The Irishman: A Crushing Disappointment

[Ron Ecker]

If I was Scorsese, I would get away from the Mob stuff and make a movie about John Wilkes Booth as a patsy.

The two lead characters would be assassination researchers named Bernwood (played by Robert Redford de-aged) and Steinward (played by Dustin Hoffman, whose age doesn't matter).

Bernwood discovers a photograph that shows Booth watching the play at the moment that Lincoln was shot.

Steinward then comes up with a John and Wilkes Theory. It was John who was watching the play, it was Wilkes who jumped down on the stage, and who knows who shot the president.

 

 

[Paul Brancato]

1 hour ago, David G. Healy said:

Mr. Caddy's post hit the nail on the head. My estimation: Hollywood is NOT responsible determining the truth of any historical matter.

Why insist a bunch of old time actors, and a script writer who made their what, what appears to be their last killing, determine history? When we still have a ton of historians still asleep at the wheel? 

I say hurrah for keeping attention focused on the topic. NOT chastise a bunch of guys including the Director that heard and responded too the Executive Producer paymaster call...

I agree with you. The movie got me thinking again about Hoffa, and didn’t paint him as a mobster per se, nor did it portray his Union leadership as solely corrupt. 

[James DiEugenio]

I think you guys are forgetting something.

Its based on a non fiction book.

And its pretty faithful to that book.

[Joseph McBride]

I would not call I HEARD YOUR PAINT HOUSES a nonfiction book. It's a blend of fiction and supposed fact.

[Joe Bauer]

On 12/11/2019 at 10:50 AM, Greg Kooyman said:

David,

I don't think The Irishman is anywhere near the type of film that JFK was.   I happen to like Martin Scorsese movies in general.. I just don't like this one for the reasons I mentioned above.  For example, I thoroughly enjoyed Casino and Goodfellas..both are based on historical facts with a poetic license for taken for dramatic effect.   What I dislike about this movie, is that the entire story itself has been discredited as fiction.  I don't think we can say the same is true for JFK.   While Oliver Stone added elements for dramatic effect, the basic story line was closer to fact than fiction.  

I agree that "JFK" made a whole new generation stop and think about what happened in this country in 1963.  However, I doubt seriously that The Irishman will have the same type of impact on audiences.   Just my two cents...  😉 

I agree with the above post.

Also, the audience for JFK seemed a lot younger in my memory than the audience for "The Irishman." 

I was just over 40 when JFK came out. No bladder issues like I and so many theater patrons seem to have now.

A movie centered around major political and criminal characters from the 50's and 60's better have incredible historical and even personally effecting significance to draw in an audience younger than 60. 

I watched JFK again last night. Each time I do so, of course I see it's flaws.

The film did very well when it came out however. For many reasons.

One was that the massive societal psychic trauma about JFK's brutal daytime slaughter right next to his young wife was much deeper in it's personal effect on almost every American alive when it happened than has ever been adequately reported and understood imo. 

Hoffa's death? 

And this major JFK assassination trauma was further deepened by a very real and disturbing sense in the minds of Americans ( again the majority - from 1963 to 1993 ) that the full truth of JFK's murder and it's perpetrators was not honestly revealed in the official government finding.

The JFK assassination and it's official overly simplistic lone gunman explanation always made most American citizens kind of sick in their common sense truth wanting gut.

Stone's JFK finally brought this society wide truth and trust suspicion trauma into the mainstream zeitgeist in a fuller quantum leap public way than anything before it.

I feel Stone understood how deep the JFK event trauma truly was in most Americans

( even 30 years after ) and how hungry those effected by it were to finally see and hear something that reflected their trauma and suspicions in a more honest and meaningful way than our own government and the great majority of our mass media's simplistic downplaying previous.

Stone's assessment of the deeper trauma and suspicion in our society over JFK and the true hunger and need to finally acknowledge and face this reality was a correct one ... as reflected in JFK's huge ticket sales both here and abroad and also, the film's staying power as a film that is still considered important and replayed, viewed and discussed often in many media/entertainment/public discourse venues even almost 30 years after it's initial release.

And who can resist the deliciously rich and compelling performances of so many top flight actors in JFK?

The entertaining yet disturbing eccentricity of it all captured perfectly. 

The list is endless! 

Jack Lemmon, Ed Asner, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Oldman, Kevin Bacon, Donald Sutherland, John Candy, Joe Pesci, Sissy Spacek, Walter Mathau, and on and on.

Costner himself doesn't do it for me usually ( to me there's a flatness ) but I do think he was good as a soberly courageous, doggedly driven for the "let justice be done though the heavens fall " truth Jim Garrison. And he is easy to watch as far as his manly attractiveness.

Stone's film JFK is as entertaining as it is serious and important just with all it's great actor single scene stealing performances! 

Scorcese's "The Irishman" just can't compare to Stone's "JFK" in this context.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Ron Ecker]

1 hour ago, Joe Bauer said:

Kevin Bacon's prison visit scene and dialogue is a hoot. "You're not a bad lookin' man Mr. Garrison." 

 

Well, one man's hoot is another man's poot. I despise that scene. My late father was interested in the assassination, so my late mother had some interest too. I would have loved to watch "JFK" with them, but they were an elderly, old-fashioned couple, I never in my life heard either one of them curse, and I didn't want the embarrassment of having to share with them Bacon's observation that Garrison's trouble was that he had never been (using a euphemism here) anally penetrated.

I know that's movies today, so i guess Stone felt he had to throw that in, which is why I couldn't bring myself to take my parents to see the movie or watch it with them on the old VCR.

But that's just me. Call it a peculiarity of the old Ecker family.

 

 

[Douglas Caddy]

Golden Globes 2020: 'Marriage Story,' 'Irishman' aim for Oscar momentum as awards season kicks off

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/golden-globes/golden-globes-2020-marriage-story-irishman-aim-for-oscar-momentum-as-awards-season-kicks-off/ar-BBYDqXm?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=UE07DHP

[Ron Ecker]

De Niro should get every kind of acting award for The Irishman. He lost weight for Taxi Driver, he gained weight for Raging Bull, but to become younger for a role takes acting to almost miraculous heights.

 

 

[David G. Healy]

3 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

De Niro should get every kind of acting award for The Irishman. He lost weight for Taxi Driver, he gained weight for Raging Bull, but to become younger for a role takes acting to almost miraculous heights.

 

 

the interview scene was priceless...

Edited January 6, 2020 by David G. Healy

[Kirk Gallaway]

On 1/4/2020 at 3:59 AM, Ron Ecker said:

Well, one man's hoot is another man's poot. I despise that scene. My late father was interested in the assassination, so my late mother had some interest too. I would have loved to watch "JFK" with them, but they were an elderly, old-fashioned couple, I never in my life heard either one of them curse, and I didn't want the embarrassment of having to share with them Bacon's observation that Garrison's trouble was that he had never been (using a euphemism here) anally penetrated.

I know that's movies today, so i guess Stone felt he had to throw that in, which is why I couldn't bring myself to take my parents to see the movie or watch it with them on the old VCR.

But that's just me. Call it a peculiarity of the old Ecker family.

 

 

I agree Ron, I thought Stone's writing was really contrived to try to shock the 1993 crowd in that scene. Bacon was used as a character who was the epitome of the southern resistance to JFK. Reference to Nixon "saving us" from the Communists. That I see as useful in trying to capture the locale and period.

I see all these as licenses of story telling. I don't expect the characters of a movie to be identical to the real life characters.

Edited January 8, 2020 by Kirk Gallaway

[Joe Bauer]

13 hours ago, Kirk Gallaway said:

I agree Ron, I thought Stone's writing was really contrived to try to shock the 1993 crowd in that scene. Bacon was used as a character who was the epitome of the southern resistance to JFK. Reference to Nixon "saving us" from the Communists. That I see as useful in trying to capture the locale and period.

I see all these as licenses of story telling. I don't expect the characters of a movie to be identical to the real life characters.

Stone's Bacon was tame compared to what Stone COULD have depicted regards Clay Shaw/Bertrand and his real life "whips, chains, black capes" and other SM tools and dressings that were found in his residence and which were obviously used to inflict sadistic pain upon his young pick-ups.  Shaw's other sexual act deviations were reportedly even more sordid.

Same with Ferrie. Imagine what Stone could have shown regards Ferrie's real life sexual activity?

Bacon's Willie O'Keefe was a benign deviant shock figure imo.

Also, The Irishman sure didn't do well at the Golden Globes. And De Niro, Pacino and Scorsese looked bored as hell. 

And regarding using Scoreses's high priced pals in the film despite their advanced age and non-Irish looks and accents and spending millions of dollars on de-aging tech, I think it all kind of back-fired.

Why get an actor who doesn't look or sound like the main story character to play this role?

When normally crazy - eyed Woody Harrelson ( who I always think of as much more an eccentric comedic actor ) was chosen to play LBJ I busted out laughing!

WHY? Simply Harrelson's name and star power in the lead role?

They had to make a hideous mask of LBJ for Harrelson to wear ( ludicrously distracting ) instead of just finding a decent actor who looked enough like LBJ in the first place?

So many actors who played JFK in films actually looked like him ( Bruce Greenwood's performance was the best ) to a non-distracting and believable degree. 

Ah, well perhaps there just weren't any good actors who truly looked as beady-eyed, elephant eared / hang-dogged ugly as LBJ truly was during casting time for the film?

Maybe hefty John Goodman could have pulled the LBJ role off without being fitted with a laughably stiff and hideous wooden mask such as Harrelson's? 

Huge prosthetic ears alone would have been okay.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by Joe Bauer

[Ron Ecker]

2 hours ago, Joe Bauer said:

Stone's Bacon was tame compared to what Stone COULD have depicted regards Clay Shaw/Bertrand and his real life "whips, chains, black capes" and other SM tools and dressings that were found in his residence and which were obviously used to inflict sadistic pain upon his young pick-ups.  Shaw's other sexual act deviations were reportedly even more sordid.

Same with Ferrie. Imagine what Stone could have shown regards Ferrie's real life sexual activity?

 

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?

 

 

Edited January 8, 2020 by Ron Ecker

[James DiEugenio]

On 1/3/2020 at 8:26 PM, Joseph McBride said:

I would not call I HEARD YOUR PAINT HOUSES a nonfiction book. It's a blend of fiction and supposed fact.

That is your conclusion Joe. (And I agree with it.)

But that is not what Brandt presents the book as.  And that is not what it is sold as.

[Douglas Caddy]

A famous appropriate quote from a Hollywood mogul:

 

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/05/11/send/

[Ron Ecker]

20 minutes ago, Douglas Caddy said:

A famous appropriate quote from a Hollywood mogul:

 

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/05/11/send/

Which unfortunately isn't good advice for a writer. Pitch a screenplay to a producer, and he or she will want to know what the message is. That's my experience anyway. Like "Your story is real clear, but what what are you trying to say?" Or "why do you think this story needs to be seen?" (How about, "To entertain?")