Preview: Martin Scorsese's The Irishman

In the unlikely event you weren’t already geeked to see The Irishman, Martin Scorsese’s magnum opus featuring the dream-team cast of Robert De Niro, Al Pacino. Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel, Netflix amped the must-see quotient today by dropping a riveting trailer for the film.

What’s it all about? According to Netflix, The Irishman is “an epic saga of organized crime in post-war America told through the eyes of World War II veteran Frank Sheeran [De Niro], a hustler and hitman who worked alongside some of the most notorious figures of the 20th century. Spanning decades, the film chronicles one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in American history, the disappearance of legendary union boss Jimmy Hoffa, and offers a monumental journey through the hidden corridors of organized crime: its inner workings, rivalries and connections to mainstream politics.”

The Irishman will open in limited theatrical release Nov. 1, and debut on Netflix Nov. 27. Here is the trailer. 

My favorite take on Wolf of Wall Street so far

My Facebook buddy Paul Schrader posted this about his good friend Martin Scorsese's latest triumph: "I just sent Marty an email, said congrats, must feel great to still be pissing people off at the age of 71." Hear, hear!

Martin Scorsese's It's a Wonderful Life 2: The Wolf of Bedford Falls

As much as I love It's a Wonderful Life, I must admit: I'd also love to see this sequel.

Trailer Park: The Wolf of Wall Street

OK, I have to admit: This teaser trailer for Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street (opening Nov. 14 at theaters and drive-ins everywhere) looks pretty badass. And it'll be interesting to see Leonardo DiCaprio playing hard-partying Wall Street moneymaker Jordan Belfort so soon after his impressive turn as the party-throwing millionaire mystery man Jay Gatsby. But -- and I don't mean this as criticism, just observation -- is Matthew McConaughey wearing some sort of prosthetic teeth in the restaurant scene here? Nothing on the order of Matt Dillon's choppers in There's Something About Mary, but...

From Martin Scorsese: Scary stuff, kids!

Just in time for Halloween, the great film director and historian gives us -- appropriately enough, at The Daily Beast -- his list of the 11 scariest horror movies ever made. Oddly enough, Night of the Lepus did not make the final cut.

R.I.P.: David Carradine (1936-2009)

David Carradine worked with everyone from Ingmar Bergman to Quentin Tarantino, Charlton Heston to Chuck Norris, Paul Bartel to Martin Scorsese, Hal Ashby to Walter Hill, in movies and TV series of wildly uneven quality, in just about every conceivable genre, during a screen acting career that spanned five decades. But it’s the role that made him a ‘70s icon – Kwai Chang Caine, the mystical martial artist adrift in the Wild West of Kung Fu – for which he remains, now and likely forever, best known. He seemed to be a good sport about being so closely identified with Caine, even to the point of more or less reprising the character in an updated ‘90s spin-off series (Kung Fu: The Legend Continues) and frequently spoofing it in various movies and TV commercials (most recently – to hilarious effect – in Big Stan, Rob Schneider’s under-rated direct-to-video comedy, which, no kidding, is well worth a spot on your Netflix queue). But he also demonstrated his versatility in an impressive variety of roles while amassing scads of credits as a steadily employed character actor. Of course, remaining “steadily employed” as any sort of actor often requires… well, taking employment where you find it. Much like his famous father, Carradine occasionally picked up easy paychecks while slumming through forgettable clunkers. But never mind: His best work greatly overshadowed his worst projects. And besides: It’s easy to forgive an icon almost anything. Especially one who walked the earth like Caine in Kung Fu.

Under the influence

Woody Allen insists his work has not influenced other filmmakers. No, really. At the Venice Film Festival, he told reporters: "I don't mean that to sound like false modesty, but I could always feel the influence of my contemporaries — Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg — but I have never seen my influence on anyone."

Two questions immediately come to mind. First: Which Woody Allen most obviously reflects a Spielbergian influence? Second: Has Woody Allen ever seen... well, gee, I almost don't know where to begin. David Frankel's Miami Rhapsody? Julie Delpy's 2 Days in Paris? Anand Tucker's (and Steve Martin's) Shopgirl? Noah Baumbach's Mr. Jealousy? Ed Burns' Sidewalks of New York? Any freakin' movie ever made by Whit Stillman?

Less hype, more Oscars?

Some observers are wondering if the key to Martin Scorsese's long-overdue Oscar victory was his non-campaigning campaign. Others are questioning whether it was the right award and the right director, but the wrong movie. My opinion? I'm just thankful he finally got the freakin' gold.

I can't... resist... Overwhelming urge... Must offer Oscar predictions...

My track record as an Oscar prognosticator is, to put it charitably, uneven. On the other hand, I did manage to predict the Best Picture win by Chariots of Fire a quarter-century ago. And I think there may be two similarly surprising upsets on Sunday night. For what they’re worth – which, trust me, likely isn’t much – here are my guesstimates, along with some second-guessing.

BEST PICTURE

WILL WIN: Little Miss Sunshine
SHOULD WIN: The Departed
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Marc Forster’s exquisitely spare yet emotionally resonant Stranger Than Fiction

ACTOR

WILL WIN: Forest Whitaker (The Last King of Scotland)
SHOULD WIN: Peter O’Toole (for, I freely admit, purely sentimental reasons)
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Aaron Eckhart, for his ferociously funny and fearless performance as an amoral PR spinner in Thank You for Smoking

ACTRESS

WILL WIN: Helen Mirren (The Queen)
SHOULD WIN: Helen Mirren
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Gretchen Mol, for her tantalizingly ambiguous portrayal of a ‘50s pin-up queen who may be innocent and knowing in The Notorious Bettie Page

SUPPORTING ACTOR

WILL WIN: Alan Arkin (a.k.a. Upset No. 1) for Little Miss Sunshine
SHOULD WIN: Alan Arkin
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: James McAvoy, if only because he hasn’t been given sufficient credit for his shrewdly nuanced performance as the callow Scottish doctor who’s all-too-easily seduced by a gregariously psychotic Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland. (It can be argued, of course, that McAvoy actually was the lead, and Whitaker was the supporting player – but, hey, that’s showbiz.)

SUPPORTING ACTRESS

WILL WIN: Abigail Breslin (a.k.a. Upset No. 2) for Little Miss Sunshine
SHOULD WIN: Rinko Kikuchi for Babel
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Maggie Gyllenhaal for either World Trade Center or Stranger Than Fiction

DIRECTOR

WILL WIN: Martin Scorsese (The Departed)
SHOULD WIN: Martin Scorsese
SHOULD HAVE BEEN NOMINATED: Robert Altman for the deeply affecting long goodbye of A Prairie Home Companion

Tonight's the night for Marty

Martin Scorsese is the odds-on favorite to get the top prize tonight at the Directors Guild of America Awards.

A moment of Zen during the Golden Globes

Very odd: I'm speaking on the phone to the long-suffering Mrs. Leydon back in Houston (while I'm a hotel room in Dallas) when the Best Director award is announced. (We're both watching the Golden Globes on our respective TVs.) She exclaims: "Oh, Martin Scorsese! That's great! It's about time!" But here's the strange part: She says that about four seconds before I hear the announcement on my TV. I have to ask myself: Do TV signals hit Houston before they hit Dallas? Or what?

The state of cinema

David Denby writes in The New Yorker: "In the past, commercially successful artists like Alfred Hitchcock, Preston Sturges, George Cukor, John Ford, and Billy Wilder would have been astonished if anyone had told them that they could succeed with only slivers of the audience. They thought they were working for everybody, and often they were. Today, with a few exceptions like Ang Lee, Scorsese, Spielberg, and Eastwood (and not necessarily with all their movies), the artistically ambitious director who is considered to have universal or even widespread appeal is an endangered species. Part of the reason, perhaps, is that directors are working for an audience more diverse than the audience of fifty or sixty years ago. The most important reason, however, is that, by splitting the audience into a spectacle-and-comedy, opening-weekend crowd and a specialty-division urban élite, the studios have given up the old dream of movies as an art form for everyone."

And mind you, according to Denby, that isn't the worst of it

If nominated, he will not campaign... No, seriously, he won't...

Richard Johnson of the New York Post has an interesting item in today's Page Six column. But I hope he'll forgive me if I respectfully suggest that he may have buried the lede. The item nails reporter L.A. Times reporter Paul Liberman for "recycling" quotes from a 2005 piece to create the illusion that he recently interviewed Martin Scorsese regarding the Oscar potential of The Departed. But Johnson save the really intriguing info until the very end: "The director, who's been nominated five times for Best Director and never won, is said to be purposefully not campaigning this year. 'He was embarrassed by all of the hoopla over The Aviator and Gangs of New York,' said Leslee Dart, Scorsese's rep."

I bet he had more fun at the movies than John Dillinger ever did

Did The Departed get a thumb's-up review from a not-entirely-objective critic? For Martin Scorsese's sake, I certainly hope so.

'Martin Scorsese's Next Film To Be Three Hours Of Begging For Oscar'

Hilarious stuff from The Onion: A sneak preview of The Entitled, Martin Scorsese's "three-hour, unabashed plea for a Best Director Oscar," coming soon to a theater near you.

"'I've been making pictures for 40 years,' said the intense, fast-talking Scorsese in an excerpt from The Entitled, during which the Rolling Stones' 'Gimme Shelter' can be heard in the background. 'For 40 years, I've been making pictures. And I've always been fascinated with the struggles a man must endure when people don't appreciate him. People say I'm the best. I didn't say it, they did. I just do my work. But for years they've been talking and you know it. You do. I deserve that award, is all I'm saying...

"'You already should have done right by me with Gangs Of New York,' he said. 'I handed you guys that one on a silver platter.'"