In Casino (1995), Robert De Niro wore a different suit in each of his scenes with the exception of the first and last. This poster shows all the different suits he wore throughout the film
In Casino (1995), Robert De Niro wore a different suit in each of his scenes with the exception of the first and last. This poster shows all the different suits he wore throughout the film
In Casino (1995), Robert De Niro wore a different suit in each of his scenes with the exception of the first and last. This poster shows all the different suits he wore throughout the film
In Casino (1995), Robert De Niro wore a different suit in each of his scenes with the exception of the first and last. This poster shows all the different suits he wore throughout the film
Casino (1995) - Desert Scene. While this scene is often shared for its profanity, I think it's an excellent verbal argument scene. You can feel the close relationship between the two characters ripping apart; De Niro and Pesci are great.
This scene from 'Casino' accurately reflects my opinion of the NFL & Roger Goodell claiming they hadn't seen the video of Ray Rice. De Niro is the public & the cowboy is Roger Goodell.
Martin Scorsese’s mafia saga “The Irishman” was watched by 17.1 million unique viewers in the U.S. in the first five days of its streaming release, according to Nielsen estimates
“The Canadian Epstein” — Disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nygard's own SON is helping police investigate his alleged sex crimes
Disgraced fashion mogul Peter Nygard's own SON is helping police investigate his alleged sex crimes By Guy Adams Investigates For The Daily Mail 15 Jan 2021 Link to article 'He has become my arch-nemesis. I no longer regard him as my father . . . He is a monster. I am now here to serve in any way I can, to support survivors and the justice process and also to help expose the people who covered up his crimes.' Kai Bickle's world came tumbling down one night in May 2019, when he attended a dinner party at a lavishly decorated mansion overlooking the golden sands of Venice Beach in Los Angeles. The host was his father, Peter Nygard, a Canadian fashion tycoon famed for the hedonistic lifestyle he pursued at a global portfolio of high-end properties, including vast residences in Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal, as well as New York, and, most notoriously, a Mayan-themed 'private luxury resort' in the Bahamas. Modelling himself on Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, the flamboyant Nygard, now 79, kept a revolving harem of girlfriends. Those caught up (often completely unwittingly) in this web had included actresses Susan Anton and Jennifer O'Neill, stripper-turned-reality star Anna Nicole Smith, and a former Wheel Of Fortune card turner by the name of Vanna White. His Caribbean parties, meanwhile, tended to attract a better class of A-lister. Past visitors to the island property had ranged from Jane Seymour and Bo Derek to Robert De Niro, , Michael Jackson and Joan Collins, not to mention and , who were photographed there in the early 2000s on an innocuous family holiday. The 2019 bash, during one of Peter's occasional business trips to LA, was to be a more down-to-earth affair. Roughly 20 guests, including Kai, 38, and his younger brother Jessar (one of roughly ten offspring Nygard has fathered via more than seven women) had been invited for food and drinks, followed by a late-night poker game. That was the plan, at least. But Kai never made it to the card- table. Instead, he fled the lavish premises in a state of distress, shortly after dinner, believing that he had just witnessed his father attempting to sexually assault an eight-year-old girl. Details of this ugly development are (it should be stressed) strongly disputed, and we shall examine them later. But the incident would kick-start an extraordinary chain of events that culminated just before Christmas, with the arrest of Peter Nygard on nine charges of sex trafficking and racketeering. Currently behind bars, with his $900 million (£660 million) business empire in tatters and the FBI poring over his computer hard-drives, the fallen tycoon has now been accused of rape or sexual assault by at least 57 women. Several of Nygard's accusers were children when the alleged crimes took place, and many claim they were drugged. At least 57 women have accused him. He will appear in court in Canada next week, seeking bail as he fights extradition to the USA. It is, perhaps, the most high-profile and shocking sex case since handcuffs were slapped on Jeffrey Epstein. And in a remarkable twist, it turns out that a leading figure in the increasingly public campaign to prosecute Mr Nygard is his aforementioned son, Kai. Upcoming documentary: ‘Unseamly’ Canadian Designer Peter Nygård True Crime Documentary Behind the scenes, I can reveal that Kai has spent the past 18 months secretly helping both the U.S. and Canadian authorities investigate his own father's alleged crimes. Keeping his role hidden from Nygard and his associates for several months, he has worked tirelessly to assist victims, and their legal teams. On the personal front, he has changed his name (taking up his mother's surname to become Kai Zen Bickle) and used his influence over various Nygard companies to block efforts to move his assets offshore, fearing that would allow him to flee. 'We have been engaged in a brutal battle against my father and his enablers,' is how Kai summed things up when we spoke this week. 'He has become my arch-nemesis. I no longer regard him as my father . . . He is a monster. I am now here to serve in any way I can, to support survivors and the justice process and also to help expose the people who covered up his crimes.' Perhaps most remarkably of all, Kai recently helped two of his younger siblings, one of whom remains a minor, to sue Peter Nygard over claims he 'engineered' the rape of his own sons. In an extraordinary lawsuit filed in August, the boys claimed that their leathery, multi-millionaire father instructed one of his long-standing girlfriends (who was also a sex worker) to 'make a man' out of them. The first of these alleged attacks (which, again, are vehemently denied by Nygard) took place in the Bahamas 2004, when the son was 15 and the woman was in her mid-20s. The second occurred in Winnipeg in 2018, when the younger child was 14 and the woman was in her 40s. Court papers filed by the boys stated that the unnamed girlfriend was instructed to seduce Nygard's son by showering in his bathroom so that he 'could see her naked'. Then she raped him. Afterwards, she allegedly told the boy he 'wasn't bad' for a 'baby.' The next morning, Nygard's girlfriend brought him breakfast in bed, kissing him on the lips and announcing: 'Mommy's got you.' Kai says he first became aware of this appalling incident last spring, and was 'sickened' to hear his brothers' claims. He would often yell and scream at his staff. 'We all spoke and decided the best course of action was to file a lawsuit publicly in the hope that other survivors would feel safe to come forward and also file criminally against Nygard,' he says. 'We were originally going to have me in the suit as my young brother's guardian, but in the end decided not to because it would reveal to Nygard that I was working against him . . . At the time I was [secretly] doing everything I could to improve the odds that he would get arrested.' To appreciate the extraordinary journey taken by Kai, we must wind the clock back to the mid-1980s, when his father was one of Canada's most talked-about self-made millionaires. The son of penniless immigrants from Finland, Peter Nygard had launched his empire in the late 1960s, with an $8,000 (£6,000) investment in a struggling fashion firm. By the time he was 30, the company had become one of North America's most successful suppliers of leisure and sportswear, while his flamboyant eccentricities, which included keeping parrots in his office and filling the lobby of Nygard HQ with bronze busts of himself, turned him into an object of public fascination. In 1987, the party-loving entrepreneur purchased a 4.5-acre patch of the island of New Providence in the Bahamas and set about turning it into a 'dream home' where he could indulge his champagne lifestyle. Over the ensuing years, he built 150,000 sq ft of Mayan-themed buildings, stretching over a dozen 'cabana-style' residences. The buildings at Nygard Cay eventually included a casino, a disco hut (with cameras beneath the dance floor, reportedly to shoot images of revellers from below), and the world's largest sauna, a 6,000 sq ft lodge made from 2ft-thick Canadian pine logs. In the grounds were fake volcanoes that belched dry ice, a flock of peacocks, stone cobras which hissed steam at sunset, 60 ft towers festooned with hundreds of flaming torches (lit nightly by staff) and giant statues of nude women, purportedly modelled on some of Nygard's favourite girlfriends. At weekends, he would host lavish parties, which appeared on various TV documentaries, including Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous. The place became a magnet for freeloading celebrities and, while Kai believes they generally had the most fleeting and brief relationship with Nygard, photos of their visits were then plastered across company literature and websites. Prince Andrew, to cite one example, was recorded for posterity wandering with the long-haired fashion magnate on the beach, wearing blue shorts and boat shoes. Born in the 1980s, Kai spent the first three years of his life in the Bahamas until his mother, Patricia, left Nygard, with whom she'd had three children but never married. They moved first to California and then to the Pacific Northwest in the U.S. Over subsequent years, he had almost no regular contact with the fashion tycoon aside from occasional visits during school holidays, where he met various half-siblings. 'He would have one family weekend per year at his lake cottage, and a few days set aside for Christmas,' says Kai of the somewhat unorthodox arrangement. 'During those times, the days were filled with activities like horseback riding or mini golf. 'He could be a very charismatic person when he wanted to be and the family weekends were very light and brief.' In the very limited time he spent with his father during childhood, Kai saw nothing that gave him reason to suspect that Peter Nygard was guilty of criminality, though he did have a highly volatile personality. 'He would yell and scream at his staff often, and that always was upsetting to everyone around it, but he would describe his yelling as 'passion' because of his 'high standards',' Kai says. Nygard's children were further told that he 'lived a consensual, non-monogamous lifestyle,' Kai says. 'He made speeches at dinner to family when we were together to talk about how he hoped everyone got a wonderful partner and wished that he could find that special someone, but that it wasn't the life for him. 'He also had girlfriends that were persistently with him, always two or three, and often they were around for years. He wasn't embarrassed about it. He flaunted it on TV, it was part of his brand, something he showed the whole world. He was proud of it.' Be that as it may, rumours of predatory behaviour by Nygard —and worse — had occasionally reared their ugly head, only to be quickly suppressed: a relatively easy task before the internet. In 1980, for example, he was charged with the rape of an 18-year-old, but the charge was dropped when the complainant refused to testify. In 1996, three female employees meanwhile filed sexual harassment complaints in the Canadian province of Manitoba. It looked like his hand was on her thigh, rubbing. One, a 39-year-old communications manager, said that, when called into Nygard's office, she would 'find him in a state of undress . . . with his hands down the front of his pants, fondling himself.' He settled by giving the women $18,500 (£13,600) and denied any wrongdoing. Then, in 2010, a Canadian TV network put out a Panorama-style documentary about Nygard, focusing on alleged sex abuse and harassment of former employees. It quoted a former stewardess on his private plane who alleged that on one journey — during which Nygard was accompanied by a troupe of topless women — he lost his temper with staff, shouting: 'You are nothing! You are garbage! I am God!' The programme also alleged that Nygard had engaged in 'inappropriate sexual contact' with a young woman who had been brought to his home in 2003 from the Dominican Republic. Nygard denied that either incident had happened, and sued to stop the documentary being broadcast. Fast forward to May 2019, however, and those ugly incidents were largely forgotten. Kai, who was by then in his late 30s, had worked for his father's companies for just over two years after leaving college, but quit to pursue a career in activism and health science. Nygard's trip to Los Angeles afforded them a rare opportunity to catch up, so he attended the aforementioned dinner party in Venice Beach. As the night wore on, he recalls becoming uncomfortable about his father's behaviour towards an eight-year-old girl, who was attending with her mother, one of Nygard's old girlfriends. 'He's got her sitting right next to him at dinner, which is usually his girlfriend chair. And he's a creature of routine. So I'm already thinking this is weird. 'He's trying to act like the Papa. It was just weird . . . I'm noticing things. I'm noticing that he's telling her little secrets at dinner. Putting his hand close to her ear and going all hush-hush.' At the end of dinner, most of the other 20-odd guests got up to adjourn to the card table. However, Kai adds: 'I'm still watching him. Her chair gets pushed back. He brings her round to him. 'She was on his right side. He brings her to his left side, with his arm around her waist, and I see his elbow change and start moving as if — it looked to me, I couldn't see, but it looked like his hand was on her upper thigh, and rubbing. That's what it looked like to me . . . Everything in my body told me he was doing something terrible.' 'I had a huge adrenaline rush and I immediately told the mother to get her daughter away from him,' he adds. 'I stood up next to him and looked in his eyes. At that moment, for me, it was like all the walls were crashing down around him . . . And I realised that, yeah, he's probably trying to groom that girl.' Nygard vigorously denied wrongdoing, and even called Kai 'sick' for thinking as much. But Kai was unconvinced. Then, in February last year, ten women filed a bombshell lawsuit in New York claiming that the fashion magnate had used wealth and status to 'entice underage girls' from 'young, impressionable and often impoverished backgrounds' into his home, where they would be 'plied with alcohol' and (some allege) date-rape drugs, before being taken to Nygard's private quarters, where he would 'assault, rape and sodomise' them. Court papers claimed they were then coerced into joining a globe-trotting harem of sex workers paid thousands of dollars from Nygard's company funds and trafficked around the world on his company's private jet, which reportedly boasts a stripper pole. One alleged victim, who was just 14 at the time, claimed Nygard raped her and paid her $5,000 (£3,700). Another said her encounter with Nygard began with him showing her pornography after which he raped her, 'causing her extraordinary trauma and pain', the suit states. Three of his existing ten accusers were 14 at the time. Three more were 15. Within days, dozens more alleged victims had come forward. By the summer, some 57 survivors were pursuing legal action — and the number of alleged victims had reached 100. Kai again confronted his father, only to be told it was all 'lies' and asked to speak out publicly in his father's support. But days later a friend texted Kai to complain about a recent visit to Nygard's house in Los Angeles. 'He said he'd brought a female friend with him, who had one or two drinks and had started to feel very high. Nygard took her up to his room and aggressively had sex with her, not using a condom. 'When I heard that, I knew he was not only as bad as people said he was, but was a dangerous criminal and had to be stopped.' He duly alerted the authorities about the friend's message. In a podcast called Live To Walk Again, released this week, he revealed that he began helping both the police and the alleged victims' lawyers, who he regards as 'heroes'. Over the summer, Kai also used official positions held in Nygard firms to block two apparent efforts to move assets overseas, amid concerns that the tycoon might flee to evade justice. PODCAST EPISODE: Peter Nygard Discusses His Father 'Through the course of ten months I also helped several survivors to file criminally against him, and spent countless hours on the phone with survivors, lawyers and authorities,' he says. Last month Nygard was arrested on U.S. charges at a home in the Royalwood area of Winnipeg. He spent Christmas behind bars and has consistently denied any wrongdoing, saying he 'expects to be vindicated' in court. Kai has renounced his inheritance and is working on 'making the world a better place' by campaigning to close legal loopholes exploited by sex offenders. 'I'm very happy earning my own money, as I have all my life. We've never had a trust fund or an allowance, and since his money has been made through pain and suffering, I won't accept a potential inheritance,' he says. His father's cash, he says, should instead go towards compensating victims. 'My focus now is to help the healing process.'
A Cinematic Guide to The Weeknd: Pt 3. My Dear Melancholy and After Hours
My Dear Melancholy
Gaspar Noe/Cannes Film Festival The My Dear Melancholy era notable for being a time when The Weeknd was in proximity to a lot of serious directors. While he’s had a foot in Hollywood for awhile, 2017 through 2019 he was actively engaging with filmmakers like the Safdies Brothers, Gaspar Noe, and Claire Denis, amongst others. While he had been actively courting the Safdies since Good Time was released, he attended the 2018 Cannes Film Festival where he crossed paths Noe, whose film Climax took home a number awards at Cannes. Noe’s Enter the Void had previously served as an inspiration for Kiss Land, and for MDM (and later After Hours) seem to call back to Noe’s other films, like Irreversible and Love, which are both twisted depictions of heartbreak. On the other hand, Climax is about a French dance troupe who accidentally take LSD, and according to Noe is not a “message” movie. It is an audacious psychedelic technical exercise, with numerous long takes and highly choreographed set pieces. The idea for Noe, who had previously captured the feeling of drugs in previous films, was to do the opposite, and present the objectively reality of drugs, watching people high from a sober perspective. Noe is a rather strong advocate of film, and the opening scene of Climax features VHS boxes of a number of films that have influenced his filmmaking. Two of note are Schizophrenia, otherwise known as Angst, one of Noe’s favorite films which The Weeknd name checked to the Safdies, and Possession, which would go on to be an influence on After Hours (more on this later). He is also said to have sat next to Benicio Del Toro at Cannes, which means he likely caught some of the Un Certain Regard section, where Del Toro served as a jury member. Outside of that section, there were a few other films of interest such as The House That Jack Built from Lars Von Trier (The Weeknd has previously expressed affection for Von Trier’s Antichrist), Mandy from Pastos Costamos, and music video director Romain Gavras’s The World Is Yours, as well as a restoration of 2001: A Space Odyssey, which Noe has referred to as the film that got him into filmmaking. https://preview.redd.it/qga7a3l8ct261.png?width=910&format=png&auto=webp&s=371cf20d42ee8783cc23bfe7f2cfa16a0a927a0e Asian Cinema Later in 2018, The Weeknd continued his globetrotting with a tour of Asia. He once claimed in an interview that whenever visiting a foreign country he only watches films from there. I’ve previously written about the influence of Asian cinema on Kiss Land, and there’s not enough work from the MDM era to glean anything cinematically adjacent to this, but now would be a good time to mention that the "Call Out My Name" video was heavily inspired by the work of famed Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. The Asian tour poster seems to be a reference to Ichi the Killer, which leads us to Takashi Miike. Though he is notoriously prolific across a number of genres, his most popular works internationally are genre melding blends of horror, comedy and crime, most notably Audition, Ichi the Killer and Gozu. Another film worth mentioning is Perfect Blue, Satoshi Kon’s masterwork about a pop star’s mysterious stalker that The Weeknd posted about on Instagram before. Bloody and haunting, the film was a major influence on Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan and Requiem for a Dream. In Interviews he has also mentioned a number of Korean films, such as The Wailing, I Saw the Devil and Oldboy. While Wong Kar Wai was previously mentioned as an influence on Beauty Behind the Madness, also worth mentioning is the work of John Woo, specifically A Better Tomorrow, well known for the shot of smoking a cigar off money, and Infernal Affairs, Andrew Lau’s crime classic which served has the basis for Scorsese’s The Departed. https://preview.redd.it/fx7o9s2bct261.png?width=642&format=png&auto=webp&s=0fec2f841e9d3b09104238d0f89595daa6140faa https://preview.redd.it/n4x7fiy9ct261.png?width=1316&format=png&auto=webp&s=8a9650263272518216fc5f36913e80a10d2b0a8e
After Hours
Martin Scorsese While After Hours more so than any other Weeknd album is bursting at the seams with cinematic references, the influence of Martin Scorsese stands above all. Similar to The Weeknd’s body of work, many Scorsese’s are explorations of violence and masculinity, investigating them from a perspective that depending on who you ask (and how they’re feeling) glamorizes, condemns or just simply presents the reality of characters on the fringes of society. While there are direct references to a number of prominent Scorsese films, what’s interesting is that his influence also reverberates in other films/filmmakers that influence After Hours. Todd Phillips’s Joker is in effect an homage to Scorsese’s loner-centric New York films, and the Safdie Brothers have been putting their own millennial spin on the type of 70s gritty thriller that Scorsese trafficked in (Scorsese was also a producer on Uncut Gems). Specific Scorsese works will be discussed more in depth in the requisite sections, but it is worth mentioning upfront what a prominent role that Scorsese plays in the nucleus of After Hours. https://preview.redd.it/wcds9qpdct261.png?width=1196&format=png&auto=webp&s=246c560c72340782e26ad03b8ff63367999eaadd Urban HorroIsolation With After Hours, The Weeknd departs from the slicker sounds and influences that permeated Starboy and returns to the cinematic grittiness of Beauty Behind the Madness. While urban horror is a theme that permeates throughout The Weeknd as a project overall, there is a thorough line to be drawn here that follows a number of 70s and 80s cinematic and aesthetic references. For one thing, while the initial bandaged nose was a reference to Chinatown (previously, The Weeknd has a Kiss Land demo titled "Roman Polanski"), the full bandaged face that is so prominently featured throughout the After Hours era is a classic cinematic visual trope that was especially prominent throughout 60s and 80s, though it saw a slight re-emergence in the 2010s. The fully bandaged face is often used to remake someone in the image of another, usually against their will (The Skin I Live In, Eyes Without Face), or as a case of mistaken identity and doppelgängers (Good Night Mommy, Scalpel), themes present throughout much of After Hours. The "Too Late" video acknowledges these references, but instead presents the bandages on two Los Angeles models recovering from plastic surgery, in a nod to a famous Steven Meisel’s photoshoot for Vogue Italia. https://preview.redd.it/dtbxjc3ict261.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=66a98cc3cba73d502f8586a215a65cc41c5408a1 The “masks” people wear is another horror trope that is featured prominently on After Hours, and this is best seen in the red suit character. One important reference in the film is to Brian De Palma’s Dressed To Kill, where a serial killer is targeting the patients of a psychiatrist (any more on this film will veer towards spoiler territory). The Weeknd is on the record as saying Jim Carrey’s The Mask as being a large influence on the Red Suit character, it being one of the first film’s he watched in theaters. One of the more complex references would be to Joker. While it sort of an in-joke that the character of the Joker is commonly overanalyzed and misinterpreted, referencing Todd Phillips’s Joker is more nuanced because it is in essence a full on homage to Martin Scorsese’s New York films, most notably Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, which focus on eccentric loners, and can both be seen as cautionary tale of urban isolation, a theme explored perhaps in songs like "Faith." The King of Comedy revolves around a would be obsessive stand up Rupert Pupkin haggling his way to perform on late night TV, with The Weeknd’s talk show appearances being a prominent part of the early After Hours marketing, most notably in the “short film”. This idea of isolated and compressed urbanites recurs throughout After Hours and it’s films. https://preview.redd.it/egap17ttdt261.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=1aab204ac0845a7df74ceeff6d1f714274f9ace0 The idea of urban repression is in the subway scene of the After Hours short film. The entire film itself is something of a reference to the subway scene to Possession (another Gaspar Noe favorite), mimicking the (also subway set) scene in which Isabelle Adjani’s Anna convulses on the subway due to a miscarriage, as well as Jacob’s Ladder, a 90s cult classic horror film starring Tim Robbins as a Vietnam vet (like Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle) who is experiencing demonic hallucinations, encountering them in the subway and later at a party he attends, splitting the scene into two. https://preview.redd.it/g53copgmct261.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=9d29e368ae695d295b36039e86125ccfd7b4eb88 Las Vegas As always, The Weeknd once again grounds After Hours with a strong sense of place, this time setting the album against a nocturnal odyssey through Las Vegas. One of the most prominent films is Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Terry Gilliam’s adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s book. This is directly referenced in the "Heartless" video, which sees The Weeknd and Metro Boomin in the Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro roles as they tumble through a Las Vegas casino. The Weeknd has gone on the record to state that the famous red suit character was influenced by Sammy Davis Jr.’s character in the film Poor Devil. However, similar red suit has also been sported by a number of Vegas characters, most notably Richard Pryor and Robert De Niro’s Sam Rothstein in Martin Scorsese’s Casino. With the red suit, The Weeknd seems to be playing with the idea of a devil-ish other, another side of his personality that emerges in Las Vegas. https://preview.redd.it/gjow6hq2dt261.png?width=1992&format=png&auto=webp&s=10a379bc26df54af88064bf64813d5cdd29775d9 While the city lights are the oft discussed part of part of Las Vegas, it should be noted that similar to Beauty Behind the Madness, the desert that surrounds Las Vegas is just as important to the juxtaposition of its beauty. The "Until I Bleed Out" video ends/"Snowchild" video in the desert, similar to the confrontation between Robert De Niro’s and Joe Pesci’s showdown in the desert in Casino, as well as Joe Pesci's death in Goodfellas. The idea of a hedonistic desert playground also bears semblance to Westworld, both the film and the TV show. The desert seems to represent some sort of freedom to The Weeknd, as the "Snowchild" video portrays the desert as a pensive location for reflection, as well as the "In Your Eyes" video showing the girl prominently dancing with the dismembered head out in the open, in reference to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, another prominent desert film. https://preview.redd.it/98ec10wxct261.png?width=1168&format=png&auto=webp&s=45e29aa361fa41ff74e2a6017e203015bdcbc6c3 New York/The Safdies Despite it’s Las Vegas setting, After Hours also takes a good amount from films set in New York, most notably Martin Scorsese’s 1983 film After Hours. Besides the title, After Hours is similarly about a twisting and turning nighttime odyssey. The film stars Griffin Dunne as Paul, a working class stiff who heads downtown to rendezvous with a woman he met at a diner earlier that night. Of course, things don’t turn out the way they should, chaos ensues, and Paul is set on a dangerous trek back uptown. Like the film, the album After Hours is set off by a woman (though the album takes more stock in romantic endeavors), seems to be set over a single night (or at least a condensed period of time), and involves similar chaos and misadventures (sirens at night at the end of Faith). Tonally, After Hours the film is more comedic perhaps than After Hours the album, however The Weeknd is on the record as having said that "Heartless" and "Blinding Lights" placement on the album is intended to be somewhat comedic, reflecting exaggerated machismo and ecstasy, respectively (to comedic effect). https://preview.redd.it/f3w7yz4pdt261.png?width=1346&format=png&auto=webp&s=fe7e4f003987fd843020a42a5b53f94092984267 Another of the most prominent filmmakers of After Hours are the Safdies, who featured The Weeknd in Uncut Gems. They also served as a link to Oneohtrix Point Never, who scored their last two films and later worked After Hours. I believe there are three major film tropes (not genres) that inspired After Hours, all of which the Safdies’s have engaged with. There is the one-long-night films, in which a character spends one-long-night on the run from whatever chaos and forces may be that they left in their path. This can be seen in the Good Time, as well as After Hours (the movie). Then, there is the descent-into-madness type, where a character slowly loses grip with reality and ends up in over their head (something like Scarface or Breaking Bad, but for our purposes Jacob’s Ladder can be categorized here as well), which the Safdies did with Uncut Gems. Lastly, but maybe most importantly, the Safdies also explored toxic romance (more on this later) in their less seen film Heaven Knows What, about two heroin addicts and the destructiveness their love brings out in each other, an idea that recurs throughout After Hours on songs like "Until I Bleed Out" and "Nothing Compares." A recurring song throughout Heaven Knows What is Isao Tomita’s synth version of Debussy’s "Claire De Lune", which is featured in some episodes of Memento Mori and bears some resemblance to the start of "Alone Again". https://preview.redd.it/em255b5qdt261.png?width=1344&format=png&auto=webp&s=a5226c9496d0ae5c14b6d6c05e16f5ea18678a9a Obsession/Toxic Romance While love and lust and the ups and downs with it have been a formative part of The Weeknd’s ideology and themes, I don’t think it would be remiss to say that After Hours is perhaps his most outwardly romantic album. Despite this, one of the major arcs of the album is toxicity that comes with it, which a number of already mentioned films deal with. While "In Your Eyes" is one of the more romantic and accessible songs on the album, a re-assessment of it Ala Sting’s “Every Breathe You Take” could frame it as lonely obsessing, such as Travis Bickle’s infatuation with Jodie Foster’s teenage prostitute Iris, Joker's fixation on Murray Franklin, Rupert Pupkin’s obsession with Jerry Langford. Casino also deals with toxic romance, another prominent theme in After Hours, best seen in the love triangle that forms between Sam, his partner Nicky and his wife Ginger, played by Joe Pesci and Sharon Stone respectively. https://preview.redd.it/eq1ioijvdt261.png?width=898&format=png&auto=webp&s=f9e4b781ee60762ae767c4dbd92066357ebc24b0 In almost all of the After Hours’s video content, The Weeknd seems to constantly meet his demise at the hands of women. Another interesting reference that may be something of a reach is to Phantom Thread, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film about Reynolds Woodcock, a couture dressmaker loosely based on Cristobal Balenciaga and his muse Alma, played by Daniel Day Lewis and Vicky Krieps, respectively. The film delves into their dysfunctional relationship, with Woodcock berating her and Alma poisoning his tea to keep him dependent on her. One of the highpoint of the film is a New Years Eve Party that bears strong resemblance to the "Until I Bleed Out" video. While the balloons may just be a callback to his earlier work, there is something about the color grading/temperature and the production design of the "Until I Bleed Out" video (as well as parts of the "Blinding Lights" video) that made me immediately think of Phantom Thread. A similar relationship is seen in the German horror film Der Fan, which The Weeknd has mentioned in a recent interview. In Der Fan, a young girl Simone spends her days obsessing over popstar R, until she finally encounters him outside his studio. The film is similar to the aforementioned Takashi Miike’s Audition in its exploration of obsession and idealization. In the film, an older man puts up a fake casting call to search for the perfect girlfriend. While Audition explores these themes from an Eastern perspective of societal pressure, Der Fan explores it through a Western lens of pop idolization and idealization. Both films deal with the idea that despite outward appearances, the perfect partner does not exist, and anyone that claims to be (or has the expectations put on them) is not who they seem. https://preview.redd.it/3m661q62et261.png?width=1342&format=png&auto=webp&s=c9377018cb53f67cf7ce95b24392afb471e4aec1 One film he has spoken at length about is Trouble Everyday, Claire Denis’s arthouse vampire movie. The film stars Vincent Gallo as Shane, a scientist who travels to Paris under the guise of his honeymoon to track down core, a woman who he was once obsessed with who has now become a vampire. Core is locked up in a basement but sometimes sneaks out to seduce and consume unwilling victims. This seems to be where some of the bloody face stuff comes from, but I believe it’s influence is a little more conceptual. To me, a good companion film to Trouble Everyday is American Psycho, which seems to also have been a thematic influence on After Hours. Both films concern idealized version of masculinity and femininity, both very sexual and physical, but hostile as well. American Psycho ends with Patrick Bateman confessing to the killing of a prostitute, but no one believe him. Trouble Everyday ends with Shane killing Core, but Shane is unable to arouse himself after that except through violence. Koji Wakamatsu, a former Yakuza turned prominent extreme Japanese filmmaker (and a major influence on Gaspar Noe) is quoted as saying “For me, violence, the body and sex are an integral part of life.” Despite being hollow, idealized impressions of the self, a vampire and as a banker (cold, seductive bloodsuckers = monsters), Patrick Bateman and Core represent the Frankenstein-ian relationship between sexuality and violence, which I believe is the main theme of After Hours. Truly, we hurt the ones we love. https://preview.redd.it/zfllbd83et261.png?width=900&format=png&auto=webp&s=9c048ee98d86d7bbb9db67fa8302d34c36214c4f
Postscript
To cap things off, I would just like to illuminate some key takeaways. As a filmmaker myself, this has been an extremely helpful exercise in understanding other artists process and ideas. Steeped in the history of the medium… It’s clear that The Weeknd is not your typical “I’m influenced by cinema” artist but an extremely legit film buff with serious credentials. The Weeknd’s film taste leans towards 70s-00s genre works, mostly horror, drama and thriller, and is well versed in the classics but also has the nose to sniff out deeper cuts and obscurities. The mantra of “good artists borrow, great artists steal” works even better if not many people know where you’re stealing from! What is impressive to me is that he is not just versed in “mainstream” obscurities, but also serious deep cuts. Films like Possession and Phantom of the Paradise may not stick out to the average person on the street but are well known in most film circles. Films like Inland Empire and New Rose Hotel (Der Fan was especially impressive to me, it is one of my favorite films) however are not as well known and it is very impressive to me that he can come across films like that, and really get enough out of it to bring into his own work. …is able to interpolate contemporary/mainstream films… This perhaps is one of the most impressive aspects of his integration of film into The Weeknd’s work. It is very easy for film buffs to get lost within their own obscure taste, living in a world where everyone is an idiot for not knowing who Shinya Tsukamoto. Trilogy and Kiss Land had a lot of contemporary obscurities, like Stalker, David Lynch etc., well known but they still existed as artifacts, not of the time we live in. However, perhaps picking something from his work on Fifty Shades of Grey, of late he has kept his finger on the zeitgeist and anticipated/integrated what the filmmakers of today are doing, such as his work on Black Panther and Game of Thrones, general appreciation of Tarantino, the works of Nicolas Winding Refn in Starboy, and his use of the Joker and Uncut Gems on After Hours, both of which came out just a few months before the album. It feels Jackson-esque, and I believe this is one thing that will help him further in his quest for pop stardom. …while also being fully in tune to the works of modern transgressive auteurs… In addition to keeping up with the mainstream is in touch with, The Weeknd also makes it a point to seek out and learn from the cutting edge filmmakers of today. While the Safdies were always going to blow up, I don’t doubt that a Weeknd co-sign accelerated their rise. Gaspar Noe is one thing, Enter the Void and Irreversible exist as masterpieces of the mainstream obscurities I’ve been mentioning, but he really truly tries to understand the heart of Noe’s work, even going so far back as to understand Noe’s influences (I sincerely hope he is tuned in to the work of Koji Wakamatsu). But most of all, to be a fan of Claire Denis is one thing, but to seek her out and make her an offer that she ACCEPTED is absolutely astounding to me. Just spitballing but it would be like if Michael Jackson shot a music video with Rainer Werner Fassbinder (who I’d bet good money that The Weeknd was put on to by Noe). We can only PRAY that one day we will be blessed with a David Lynch Weeknd video. --------------------------- …and that just about does it. Hope you enjoyed this and thanks for being patient with me. I got quite busy after the first two and had my own projects/work going that kept me occupied. As we’re still technically in the After Hours era, I also wanted to wait until a few more videos and interviews came out to aid me in my research. I also wanted to find enough time to make the Letterboxd for this. I personally don’t love Letterboxd culture, I find the popular culture surrounding the site a bit snobbish and exclusive, but I’ve gotten a number of requests for one and you gotta give the people what they want. Throughout the list are a few films that he hasn’t mentioned but are some of my personal favorites and I believe Weeknd fans will like, I encourage you to accidentally stumble upon things on it. Don't overthink, just pick something and watch! If you’d like to follow me further, you can find me on Instagram here, where I post about film reviews Letterboxd style. I prefer Instagram so that more average people see it instead of an echo chamber of film snobs. I am also a filmmaker myself, I just recently wrapped this short film and am currently in the process of putting together my next project. The main reason I did this however, besides a general appreciation of The Weeknd’s work, was to put more people on to the beautiful art form that is cinema. One thing I learned from Scorsese is that one must be an advocate and truly champion your medium. I hope that this encourages to check out more interesting movies than they wouldn’t normally come across, and I hope this will inspire more people to create more as well, whether it be to write, make films, music, anything. If even one person picks up a pencil, a camera or a keyboard because of these posts, I will be satisfied. Thanks all!
[TOMT] [MOVIE] Movie where someone (circa 80s) throws a huge party outside and it shows a quick clip of this Hispanic dude with a big pile of coke and he rubs it on his lips/teeth
I don't have much more information. I'm thinking Robert De Niro or Al Pacino was in it, but I've looked through their movies and I can't seem to find anything that would fit this. It's not Casino, but it's a movie that I think may be similar to it. It takes place in the 80s I presume, I remember another scene where a guy whips out some coke and does a line in front of someone else in the office of a disco studio or something like that. I also remember near the end of the movie, two guys are sitting next to each other in chairs in their mansion and talking about how it's over, their scheme or something is up. I know this is very vague, and I appreciate any insight. I saw clips of it on TV awhile back, and I've wanted to watch it since, but I don't know what the title is.
I'm going through a binge run of sorts of Martin Scorsese films that I haven't seen that are leaving Netflix soon:
Mean Streets
Taxi Driver
Cape Fear
The others that I've seen previously are:
Goodfellas
The Departed
Shutter Island
Wolf of Wall Street
The Irishman
I'm mentioning this just to give you an idea of what films I've seen of his. My favorite although I haven't seen it in a while was Shutter Island. I'm noticing that at least 4 of the films I've seen are crime/mafia related. And I think a few others I haven't seen may touch on the genre: Casino and Gangs of New York. He's made 25 full-length films so let's say 6 out of 25 are crime related. The reason I point this out is that as I was watching some and thinking back on some of these films, I can't help but think of actors that are typecast for certain roles. I'm not sure if there's an equivalent for directors. But I have a strong association with crime films and Martin Scorsese. Any idea what motivated him to make films that touch on a similar genre? Keep in mind, I might not be making a fair assessment and maybe he's a bit known for his non-crime films. The films I've seen recently are much fresher in my mind than the others, but I noticed there's a certain pattern to how scenes are filmed. There's just this super close up to the main character that he often does. I feel like I've seen Robert DeNiro up close too much. In some ways, I found it a bit distracting. I don't think this is particularly something only he does as a director. It's just something I noticed in his earlier films. Anyone who's watched his films thoughout the years as they've come out, have you noticed a particular change to his style of filming? Or would you say that he's pretty adaptable and changes things up based on the story? He does seem to really enjoy playing with lighting depending on what's happening in the scene. Taxi Driver really captured this I thought especially in the dark gritty New York that's shown. It's been a while but I vaguely remember a similar play on lighting in Shutter Island. And just one aside, but why did he have Robert DeNiro kiss a young Juliette Lewis in Cape Fear? In the movie she's 16 which was disturbing enough. Left me quite uncomfortable. Then I had to look into it further because she looked really young. In real life she had turned 18 yrs old on June 21 and the film released November 15 meaning she was potentially underage when that scene was shot. Anyways this may all seem a bit all over the place. What I was hoping to get is to generate some discussion as to what others like or dislike about his films and why you think he's been so successful?
Robert De Niro In Goodfellas and The GodFather Copocabana - nightclub in Goodfellas Cabbage Taxi - in Taxi Driver Roulette wheel- in Casino 26 on wheel- Received lifetime achievement award during 26th Screen Actors Guild Awards Anchor- in Men of Honor White House - Wag the Dog Canadian bacon- apologized to Canada for Trump Pizza reference- Italian decent Frank- if Jenny is right about the number clue, he played Frank in the Irishman (also worked with Francis Ford Coppola - Coppola often seen in a bow tie) Soup- opened soup kitchen in Bronx Dance- Homage to the De Niro dance in Stardust 900 - reference to 1900 often listed as '900 in Italian Red hall/room with only lights and curtain - movie Red Lights Red backpack- the movie the Bag Man, character Rivka wears a red bustier Cheese- well known scene where De Niro orders apple pie with melted cheese in Taxi Driver in reference to Ed Gein Wine- De Niro is a winery in Italy Guitar- paintings by his father called Studio Interior with Guitar Case and Still Life with Guitar, Torso, and Two Vases; also song by Banarama "Robert De Niro's Waiting"; De Niro holds the guitar in photos with members of Queen for "We Will Rock You" musical that De Niro's company produced Payphone- famous scene in Goodfellas with slamming the pay phone when Tommy is killed 6a on clock- he has 6 kids
Just rewatched Jackie Brown... I personally think it is Tarantino’s best movie.
Among all of Tarantino’s work, I feel like Jackie Brown always flies under the radar. After Once Upon A Time came out, I looked at lots of people ranking Tarantino films and Jackie Brown always seemed to be low. After rewatching it, I cannot understand why. This is the only Tarantino movie with an adapted screenplay, from Elmore Leonard’s Rum Punch, and I believe the movie benefits from it. A lot of Tarantino movies to me feel like a bunch of great scenes stitched together, whereas this movie has much more of a plot consistently present. It feels a lot more oriented towards reaching an end goal. I also love the way this movie is about old people. At its root, it’s a movie about old people falling in love. It’s something you don’t really see in A-list movies (apart from the Irishman which was also about old people). The romance between Jackie and Max Cherry always seems believable, and it truly feels like it could be each character’s last chance of finding love. Robert Forster brings a real honestly to the Max character, which adds a lot to their romance. The acting is really good too. Everybody shines in their roles. The first time I watched this movie, I felt like De Niro was wasted. Watching it again, I thought he was great. It’s such a departure from the roles he usually played around the late 90s, coming off of Ronin, Casino, and Heat. He fits the role of a stoner lazy guy well past his prime so well in his limited screen time. His whole interaction with Melanie towards the end of the film is great. SLJ is great too, and I loved how menacing he was despite the stakes in the movie not being too high. Yeah, $500K is a lot of money, but at the end of the day, his character isn’t as big of a deal as he thinks he is. All in all, I have almost no complaints with this movie. The pacing feels good throughout, the soundtrack is great (esp Across 110th St), the acting is great, and the dialogue still feels sharp as it is written by Tarantino. Anybody else feel this way and think it should be higher rated? I think maybe people expected something crazier or grander when this came out, as it was Tarantino’s first movie after Pulp Fiction. Last thing: I really enjoy movies based on Elmore Leonard novels. Get Shorty with John Travolta is really good. And I really recommend Out of Sight, starring George Clooney and JLo, directed by Steven Soderbergh. That movie is so much fun and has all the hallmarks of a Soderbergh movie.
Rotten Tomatoes: 100% (8.97 in average rating) with 41 reviews
Critics consensus: An epic gangster drama that earns its extended runtime, The Irishman finds Martin Scorsese revisiting familiar themes to poignant, funny, and profound effect.
Metacritic: 92/100 (23 critics) "must-see" As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie.
De Niro’s always at his best in the context of a Scorsese-mandated tough-guy routine, and Frank Sheeran gives the actor his most satisfying lead role in years. Sheeran appears in virtually every scene, and the story belongs to his colorful worldview the entire time. He may be an aging man telling tall tales, but that puts him in the same category as the one behind the camera. Sheeran, however, lost touch with his world long before he left it. With “The Irishman,” Scorsese proves he’s more alive than ever.
Despite the movie's many pleasures and Scorsese's redoubtable directorial finesse, the excessive length ultimately is a weakness. Attempts to build in social context during the Kennedy and Nixon years, at times intercutting news footage from the period, aren't substantial enough to add much in terms of texture. The connections drawn between politics and organized crime feel undernourished, and the movie works best when it remains tightly focused on the three central figures of Frank, Russell and Jimmy. Netflix should be commended for providing one of our most celebrated filmmakers the opportunity to revisit narrative turf adjacent to some of his best movies. But the feeling remains that the material would have been better served by losing an hour or more to run at standard feature length, or bulking up on supporting-character and plot detail to flesh out a series.
Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” is a coldly enthralling, long-form knockout — a majestic Mob epic with ice in its veins. It’s the film that, I think, a lot us wanted to see from Scorsese: a stately, ominous, suck-in-your-breath summing up, not just a drama but a reckoning, a vision of the criminal underworld that’s rippling with echoes of the director’s previous Mob films, but that also takes us someplace bold and new.
And the big ticket world premiere at this festival is its opening-night film, The Irishman, a nearly three-and-a-half-hour gangster epic from New York’s own hero, Martin Scorsese. The Irishman is less literal about its meta moodiness than Pain & Glory is, but it still speaks disarmingly quiet volumes about what the autumn of life might mean for its creator.
For much of its duration, The Irishman covers familiar ground but is slickly entertaining, if a little repetitive in the third hour. There’s an almost meta-maturity, as if Scorsese is also looking back on his own career, the film leaving us with a haunting reminder not to glamorise violent men and the wreckage they leave behind.
Ultimately, “The Irishman” is a major success for Scorsese—not only does it incorporate the best aspects of his past crime dramas and their thrilling energy, but it adds context to those films and wrestles with their legacy resonantly. In a way, “The Irishman” fills in the gaps between “Goodfellas” and “Casino” to tell the overall story of the mob’s rise and fall in postwar America, but it does so while anchored to one man’s story and morality. The law never catches up to Sheeran—not for the real damning stuff anyway— but as Scorsese demonstrates with profound solemnity, he cannot outrun his conscience.
Nothing this misshapen ever flies—Scorsese once managed to make a movie called The Aviator that was similarly overburdened—yet his all-over-the-place enthusiasm plays nicely against the material’s death stench. Tidy as it may be to expect, Scorsese doesn’t need to cap his career with a sign-off to the gangster epic; that would be way too sentimental for him. What The Irishman does become, in its final hour, is something better, a film about broken trust, to family and God. De Niro’s Sheeran, like the monks of Scorsese’s magnificent Silence, wrecked by spiritual compromise, can't express his pain. This may not be why the average fan comes to a Marty movie, but it’s the statement this director, now 76, feels like making. After so much brilliance, Scorsese is being too hard on himself (maybe this review is too), but when The Irishman is about doubt, it’s as personal as it gets.
People will want to see The Irishman because of De Niro, Pesci, and Pacino all in a mob movie again, directed by Martin Scorsese. And, boy, yes, that’s there. In the scenes where they are younger, the de-aging is … pretty good. I’d say the best I’ve seen so far. But it’s one of those things that if you stare at it, yes, you can see the imperfections – especially when De Niro or Pesci are acting alongside, say, a non-de-aged Ray Romano. But you do get used to it. And the way I look at this is, well, this is the small price to pay to get all these actors together again to tell this story. To star in Martin Scorsese’s phenomenal film about the price we all pay for our sins of youth … even if you or I didn’t kill Jimmy Hoffa. The Irishman is terrific and Netflix got their money’s worth.
As much as they take special care to tell the audience that their characters are rotten to the core, Goodfellas and Casino and another spiritual relative, The Wolf Of Wall Street, have been misunderstood as glorifications; it’s an inevitable consequence, perhaps, of following ugly men with occasionally glamorous lives. Scorsese takes no such chances with The Irishman, a crime epic that pushes further forward in time than most, to a truly ignoble end. Eventually, it reminds us, we’re all just fitting ourselves for coffins.
The film – at three hours and 19 minutes – never flags. The Irishman may not be as groundbreaking as Mean Streets or Taxi Driver, but then again, what is?
Scorsese is so adept at storytelling, and his cast is so unbelievable, that the film, which clocks in at 209 minutes — even longer than The Return of the King and Avengers: Endgame — barely feels its length. The Irishman feels more like being caught in a dream or reminiscence, with all the tenderness we’re willing to afford in those in-between hours. Only Scorsese and his assembled cast, not to mention longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker, could bring that all into reality.
Some may balk at the 209-minute runtime, but there’s never a moment where this story drags. Indeed, the three-plus hours practically fly by, because we’re so swept up in this decades-long journey. There’s not a single second wasted here, because one gets the sense that all the characters are hanging on for dear life – literally. As the years tick on, and their bodies fail them, The Irishman‘s main players find themselves closer and closer to oblivion.
Five decades is a lot of history to hold together, and it could have easily crumbled. Remember “Gotti”? But Scorsese is at the top of his game here. His film is never boring, and it explores some unexpectedly deep themes for mafiosos.
There is no arguing that The Irishman is a masterpiece. It is Scorsese revisiting themes seen in his past work with new elements of excitement, despair, and wit. The great performances and incredible filmmaking make this fictionalized tale of Frank Sheeran a story to end the decade, one that has seen many changes within the film industry — and hopefully introducing a new era of Martin Scorsese.
For the first two and a half hours of its three-and-a-half-hour runtime, The Irishman is clever and entertaining, to the point where you may think that’s all it’s going to be. But its last half-hour is deeply moving in a way that creeps up on you, and it’s then that you see what Scorsese was working toward all along.
Scorsese is probably the last big-budget filmmaker who mostly declines to tell the audience what to think, much less boldface and underline why he’s telling us a story about self-serving criminals and whether he personally condemns them. “The Irishman” doesn’t break with that tradition. The opportunity to sit with the movie later is the main reason to see it. For all its borderline-vaudevillian verbal humor and occasional eruptions of ultraviolence (often done in a single take, and shot from far away) it feels like as much of a collection of thought prompts and images of contemplation as Scorsese’s somber religious epics “The Last Temptation of Christ,” “Kundun” and “Silence.” God is as tight-lipped as Frank.
-Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com: 3.5/4 DIRECTOR Martin Scorsese WRITER Steven Zaillian CINEMATOGRAPHY Rodrigo Prieto EDITOR Thelma Schoonmaker Release date: November 1, 2019 (limited theatrical release) November 27, 2019 (Netflix) Budget: $159,000,000 STARRING
The Irishman is a masterpiece and is nothing like Goodfellas or Casino (which are also masterful, of course).
The Irishman is one of Scorsese’s best works. A brilliant corrective to the gangster film. This is a necessary postmortem on the romance with gangsterism in the 20th Century. It’s incredibly compelling how hollowed out and drained of any human interest De Niro’s character is. This is not what we have come to expect from movie characters. These are people completely emptied out of their souls. We have never seen Scorsese explore these particular themes in this milieu. He hasn’t plumbed such depths of redemption in this world. What redemption is, what it even means to Sheeran (De Niro’s character) and the viewer for that matter. The Irishman is based on a subjective account. One man’s perception, and memories. That being the case, the de-aging is very effective. It’s how memories work after all. You remember people as young and as old all at the same time. It works as memory does, not giving us the exact age of a character or giving us an exact date in time. We are encouraged to look for signs of aging and decline. The film is brilliantly structured and edited. Unlike the more muscular, sweeping visuals and style of Goodfellas and Casino, The Irishman has a subdued approach. The assuredness of Scorsese’s craft is very apparent in the steady gaze of the film. Sheeran’s incidents and misdeeds pile up with precision, rapidity and clarity until the film comes to a complete halt in the breakfast scene between Sheeran and Bufalino. Before this is an exquisite scene involving Hoffa speaking at a teamsters event. The scene is a masterclass in building paranoia between characters in a room. Once the film halts the audience finally feels the descent that has been taking place. The climactic passages of the film are marvelously pared down. The directing; the style; the tone; the performances; the themes explored and the degree to which they are explored are all very different from Goodfellas and Casino. Even the superficial elements like the cinematography are very different. The necessary weariness is present instead of the buoyancy of those earlier films. The Irishman is a beautiful film, and a devastating one.
Maybe this is a hot take, or maybe this is as vanilla as missionary. I don't know. But I want to preface this by saying that I love "Goodfellas," and I enjoy watching clips of "Casino" all the time on YouTube. Al Pacino is probably my second favorite actor (Denzel wins top honors from me), and I respect DeNiro. Also, Pesci coming back is really cool. That said, "The Irishman" was definitely not a masterpiece. Don't get me wrong, it was a great movie. And for someone who loves gangstemafioso movies it was a wet dream. But looking back on it from a technical standpoint it left me wanting more. The soundtrack felt very limited. Remember that track that played when Bugs choked out the guy in the car (Da da da da, da da da da, daaaaaaaa)? I'm a huge proponent of recycling but this felt criminally overused. Also, keeping track of exactly where we are sequentially was a mess at times. This is largely due to the limitations of the de-aging software used, but it is still something worth noting. Funnily enough, the DeNiro beatdown travesty went unnoticed by me on first watch. I don't think that it was that big of a deal. Sometimes the scenes felt disjointed. I can't give any specifics now, but instead of feeling like each scene seamlessly transitioned into the next, the flow felt, at times, comparable to a Flip-o-Rama. Ultimately, it was definitely a solid movie, and it was certainly enjoyable for what it was. Despite my remarks, it was one of my all time favorites. That said, it was certainly no masterpiece.
Goodfellas turns 30 this year! Here are 40 interesting pieces of fact and trivia about the classic mob movie
You can check out a video version of this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OQkxioCNrw&t=3s 1 The first scene shot in the film was Morrie’s wig commercial, directed by Stephen R Pacca, who owned a window replacement company and directed and ran a similar ad in New York City that Scorsese was inspired by 2 When Jimmy is handing out money to everyone, Robert De Niro, ever the perfectionist, didn’t like how the fake money felt in is hands. He wanted real cash to be used, so the props master gave De Niro $5000 of his own money. No one was permitted to leave the set at the end of each take until the money was returned to the props man and counted. 3 Sticking with De Niro being a sticker for authenticity, according to the real-life Henry Hill, the protagonist of the movie, De Niro would phone him 7 or 8 times a day, wanting to discuss minute details of his character, even ow he would hold his cigarettes. 4 The classic Funny how scene is based on an occurrence which actually happened to Joe Pesci. When he was working in a restaurant years ago, he complimented a gangster by telling him he was funny, but the remark was met with a less than impressed response. Pesci told this to Scorsese, who implemented it into the film, and the scene was directed by Pesci himself and not included in the shooting script of the film, meaning his and Ray Liotta’s interactions would elicit genuine reactions from the supporting cast. 5 Henry Hill said that Joe Pesci’s portrayal of Tommy was 90 to 99% accurate. The only exception was that the real Tommy was a much larger and powerfully built man. 6 Veteran actor Al Pacino, who director Martin Scorsese wanted to work with for years and who he would later work with in The Irishman, was offered the role of Jimmy Conway. Pacino turned it down, for fear of being typecast as a gangster actor. He would go on to regret this decision. 7 Much has been made about real life mob involvement in the making of Goodfellas, from Robert De Niro attempting to contact the real-life Jimmy Burk, to Scorsese hiring background actors with real life mafia connections, such as Tony Sirico, who would later find fame playing Paulie Walnuts in The Sopranos. According to Nicholas Pileggi, author of the book Wiseuy upon which Goodfellas is based, there were several mobsters hired as extras in order to add authenticity to the film. They provided the studio with fake social security numbers, and as such it is unknown how they were paid. 8 Ray Liotta’s mother died whilst the movie was being filmed, and Liotta used his emotions over his mother’s death in his performance, most notably in the scene where he pistol whips another man. 9 When Joe Pesci’s mother saw the film, his real life mother, she liked it, but questioned her son if he had to swear so much. 5 years later in Casino Catherine Scorsese, who played Pesci’s mother in Goodfellas, complains to her son in Casino about swearing too much. 10 The painting of the two dogs and the man in the boat that Pesci’s mother in the film paints was actually painted by Nicholas Pileggi 11 The Lufthansa heist, which plays a major part of the movie, did not have its case solved and closed until 2014, and most of the surviving participants were arrested. 12 When Henry Kill is introducing mobsters to us in the bar, one of them is a character named Fat Andy. This character is played by Louis Eppolito, Eppolito was at the time a former NYPD detective whose father, uncle and cousin were in the mob. 15 years after the release of Goodfellas, Eppolito, along with his police partner, were arrested and charged with racketeering, obstruction of justice, extorsion, and up to 8 murders. They were both given life sentences, with an added 80 years each. 13 The F word and its derivatives are used 321 times in the film, at an average of 2.04 per minute, and almost half of them are said by Joe Pesci. At the time it was made, Goodfellas held the record for the most amount of profanity in a single film. 14 The scene where the three main characters eat with Tommy’s mother was almost completely improvised by the cast, including Tommy asking his mother if he could borrow a butcher’s knife and Jimmy’s remark about the animal’s hoof. Scorsese did not tell his mother tat Pesci’s character had just violently beaten a man, only that he was home for dinner and that she was to cook for them. 15 The real life Jimmy, along with Paulie whose death is mentioned in the film, also died in prison in 1996. He would have been eligible for parole in 2004. 16 Paul Sorvino wanted to drop out of the role as Paulie just three days before filming was schedule to start, as he felt he lack the cold personality to play the role correctly. After phoning his agent and asking him to release in from the film, his agent told him to think it over for a while. Later that night, Sorvino was practicing in the mirror and made a face that even frightened himself, and he was convinced that he would be able to play the role. 17 According to film legend, the real life Jimmy Burke was so trilled that Robert De Niro was playing him in the movie, that he phoned up De Niro from prison and gave him advice. This is something denied by Nicolas Pileggi 18 Even though Joe Pesci was in his fourties during the filming of Goodfellas, the real life inspiration for his character was in his 20 when the events of the film took place. Scorsese was initially concerned with Pesci being too old to play the role of Tommy, and Pesci sent him a video of him walking 19 Nicolas Pileggi spoke to Henry Hill throughout the script writing process, and he says much of the voice over narration in the film are almost exact quotes from Liotta himself 20 According to Debi Mazar, Henry Hill’s girlfriend in the film, when she trips after meeting Henry she actually tripped over the camera’s dolly track. Scorsese kept it in the film because it looked like her character was overwhelmed by Henry. 21 One of the daughters of Ray Liotta and Lorraine Bracco’s characters, the one too shy to give Paulie a kiss when he visits their home, is actually the daughter of Harvey Keitel, with whom Braco had the child. 22 In order to better get into character, when driving to and from the set Ray Liotta would often listen to tapes of interviews Pileggi had with the real Henry Hill. Liotta noted that Hill spoke casually of murders and other serious crimes whilst eating potato chips. 23 After seeing the film, Henry Hill thanked Liotta for not making him look like an asshole. Ray Liotta response was to think to himself “did you even watch the movie?” 24 The famous long take of the Copacabana took just 7 to 8 takes to get right 25 Henry Hill’s life after he went into the witness protection program was adapted into a movie released the same year as Goodfellas – called My Blue Heaven. Nicholas Pilei’s wife wrote the script for the film. 26 According to Scorsese, legendary actor Marlon Brando attempted to persuade him to not make the movie. 27 The real life Henry Hill was paid around half a million dollars for the movie. 28 Robert De Niro was offered the roles of both Jimmy and Tommy. He chose the former. 29 Despite it’s status as a classic, Goodfellas only won one Oscar. And its winner, Joe Pesci, was so surprised, that his winning speech was one of the shortest in Oscar history, simply saying, “it’s my privilege, thank you” 30 Frank Vincent, the man who plays Billy Batts and is beaten and stabbed to death by Joe Pesci, and who also starred with Pesci in two other Scorsese films – Ragin Bull and Casino - actually has a long history with Pesci. The two used to be bandmates and a comedy duo in the late 60s. They also starred in the low budget 1976 mafia film The Death Colelctor, where they were spotted by Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese, and eventually hired for their roles in Raging Bull. 31 The producer’s original choices for the roles of Henry and Karen were Tom Cruise and Madonna. 32 Paul Sorvini improvised the slap that his character gives Henry in the scene where Paulie confronts Henry about drug dealing 33 In the original shooting script of the film, the Billy Batts shinebox scene was the very first scene in the film, followed by the dinner at Tommy’s mother’s house. Then Liotta would say the phrase “As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a gangster” and the movie would show his youth and growing up. 34 Early screenings of Goodfellas were met with poor reception. According to Pileggi, one screening had around 70 people walk out, and in another the film’s team had to hide at a local bowling alley as a result of an audience angry at the film’s level of violence. 35 In spite of the film’s violent reputation, there are only 5 on screen deaths 36 When Spider is shot by Tommy, Michael Imperioli broke a glass in his hand and had to be rushed to hospital. But when he got there, the doctors attempted to treat his apparent gunshot wound. When the actor revealed what his real injury was, he was made to wait for 3 hours in the emergency room. Scorsese told Imperioli that he would tell this story one day on the tonight show with Jay Leno, a prediction which cam true in 2000. 37 US attorney Edward McDonald, the fed who explains the ins and outs of the witness protection programme to Henry Hill and his wife, is actually playing himself in this scene, re-enacting the conversation he had with the real Henry Hill. McDonald volunteered to play the role and won a screen test when Scorsese was location scouting his office as a possible filming location. 38 The movie ends with Henry in the witness protection program, but after the film’s release, as a result of violating his terms and conditions, including going around and telling people who he was, Henry Hill was thrown out of the programme. 39 Henry requests that he isn’t sent anywhere cold when g egos into the programme. In the ending of the film, he picks up a newspaper for Youngstown in Ohio, a place which has below freezing temperaturs in winter, suggesting that Henry’s wish was not granted. 40 The film’s ending, where Joe Pesci fires several bullets staring at the camera, is a homage to the landmark 1903 short film The Great Train Robbery, widely considered one of the first narrative pictures. Scorsese saw his movie as part of a tradition of outlaws in American pop culture and noted that, in spite of the fact tat the two films are separated by almost a century, according to the man himself, “they’re essentially the same story.”
CMV: De Niro and Pesci are a better, more iconic duo than De Niro and Pachino
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino are often paired as being a "classic" gangster Duo, but outside of Godfather Part II (where they share maybe one scene), Heat (where they're enemies) and Righteous Kill (which is terrible), the only film where they're a key duo is The Irishman. On the other hand, De Niro is paired with Pesci in such fantastic, classic films as Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Casino, along with smaller pairings in Once Upon A Time in America and A Bronx Tale. Like De Niro and Pacino, De Niro and Pesci are a key duo in The Irishman. Overall, for as much as people love to pair De Niro and Pacino, De Niro and Pesci are a far more classic duo.
There is a scene in Casino where Sam Rothstein fires Don Ward, the Slots Manager, after three people win jackpots over the course of 20 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcZHSGyos6g During that scene Robert DeNiro says "I'm firin' you. No, I'm not firing you, I'm firin' you!" After he says that he gives this look that makes me think that he messed up the take and thought they were going to shoot the scene again, but they left that in. Was that scripted or did he actually think he messed up after that line but they just left it in?
There should be a film or mini series adaptation on the Douglas - Tyson fight @ The Mirage. Naturally a phenomenal storyline. Hear me out:
This is a very long shower thought.... Three simultaneous storylines: Buster Douglas, Mike Tyson and the fight itself (with Don King on lead for that). I'm thinking it plays in flashback - wth the fight as the backdrop and both Tyson & Douglas reminiscing on their path as they prep for the bout. Mind you, this is pure Hollywood magic touch up below and not all is accurate.
Buster Douglas: born to badass boxing legend "Dynamite Douglas" that owned a gym in Columbus OH. Trained a few amateurs occasionally.
Teen Buster is old enough to visit his dad at work and his dad tries get him to box as a way to pass down the legend. After training to simply stay in shape, his father signs him up for a fight and doesn't tell him till later while at the same time training Buster, unbeknownst to him. They confront this and Buster can't back out now. Buster ends up winning that fight handily and goes on a win streak. He starts fully appreciating the sport competitively. While his father's training intensifies to a point of frustration. Much friction ensues A string of losses and inconsistent outcomes, including a loss streak after losing the chance for a belt, forces Buster to fire his dad as the trainer. Falling out with father ensues (think silver linings playbook scene with Cooper and De Niro). More friction ensues. Douglas hires new people after struggling mentally to find the drive for a bit. His wife leaves him out of the blue. This further motivates Buster. He starts winning a few fights wth fundamentals and now has a shot at the belt....... against the viscous Mike Tyson in foreign Japan.
Mike Tyson: raised in the hard streets of Bed Stuy and Brownsville, 10y old Mike had a knack for defending others and getting in fights bc of his lisp / voice.
At 16y Mike's mother dies- his driving force and glue. However his temporary assigned guardian is a legendary boxing coach that now owns a gym upstate NY and looking more to life than just the sport. The relationship is very much Karate Kid (Coach gives Mike a simple task disguised as a fundamental stance) - Coach is peaceful like a Yoda and Mike is eager to fight, esp wth the build up of his mother's death. As an amateur he completely destroyed opponents. At 20y he wins the heavyweight with ease and a very inspirational moment to his mother's memory. More wins and fame build up. Mike becomes a pop culture icon with talk shows and interviews, etc (things Mike isn't a fan of). Frustration of this unwanted fame settles in while he nurses a coke and partying habit. Creating a rivalry with Evander Holyfield, he starts to find ways to mess with him while Holyfield disses him back continually. Just one fight stands between. And that one fight happens to be against.......Buster Douglas.
The Fight: cut to an older swanky G, mid 60s and weathered but well dressed male individual. He's a top dawg Vegas bookie. While reading the paper, Bookie notices that it's weeks away from the fight and no other casino is listing the fight for placing wagers, which is highly unusual.
He decides to list the fight at 42-1 odds, unheard of at the time. The other bookmakers knock him (similar to the underdog mentality the other fighters are facing) but he opens the door for others to place wages. "Theres no such thing as a sure thing." One of his clients reaches out and places this bet on Douglas. This client ends up being a friend of Don King. We shift focus to him now. Don King doing eccentric Don King business things to set up this fight, along with all the stipulations while fighting a messy lawsuit and the mob on his back. He's finding ways to squeeze as much out of the deal financially as possible while also pressured by the mob to throw the fight in favor of them making money in Vegas by using our Bookie character to place the bet. Admittedly King, like Tyson, has his sights set on the next fight vs Holyfield and begins to lose sight of what's in front of him.
The Mirage Fight: 7 days leading up the bout. We catch up to find out that Douglas lost his mother and Tyson is continuing his struggles from the point we last left them.
Some pre fight shenanigans to further amplify the importance of Douglas's role while Tyson isn't paying much attention to this. Fight begins - Douglas begins to dominate out of the gate while Tyson finds ways to survive the rounds. Some drama ensues in Tysons corner when it turns out his trainers didn't bring proper equipment for the round breaks since they thought this would be over quick. Tyson claws back and knocks Douglas down but he makes it through. At this point, it's anyones match. The fighters are on their last tick of gas. We enter the 10th round. Everyone is on the edge of their seats - Holyfield, Bookie, the mob, Don King, etc. The bell rings and the fighters begin their gassed assault on each other. Tyson and his body blows. Douglas and his long arm span. Douglas sees a small window and goes for the knock out (in slow motion). We flash back to a moment where Dynamite Douglas is knocking around teenage Buster to a point of anger. Back to the fight - Buster Douglas follows through his punch using that pent up emotion to knock down Tyson. Tyson is down. In his perspective now, we're fading between the ref counting to ten and a memory of Mike being bullied when he was ten. He lets that negative memory get to him just enough for the ref to count to 10 and declaring the fight over. Buster Douglas wins the match. Cut to black. Credits roll wth actual clips of the post fight interviews in the ring on half the screen. Themes of fighting physical and mental demons. Taking advantage of opportunities. Using your emotions to your advantage of success/failure. Importance of father figures. Or something like that... IT'S JUST AN IDEA AND NOT PLAGIARIZING WTH INTENT, ALL PURE COINCIDENCE IF SO. Heres a quick background source in case https://youtu.be/o4rHtSlaHqg
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Joe Pesci and Roberto De Niro greatest Scene Ever - YouTube
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