I Heard You Watch Too Much Netflix
#HoBoBloPoMo, Day 5: THE IRISHMAN is based on “I Heard You Paint Houses,” and you can paint a house in less time.
Yesterday I ended my post with a quick dig at THE IRISHMAN, which the boy (sorry MAN) and I managed to watch over a couple of days. We found the break point when Robert asked, “How much longer is this thing?” and figured out we were only a third of the way through.
THE IRISHMAN is longer than a drive to Dayton, Ohio. With bathroom breaks.
Later, we happened to figure out we started the movie on St. Patrick’s Day, which was an absolute coincidence. Because we are Virus People now, and it already seems quaint to concern oneself with time and space and marginal ethnic holidays.
A few people asked what I thought of the movie, so I figured I’d use that as today’s prompt and say that THE IRISHMAN was … fine. I can usually lose myself in Scorsesian atmosphere and just inhabit that world for a while. Since this story is sooo long, though, and features so many familiar faces in the Goombah Repertory, I found myself too aware of all his trademark tics:
- Campy, ’70s-era leisure wear, Check.
- Evocative period crooning, laid over slow-motion and/or violent acts, Check.
- Mundane dialogue abruptly interrupted by a car exploding, Check.
- Joe Pesci saying “It is what it is” with a world-weary shrug, Check.
- Voice-over and voice-over and more voice-over that makes me bristle because movies are meant to show and not tell, Check.
When you can’t help but feel like you’ve already walked this road, it’s a challenge to forget how much more road there is ahead.
And the kicker? It’s not even necessarily true! So if you’re ready to commit two hundred and nine minutes of your self-quarantine to a piece of historical fiction that may have hatched from the aggrandizing brain of a dying man, be my guest. And then we can all try to piece together how Hoffa’s body ended up at the Police K-9 Training Center in Buffalo.
For a much better combo of De Niro + Pacino + lengthy, overstylized badassery, try HEAT, which is somehow already 25 years old. Robert and I watched that tonight, and his verdict was it was worth it, just for Jon Voight’s greasy mullet.
