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2019 Q4 MOVIE DISCUSSION


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 Is this where The Irishman talk is going? Mild spoilers, nothing plot related.

Spoiler

Mixed bag. Played a lot like Scorsese's greatest hits. You got guys sitting around talking about respect. A voiceover saying "And this was when you knew it was going to fall apart." Catholic stuff.

Joe Pesci is fantastic. Like Jesus Christ was it good to see him. Stole the movie from everyone. Pacino was great as well. First time in a long time that I feel like he was playing a role, not playing a character. Deniro was of course good as well, but definitely was a step behind the two of them.

Some of the cast was wasted. Anna Paquin and Jesse Plemons most egregiously. I was worried Stephen Graham was going to be as well, but he and Pacino had some great chemistry together. He's one of my absolute favourites, so it was great to see him get a couple feature scenes. Ray Romano also proved that his being probably the only good thing about Vinyl was no fluke.

The de-aging thing was...something. Hilarious hearing Pesci calling Deniro "kid" when he is clearly an elderly man. The hair may be darker and they may have smoothed out some winkles, but he's still stooped over and moving like a 70 year old. It's less of a distraction on everyone else, since they're supposed to be older than Deniro anyway. You got Bobby Cannavale right there. You can't stick a mole and prosthetic nose on him and have him play young Deniro?

3 hours is a long ass time for this movie. The union stuff could easily have been trimmed by 30-40 minutes.

Enjoyable, but I'm not sure it was a super necessary movie and I think it falls in the middle/lower rank of Scorsese's movies.

Super secret extra spoiler:

Spoiler

Action Bronson showing up made me audibly gasp. Probably made the move tbh

 

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As expected, Knives Out was outstanding. If not for Endgame, it would be my movie of the year right now. It's one of those movies I really don't think you can say one word about because then it will just cause others to look for things at certain points of the movie and it'll wind up spoiling it. I'll just say it was fantastic throughout and I left the theater grinning ear to ear.

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I wasn’t into Endgame so I’ll say it. Knives Out was the best movie I’ve seen in theaters this year. Makes up for the steaming pile of overrated shit that Looper was, and yeah if I say too much it’ll spoil people. But I’ll say that I found it to be as surprisingly charming as an episode of Columbo. 

Edited by LoneWolf&Subs
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2 hours ago, Craig H said:

As expected, Knives Out was outstanding. If not for Endgame, it would be my movie of the year right now. It's one of those movies I really don't think you can say one word about because then it will just cause others to look for things at certain points of the movie and it'll wind up spoiling it. I'll just say it was fantastic throughout and I left the theater grinning ear to ear.

Saw it yesterday afternoon and LOVED it. Toni Collette really nailed her role.

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Knives Out...

 

I thought for sure that Daniel Craig’s detective was going to be useless, and after it was revealed that the “murder” was a suicide, that all this murder mystery plot was nothing but a trick on the audience, and the rest of the movie would reveal the real gimmick. But nope it was in fact a murder mystery movie, and how we get back to it was awesome.

Edited by LoneWolf&Subs
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16 minutes ago, HumanChessgame said:

I've seen previews that have made Knives Out look like a murder thriller and a Clue remake and haven't been able to tell what the tone is like. Is it treated as a serious mystery, comedy, or something in between?

It’s a whodunnit through, and through, with social commentary sprinkled in. There is humor, but it’s pretty restrained to a certain point. Admittedly I was the only person in the theater, and I’m not the type to laugh out loud while watching a movie. But it did make me smile in parts.

Edited by LoneWolf&Subs
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We loved The Irishman. I think the first 30-40 minutes are good but felt like an old band doing the hits.

After that the movie got very very good. The build up and tension heading towards the climax was some chilling stuff that you don't see in movies anymore.

The epilogue was well done and sad and was touching on some real shit that everyone eventually has to go through.

It's too early to call a classic but it's easily one of the best films of this year.

I think Pesci should be nominated and possibly win in the Best Supporting category.

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I agree with the sentiment about Knives Out. Everyone was good, even the folks with small parts. I was distracted by how much the nurse reminded me of Angelina Jolie (mostly the forehead and lips). I bet Chris Evans probably enjoyed playing against type. 

The theatre was prob 3/4 full, so hopefully it has a good return this weekend. 

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Went to see Queen and Slim, and thought it was outstanding.  There was a part that I thought was way over the top, but for the most part it was great.  I think the best thing the movie did was show how these things take on a life of their own. The story of the people involved gets told by people who have no idea who they are or what they stand for and they create their own narratives.  The two people were just living their lives when they got put in a situation that they did not want.  Everyone they met from that point forward had an opinion on who they were and what they stood for, and it didn't have anything at all to do with their actions or who they were.  Their relationship was also incredibly well built.  They were complete strangers, from vastly different backgrounds, and were thrown into a situation where they had to depend on each other.  The conflicts and arguments they have along the way feel real and I don't know if the movie works if they don't.  

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The Report (2019)

Without getting too political, this doesn't feel like the moment for a flick that lionizes Feinstein or McCain. Also pretty wild that Gina Haspel was mentioned by name maybe twice over the course of two hours.

As a political thriller, it lacks thrills. It never really got into gear. Tried to capture the mood of shoe-leather investigative work in DC similar to  better flicks like All The Presidents Men, but got nowhere close to that level. The script, much like Burns' other writing credit this year (The Laundromat), is too didactic for its own good. I've seen it said that this is a drama crying out to be a documentary, and that's a fair take. I don't think the dramatizations of senate hearings were much more exciting than the real thing, which isn't a good sign.

Performances were decent on the whole. Adam Driver was good like always, but this is nothing to remember or seek out. Not sure why John Hamm was cast as McDonough; presumably the real McDonough's wife was rolling her eyes at the wishful thinking. Whoever was playing John Brennan was spot on. There were enough familiar faces to hold my attention, which is worth a star.

⭐ out of four

Edited by West Newbury Bad Boy
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Irishman was the movie of the year so far. Totally disagree with the Scorcese paint by numbers comment. The last hour or so was some of his most mature and emotional work. I love that this was the yang to Goodfellas and Casino. There's nothing glamorous or extravagant about the mob life shown in The Irishman. It paints it as a cold desolate life. Pacino, Pesci, and De Niro were all amazing. Pacino had the showy part, but nailed Hoffa's swagger and confidence. It was so much fun to watch Al having fun. Pesci was unlike anything he's done in his career. A very amazing understated and haunting performance. De Niro is still amazing at acting with eyes and the little nuances. It was his best work since Heat and Pacino's best since The Insider. The runtime didn't bother me at all since I thought something seemed to always be going on and I was engaged for the 3 and a half hours. I loved it.

Edited by brocklock
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The Irishman (2019)

This would be a fine career-capper for all the major players, so of course everyone except Pesci is already working on other stuff. The aging/de-aging wasn't as distracting as I expected it to be, and it was only really noticeable when they were trying to sell De Niro as a young man. Kept a brisk pace, so the runtime wasn't nearly as brutal as I'd expected. Performances were fun all around, but nothing jumps out at me for awards consideration. Good to see Pesci. Pacino got to go big as Hoffa which was fun. 

I'd hate to spend too much time on comparison, but with this movie it feels necessary to touch on. I've seen a lot of praise for the film's maturity when compared to some of Scorcese's more popular works. I see that point, but I also feel it overlooks or underplays the shittiness at the core of some of his flashier films. And because this material is so well-trodden, it's impossible for the movie to feel new in spite of it being one of Marty's better movies in a while. Still, as an older, wiser version of something he's made a few times before, this hit its mark. 

Ranking against Marty's movies from this decade, miles better than Hugo and Shutter Island. But this trip down memory lane has nothing on the disgusting excess of Wolf of Wall Street. Still haven't seen Silence. 

Watch it if you like Scorsese gangster fare. If you don't, don't. It's probably exactly what you're imagining it is. 

I tend to like that sort of stuff, so it gets

⭐⭐⭐ out of four

Edited by West Newbury Bad Boy
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On 11/27/2019 at 8:08 PM, elizium said:

The de-aging thing was...something. Hilarious hearing Pesci calling Deniro "kid" when he is clearly an elderly man. The hair may be darker and they may have smoothed out some winkles, but he's still stooped over and moving like a 70 year old.

For sure the silliest part of the movie was

Spoiler

when De Niro was kicking the shit out that grocer. Almost a Hogan-Michaels-esque oversell. 

 

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I liked this way more than Wolf of Wall Street which I thought felt way longer despite being shorter, but Silence is pretty close and one of the most underrated movies this decade. The Irishman is pretty similar thematically to Silence in a way as well. I guess the last hour or so of the Irishman hit me harder than everyone else here. The last shot especially hasn't left my mind since I saw it.

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Im about 2 hours into THE IRISHMAN, and I’m really liking it so far.  My favorite parts might be all the random freeze frames that tell you how some background character was gruesomely murdered (or not!) years later.  They are perfectly placed and paced.

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2 hours ago, EVA said:

Im about 2 hours into THE IRISHMAN, and I’m really liking it so far.  My favorite parts might be all the random freeze frames that tell you how some background character was gruesomely murdered (or not!) years later.  They are perfectly placed and paced.

I loved that stuff. Kind of goes with what brocklock was saying, these guys aren't living enviable lives...

 

I probably came off way harsher than I intended. I still really enjoyed it, I don't know if I maybe had too high expectations.

The de-aging only really bothered me with Deniro, mostly because I think they were trying to make him look so comparatively young. I didn't think there was anything wrong with Pesci's de-aging.

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4 hours ago, EVA said:

Im about 2 hours into THE IRISHMAN, and I’m really liking it so far.  My favorite parts might be all the random freeze frames that tell you how some background character was gruesomely murdered (or not!) years later.  They are perfectly placed and paced.

Blessedly they counted Joe Kennedy among the gangsters.

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I think both Goodfellas and Casino did a good job of showing the other side of the crime/mob lifestyle. Scorsese didn't dig as deep into that as he did in the final hour of The Irishman but it was there especially the chaotic conclusion to Goodfellas.  

A lot of people on Twitter and comicbookmovie.com or whatever are going to be upset when The Irishman is racking up the noms. 

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