The Irishman

All hands on deck! Pacino, Deniro, Pesci, Keitel. Scorsese has assembled the best dream cast around and delivers a much anticipated classic here and you can see and feel it from the very first frames. The Irishman is a master class in excellent film composition and an ode to all the best films of it's cast and director. Old fashioned film making paired up with the well placed use of de-aging technology is amazing (and, admittedly a little weird) to see and just gives the viewer this sense of nostalgia for when these guys were in their prime, less we forget that this was also a film about a man's life and intersection with Hoffa  and the mob. It even pokes fun at the fact that people nowadays don't know who Hoffa even was. Indeed, this is not just a gangster film in even the obvious storytelling style of Goodfellas or Casino. You could rightfully say all of Scorsese's best films are encapsulated here. There is the passage of time, end of an era motif played out in so many other levels not just integral to the story itself. What we are witnessing in The Irishman is magical, majestic, and with a level of craft on all levels to strive for.  I would describe it as an internal gangster film with more efficient use of violence and it doesn't need to be anything more for the viewers or anticipators of just shoot em up action leanings. Like last year's brilliant winner in Alfonso Cuaron's Roma, I easily anticipate great things here. Needless to say, of course everyone's performances were damn stellar and at the top of their game. Netflix, to their credit, has given both of these directors a medium to work in as real film artist, to anyone who has the short attention span to complain about their long running times. The level of detail in each well placed shot, writing and storyline, composition, acting, soundtrack, foreshadowing, etc., is a poignant and beautiful thing to behold when it's done right and The Irishman is certainly that.