Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: robert deniro

Thoughts On The Irishman

  • Three of Elizabeth Taylor’s marriages were shorter, and contained fewer lies, than The Irishman.
  • Cuz nothing that happened, happened.
  • The Irishman will have you believe that Robert De Niro committed every crime of the 20th century.
  • Hoffa.
  • Joey Gallo.
  • Albert Anastasio.
  • Judge Crater.
  • Remember when Baby Jessica fell down that well?
  • According to The Irishman, it’s because Robert De Niro threw her in there.
  • Taking only the 45-hour-long movie I just watched as historical evidence, Robert De Niro cut a miraculous and murderous path through the post-war years while interacting with fabulous American personalities up and down the social register.
  • Just like Forest Gump did.
  • Everyone else who writes about this movie is gonna use the phrase “meditation on aging,” but they’re not gonna tell you that the film is a rip-off of Forest Gump.
  • Never trust movie critics.
  • Or movie buffs.
  • Never trust a buff of any sort, actually.
  • Civil War buffs are the worst, I suppose: warped bastards with a gangrene fetish who like to vacation in fields full of dead teenagers.
  • But movie buffs are pretty bad.
  • They always want you to watch Solaris.
  • I don’t wanna watch Solaris.
  • I don’t wanna watch the other Solaris, either.
  • LEAVE ME ALONE AND LET ME WATCH CARTOONS AND KUNG FU MOVIES.
  • Oh, and “elegy.”
  • I guarantee that you will not read a single piece about The Irishman without “elegy” in there somewhere or other.
  • Here’s every single review:
  • “The Irishman is an elegiac meditation on aging, and Scorsese’s best since [INSERT MOVIE THAT IS NOT THE ONE ABOUT THE MONKS WITH KYLO REN AND SPIDER-MAN HERE].”

  • But you will not get that here.
  • What will you get?
  • I dunno; maybe I should just keep typing and we’ll both find out together.
  • (In case you’re wondering: Casino is Scorsese’s last great film, because Casino is his last epic that does not star Leonardo DiCaprio. Plus, Casino features Don Rickles as a character named “Billy Sherbert,” and that’s the kind of attention to detail I enjoy in my motion pictures.)
  • Anyway, Robert De Niro plays the Irishman, whose name I am already forgetting.
  • Joe Pesci’s character was called Russell Bufalino, which is easy to remember.
  • First off, there simply aren’t a lot of major crime figures in American history named “Russell.”
  • And “Bufalino” is a both a cheese I enjoy, and sounds kinda dirty.
  • 60-70% of all Italian names sound like euphemisms for anal sex.
  • (This is not a comment on the Italian people. They’re lovely; tasty bread; fine automobiles. All their names sound like what you’d call butt-fucking if you were discussing the subject in front of your grandmother.)
  • So, Joe Pesci is a bigshot in the Philly mob.
  • A pezzonovante, a real .90 caliber.
  • He falls in love with Mumbles.
  • (I will be referring to Robert De Niro as “Mumbles” hereafter.)
  • They meet in restaurants a lot and dip bread in wine.
  • I guess that’s a thing.
  • Dunking a doughnut in coffee?
  • I’ve heard of that.
  • Hell, they based a whole franchise around the activity.
  • But I never seen nobody dipping no bread in no wine, no how.
  • Joe Pesci says,
  • “I got a job for you. Go whack Big Grande Testiculoni.”
  • And Mumbles says,
  • “Mrphrhpmmphrh.”
  • And goes and kills the guy.
  • About 90 minutes of that.
  • The entire running length of the 1998 documentary A Night At The Roxbury, that’s all that happens.
  • “Go kill Nipples Arrividerci.”
  • “Mrphrhpmmphrh.”
  • Dip dip dip.
  • Repeat until Al Pacino shows up and starts yelling.
  • Wait.
  • No.
  • Excuse me, I’ve made an error.
  • Al Pacino was not in this movie.
  • His over-acting twin brother All Pacino was.
  • Al has been sending All in his stead since the late 90’s.
  • And when you get All Pacino, you get ALL PACINO.
  • You get the shouting, you get the ranting, you get the lines that go from whispers to THROAT-SHREDDING YOWLS in the space of one word.
  • If you were to ask All Pacino where he was on a scale of 1 to 10, he would answer “FUCK YOURSELF” and then take a shit in his own pants just to prove he’s the master of his destiny.
  • Anyway, Mumbles falls in love with All Pacino.
  • This makes Joe Pesci and his enormous eyeglasses jealous.
  • The Irishman is secretly a deeply gay movie.
  • Of course, Mean Streets and Raging Bull were also homosexual love stories.
  • And The Last Waltz, too.
  • You can’t convince me that Scorsese and Robbie Robertson weren’t fucking each other.
  • At the least, they were hand-helping one another.
  • Which is not gay, especially if you do it to a John Ford film.
  • Seriously, none of this shit is true.
  • Read this.
  • Did you not read that?
  • This is from that; look at it:

  • Did you look at that?
  • Makes you wanna read the thing it’s from, huh?
  • Horseshit, all of it.
  • Faker than the CG blood squibs that arise from the newly-retired gangsters.
  • The Irishman contains just as much reality as, oh, say, I dunno…
  • Wait for it.
  • …a superhero film.
  • BOOM!
  • GOT YOU, SCORSESE!
  • Some of the movie’s assertions are prima facie stupid for anyone who knows anything about the Mob.
  • According to The Irishman, Joey Gallo got shot by Mumbles for insulting Joe Pesci at the Copa.
  • Which is not how it went down.
  • Joey had just gotten out of jail for starting a gang war, and was now attempting to start another one.
  • Pretty much everyone but Jerry Orbach wanted him dead.
  • (Joey Gallo was good friends with Jerry Orbach. Long story. The 70’s were weird.)
  • WAIT!
  • I FORGOT THE BEST PART!
  • Apparently, we are to believe that Mumbles was part of the Bay of Pigs.
  • He drove the truck full of guns and grenades and whatnot down to Florida.
  • Killed Hoffa.
  • Murdered Crazy Joe Gallo.
  • AND armed the Cuban exiles who disastrously tried to retake their home with the aid of the CIA.
  • I’m shocked that Mumbles wasn’t on the grassy knoll.
  • I am not kidding: Ant-Man is more believable than this pile of well-shot garbage.
  • You heard me.
  • Garbage.
  • Don’t cum in my hair and tell me it’s pigeon poop, Martin Scorsese.
  • Especially the last four hours or so when Mumbles is old.
  • And we’re supposed to feel bad for him.
  • His daughter won’t speak to him.
  • Just because he, you know, murdered all those people.
  • And funded her childhood with blood money.
  • Then–FUCKING THEN–we get a scene where the FBI comes to visit ol’ dyin’ Mumbles.
  • He don’t give ’em nothing.
  • That’s a man, the film tells us.
  • Never opened his mouth.
  • EXCEPT HE WROTE A FUCKING BOOK.
  • No matter which version of the truth The Irishman decides to go with, everyone involved looks shitty.
  • But I’ll give Scorsese this: I watched the whole fucking thing.
  • And I really want to rewatch Casino.

Queen Of Comedy

“Jesus, Brian.”

“Shut up, Roger. This is what Freddie would have wanted.”

“Can he even sing?”

“Little bit.”

“I see what you did there.”

“Because that’s what he says.”

“Right.”

“Little bit, little bit.”

“I said that I got it.”

“It’ll be great, Roger. He’s got to be a better singer than Paul Rodgers.”

“What were we thinking?”

“No idea. Not our finest moment.”

“Brian, there’s got to be someone out there who can sing, and wear wacky outfits, and enjoys joining bands.”

“Oh, God, it’s come to this.”

“I’m sure he has already has a leotard, Roger.”

“Oh, go talk to your badgers.”