Second viewing tonight. The opening, with Jack's silhouette and the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter", gets your blood going like no other film released in 2006. The soundtrack is rock solid, from "Comfortably Numb" (Pink Floyd) to "I'm Shipping Up to Boston" (Dropkick Murphys - originally written by Woodie Guthrie). Both Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon put in great, layered performances, and Alec Baldwin (the boomer Vince Vaughn now?) and Mark Wahlberg are hilarious in supporting roles. Jack didn't get nominated for an Oscar; my guess is that if the bizarre cocaine/opera sequence had been cut, he would've been, but that scene alone almost made his character gimmicky. I hate Martin Sheen (because of his real and fake politics), but love his portrayal of Queenan, the one unambiguous good guy in the film.
Scorsese does a masterful job of interweaving the storylines and good cop/bad cop elements. In lesser hands the story likely would've played much more cliched and less resonant. The pundits say its between this and Babel for Best Picture. I'm pulling for this one.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
The Departed - A
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3 comments:
I agree. I think this film will be notable for forever moving DiCaprio from Pretty Boy to Man status and for moving Marky Mark to Mark Walburg. Walburg finally looses that puppy-dog look and whiny voice and truly acts. Until now, his acting has been a PS to his work for Calvin Klein as far as I was concerned. Now, the modeling/funky bunch period is just an interesting sidenote.
With the massive bloodletting at the climax of "The Departed," you'd think it might be hard to make a sequel. Well, a domestic take of $125.2 million is making Warner Bros. Pictures and director Martin Scorsese think not.
Talks are under way to put together a sequel to the crime thriller, which has garnered five Oscar nominations and is the biggest boxoffice hit of Scorsese's long career. Sources say that "Departed" writer William Monahan is working on a take that would bring back the temperamental foul-mouthed cop played by Mark Wahlberg, who received an Oscar nomination for the role, and introduce a new character to be played by none other than Robert De Niro.
Sources caution that Scorsese would need to approve any take before development was to move forward. A prequel is not being ruled out, either. "Departed" is an adaptation of the Hong Kong pic "Infernal Affairs," to which Warners acquired the rights in 2003. The studio also had option rights to the movie's two sequels.
It is unclear if this new movie would fall under that agreement since Monahan's take could end up being an original story. The acclaimed Chinese movies are regarded as "The Godfather" of Asian cinema, with the 2003 sequel being a prequel, much like "The Godfather 2." The third movie combined elements of the first two movies. Warners declined comment.
Three quick things:
1: Check out: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/reeling/2007/01/x_marks_the_spo.html
2: I loved how the music lyrics playing on the soundtrack commented on the events occuring in the scene.
3: The scene where DiCaprio follows Damon out of the movie theater is the best directed and edited scene in this decade.
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