Posted on 12/03/2019 12:38:51 PM PST by Rummyfan
A lot of movie stars are on the short side — Robert Redford, Sylvester Stallone, Richard Dreyfuss. Despite being only about 5-8;, Paul Newman always managed to get himself described as “lanky.” Al Pacino is one of the few who always seemed shorter than they were. (About 5-7;, I think.) Maybe that was because Pacino always seemed to be fighting uphill, having to try harder than anyone else. Even in the Godfather pictures, he was the little squirt of the family. Until he wasn’t. He wouldn’t have been Michael Corleone if he had been tall and imposing.
Being compact has proved critical to Pacino’s success. His combustibility, his pugnaciousness, his scorching sarcasm, his intelligence, and his toughness all played off against his tortured hangdog eyes, his mild speech impediment in the early films, his vincibility. Along with Jack Nicholson, Pacino is the most essential American actor of his generation, endlessly watchable even in shameless-hambone mode, pumping electrifying craziness into his lines. Al Pacino has not always been blessed with great scripts but he always shows up for work. He pursues new variations on a theme. If nothing else, he makes you smile.
By contrast, consider a randomly chosen example such as, say . . . Robert De Niro. The two are frequently compared, but there is no comparison. De Niro ran out of acting ideas 30 years ago and has been coasting ever since.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
“”” Deniro was terrible”””””
He has been in about every gangster movie ever made and he is the same in every one.
The only part I had trouble with was Ray Romano as a mob lawyer.
They could have also used younger guys in the scenes that went back in the past. All the makeup in the world cannot erase thirty or forty years.
Well, at least DeNerdo has a lot of sole....................
Well, at least DeNerdo has a lot of sole....................
Thanks for the feedback. Three hours? !!
I know just how you feel. I hate Robert DeNiro for his anti-Trump idiocy.
Nevertheless, because my TV just died and I don't plan to replace it (and I have free Netflix by mooching off my daughter's Netflix account), I bit the bullet and just recently watched The Irishman.
It really is a great movie, a true (as far as is known) story about the Mafia in the age of JFK and Jimmy Hoffa. No fake character names (as in Goodfellas, one of my all time favorite movies).
I watched it more because it was directed by Martin Scorsese -- who did an amazing job as always. It's said that this one is his last gangster film.
I hate to admit it, but DeNiro was excellent in it, as was Joe Pesci and Al Pacino.
So all I can say is phuck Robert DeNiro, but it's a great movie. I highly recommend it.
Loved the Irishman. Pacino was outstanding.
Pacino was great in Glengarry, Glen Ross.
He was terrible in it, I was laughing at him the whole time. Besides the usual stupid faces he makes, there’s one scene where he has to beat up this guy, and they use computer graphics to make DeNiro look younger, but because in reality he’s almost 80 he could barely move and it looked fake as hell, he taps the guy and the guy goes right down, then DeNiro does these little baby taps with his foot lol lol. And Pacino looked absolutely ridiculous, he looked nothing like Jimmy Hoffa, what he looked like was Al Pacino with a wig glued to his head, a wig with a ridiculously low hairline. I didn’t think it was that great a movie at all. Goodfellas beats it by miles.
Second Hand Lions is a gem most people seem to have missed.
There’s a after the Irishman movie session where Joe Peschi, DeNiro, Pacino and the director all talk about how they did the aging and new digital method they used.
When I think of De Niro, I think of the Diceman’s impersonation of him...
https://youtu.be/mzybzb2BMi0?t=40
Loved Goodfellas and Casino.
Back then, though, it was a left-liberal magazine and in any case, Al was just working in the mail room.
I doubt he's any kind of a conservative, but he did two portraits of very flawed liberals - a mayor in City Hall and a PR man in People I Know.
There wasn't any conservative message, it was just that if you want to show urban corruption nowadays, the people involved are likely to be Democrats and liberals.
Serpico was another tale of urban corruption.
Honestly, Pacino peaked very very early. His three important movies are Godfather, Godfather II, and Dog Day Afternoon. Everything after that has run from OK to awful.
Pacino made a great movie about Shakespeare’s Richard III. I knew he was smart after seeing that.
Bobby D is an ignorant hack.
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