Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” will open the New York Film Festival on September 27.
My first thought on this is that we will have to wade through a double scoop of hype and a fair amount of bullshit after the film plays at the fest, for those of us who won’t be seeing it right off. With so few actual movies playing for people to sink their teeth into, and even fewer bonafide “Oscar movies,” there is a lot of attention paid to early screenings. Thus, it must be viewed with a huge grain of salt. Skepticism and patience are two key ingredients required for this part of the Oscar race. The reaction out of New York is only going to be part of the story, as we found out with “Life of Pi” and various other films. At any rate, it’s an exciting jump into awards season as Netflix and the Scorsese film announce their presence with authority. I love a big dare by Netflix to the film snobs and the awards community: come at me, bro.
Film at Lincoln Center announces Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman as Opening Night of the 57th New York Film Festival (September 27 – October 13), making its World Premiere at Alice Tully Hall on Friday, September 27, 2019. The Irishman will be released in select theaters and on Netflix later this year.
The Irishman is a richly textured epic of American crime, a dense, complex story told with astonishing fluidity. Based on Charles Brandt’s nonfiction book I Heard You Paint Houses, it is a film about friendship and loyalty between men who commit unspeakable acts and turn on a dime against each other, and the possibility of redemption in a world where it seems as distant as the moon. The roster of talent behind and in front of the camera is astonishing, and at the core of The Irishman are four great artists collectively hitting a new peak: Joe Pesci as Pennsylvania mob boss Russell Bufalino, Al Pacino as Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa, and Robert De Niro as their right-hand man, Frank Sheeran, each working in the closest harmony imaginable with the film’s incomparable creator, Martin Scorsese.
“The Irishman is so many things: rich, funny, troubling, entertaining and, like all great movies, absolutely singular,” said New York Film Festival Director and Selection Committee Chair Kent Jones. “It’s the work of masters, made with a command of the art of cinema that I’ve seen very rarely in my lifetime, and it plays out at a level of subtlety and human intimacy that truly stunned me. All I can say is that the minute it was over my immediate reaction was that I wanted to watch it all over again.”
“It’s an incredible honor that The Irishman has been selected as the Opening Night of the New York Film Festival. I greatly admire the bold and visionary selections that the festival presents to audiences year after year,” said Martin Scorsese. “The festival is critical to bringing awareness to cinema from around the world. I am grateful to have the opportunity to premiere my new picture in New York alongside my wonderful cast and crew.”
Campari is the exclusive spirits partner for the 57th New York Film Festival and the presenting partner of Opening Night, extending its long-standing commitment to the world of film and art.
this and The Joker are at the top of my list this year (and Tarantino’s, which has yet to premiere here in Portugal)
I got the feeling that the likeliest acting nom for this one… is Anna Paquin in Supporting. Too many big names competing between each other (de Niro and Pacino in Lead, Keytel and Pesci in Supporting) so they can cancel each other, while Paquin is the only big name that won’t have inner competition… of course, she needs to have a good role and give a great performance, but certainly Netflix will promote her, and there is the narrative to have her back after 26 years…
Dead ass
Silence was a very ambitious film from St. Marty . It bombed . So now we go back to the mob with DeNiro , Peschi , Harvey Keitel and Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa . Stallone played Hoffa in F.I.S.T. , Robert Blake played him in Blood Feud and Nicholson played him in Hoffa . This movie is costing a lot of money to make everybody look younger . Do we really need another movie about who killed Jimmy Hoffa ?
Those movies you mentioned came out 30 years ago. You are getting a gangster film by Scorsese and you’re complaining? We have all these superhero movies, sequels. This is an original film, focused on Frank Sheeran not Hoffa.
How many movies about the royal family do we need?
It costs me nothing, no matter how many hundreds of queen and king movies they make.
Fine with me, as long as they manage to make a good movie about royals every 5 years or so.
Or what? Is the theory that if somebody didn’t give Marty $200mil to make a ballsout mob movie that he’s been wanting to do for 20 years, that he would instead be making 5 more Edith Wharton adaptations with that money? 🙂
Let the guy make whatever technical marvels he wants and whatever he can get Netflix to pay for.
I don’t neccesarily watch a Scorsese movie because I’m an insatiable gangster scholar. I watch ’em because they’re thrilling works of art, no matter what the topic.
I’m not sure what “the royal family” means. I can only think of three movies featuring British royals that were nominated for Best Picture this century : The Favourite, The Queen and The King’s Speech — the latter of which I know is hated with a passion on this site. (Or perhaps all three are hated, I don’t know.) There must have been a few more in the last century, but I can’t think of them immediately.
They are from different periods of history, and the different surnames mean they are not the same family. I mentioned a Stuart monarch and two Windsors. The upcoming David Michod movie is about a medieval Plantagenet or Lancastrian warrior-king, who is culturally about as different to the Windsors as the Wakandans are to the Last Emperor of China.
You’re right. Would’ve been more precise if I said movies about the royal families. Or the British monarchy.
Sorry if I’m less interested in 14 different movies about Princess Diana (no joke, 14 Princess Di movies in a span 20 years) than I might be in a possibly definitive movie about Hoffa.
(Not saying all 14 are notable, but hey, somebody here is comparing Stallone in F.I.S.T. to a new epic by Marty.)
What difference does it make how many British royalty movies were nominated for Best Picture?
I only care about how many royalty movies are watchable and, you know, any damn good.
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“there must have a few more movies about British monarchy in the last century…”?
There have been like 40 since 1990. I could list them but please don’t make me.
A handful of them are flatout knockouts, so I’m not complaining.
I’m only wondering why anyone would want to complain about whatever Scorsese wants to do.
14, huh? Yes, I see that on Wikipedia. It’s odd, because I had only heard about one movie about Princess Diana, entitled “Diana”. (And I wasn’t interested in watching that one.)
I don’t know why people want to complain about Scorsese. People just love complaining, I guess. Nothing better to do, perhaps.
I’ve just worked it out: the main reason the Windsors always seem less interesting than historical royals is that they don’t wield any power. (Ironically, the lack of power is also the only reason they have been allowed to survive into the 21st century.) The further back in history one goes, the more power the monarch has, and so the stories about them are more interesting.
If I honestly rank the royal families in the order of how interesting I find them, I come up with : Plantagenets > Tudors > Stuarts > Hanoverians > Windsors. Not coincidentally, that is also the chronological order.
That’s quite the brilliant comment and observation, James.
And one thing I noticed when I was scanning lists of monarchy movies of recent decades: over the past 25 or 30 years we’re getting dozens of movies about royals who lived in our own lifetimes.
Whereas the truly monumental royal movies of 50 years ago most all take deeper dives into the distant past. Those older stories are more profound and naturally less tabloidy than the current events movies made more recently.
The older films treat history seriously. So many of the new ones feel like fancy soap operas, or worse, gossip.
We need Scorsese making any film.
I would TOTALLY see a movie called Life of Pie
As for NYFF opening films stiffing for awards, I remember Linklater’s Last Flag Flying really faceplanted there.
Maybe film festivals have reasons to exist even if they don’t have an Oscar fetish? and maybe the films they premiere can still be worthwhile even if they don’t win a boatload of Oscars?
I dunno, just a thought.
*(Octavia Spencer won an Oscar for Life of Pie.)
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1535ad23c5c7aed05be2d683086184838441efd8d8d78e3becfb3ce935a68b0d.gif
Maybe Ron Howard needs to finally get The Terminzor into production, we’ve been waiting for 20 years now
That is one hell of a Simpsons callback. ALL the kudos to you, sir.