Martin Scorsese's nearly four-hour long crime epic The Irishman dropped on Netflix a few weeks back. It's already garnering awards talk, and while I can see certain aspects of the film being worthy of that praise—in terms of performances, Al Pacino steals the show—for the most part it was an utter slog to get through for this avowed Scorsese acolyte. Let me clarify. I haven't truly loved a Scorsese movie in a very long time. However, his earliest 1970s films, all the way up to his 1990s work, have always been absolutely crucial to my love of movies. These were some of the first films that helped teach me the language of auteur cinema, shaping forever after how I would see, feel, process, absorb, and analyze film. So, go ahead and watch The Irishman if you have half a work day to kill. But please, follow up with some of Scorsese's best films as either a reminder or, if you've never seen them before, a mind-blowing introduction to the man's cinematic genius...
we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars