note:

According to the Mojo website, tickets sales for the Irishman are $960,000 internationally.

Ticket sales for domestic are tied into different venues besides movie theater ticket sales and Mojo has no listing for these.

However, The Irishman's competitor film "The Joker" has a listed ticket sales total of over 1 BILLION dollars so far.  Over $750 million internationally and over $350 million domestic.

It shouldn't, but that mind boggling discrepancy will probably play into the politics of Academy Award winner choices. Yet, who knows?

Joker is going to have to rest on its nominations, because the Academy can't be seen supporting gun violence.  There'll be technical and design award wins, but they'll have to be split with 1917, which will cop Best Cinematography.

Scorsese is getting Best Director, as that has been in the payola cards all along.  Irishman is probably getting Best Adapted Screenplay, because the gun violence is historical and is spread over several characters, as also in 1917.  I'm surprised there was no sentimental Best Actor nomination for De Niro, though only the last 45 minutes of Irishman merited it.  Though Joe Pesci deserves it, they'll give Brad Pitt Best Supporting Actor on sentimental grounds, mostly for taking off his shirt at 50.

This may be a year where they'll throw a lot of bronze at women's films and family films: Marriage Story, Little Women, Parasite.  Parasite has violence issues, but they'll judge that OK, because it's not American, and there's no accounting for foreigners in the American mind.  (Compared to Joker's lone-gunman scenario, this is violence you wouldn't see in an American Oscar nominee: if they rebooted Parasite in America, they'd stick Jennifer Aniston in it.)  One signal of the women-family win axis is that Zellweger's a shoo-in for Judy.  Another is that, in years of violent nominees, and blah nominees, the Academy has gone all distaff-pastoral on us before.

There's an internet legend that the payola is in for Leo's second Oscar, and that this was the only reason he agreed to play an actor on the skids in OUATIH.  On merit, it should go to Joaquin Phoenix, whose #metoo problems haven't quite surfaced yet.  However, if Joker wins Best Picture, the end of civilization is signaled, and our next president will be the Emperor Heliogabalus.

Edited January 14, 2020 by David Andrews

[James DiEugenio]

This is why i don't pay any attention to the Oscars anymore.

Its all become name recognition, advertising and hype. 

And as the movies get worse, they add more nominations.  

That Annette Benning did not get nominated for The Report, and Al Pacino did for The Irishman, that shows all you need to know about this group.  

Edited January 13, 2020 by James DiEugenio

[David Andrews]

6 hours ago, James DiEugenio said:

That Annette Benning did not get nominated for The Report, and Al Pacino did for The Irishman, that shows all you need to know about this group.  

I disagree.  Al's head-toss reaction when Joe Pesci tells him that the Mob feels he's being ungrateful was his most Hoffa-like moment, and the most original acting move he's pulled in decades.  Well worth sitting through the whole performance for, and I think Academy members perceived it that way as well.  In contrast, Bening hardly moved her head at all, even though her Feinstein hairdo was lacquered in place.  Shows a lack of ambition unseemly in an older actress.

Edited January 14, 2020 by David Andrews

[James DiEugenio]

LOL 😋😂😃

Funniest comment since DVP left.