The Wizard of Lies

Year 12, Day 18 - 1/18/20 - Movie #3,418

BEFORE: Yep, it's Robert De Niro week - again - as his credits still keep building up, he had a busy year with "The Irishman" and "Joker" getting released in 2019, but there's an opportunity here for me to dive back to the little films that sort of fell through the cracks for me in years past, like yesterday's film "Everybody's Fine" and this one, and tomorrow's.

THE PLOT: The fall of Bernie Madoff, whose Ponzi scheme robbed $65 billion from unsuspecting victims, the largest fraud in U.S. history.

AFTER: Like "Hustlers", here's another film that shines a spotlight on another set of victims of the 2008 U.S. financial crisis - namely, the Madoff family.  Because if the economy hadn't tanked, then investors in Madoff's fraudulent investment companies wouldn't have started to cash out their portfolios, and then his whole scheme might not have been exposed, it could have just gone on forever and he never would have been caught, right?  Umm, I should point out that I'm not an expert on financial matters.

The problem, as I understand it, was that he kept bringing in new investors and used their money to pay returns to the earlier investors, which is apparently illegal.  The origins of this method go all the way back to ancient Egypt, which is why it's called a "pyramid" scheme - this is how the Egyptian pharoahs raised enough money to have such enormous, elaborate tombs built for themselves.  You couldn't just get a job hauling giant stones through the desert, a worker had to invest in the building by giving money to the foreman, and he gave money to the construction company, and he kicked up to the pharoah, and there you go.  But back then this was perfectly legal, the Egyptians weren't as enlightened as we are now.  Years later, though, I think they used a similar strategy to finance the construction of the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Once the scheme was exposed, the media delighted in portraying Madoff as "evil", but was he?  It almost feels like this film was sympathetic to his plight, because he took the fall and tried to make sure that none of the blame for his misdeeds fell on his wife and sons, and he ended up losing contact with all of them, and his sons probably paid a higher price than anyone else.  Pundits wondered how they could work for their father and NOT know how the company was really being run, that all of the trades were fake, all of the records were fake, and so on.  You really have to wonder if this is also what goes down in the Trump organization, like do we really believe that Don Jr. and Eric are capable of running a multi-faceted business?  I bet if you gave them tasks similar to those seen on the old "Apprentice" show, these boneheads combined couldn't run a pizza shop or even a lemonade stand.  By the same token, the Madoff sons either had to be complicit or ignorant, and I'm not sure which is worse.

Meanwhile, Papa Madoff apparently had no long-term plan for his sons to take over his company, in other words, he wasn't cluing them in on the (im-)proper way to run an investment firm, and told them not to ask any questions whenever they inquired.  Similarly, there was no plan for who would take over the company if Bernie retired or died, and he fooled himself into believing that should the worst happen, his family would figure things out and still be taken care of, somehow.  So it's not that the long-term plan wasn't viable, it's that there WAS NO long-term plan.  Even when the early investors started to cash out, Madoff fooled himself into believing that enough money would come in to cover the company's losses, and everything would eventually work itself out.

But if you think about it, his company might have been in a better position than others, companies that lost everything in the 2008 financial crash.  Since BLM Investments hadn't made any real trades, they hadn't made any BAD trades, either.  If only he and his family hadn't bought so many expensive houses, cars and fancy watches, the company might have ridden out the storm.  And the crash could have provided the perfect cover, as long as they were making stuff up, Madoff could have just told everyone that the company had invested in companies that failed in the crash, and then there would have been no obligation to give any money back.  So it's not just that Madoff lied, rather he just told the WRONG lies - he kept telling every investor that their money was safe, that better opportunities were arising, and that the crash was a good time to double-down and invest MORE, when so many banks and investment firms were failing and in need of bailing out.  So, ego, really - if he could have admitted a little bit of failure, fewer people would have been demanding his head on a pike.  See?  I'm a problem-solver, you can always count on me to figure a way out of a desperate situation, only nobody ever asks me, and I'm 10 or 12 years too late with the solution.

Also like "Hustlers", this film uses an interview conducted years later as the framing device to allow flashbacks to the earlier scenes - but unfortunately this one doesn't progress linearly through the past, so there's a lot of jumping around, with some scenes taking place before the fraud is revealed, and others after.  While it's great to see both sides of the issue, the family doing "well" and then collapsing after the truth comes out, the Long Island beach party scenes don't really bring much to the table, except we learn that Bernie Madoff was very rude to caterers.  And to his sons.  Every family has its own dynamic, sure, but getting involved in his son's dining choices, and forcing him to eat a lobster when he was clearly enjoying a steak seems way over-the-top.

Remember that scene in "It's a Wonderful Life", when there's a run on the bank and everyone comes to the Bailey Building & Loan to withdraw their money?  George Bailey can't give this guy his money, because he doesn't have it - that guy's money is invested in THAT guy's house, and this other guy's money is invested in THAT house over there.  How is what Madoff did any different, except that all of the investors' money was tied up in houses that were owned by the Madoff family?  OK, yeah, I can see how that looks bad.  It's sort of like if Mr. Potter were running the Bailey Building & Loan, and he couldn't give back anyone's money because he'd spent it all on himself.

But don't tell me that the U.S. government doesn't do something very similar on a regular basis - taking in money from taxpayers, giving back very little in benefits, while spending billions that it doesn't really have yet on wars and foreign aid.  Just saying.

Also starring Michelle Pfeiffer (last seen in "Avengers: Endgame"), Alessandro Nivola (last seen in "You Were Never Really Here"), Hank Azaria (last seen in "Norman"), Michael Kostroff (ditto), Nathan Darrow, Sydney Gayle, Lily Rabe (last seen in "Mona Lisa Smile"), Kristen Connolly (ditto), Kathrine Narducci (last seen in "The Irishman"), Steve Coulter (last seen in "First Man"), Shivam Chopra, Diana B. Henriques, David Lipman, Kelly AuCoin, Don Castro, Amanda Warren (last seen in "Mother!"), Jane Dashow (last seen in "Demolition"), Geoffrey Cantor, Clem Cheung, with archive footage of Fred Armisen, Joy Behar, Wolf Blitzer, Tom Brokaw, George W. Bush, Stephen Colbert, Judy Garland, David Letterman, Bill Maher, Morley Safer, Brian Williams and the voice of Anderson Cooper.

RATING: 5 out of 10 seized assets

Everybody's Fine

Year 12, Day 17 - 1/17/20 - Movie #3,417

BEFORE: It feels like once again, Turner Classic Movies and I are on the same wavelength.  They've been running a bunch of Robert De Niro films this week, like "Mean Streets" and "True Confessions", and I started a De Niro chain yesterday - and he carries over from "Hands of Stone" to this one.  I'm going to add the ONE film TCM is running that I haven't seen, but it's super-long - so I'll save it for the weekend.

Some internal debate about what order to put these De Niro films in - the last one is set, because it kicks off the next theme week, but what about the others?   I think I'm going to follow up on the plot point from "Hands of Stone", where Ray Arcel reunited with his adult foster daughter, and continue with that theme of fathers re-connecting with children today.  I also debated saving this one for Father's Day, but that's so far off, who knows if I can get the linking to get this one to land there.

Keeping this one here in January, plus adding in another De Niro film, now means I'll have to double-up TWICE next week to finish January on time, but I think I can do it.  Those Batman & Superman animated films are short, I can easily watch some double-features.

THE PLOT: A widower who realizes his only connection to his family was through his wife sets off on an impromptu road trip to reunite with each of his grown children.

AFTER: I had several films last year about absent fathers and questionable mothers - I'm still parsing through all of them and I need to finish the 2019 breakdown post - maybe this weekend.  But this one sort of fits right in with those, as an older man with four children realizes that maybe he doesn't even really KNOW them very well, so he sets out on the road (buses and trains only, due to a medical condition) to drop in on them, after all four of them bail on a family get-together.  OK, three of them cancel, the fourth never responded, that's essentially the same thing, but it could be important later.

First he takes a train down from Elmira, NY to visit his artist son in NYC - ($87 for train fare?  Eh, I checked the map, that could be about right.  Did he take the Acela or a local?)  His son didn't seem to be home, so he spent a night out on the stoop, then left a note and moved on.  Put a pin in that situation, we'll come back to it later...  It's a long bus ride to Chicago to see his daughter, who makes some frantic phone calls after he arrives (in her defense, what parent doesn't call first?) so it's possible that her situation may have changed since she last saw her father.  After that, the kids are communicating with each other by phone, so his other children do get a "heads up" that Dad's on the way.

The tie-in with the fact that Goode Sr. worked for 40-50 years in the telecommunications industry seemed a bit hokey, though.  I'm not sure someone who basically coated wires for his whole career would take such personal pride in his work, but what do I know?  It's a job that somebody had to do, so why not be proud about it?  You just really never hear anybody talk about a job like that, though.  It's just not up there with being a dolphin trainer or a Vegas dancer or even an advertising executive.

It's tough to say exactly why all of his children need to hide things from him in this situation, or tell half-truths about where they are in life.  Maybe he's just not the kind of guy that you can confide in, as he says, he's not a great listener, just a good talker.  One of those personal things that his kids didn't tell him is SO BIG though, I just don't see how anyone could keep that from their father.  Maybe if the father was abusive or non-likable in some way, but that just doesn't seem to be the case here - he seems like a reasonable guy, just a little hard to talk to.

Sentimentally, this one got me at the end - maybe because it's still pretty close to holiday time, and that's a few days I spend every year with my parents.  And they're fine, for about three days, then I sort of have to leave them be because they get on my nerves.  My mother's starting to forget things, like I had to remind her about some of the steps in making the holiday meal - she's aware of the problem, to some degree, but it leads to questions about how many more years they'll be around, or cognizant enough to celebrate the holidays.  They could make the transition to assisted living at some point, they've put aside money for that, it just becomes a topic for debate about when to pull that trigger.  Not a fun or easy topic, though.

John Lennon had a song about "Whatever Gets You Through the Night" (it's all right, it's all right).  By the same token, whether you're young or old, single, married, divorced or widowed, whatever thing gets you out of bed in the morning and keeps you motivated, it's all right, it's all right.  As long as it's legal, of course, and doesn't do harm to you or others.

Also starring Drew Barrymore (last seen in "Lucky You") Kate Beckinsale (last seen in "Laurel Canyon"), Sam Rockwell (last seen in "Vice"), Austin Lysy, Katherine Moennig (last seen in "The Shipping News"), Melissa Leo (last seen in "The Most Hated Woman in America"), Lucian Maisel, Damian Young (last seen in "Ocean's Eight"), James Frain (last seen in "The Count of Monte Cristo"), Sonja Stuart, Mackenzie Milone, Lily Mo Sheen, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick (last seen in "Before Midnight"), Chandler Frantz (last seen in "Moonrise Kingdom"), James Murtaugh (last seen in "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days"), Ben Schwartz (last seen in "Night School"), Scott Cohen (last seen in "The Week Of").

RATING: 5 out of 10 percussion instruments

Hands of Stone

Year 12, Day 16 - 1/16/20 - Movie #3,416

BEFORE: Wow, it always seems like there's ONE more boxing movie to watch, do you know what I mean?  Only after "Creed II" and this one, I finally don't have one on my list, maybe for the first time.  And I've been waiting a couple years for someone to air this film so I can cross it off - only I kept watching the program guide, and it just never turned up.  Then the whole streaming thing came along, and I was sure it would turn up on Netflix, and when it didn't I figured it was headed for Hulu, but I didn't see it there, either.  That's often a sign that I should check out Amazon Prime, but nope, not until very recently.  I spotted it running on IMDB.com, which is now streaming movies that all seem to be somewhat past their prime, and a Google search tells me it's also on Tubi now, which I think is where movies go to die.  (Who the hell wants to watch ADS during the movie if they don't have to?)

Maybe it ran on a channel and I missed it - or maybe it's a movie that flew so far under the radar that every channel and streaming service forgot to program it, and now it's too late, because it's running on IMDB for FREE.  Now who would pay $3.99 to rent it on Amazon Prime, when it's FREE on another site?  But then I noticed that Amazon Prime has a new option - called "Watch Free with Ads".  OK, maybe it's worth sitting through a few ads if it means I can watch the film on my giant-screen TV and sit in the comfy recliner, instead of on my small computer and less-comfy desk chair.  I'll give  this new Amazon option a go...it can't be worse than Tubi, right?

He played a department store manager in "Killers", himself in "Hustlers", and tonight Usher Raymond plays Sugar Ray Leonard, the boxer who (I assume) fought against Duran.

THE PLOT: The legendary Roberto Duran and his equally legendary trainer Ray Arcel change each other's lives.

AFTER: Speaking of Rays, there are a lot of them in this film - trainer Ray Arcel, boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, and then there's Ray Charles, who sang the anthem in one of the depicted fights, but was NOT listed in the IMDB credits.  So, who played him?  I did a little snooping online and learned that they cast a professional Ray Charles impersonator, one who had appeared in the noted "Legends in Concert" shows in Vegas.  Makes sense, why go to all the trouble of casting actors to play a famous singer when there's already someone who's got the look and the vocals down?  I'm submitting the actor's name to the IMDB for inclusion, but they may not accept it if I don't have direct evidence.

Now I'm starting to see why this movie is available for free from several sources - it's not all flashy like "Creed II" was, and it really wants to get into the technical aspects of boxing, the strategy that was imparted from Ray Arcel to Duran that enabled him to rise to become the world champion in the lightweight division.  I've never really dug deep and learned about all the different weight divisions in boxing, like when I was a kid I thought there could be only one World Champion of Boxing, but when you look at the different divisions, based on weight, that fighters have, now it seems like there can be eight world champions at any given time, from flyweight up to heavyweight.  Duran started boxing as a lightweight (130-135 lbs.) and he vacated that title in order to bulk up to welterweight (140-147 lbs.), the division in which he fought Sugar Ray Leonard the first time.

When Duran came back after the "No Mas" incident, he fought as a middleweight (154-160 lbs.) and then by the time of the third fight against Sugar Ray, both boxers were up to Super Middleweight (160-168 lbs.).  It's very confusing to people outside of the boxing world - like the heavyweight champions have tended to draw the most attention, but there's a whole world of competitors fighting in the other divisions.  Do all boxers end up in the heavyweight class eventually, either by building up muscle or getting older and fatter?  Or is there just this constant cycle of eating and starving, training and non-training, getting heavier and lighter as needed to move between the divisions for better chances at a title?

But this is what I'm always complaining about where boxing films are concerned - being mostly ignorant (still) regarding how the sport works, what the different technial approaches to the sport are, why and how one fighter outboxes another - or if I'm overthinking it, then please let me KNOW that I'm overthinking it, and that it's just about the physics of fists meeting face, and the endurance (or lack thereof) of each guy getting hit.  Most boxing films (the "Rocky"/"Creed" franchise, "Million Dollar Baby", "The Fighter", "Bleed For This", "Southpaw") seem to be more concerned with telling the dramatic story about the great fighter, and not focusing as much on what skills, exactly, make him great.  Sure, I get it, when you make a baseball film you don't want to get too much into the finer points of the infield fly rule, it's more about the journey that the team goes through on its way to success.  But throw me a bone, maybe, so I understand a little bit more about the sport, OK?

"Hands of Stone" has a TON of details about boxing strategy - Ray Arcel has a lifetime of boxing knowledge to impart on Duran, so I finally get what I've been wishing for, some insight into controlling the pace of the fight, forcing the other boxer to change his game, and throwing the other boxer off by getting into his head.  Arcel taking the time to comb Duran's hair in-between the rounds is a great detail - it's just one little technical element that speaks volumes - if Duran's opponent sees him coming back from the break and he looks neat, clean and refreshed, that's all part of the psychological "sweet science".  Again, maybe that's why some people didn't like this film, because they don't care about the strategy of the game, they just want a flashy film with two guys beating each other up in the fight scenes.

Or maybe people remember the time when De Niro would have been the BOXER in this film, instead of the trainer, and that just makes them feel old.  Suddenly you see 73-year-old De Niro on the sidelines in a boxing scene and you're keenly aware that "Raging Bull" was released almost 40 years ago.  Whoof, that sound you hear is my bones creaking...

Then there are the scenes concerning the unrest in Panama - I realize that Duran was from there, and this was a hot topic back in the 1970's and 80's, with debate raging over setting a timetable for the U.S. ceding control of the Canal Zone.  But does any of this really belong in a boxing movie, just because it was happening at the time?  It seems very less-than-tangential to the main storyline.  It reminded me of the subplot from "Striptease" that focused on the plight of migrant farm workers - that's just not what we tuned in to see.

And what's up with boxers giving all of their sons the same first name, which is also THEIR first name?  Roberto Duran had like 5 sons, all named Roberto, and didn't George Foreman have 5 or 6 sons, all named George?  Is this an ego thing, or did somebody forget to tell boxers that you should give your kids DIFFERENT first names, so you can tell them apart?  Or is this because they've been hit in the head too many times, or they're planning for the future when they're too punch-drunk to remember their sons' names? 

But I'm getting away from the film here - we get to see the famous "No Mas" moment in the fight between Duran and Leonard, when the referee took Duran's statement as a sign that he was quitting the fight - but Duran later swore that he never said this.  Even if he did, it's possible that he was complaining about Leonard jumping and dancing around the ring, and maybe his statement was designed to tell the referee to put an end to this behavior.  This famous fight took place in November 1980 in New Orleans, while the first fight between Duran and Leonard was held in Canada, and became known as "The Brawl in Montreal".  (I guess nothing good rhymes with "New Orleans"?  The "terrible scenes in New Orleans"?  Nah.)

I'm reading up on Duran's career now, and it's something of a shame that the film couldn't squeeze in his fights against Marvin Hagler and Thomas "Hitman" Hearns, they seem like they would be great dramatic material - so honestly I think this film ended too early by narrowing the focus to concentrate on his bouts with Sugar Ray Leonard.

Also starring Edgar Ramirez (last seen in "Gold"), Robert De Niro (last seen in "The Irishman"), Rubén Blades (last seen in "The Counselor"), Ana de Armas (last seen in "War Dogs"), Pedro Perez, Oscar Jaenada (last seen in "Snatched"), John Turturro (last seen in "Desperately Seeking Susan"), Ellen Barkin (last seen in "Happy Tears"), Jurnee Smollett-Bell (last seen in "Jack"), Yancey Arias (last seen in "Legion"), Drena De Niro (last seen in "A Star Is Born"), Ilza Ponko, Anthony Molinari (last seen in "Central Intelligence"), Rick Avery (last seen in "Higher Learning"), Robb Skyler, Joe Urla, Eliud Kauffman, Khalid Ghajji, John Duddy, Aaron Zebede, Janelle Davidson, Leo Wiznitzer, Charles Middleton, with a cameo from Reg E. Cathey (as DON KING!) (last seen in "Fantastic Four"), and archive footage of Jimmy Carter (last seen in "Fahrenheit 11/9"), Ronald Reagan (last seen in "Let Me In").

RATING: 6 out of 10 scorecards

Hustlers

Year 12, Day 15 - 1/15/20 - Movie #3,415

BEFORE: This is the film I was trying to watch on an Academy screener, only it sort of temporarily disappeared, forcing me to alter my schedule.  That could be a good sign, though it may just mean that someone else was just as curious about it as I am.  Anyway, it turned up, and once it did, my boss practically begged me to borrow it, because apparently it's not worth paying $5.99 for, and she forbids me to do so. OK, that's probably NOT a good sign, but either way, those are just people's opinions, and I have to watch it myself to find out what's what.

Also, ZERO Oscar nominations for this one?  What gives?  The studio must have still been obligated to send out screeners...did they seriously think J. Lo would get an Oscar nom for playing a stripper?  You know they only give those to people who play social workers, abusive mothers or characters with mental illnesses, right?

Usher Raymond carries over from "Killers" to play - get this - himself in this one.

THE PLOT: A crew of savvy former strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.

AFTER: Unlike other films last week that were based on novels, "Hustlers" is based on a New York magazine article - and "Killers" is based on an imaginary James Bond cartoon.  But the article was about real-life strippers who were targeting rich Wall Street executives in bars, drugging them via laced drinks, and taking them to strip clubs, where they ran up inflated credit card charges, and the club owners would cut the girls in for a percentage.  The theory was that none of the marks would file charges, because then his wife or girlfriend would find out that he partied with three or four women in a bar.  Plus the men could probably afford to drop a few grand and not miss it, or it came from their expense account so who cares.  Finally the spree came to an end when one man went to the police - but he wasn't trying to turn them in, he'd been drugged and ripped off by the beautiful women three times and he was trying to track them down for a fourth night of fun.

I've seen several films about the financial crash of 2008, like "The Big Short" and docs like "Capitalism: A Love Story", but we just don't hear enough about how the crash hurt the secondary Wall Street economies - the car dealerships, the fancy restaurants and the strip clubs that all counted on the financial weasels continuing to keep inflating the economy and shorting stocks to cash in.  When you talk about "trickle down" economics, you have to realize that a lot of that trickling down is in the form of small bills being, umm, re-distributed in the clubs.  But the trickling only continues as long as the people at the top are still successful, and after the crash, no more trickle.  If only there were a way for strippers to save some of their money for the lean times ahead - but I realize that's crazy talk.  As this movie seems to delight in pointing out, there are always more SHOES to buy!  And handbags!  And fur coats!  And, I don't know, their kids' education or their boyfriends' legal bills, but who wants to hear about that?

Plus, that's not why you came to the movies, right?  You wanted to see J. Lo pole-dancing, and there's a bit of that here.  Five minutes or so at the beginning, but part of that is her going through the moves as she teaches someone else.  Honestly it feels like J. Lo just learned all the names of the moves herself about five minutes before, and she was just parroting the lessons.  That's probably only because she did.

Look, I'm all for taking down the patriarchy, but this just isn't the way.  Stealing from rich men, even if their assholes, is not the way that you level the playing field.  And all this brings up some equality issues - like, are strippers drugging men any better than Cosby (et. al.) drugging women?  No, ladies, you're supposed to be BETTER than men, this is not the way to do that!  Your gender fought and fought for decades to get equal rights, and this is not helping!  But I guess that maybe this is the whole point of a female empowerment film, that woman can be just as ruthless and scheming in their efforts to get ahead as men can be, only I still maintain that they should aim higher.  However, that's what sets this film apart from just an average male fantasy film about strippers, I suppose.

NITPICK POINT: If you're trying to get the right blend of ketamine and esctasy for your drugs, and you have no idea what you're doing, would you just start mixing in your kitchen, hoping to land on the correct process?  The odds would seem to be against getting the ratio and the process right - wouldn't you think somebody would crack open a book, or even just look on the internet to find out how to do this?

Still, I can probably state with some certainty that this is the best film about strippers ripping off rich guys that you're likely to see.  With a $20 million budget and a worldwide gross of over $150 million, I'm willing to bet that we'll see more films like this, just give it a couple of years.  You want to talk about a profitable racket?  Just get a major celebrity to play a stripper in a film and watch the money roll in.  "Striptease" with Demi Moore was profitable, so was "We're the Millers" with Jennifer Aniston (and she didn't even really strip!). "The Wrestler" with Marisa Tomei, and "Closer" with Natalie Portman - both profitable.  About the only box-office bombs that followed this formula were "Showgirls" and "Dancing at the Blue Iguana", but at least one of those became a cult classic.  And it's not just the ladies, "Magic Mike" made $167 million with a budget of just $7 million - that would make any studio executive dance.

OK, now we need to talk about Lizzo.  I'm not up on modern music (anything released after 1989, basically) but I read the entertainment magazines and surprisingly, I sort of know who this is.  I've seen her perform on SNL in very tight outfits, and if that's your thing, I'm not knocking it.  You do you, but I don't happen to find her attractive, and her size is part of that.  Before you accuse me of "Fat-shaming", I've been overweight for most of my life, except for a few years after I got divorced, and I don't discriminate by size, because I know that struggle. (and if black people can use the "N" word, then I can use the "F" word. No, not that one.)  But I also don't think people that large should be stripping, or even particularly proud to show off their weight - again, if there's a market for it, go ahead, but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that being large is healthy, not by any stretch of the imagination.  Yelling at a fat person to lose weight or making them feel bad for it is counter-productive, but the people who care about them, and yes, I'm including their fans, have to keep trying to find constructive ways to get through to them.  And this extends to Chrissy Metz, and any other notable large women - and men - who are now hiding behing the "body-positive" movement or enjoying success as social media influencers.  Yes, they're helping overweight teens feel better about themselves, but I can't help but think they're also sending out the wrong message.

We've lost too many fat funny people over the years, like John Candy, Chris Farley, Ralphie May, John Pinnette, and I'm probably missing a few.  OK, yeah, fat guys are jolly and funny, except when they're not, if they're crying on the inside and trying to eat away the pain, which doesn't work.  If you wait too long to get help you find yourself in the situation my mother is in, with mobility issues, and then you can't lose weight unless you exercise, and you can't exercise safely until you lose some weight.  You'll get stuck in a Catch-22 (and probably some revolving doors also).  So let's drop this "body positive" nonsense and work toward making some changes.  Diets don't work, I get that, but I managed to get my doctor off my back by intermittent fasting - eating only two meals a day, within an 8-hour period, which maximizes the time spent NOT eating, including the 8 hours when you're sleeping and not eating (umm, unless you're sleep-eating on Ambien) and really, it's just math.  But then of course I went to Vegas for a week, and I do love my buffets, so I'm probably back where I started.  But that just means it's time to start again, hope springs eternal, unless you're backing the "body positive" moment, which I think is tantamount to giving up.

Look, we're the only country in the world that can simultaneously have a child hunger problem AND a childhood obesity problem.  (And despite the fact that I'm a first-hand expert on childhood obesity, nobody seemed to like my proposed solution, which was to let the hungry kids steal food from the fat kids.). Similarly, the same news organizations that run that footage of fat people walking down the street (but only seen from the neck down) while discussing the surging heart attack rates in America will then go on to interview Lizzo or Chrissy Metz during their entertainment segment, and they've been instructed not to address the elephant in the room (so to speak).  Enough coddling these people, they can surely take a portion of their album sales or TV network contract money and hire a nutritionist and a trainer, so why don't they?  We larger people need tough love, even if we don't want to admit it, before it's too late to fix the problem - and it IS a problem, no matter how many Instagram followers you have.  My advice, if you're a high-profile plus-size person and a social influencer, is to follow Oprah and Marie Osmond's lead, and jump on that Weight Watchers or Adkins or even Keto train when you get the call - you can probably get in their program gratis, lose some weight, and maybe even get paid as a spokesperson, plus you'll be sending out a better message to the kids about the importance of eating better and getting healty - it's a win-win all around.

I've got my (by now) usual complaints tonight about the non-linear structure, this one uses a magazine interview in 2014 as a framing device, from there it flashes back to 2007, the salad days for strippers, then progresses forward through the crash of 2008, the lean years and then the scheme that Ramona puts together and operates for a number of years. I think the flashbacks progress more or less in sequence, but still, the framing device hardly seems necessary then.

Also starring Constance Wu (last seen in "Crazy Rich Asians"), Jennifer Lopez (last seen in "Jane Fonda in Five Acts"),  Julia Stiles (last seen in "Mona Lisa Smile"), Keke Palmer (last heard in "Ice Age: Collision Course"),Lili Reinhart, Lizzo, Cardi B, Mercedes Ruehl (last seen in "Heartburn"), Trace Lysette, Wai Ching Ho, Mette Towley, Madeline Brewer, Frank Whaley (last seen in "I.Q."), Paul Nielsen (last seen in "Sisters"), Jon Glaser (ditto), Dov Davidoff (last seen in "The Comedian"), Brandon Keener (last seen in "The Guilt Trip"), Steven Boyer (last seen in "Bridge of Spies"), Gerald Gillum, Devin Ratray (last seen in "Rough Night"), Rhys Coiro, Jovanni Ortiz, Big Jay Oakerson.

RATING: 5 out of 10 slivers of chocolate cake

Killers

Year 12, Day 14 - 1/14/20 - Movie #3,414

BEFORE: From a crime film mixed with a comedy, I move on to a romantic-comedy mixed with a spy film.  Is it me, or do no movies seem to be just one thing any more?  So many mash-ups, I guess for years everyone in Hollywood has been hedging their bets - "Well, why just make a sci-fi film when we can also make it a musical and get more people interested in it?"  Yeah, that's one theory I guess.

Katheryn Winnick carries over from "Stand Up Guys", and she'll return in February for one more film, once I get going on my romance chain.  And you might well ask, why not put this film in the romance chain?  Well, because I needed it to make the link here, that's why.

THE PLOT: A vacationing woman meets her ideal man, leading to a swift marriage.  Back at home, their idyllic life is upset when they neighbors could be assassins who have been contracted to kill the couple.

AFTER: Well, I guess you need films like this every so often, because when you put them side-by-side, you really learn what's what.  Like, how does "Killers" and "The Irishman" even exist in the same universe?  They're miles apart, not even in the same ballpark, and watching this one makes me want to go back and increase my rating for the Scorsese film after the fact.  OK, I admit that "The Irishman" has its faults, I certainly pointed out several of them, but this nonsense looks like a live-action cartoon by comparison!  "Oh, he's a spy..." therefore he kills people, he's a martial-arts expert, deals with explosives, etc.  Look, there are movie spies and there are real spies, and I bet if you knew any real spies you'd know that their daily lives are nothing like James Bond's.  You know that, right, that people have been conditioned to think that all spies are sexy, fit, drive fancy cars, are all electronics experts - but don't you think James Bond stands out in a crowd, as a result of all that?  The best spies in the world are probably experts at blending in and NOT being noticed - you could look right at them and never guess that they're a spy, because they look perfectly normal.

And OK, there's a bit of that here, when the assassins turn out to have been hiding out in a suburban neighborhood, and they look just like everyone else.  But the whole portrayal of Ashton Kutcher as a spy is beyond ridiculous.  And being on a mission in Nice, France, scuba-diving to get the secret information and then sneaking on board a big yacht to blow up a helicopter - it comes straight from James Bond culture, only it takes it further into ridiculous, and doesn't even have the decency to be a parody like "Johnny English" or that Melissa McCarthy film "Spy".  We're supposed to take this one SERIOUSLY, and I just can't do it.

On top of that, there's a HUGE difference between "spy" and "contract killer", but as far as this film is concerned, they're one and the same.  BUZZ - wrong, try again!  OK, maybe sometimes spies have to kill someone, but those instances are few and far-between, at least I hope.  The real spies are out there gathering intelligence, listening to wiretaps and on a really exciting day, maybe they get to decode a message.  But I bet it's mostly sitting in a car somewhere or on top of a rooftop with a telescopic camera, figuring out who's attending that meeting in the secret location.  Ya feel me?

Then, on top of all the other ridiculousness, Spencer, our lead spy character, is flirting with a woman and setting up a date for drinks, right in the middle of the mission.  Seems very unprofessional to me.  Shouldn't he be a little more focused on the job at hand?  How does he know that this woman isn't a spy for another country, and only pretending to be a naive woman from Anytown, USA, who was recently dumped by her boyfriend yet went on this French vacation with her parents anyway?  Sure, she seems sincere, but that could all be part of the act.

Ridiculousness continues as Spencer decides, within days of meeting this woman, that he's going to get out of the spy/contract killing game for good, and make an honest living somehow.  And with his vast knowledge of other languages, weapons, martial arts, naturally he sets up his own home construction company.  Sure, that makes perfect sense.  Those code-breaking skills are going to come in mighty handy when you have to, umm, read those blueprints?  I don't get it.

OK, maybe things pick up a bit when some of his employees, friends, and wife's friends turn out to be assassins, who want to take him out after he gets a message from his old intelligence contact.  It's very intriguing to think that rival spies are living in suburbia and managing to pass as smalltown residents - but that excitement is fairly short-lived after the surprises are revealed.

Then there's a point at which the logic of the film just totally falls apart, and I don't want to say too much, but you'll probably know it when you see it.  Only a psychotic person would send assassins to take somebody out and still somehow believe that action could be done for noble reasons.  "Yes, I care about you very much, which is why I took steps to kill your husband."  There's just no way that this tracks, even in a comedy.  The "Batman" comic book has featured a storyline like this over the last 10 months, called "City of Bane", in which the main villain is Thomas Wayne (Bruce's father) from an alternate universe (the Flashpoint universe).  In his reality, the mugger killed young Bruce Wayne, and Thomas Wayne became Batman, and Martha Wayne became the Joker.  This alternate universe was supposedly destroyed, only Thomas/Batman found his way into the main DC reality, and has been fighting his alt-son ever since.  So far he's taken over Gotham City, destroyed his son's impending marriage to Catwoman and (seemingly) killed Alfred, all to convince his (not-really) son to give up fighting crime and enjoy life.  Right.  He killed Batman's closest confidant and ruined his shot at married life, because he CARES about him, and wants him to be happy.  It just doesn't work that way, even if you factor in the fact that Thomas/Batman might be psychotic.  Scrap these plans at the concept stage, and try again.  But no, it's been a YEAR of this storyline that will probably end up going nowhere and revert to the status quo - though how they're going to bring Alfred back, I have no idea.

Also starring Ashton Kutcher (last seen in "Cheaper by the Dozen"), Katherine Heigl (last heard in "The Nut Job 2: Nutty by Nature"), Tom Selleck (last seen in "Midway"), Catherine O'Hara (last seen in "Orange County"), Casey Wilson (last seen in "The Meddler"), Rob Riggle (last seen in "Night School"), Lisa Ann Walter, Martin Mull (last seen "A Futile and Stupid Gesture"), Kevin Sussman (last seen in "Hitch"), Alex Borstein (last heard in "The Angry Birds Movie"), LeToya Luckett, Mary Birdsong (last seen in "Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters"), Usher Raymond (last seen in "Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping").

RATING: 4 out of 10 home pregnancy tests

Stand Up Guys

Year 12, Day 13 - 1/13/20 - Movie #3,413

BEFORE:  Oscar nominations are out today, and boy, did I pick the right weekend to watch "The Irishman"!  It got 10 nominations, second only to "Joker", which is on my schedule for later this week!  De Niro's in both films, so he's also probably having a very good week.  As for other nominations, my track record isn't very good, but that's to be expected.  Of course "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" got some technical nominations, and "Avengers: Endgame" got nominated for Visual Effects, and my viewed films did very well in the Animated Feature category, where I've seen 3 out of 5.  (Aaarrgh, if I had kept one last slot open for "Klaus", it could have been 4 out of 5...)

I'm planning to watch "Marriage Story" in February, as part of the romance chain (my definition of "romance" includes relationship issues such as divorce and breaking up, which seems only fair.)  But that's about it, I'm tracking all of the other films and I'll have to figure out how to get to some of them later this year, after the awards telecast.  So I'm going "all in" on "The Irishman" and "Joker", it seems.  More on this later.

I'll also get back to Robert De Niro in a couple days, but for now, Best Supporting Actor nominee Al Pacino carries over from "The Irishman".  I wish I could squeeze a couple more Pacino films in here, like those two HBO biopics about Phil Spector and Dr. Kevorkian, but there just isn't room - January only has so many days.  Today's film was an unplanned detour that allowed me to move "The Irishman" up on the schedule.  But Pacino's also in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood", so I could have another chance to pick up those other films later this year - maybe.

THE PLOT: A pair of aging stickup men try to get the old gang back together for one last hurrah before one of them takes his last assignment - to kill his comrade.

AFTER: The mash-ups keep right on coming, for 2 days I'll be at the intersection of crime and comedy, then it's on to something else.  This one at least feels like an original idea, where a man gets out of prison after a long stint, and tries to get right back into some action, only he has no idea (at first) that his ex-partner has been tasked with taking him out.  The audience is in on the scheme from close to the beginning, since we get to see when his "best friend" Doc is holding a gun behind his back.

At first Val does the things you might think a man would want to do, after 28 years in the joint - he wants to get a drink, he wants to get laid, he wants to eat a steak, he wants to dance with a woman (not necessarily in that order, but hey, priorities).  After that it's time to start thinking about some new goals - only he's had a lot of time to think in prison, and he figured out that if someone was still holding a grudge for the way that last job went down, he wouldn't have Val killed in prison, he'd wait until just after he got out to take him down, to impart the maximum amount of suffering.  It's a little too convenient that Val would catch on to the situation at hand, but really it's the only way to advance the plot at this point.  If Doc tried to kill him, he might succeed, and then the movie's over.  And if he failed, then you'd have to explain how and why he failed, or you set up one of those "comedy of errors" scenarios, and nobody wants that.

Instead the two men decide to deal with the situation like adults, and if they can't work something out with the old boss, then they're at least going to have a night to remember, before Doc has to kill Val in the morning.  Time to track down their old getaway driver, Hirsch, even if this means springing him from the nursing home.  Hirsch also has emphysema and has had something removed from his body, only he doesn't remember what, or he never asked.  That's a little odd.  They also coincidentally happen to know Hirsch's daughter, she's an E.R. nurse and Val has a little incident after taking too many Viagra.  Ah, this is what passed for comedy in 2012...

Then we get into car theft and more whoring during this wild night, but we're usually willing to forgive certain criminals their misdeeds if they're charming or funny, right?  And Pacino and Walken are definitely that - throw grumpy Alan Arkin into the mix and we're all down for some laughs.  Hey, let's go take down those drug-dealing rapists, won't that be fun?  Then we can buy some new suits and eat our third diner meal in an 8-hour period!

Another head-scratcher is the lack of resolution in the ending, but on the upside, you can choose whatever ending you want, because some writer couldn't be bothered.  Comedy or tragedy, it's up to you - I suggest comedy.  I can't really call a NITPICK POINT without giving away a plot point, but here goes. (SPOILER ALERT)  They shouldn't really have buried that person themselves in the cemetery, even if there was a piece of grave-digging equipment handy, and they had the keys or maybe hotwired it.  For one thing, there was no casket involved - now how's that going to look?

Also starring Christopher Walken (last seen in "The Rundown"), Alan Arkin (last seen in "Rendition"), Julianna Margulies (last seen in "Snakes on a Plane"), Mark Margolis (last seen in "Defiance"), Katheryn Winnick (last seen in "A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III"), Vanessa Ferlito (last seen in "Death Proof"), Addison Timlin, Lucy Punch (last seen in "The Meddler"), Bill Burr (last seen in "Daddy's Home 2"), Courtney Galiano.

RATING: 6 out of 10 parole violations

The Irishman

Year 12, Day 12 - 1/12/20 - Movie #3,412

BEFORE: OK, so I wasn't intending to watch this film here, but it will work.  I risk genre whiplash by following up "The Nut Job 2" with the latest Scorsese film, and I may be the only person in the world who would watch THIS film after THAT one, at least the only person who would choose to AND admit it, but I've said that before about other choices I've made.  I was going to watch "Killers" here, with Katherine Heigl carrying over, but after that was going to come the film "Hustlers", which is on iTunes for $5.99 rental, but also available to me on an Academy screener, technically free.  Only that film sort of disappeared from the pile in the office, which means someone else borrowed it, or it was left in another location - it may become available to me again on Tuesday, but that was too late for my plan.  I could skip a day, but then I'd be behind.

A more elegant solution would be to move this film forward on the list - I had it in a De Niro block starting later this week, but I can make it work here, and watch the other De Niro films in a few days, the hole will close neatly around the space - I'll have to add one other film with Al Pacino to make the connection back to "Killers", and then I'll progress from there, and "Hustlers" moves down the list to Wednesday, which means I can pick up the DVD on Tuesday.  Now I'll have to watch 32 films in January instead of 31 if I want to start the romance chain on time, but I think I can swing that, the animated DC superhero movies next are all pretty short, I'm sure I can double up somewhere.

The reason that I CAN move this one up is that TWO actors carry over from "The Nut Job 2", Bobby Cannavale and Sebastian Maniscalco.  And the film I'd adding tomorrow is another mob crime film - there were also gangsters (bank robbers) in "The Nut Job", so it's not THAT much of a leap, right?  I guess I'll find out. Plus this moves "The Irishman", with a running time of 3 1/2 hours, from a Thursday to the previous Saturday - that's much better for me because I can stay up later to finish it, and even if I fall asleep, I'll have lots of time on Sunday to finish it.  It's just better scheduling this way.

THE PLOT: A mob hitman recalls his career, including his possible involvement with the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa.

AFTER: You know, I didn't write anything about going to see "Hamilton" on Broadway earlier this week - I meant to, because some of the themes tied in with the film "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story", which I'd watched earlier the same day.  I meant to update that post, but didn't get around to it.  But in all the hubbub over winning the ticket lottery, collecting the tickets, getting to the show on time, getting home late, and then bragging about it the next day, very little was said about the quality of the show.  Finally one boss asked me, "How did you like the show?" and I could only think, "Does it matter?"  I was sort of along for the ride, my wife is a big fan of the show, and she'd never seen it live, only via a bootleg DVD and from listening to the soundtrack many times on long car trips.  So I got the tickets for her via the show's app (only they came too late to be a Christmas gift and too early to be a Valentine's Day gift, whatever...) and I had to be there, since they were in my name.  It's only fair, she came to see "Star Wars: Episode IX" with me, and she's not that big of a fan, whereas I'm a "Star Wars" super-fan.  To each his own, and you try to appreciate what your partner enjoys to, to the extent that you can.

But in both cases, does it matter what one person thinks of the film, or the play, if simply EVERYONE is raving about it, and it's doing enormous box office and let's face it, "Hamilton" is going to do just fine regardless of what I think of the performance, so does it even matter?  People are similarly buzzing about "The Irishman", simply because it's Scorsese and De Niro, plus Pacino and Pesci, and all of those people have such great track records that everyone simply HAS to see this before awards season, and it's probably going to get nominations (or at least be considered for them) on those track records alone.  So whether I enjoyed watching this film is almost irrelevant.  Almost.

Two major problems here, and the first one is the length.  As I stated in the intro, it's just under three and a half-hours long.  Thank God for the pause function on Netflix, if I were in a theater I think I'd have to sneak in a bathroom break somewhere in the middle.  No movie should be that long, unless it's "Ben-Hur" or "Gone With the Wind" or something that tells the whole story of Western civilization in something close to real time.  I'm automatically wondering whether this should have been a mini-series instead, or split into two movies like "Kill Bill" was, because as is, it's asking for a pretty big chunk of my weekend (and again, this is WHY I moved it to a weekend, I can't be still watching a film at 4 am and make it to work the next day...).  I made sure to start the film at 11:15 on Saturday night, so I'd be finished with time to do a couple tasks before feeding the cats breakfast and then turning in.  But considering how Netflix tries to turn everything into a series, I'm shocked that this project didn't end up going that route.

The other major problem, for me, is the film's structure, since it jumps around in time and that's my least favorite "hot trend" of the last few years.  (I know, it's been around longer than that, but it's really taken off in the past decade.). Nobody seems to be able to stop this trend - is anyone trying? - and now it's infected Scorsese, too.  I might be able to forgive a non-linear narrative if it helped to make a long, boring film a little less boring, but here the technique had no discernable impact on the running time - it's STILL three and half hours long!  So that's three and a half hours of skipping through this mobster's life, Billy Pilgrim-style, only there are no aliens at the end that might have gotten him unstuck in time - it's just the rambling, random way that a really old guy might tell a story.

Speaking of which, there's at least one framing device too many being utilized.  The whole thing is told by the very old Frank Sheeran to...well, someone.  We don't know until the end who he's been relating his story to, perhaps nobody specific and he's just rambling on at the nursing home to anyone and everyone during communal TV hour.  "Shaddup, ya crazy old fart, we're trying to watch Wheel of Fortune!" But as he relates the story of a road-trip he took to Detroit with Russell Bufalino and their wives to a wedding, with business stops and smoke breaks along the way, the first smoke break is at a rest stop that just happens to be where Frank and Russell met years ago, so the road-trip serves as ANOTHER framing device, and triggers a flashback-within-a-flashback, which should be verboten where narratives are concerned.  Really, Marty, is that what they taught you in film school, to put one flashback inside another?  You should know better - that's a no-no.

I'm willing to bet that if this story had started at the beginning, and ended at the end, following a linear narrative, the story could have been edited down to, well, let's say two and a half hours, instead of three and a half.  Jumping around in time causes the need for repeating some scenes and also over-explaining where we are in the timeline RIGHT NOW, and if Scorsese had stuck to one timeline, there would have been less need to keep doing that.  Just putting that out there.

No doubt you've heard about this film because of the "de-aging" techniques that were used on De Niro and Pesci so they could play younger versions of the same characters, instead of casting other actors who would then have to (essentially) do impressions of them, learn to walk and talk like the older actors, assuming you could even FIND younger actors with enough of a resemblance to pull this off.  So I understand why the de-aging computer effects are important - but once I know they're being used, I can't help but LOOK for them, so in every new shot, I'm thinking "Is this a shot where they de-aged De Niro?  Well, his face does look a bit odd in this one, so probably."  Essentially it solves one problem, but creates another, because for people like me who also went to film school, we can't really "turn off" that part of our brain that wants to figure out how a shot was made.  (I couldn't watch "Birdman" either, for example, without watching to see if I could spot the breaks in the so-called continuous shots.).

I wish that the de-aging technique - also used in "Guardians of the Galaxy 2" on Kurt Russell, in "Ant-Man and the Wasp" on Laurence Fishburne and in "Rogue One" on Carrie Fisher (though I think all of those films used stand-ins mixed with CGI) - could be at a stage where it's more accepted, and doesn't become the focus of the conversation about a film, but we're not there yet.  It's like the "talking animal" animation used in films like "Zookeeper" and the Eddie Murphy "Doctor Dolittle" films, it became so prevalent that by the time "The Lion King" remake and the new "Doctor Dolittle" film with Robert Downey Jr. come out, it barely makes the news - by now it's just another technique that's being used to tell a story.  De-aging is still so new that it diverts attention away from the narrative, and right now, that's still a big hiccup, if you ask me.

Frank Sheeran becomes sort of the "Forrest Gump" of mob action, whenever anything important happens, he seems to somehow be there and involved.  After a certain point, can this even be believable?  Was he always somehow involved in these headline-making events, or is a large part of this fictionalized?  That truck that he delivered down to Florida, without knowing the contents - we're supposed to connect the dots and assume that somehow it was weapons and supplies related to the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba?  Can I see some paperwork on this?  Then to a lesser extent, we're shown the JFK and RFK assassinations taking place, and somehow the same mobsters seem to have a hand in everything, come on...

Then of course, the last half of this film concerns Jimmy Hoffa, and Frank's time spent with him as a de facto bodyguard, confidante and trusted friend.  The interplay between Pacino (as Hoffa) and De Niro is probably the best thing about the movie, IMHO, and seeing these two working together again trumps getting De Niro and Pesci back together again, if you ask me.  But perhaps you tuned in because you're dying to know what happened to Hoffa - is he buried under Giants Stadium, or sleeping with the fishes?  Well, there's an answer here, but who's to say if it's correct?  In some ways, it's the easiest answer, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the BEST answer.  Again, I'd like to see some paperwork on this.

I've got to call a NITPICK POINT on the fact that this film takes place all over, from Florida to Detroit to Washington, DC - maybe Jimmy Hoffa really got around, because the Teamsters Union was nationwide.  But aren't most mobsters local and territorial?  Frank Sheeran was part of the North Philly mob, does it track that he was front and center for every important mob moment, from Little Italy to Miami?  Again, it's about as believable as Forrest Gump running across the U.S. several times.  Closer to home (for me), the shooting locations included Yonkers, White Plains, several places in New Jersey, and places I've been like Tuxedo, NY (there's a cool RenFaire there every fall), a couple towns on Long Island (makes sense, you can still find downtown areas out there that haven't changed since the 1970's), and a Catholic Church in my neighborhood in Queens - I wouldn't know it, I don't patronize churches any more.  Plus there's the Clinton Diner in Maspeth, which appears in a lot of movies like "Going in Style" but is best known as the "Goodfellas Diner".  I've eaten there twice, the food wasn't that great, and we drive past it all the time.  Yelp lists it as permanently closed, so I'm thinking that it only exists now as a backdrop for Scorsese films and other movies and TV shows, it's basically a permanent set-piece now, shuttered most of the time unless a production needs a diner, and then they probably have to bring in food from a catering company.

Last October, while on vacation, we visited the Mob Museum outside of Vegas - and as you might expect, there were displays on things like the JFK assassination, the Lindbergh kidnapping, and the St. Valentine's Day massacre - somehow they had the bullet-hole riddled wall from that shooting, which was moved to Vegas from Chicago and rebuilt, brick by brick.  But then there was a giant display with photos of all the famous gangsters, from Al Capone, Bugsy Siegel and John Gotti down to "Crazy" Joe Gallo, Vincent "The Chin" Gigante and "Big Paul" Castellano.  It's hard not to take that as a sort of "Hall of Fame", one that glorifies mob figures, and therefore sort of legitimizes it, and I think that's kind of dangerous.

It's a bit ironic that Scorsese publicly railed against films like "Avengers: Endgame", saying that superhero movies aren't valid entertainment - ironic because I can sort of see the similarities between this film and "Endgame".  Both were too long and could have benefited from some editing, and both involved time travel, the Avengers just did it literally and "The Irishman" bounced around narratively within Sheeran's life story.  And at the end of both films, I was left exhausted and more than a little bit confused, wondering if I'd just witnessed the ultimate film ever made in the genre, or an incredible pile of nonsense on top of nonsense.  Sorry, Marty, just keeping it real.

So in the end, is this Scorsese's masterwork or just a bloated pile of nonsense?  Time will tell, and I'll be paying attention during awards season to see which way the popular opinion goes on this, but as always, your mileage may vary.  For me personally, this made me want to re-watch "Casino", which I think will ultimately prove to be Scorsese's best film.  Either that or "Goodfellas".  Wait, maybe "The Departed".  Discuss.  But in some ways we're in a more enlightened time now, the mob films of yesteryear, with all their stereotypes, have morphed into more palatable thinkpieces like "Green Book", which did very well, and it just seems like maybe Scorsese didn't get the memo on this.

Also starring Robert De Niro (last seen in "Trespassing Bergman"), Al Pacino (last seen in "Frankie and Johnny"), Joe Pesci (last seen in "Life Itself"), Ray Romano (last seen in "The Big Sick"), Harvey Keitel (last heard in "Isle of Dogs"), Anna Paquin (last seen in "The Squid and the Whale"), Stephen Graham (last seen in "Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool"), Stephanie Kurtzuba (last seen in "The Wolf of Wall Street"), Bo Dietl (ditto), Kathrine Narducci (last seen in "Jersey Boys"), Jeremy Luke (ditto), Welker White (last seen in "Eat Pray Love"), Jesse Plemons (last seen in "Vice"), Jack Huston (last seen in "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"), Domenick Lombardozzi (last seen in "God's Pocket"), Paul Herman (last seen in "Joy"), Barry Primus (ditto), Dascha Polanco (ditto), Louis Cancelmi, Gary Basaraba (last seen in "Suburbicon"), Marin Ireland (last seen in "The Family Fang"), Aleksa Palladino (last seen in "Mona Lisa Smile"), John Scurti (ditto), Kevin O'Rourke (last seen in "Riding in Cars With Boys"), J.C. MacKenzie (last seen in "Molly's Game"), Larry Romano (last seen in "The Thin Red Line"), Joseph Bono, Craig Vincent, Louis Vanaria, Jennifer Mudge, Kate Arrington, Garry Pastore (last seen in "The Week Of"), Steve Witting, Stephen Mailer (last seen in "The Post"), Al Linea, Daniel Jenkins (last seen in "Cradle Will Rock"), Paul Ben-Victor (last seen in "Don Jon"), Patrick Gallo, Jake Hoffman, Ken Clark, Peter Jay Fernandez, Jeff Moore, Gino Cafarelli, Robert Funaro (last seen in "Not Fade Away"), Action Bronson (last seen in "Game Over, Man!"), Vinny Vella (last seen in "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai"), Matt Walton, Lucy Gallina, India Ennenga, Tess Price, Jordyn DiNatale, Anthony J. Gallo, Jonathan Morris, with cameos from Jim Norton (last seen in "Top Five"), Steven Van Zandt, archive footage of John F. Kennedy (last seen in "Always at the Carlyle"), Jacqueline Kennedy (ditto), Fidel Castro, and (I believe) the voice of Walter Cronkite (last seen in "Get Me Roger Stone")

RATING: 7 out of 10 guys named Tony