Want to see “The Irishman” in Manhattan this weekend? Good luck.

Netflix only has it playing in three theaters, and they are basically all sold out. The movie directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Joe Pesci, and Harvey Keitel, has a 99 on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s pitched for multiple Oscar nods. But you wanna ticket? Marone!

The Belasco Theater on West 44th St. is running two shows a day, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. There may be one or two seats left at each show. When I looked today, pretty much everything was gone.

At Landmark 57, the most inconveniently placed movie house in the Western Hemisphere, you are out of luck. The 57th St. cross town bus is going to be very packed (you take it all the way west, until the driver is scuba diving). All the shows are sold out except for a few seats in the front rows.

Downtown, at the IFC Center, there 21 shows over the three day weekend. Only three of them have spots left, and they maybe gone by the time you look.

Monday and Tuesday at all locations are filling up, and word of mouth should do the trick. “The Irishman” would have been so great at the Ziegfeld, or the real Beekman, or the Coronet and Baronet. And the Paris? Don’t get me started. It’s just sitting there across from the Plaza Hotel, abandoned, shutdown by the greedy landlord, with the “Pavarotti” banner fading on the marquee.

By the way, an update: in many places outside of Manhattan, “The Irishman” doesn’t start until November 14 or 22nd and plays for just a few days. This is sinister. In Brooklyn there are no showings until the 14th. Fuhgeddaboutit!

Is it the beginning of the end for movie theaters?

Tomorrow, Netflix opens Martin Scorsese’s epic “The Irishman” — highly touted for the Academy Awards — in just a handful of theaters. And even in those places, “The Irishman” will end its run in 27 days.

In the old days, “The Irishman” would have opened eventually in 3,000 screens, starting with the Ziegfeld here in New York. The Ziegfeld is now a party space.

Netflix, a streaming service, couldn’t make deals with theater chains. The chains didn’t want to take in a movie that would almost immediately be available at home. “The Irishman” is not Netflix’s only awards film this season. They have “Two Popes,” “Marriage Story,” and “Dolemite is My Name.” The latter is pretty much not anywhere except for one small theater I found in Chicago.

Of the 50 United States, 27 will not get “The Irishman” at all. A handful of others– Connecticut, Louisiana, Montana — will show the movie in 1 theater for the whole state. A few lucky states– New York, California, Florida — have a half dozen sites. In New York, “The Irishman” opens at the Belasco, a Broadway house on West 44th St. The other two locations are the Landmark 57, which is on the border of New York and California, and the IFC Waverly downtown, known for independent films.

Scorsese has said that only Netflix would fund “The Irishman” for $140 million. The large price tag was due to the new process used for “de-aging” the actors so he could tell the story of Jimmy Hoffa along different timelines. The movie has a 99 rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Most who’ve seen it agree, “The Irishman” is a masterpiece. But it may become the first masterpiece not to be seen by most people on movie screens but at home. And that’s more of a tragedy than Jimmy Hoffa’s mysterious death.

Here’s a list of theaters showing The Irishman between now and November 27th. The distribution pattern doesn’t even make sense to me. A lot of hip college areas, like Austin, Texas and Portland, Oregon aren’t getting it. Small indie chains like Alamo Drafthouse and iPic don’t have it, either.

It’s not easy out there for some quirky films to find audiences.

“Jojo Rabbit,” the Hitler satire, made as much money on Monday in 55 theaters as it did the previous week in just 5 theaters. On Sunday October 20th, “Jojo Rabbit” took in $95,897 in those five locations. This past Monday, in ten times the number of screens, the controversial film raked in the same amount, less even: $94,026.

Fox Searchlight tells me many people have enjoyed “Jojo Rabbit,” a movie I did not like and cannot recommend. It’s a weirdly anti-Semitic misfire of a movie that’s supposed to “send up” Hitler. Twitter members seem to like it, but the actual audience that has viewed “Jojo Rabbit” this week doesn’t endorse it. On Tuesday, their box office had the lowest increase from Monday of all current films.

I can’t imagine what regular people think when they’re sitting through the litany of anti-Jewish tirades that take up the first half of this movie. The argument for “Jojo Rabbit” is that the main child eventually disavows all this, learns that his imaginary friend, Hitler, is evil, after befriending an Anne Frank-like character. Uh huh. Well, I don’t have that much patience. I doubt word of mouth is sending people to the theater.

Elsewhere, Bruce Springsteen’s “Western Stars” is pretty much done at the box office. After a huge Friday night with $650,000, “Western Stars” has more or less collapsed. So has Kanye West’s “Jesus is King.” Only  35 minutes long, or sort, “Jesus is King” lost two thirds of its audience after the weekend. Again, Kanye’s movie, like Bruce’s, had a big Friday and then a steady fall off. But both albums, “Western Stars” and “Jesus is King,” are selling well. And that’s what this is all about.

Olivia Wilde, actress and director, is livid and rightly so that Delta Airlines heavily edited her much acclaimed movie, “Booksmart.” Isn’t it enough that this poor movie was botched in its release by Annapurna Pictures? Now Delta, the airline that once made me wait 6 hours in Salt Lake City so they could find an antenna for their plane, has scissored up a fine film for no reason except stupidity?

Wilde posted this to Twitter this afternoon:

“I finally had the chance to watch an edited version of Booksmart on a flight to see exactly what had been censored. Turns out some airlines work with a third party company that edits the movie based on what they deem inappropriate. Which, in our case, is … female sexuality?
🤔First of all, in order to select this movie from hundreds of options, you have to agree to a “parental advisory” that warns you that viewer discretion is advised. Once you click “proceed” it seems like you’ve agreed to watch the movie in its original form. Instead…— They muted or cut the word “vagina.” VAGINA.
— They removed Molly’s entire scissoring sequence. (No scissor emoji?! Thread for another time…)
— They Molly’s masturbating and UTI story (it didn’t end well).
— They cut the porn moment in the Lyft (our Oscar clip).
— They cut the second half of the animated doll sequence — because naked doll bodies – made for children – are too shocking even with no genitals. Speaking of which, they cut the word “genitals.”
— Most disappointingly, they cut most of Amy and Hope’s love scene in the bathroom, which involves zero nudity, but does involve an essential plot point for a lead character. Wtfffff.
By the way, they didn’t cut ANY cursing. Every “fuck” is heard loud and clear, sometimes in the same scene where they muted “vagina.”
🤯
. They showed George (elegantly) deep-throating a microphone but couldn’t stomach a consensual love scene between two women.
What message is this sending to viewers and especially to women? That their bodies are obscene? That their sexuality is shameful?
I urge every airline, especially those who pride themselves on inclusivity, to stop working with this third party company, and trust the parental advisory warning to allow viewers to opt out if they choose.”

The Oscar Race is now in full swing-with a star-studded week of screenings, events and premieres.  Sony’s “Little Women” (which opens on Christmas Day) had its first screening last Wednesday night at the DGA. Hot ticket:  they had to turn people away.

Greta Gerwig, wrote the directed the film based on the iconic book, took the first of what will be many of her victory laps.  She commented before the film started that, “I am really nervous and really excited, and I couldn’t be more honored to share this with you. This really to me means so much. I grew up with this book. I know a lot of people did. They felt like my sisters. Their adventures felt like my family’s. In some ways when you grow up with literature like that, it becomes part of your internal life. It’s always been my dream to make this before I even had the option.”

Afterwards she was joined for a Q & A by cast members Meryl Streep, Laura Dern, Florence Pugh, Timothee Chalamet, Saoirse Ronan who all deserve awards buzz, as does Alexandre Desplat’s lovely score.  Amy Pascal is one of the producers who spearheaded the project. Pascal has described Gerwig’s take as “punk rock and Shakespearean.”  Gerwig pointed out that “so much of it is about money and women and money and women and art and money and how do you make art if you don’t have money,” to which Streep gave a true theatrical, “Amen!”

The premiere of Martin Scorsese’s  magnificent “The Irishman” followed the next night at the TCL in Hollywood with a star studded audience that included Justin Timberlake, Rosanna Arquette and Josh Gad.

The next day the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the BFCA, flown in by Netflix for a stay at the Four Seasons and a lavish premiere,  had their own press conference with Martin Scorsese, Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino.  Pacino was particularly animated, recounting stories of his playing Richard III, with a more subdued DeNiro looking on in bemusement.

The next day, more Netflix soirees: producer/actress Colleen Camp hosted, along with Quincy Jones no less, a reception and screening for Eddie Murphy’s “Dolemite” at the exclusive San Vicente Bungalows.  Longtime friends ‘Q’ and Eddie reflected on how they both “carried on in Cannes” and other musings.  Quincy noted, “I always like to say ‘I’m sorry I did, rather than I wish I had.”  That comment cracked Eddie up.

Quincy calls Eddie ‘peas’ to which Eddie explained, “that goes back to when I was in grammar school, and the kids teased me about my hair.  I told him that story once years ago and he’s never stopped calling me ‘peas.’  Quincy then congratulated Eddie for bringing this “funny brilliant and inspirational film to us.  I have no doubt we will be discussing your performance for a long time to come.  And let me just say that you and film absolutely deserve all the great responses you’re receiving. That’s a winning role man.”

Eddie replied, “We’re in the presence of greatness y’all.”

Colleen, beloved and tireless as she is, also hosted a screening and reception for “The Irishman” at the London Hotel. DeNiro and Pacino were accepting kudos and chatting with the voters and press. Another of Netflix’s buzzed about films, “Two Popes,” comes next. (They have four of the season’s top top top movies including “Marriage Story.”)  And so it goes.  Awards season is in full blast now!

Photos c2019 Showbiz411 by Leah Sydney