This was not the most exciting box office weekend. The number 1 film, the animated “Abominable,” made just $20 million. For animation, it’s an abomination.

The good news is that “Downton Abbey” is heading toward $70 million next week and is a close number 2. So a sequel (or two) are in the cards, and quickly, quickly. That’s because Violet, the Dowager Countess, announced portentous news at the end of this one. So to reasonably keep Maggie Smith in part 2, Julian Fellowes must make a second film that falls in the timeline quickly.

(We have to see Branson marry Imelda Staunton’s illegitimate daughter and inherit everything. Then for part 3, the daughter dies, so does Mary’s husband, and then Tom and Mary join up for a ferocious triumph after World War II: Downton Abbey motels. Also, Barrow has to meet Alan Turing. No I am just making this up, but the sequels are coming despite my irreverence. PS Dan Stevens and Jessica Brown Findlay must be at the pub right now wondering where it all went wrong.)

Next Friday, er, Thursday, we’re getting “Joker,” which will be a massive number no matter what else is said, and Pedro Almodovar’s wonderful, “Pain and Glory,” which could could bring an Oscar nomination for Antonio Banderas.

This week’s possible success story is Rupert Goold’s “Judy.” It made $3 million at 461 theaters. On Friday, it expands. This is Renee Zellweger’s Best Actress Oscar bid, and she’s way out front. Will Roadside Attractions rise to the occasion? Or did they release a month too soon? We’ll see how this goes. RAtt., as its listed on boxofficemojo.com, is not known for marketing savvy.

Currently, “Ad Astra” has spaced out completely despite a very good Brad Pitt and excellent cinematography. Space movies are for some reason not great investments lately. Last year, Damien Chazelle’s very good “First Man” sputtered.  Now “Lucy” is coming apart, with a very low 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. Sadly, “Lucy in the Sky” looks like it will be an aborted mission for Fox Searchlight.

For Fox Searchlight, the “Lucy” show is not good. Their whole pitch to Disney is that they’d give the studio Oscars and kudos, as they did with “Shape of Water,” and “Three Billboards.” They made money on the low cost “Ready or Not,” but not much. Now “Lucy” will be a disappointment. Coming next are “Jojo Rabbit,” which is a crap shoot, and “Hidden Life,” a movie that had buzz in Cannes but has disappeared from any conversation (maybe because people are sleeping).

Fox Searchlight has a huge winner in the “The Private Life of David Copperfield.” I wish they’d just rev it up and get it out there. All this doom and gloom would vanish in a second.

Our Leah Sydney attended a private screening of “The Irishman” in Los Angeles today. She was very enthusiastic.

Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman” is a monumental mobster masterpiece from a master filmmaker.  The film is poignant, funny, violent and compassionate, weave that in with Scorsese’s longtime iconic trusty gang, DeNiro, Pacino, Pesci, Keitel; that in itself would be enough.

But true to Scorsese’s supernatural skill,  and with Steve Zaillian’s brilliant script, there is so much more.  This is perhaps his most reflective film, focusing on life’s imperfections and mortality.  Nostalgic, innovative and breathtakingly artistic.  “The Irishman” bathes you in its time, it’s a bath that you just want to linger in, the 3 hours, 29 minutes running time goes by too quickly.

Based on the book “I Heard You Paint Houses” and told through the hit man Frank Sheeran (De Niro) the saga, spanning decades, tells the story of Jimmy Hoffa, (Pacino) the larger than life union boss who was murdered but remains the most massive unsolved mystery in American history.  Sheeran’s bosses included the tough as nails Russell Bufalino (Pesci).  The intricacies of the story, the deep dive into organized crime with  the gritty goings on and the ties to politics, JFK’s election and more, make this film an absolutely perfect, engaging movie going experience.

The poignancy theme is throughout the film, and the last 1/3 is especially moving.  “The Irishman” is an epic of filmmaking, the crime packed ride provides more pop culture memorable lines that will be in our lexicon for future generations.

The actors are perfection, besides the top three Kathrine Narducci as Pesci’s wife, Bobby Cannavale as Felix DiTullio, Harvey Keitel as Angelo Bruno, Ray Romano as Hoffa’s hapless lawyer, Bill Bufalino, and more, all shine. DeNiro, Pacino and company have never been better.  So the remarkable legacy of the genius of Scorsese lives on in cinematic history.

The mysterious disappearance and death of union leader Jimmy Hoffa is at the core of Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” a riveting three and half hour masterwork in the canon of a great director. It’s as if “Goodfellas,” “Casino,” Gangs of New York” — all of Scorsese’s mob-related movies — culminate here in a Gotterdammerung. Which isn’t to say the (almost) 77 year old director won’t make more. But this is it, the capping moment.

It doesn’t matter that Hoffa has already been investigated before, even in a good film like Danny DeVito’s Jack Nicholson-starrer from 1992. Scorsese, his editor Thelma Schoonmaker, his crew, and his cast have transcended Hoffa’s story so that it’s something else, it’s theirs. You don’t need to know a thing about Hoffa. Thanks to Steve Zaillian’s extraordinarily architectural screenplay, a new Hoffa has been born that’s Scorsese’s invention. Did it happen? Who knows? It happened to these people the director has given us.

Zaillian has lined up the mob events of the late 50s and early 60s so that they run parallel to the election of John F. Kennedy and the prosecution of the mob by Bobby Kennedy. The suggestion is underscored by the idea that the mob– one time Kennedy pal Sam Giancana’s name is invoked — was somehow responsible  for JFK’s assassination as retribution for RFK’s attack on them after — they feel– mob money got JFK elected. This is not an Oliver Stone conspiracy movie. But since the point of view is from within the mob, and Hoffa’s story arc goes from mob hero to victim, the point is explored just enough.

One character lays it out after Kennedy is dead and Hoffa is in the cross hairs of his own former friends: “If they can whack a president. they can whack the president of a union.” At the Q&A after the screening today, Scorsese tried to downplay that. But the line jumps out of the screenplay. No one need say more.

Robert De Niro is the lead character, Frank Sheeran, the “Irishman” who became mobbed up with Hoffa and real life Sicilian Mafia chief Russell Bufalino, played with soulful precision by Joe Pesci. This isn’t Pesci’s wise cracking psychotic from “GoodFellas.” Bufalino was vicious. He ran his crime family for 30 years, from 1959 to 1989, after a long history in bootlegging and other, more serious crimes.

Sheeran starts out as a truck driver, then does small errands for Bufalino, finally becoming a hit man. The code for identifying hit men is the line “I hear you paint houses,” which was the title of Sheeran’s book with Charles Brandt and was going to be the title of this movie when I first reported it in 2010. De Niro didn’t like the change to “The Irishman,” and said at one point it would be changed back. Instead, there was some sort of compromise because two or three scenes in, the words “I Hear You Paint Houses” appears on screen in bold type. We don’t see “The Irishman” title card until the end.

De Niro’s Sheeran is one of the esteemed actor’s most compelling creatures. He’s alternately funny, dim-witted, and serious, an operatic character who Pavarotti could have sung. Yes, there’s de-aging special effects but there’s also incredible make up so he can stretch through all ages. All of it works, none of it is distracting. But as Sheeran’s participation in Hoffa’s rise and fall develops, and the gravity of his role unfolds, De Niro pulls off maybe his great acting coup of his later career. I wouldn’t be surprised if he won the Oscar for Best Actor. He is remarkable.

Part of De Niro’s magic comes from his many scenes with Hoffa, played by Al Pacino in what his also one of his greatest inventions. Pacino is spectacular, at every age, creating Hoffa for us. Sometimes we know Al can be hammy or over the top, which is why he’s satirized so often. But here he is sublime, controlled, restrained, and exacting. Scenes of these two actors (my favorites of all time) are historic. Zaillian’s given them such intimacy it’s like they’re Abbott and Costello (or Vladimir and Estragon from “Waiting for Godot”). In one scene, that I call for now “It’s what it is,” they are doing their own Beckett interpretation of “Who’s on First.” Pacino will be at the top of every list for Best Supporting Actor.

There are many supporting players who also deserve shout-outs including Harvey Keitel, Bobby Cannavale, Kathrne Narducci, Ray Romano, Jake Hoffman, Stephen Graham, Jessie Plemons, and, in a small role, Anna Paquin. Marin Ireland, as one of Sheeran’s daughters, isn’t listed in the imdb on the movie’s page or her own, but she has a scene that lights up the screen.

There’s also a lot of actors playing famous people of the time, like Don Rickles and Jerry Vale, and the use of real life clips of newscasters from the voice of John Johnson to the visages of Frank McGee, Roger Mudd, and so on. Scorsese throws in a lot of “easter eggs” including a movie theater in the background of one scene playing Don Siegel’s classic “The Shootist” (which starred John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, and Ron Howard). A formal description of that film is “A dying gunfighter spends his last days looking for a way to die with a minimum of pain and a maximum of dignity.” That sums up all of these guys– Sheeran, Bufalino, and Hoffa — but not Scorsese, whose career seems more revived now than ever.

A post script: this time around it’s not going to matter that the film came from Netflix. Unlike with “Roma” last year, no convincing is needed to get “The Irishman” a raft of Oscar noms (Picture, Director, Editing, etc) and even wins. This is it, this is the movie everyone asks for. “There are no good movies, what happened to movies?” This is what I hear all the time. Between this and “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” we’ve got them. So far, among the movies I’ve seen for this year, only these two and “Just Mercy” are in that category. They have to be appreciated regardless of distributor.

Photos c2019 Showbiz411 by Paula Schwartz

Martin Scorsese’s three and a half hour epic was unveiled to press this morning at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. The monumental achievement, a capping note to Scorsese’s amazing career, stars Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Bobby Cannavale.  Thelma Schoonmaker did the editing.

After the screening, all the principals, including the producers, participated in a press conference. Out of respect for west coast critics, there’s a reviewers’ embargo until 8pm tonight, Eastern.

The story is based on the book, “I Hear You Paint Houses,” written by Charles Brandt and based on stories from Frank “the Irishman” Sheeran, who claimed to know what happened to Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. Yes, we already had a movie called “Hoffa,” starring Jack Nicholson, written by David Mamet and directed by Danny DeVito. But you can’t tell a good story too many times.

What did happen to Hoffa? No one will ever really know, and Sheeran’s story may or may not be accurate. It doesn’t matter. Neither does the infamous de-aging technology Scorsese used so his actors could play themselves all the way through Sheeran’s saga. It’s a small part of the movie, and you’ll get used to it fast enough.

What’s apparent right away is the scope and meter of “The Irishman,” how engrossing it is, and that the public’s appetite is there for a big, important film. Netflix will show it in theaters, where it must be seen, from November 1-27, and then it moves to the computer platform. Don’t wait. Don’t put it off. To be completely absorbed by this important work, you must see it in a proper venue — even if you have a 75 inch TV. The phone interrupts, the kids come in, someone has to go to the bathroom, get a drink, whatever. For “The Irishman” and Scorsese, it’s worth it to get in the car and go to the cineplex.

Here’s the official review

We haven’t had a grand scale movie in a long time. Martin Scorsese’s “The Irishman,” at three and a half hours, will be unveiled in New York for the press tomorrow morning at 9am. It promises, from the trailer, to be great with a capital G. I wonder how many of the Twitterverse bloggers will be looking to criticize the special effects that de-age the characters. From the trailer, it looks fine. It’s a small part of a large epic that has to be judged on its whole. Scorsese would never show us something less than perfect in his eyes and those of his team including editor Thelma Schoonmaker. The main thing is have they delivered a sensational piece of cinema? I don’t think it will be anything less than that. “The Irishman” should be the biggest competition so far for the Oscars, with possible nominees in all categories. There are two strong actresses, also: Anna Paquin and Kathrine Narducci.

I think these four looks on Twitter today are very promising. And let me say right now, I wish they’d send me some of that de-aging equipment right now!

A lot can happen in a lifetime. pic.twitter.com/S2eLY1dB88

— The Irishman (@TheIrishmanFilm) September 25, 2019

Will Smith’s “Gemini Man” is striking out with reviewers this morning. As early word comes in, the Ang Lee – directed action feature is being panned pretty much across the board. Already Variety, the Hollywood Reporter, and Screen Daily have posted very negative comments. The budget is firmly in the $100 million arena.

This isn’t good news for Paramount, which has been struggling to find hits. Luckily, they did well with “Rocketman” this summer.

I just don’t get what happened to Ang Lee. His career has included great highs and lows. “The Ice Storm,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “Life of Pi”– all glorious hits. But then the unwatchable “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk,” “Ride with the Devil,” “Hulk,” “Taking Woodstock.” What explains all this?

“Gemini Man” is also coming at the wrong moment in the culture. Will Smith plays an action hero fighting a clone of himself, filmed like he’s in a video game. He’s constantly shooting a machine gun. There’s a lot of “killing,” And even though it’s make believe, I don’t think anyone’s in the mood right now. Sylvester Stallone’s new “Rambo” is already seeing a big fall off after its first week. There are people upset about the upcoming “Joker.” And this looks worse than those two.

Also, “Gemini Man” is filmed in motion-capture technology. Even the trailer is making me sea-sick.