‘Ah, no way, I watched The Irishman last night and while there were several explosions the total lack of people flying and evil robots totally spoiled it’, read the comments of people guffing up Twitter about Martin Scorsese’s recent release on Netflix.
‘This film about some old white folk doing criminal activity puts way too much focus on old white folk doing crime and there was nowhere near enough dabbing for my liking,’ I imagine someone somewhere has tweeted.
You get the gist, these young whipper-snappers with their yo-yos and their Tik-Toks, they don’t have the time to sit down and digest anything with a narrative. In fact I’d be pleasantly surprised if any managed to get to the end of this article without ingesting a Tide Pod. Kids eh.
The Irishman has received plaudits all round, including chap who’s actually got a valid opinion on films Mark Kermode, who pointed out: ‘For all its flash-back/flash-forward tricksiness, The Irishman rarely seems disjointed or thematically fractured. It conjures a kaleidoscopic illusion of depth that only starts to shatter as the pace flags in the final act,’ making note of the film’s only flaw, not that naysayers on Twitter would’ve got that far.
And lazily looking over to Rotten Tomatoes for a: well I did watch it last night and I really don’t understand how your attention spans can be so small, it’s one of the best films I’ve seen all year, can you give me some aggregated validation… yeah it’s sitting nicely over there on a Certified Fresh 96%.
Not only have they got a load of people complaining (wrongly) that the film is boring, people have also been discussing watching the film on their phones. Something Scorsese has warned fans against doing. And what the fresh hell is this, pick on a legendary film director week?
So if I, a mere film fan and in no way connected to the Scorsese/Netflix racket, can get so apparently riled up, you’ve got to spare a thought for the poor sod working the Netflix Film social media account.
They picked up on a 2019-ingly whiny tweet saying: ‘Debated watching The Irishman on my phone for this four hour bus ride but I feel like Scorsese will magically appear and beat my ass if I do’. Oh the sass.
They responded accordingly:
he absolutely WILL appear but instead of a beating he will simply sit across from you for the entire film and twinkle his eyes in a grandfatherly way that says “it’s ok my child, formats and presentation matter, but your experience of art is valid no matter how you receive it”
Which is a lot more restrained than what I’d manage. Nice one, Netflix.
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Tim Horner is a sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated with a BA Journalism from University College Falmouth before most his colleagues were born. A previous editor of adult mags, he now enjoys bringing the tone down in the viral news sector.