I believe Hollywood is back
I just saw the new Martin Scorsese film and I must say I am speechless. That’s why I am writing. Let me tell you something about myself. I am a movie aficionado and for me the last few weeks have been drought season. After Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby , nothing else caught my eye until last week, when I watched the trailer of The Departed. A stellar cast, a brilliant director…I made a quick note to not miss this one.
As I grew up in India, watching in awe, the “English movies”, I wondered about the genius minds behind the scripts, the special effects and the actors themselves. How do they do what we can only imagine to emulate? Saving Private Ryan showed me why war is not what the world needs. Casino walks you through the lives of gangsters. Training Day threw light on corruption in the L.A.P.D. I feel The Departed is something like that. This post isn’t going to be a spoiler and so I’m only going to say the one thing you may already know. It’s an action thriller. For some reason the “Action Thriller” genre has been abused lately. If the screenplay doesn’t make you swear more than a couple of times, it falls short of being a thriller. However, this one is different.
When you are watching a movie, and you realize the lighting is different, the background score is overwhelming or there's not a lot of makeup, you know the director has something up his sleeve. In The Departed there are no heroes, no special FBI agents who pull out their guns every five minutes and yet survive till the end and walk away with the beautiful marine biologist or pro bono lawyer they met somewhere in first 20 minutes. Instead at the end, it will make you raise your eyebrows to your friend as they put the lights back on.
Looks like I finally got some rain.
posted by ViM @ 10:54 PM
17 comments
17 Comments:
Allright. You've just convinced me to go watch it. VinDhaloo has been going nuts over the trailer.Its screenplay-strong eh? Good.Good.Have you watched The Illusionist yet? How is it?
First of all, fsn 2.2, I thank you dearly for penning down my first unadvertised post's comment.
I believe VinDhaloo, if he is, who I think he is, will enjoy it. I'm not so sure about you. (You didn't like the new 'Pink Panther' which ofcourse is a different genre but...)
No I haven't watched the 'Illusionist'. But I recollect that it had a great cast too. Maybe on a DVD sometime.
Ok, the pro bono lawyer, I can understand, but where did the marine biologist come from??!! Have you been watching too many fish movies lately? In any case, you certainly can write! very.....elegant! (I am sure you have seen 'Emma')
Well that was a good promo for the Departed. I was hoping to catch it last week but wasnt able to . Will do sometime this week. Would like to iterate 2 points.
1. Well you grew up in India watching "English movies"....gimme a goddamn break. I know what kind of movies u grew up with. So letz cut the bull shit there.
2. I dunno if u r the kind of person who would enjoy "Jackass II"..wellI caught that movie 2 weeks back......it was sick gross and suprisingly very funny...you should give it a shot. Am actually waiting eagerly for the Hugh Jackman movie "the Prestige"
Hi Prathibha Akka...Nice to see you here. Honestly, I don't know where I got the marine biologist. I guess it just sounded like a science that women would like. Now I know that sounds dorky but I mean no harm. I have no prejudice against women in professional life.
Do check in from time to time and please ignore macho meatballs's comments.
Prabitha Akka: Appreciate your feedback and I haven't seen Emma yet.
Macho Meatballs: I'm not sure what you know or don't know about me growing up in India but I know whatever you know abt me is inaccurate because I would hate a movie like Jackass II. Self inflicting pain to crack up is NOT funny.
Is "The Prestige" the one with Cristian Bale in it? I loved "Batman Begins". It was the only Batman movie that I thought had a good screenplay. I'm sure many would disagree though.
Batman Begins - SUCKED (seriously are you talking strength of screenplay here? ).Batman's voice does NOT change when he switches identities. Why TF does Bale's voice suddenly become 'deeper and more mysterious?' I also didn't like that entire Ra-Gul side story.
Blech.The Dark Knight promises to be better. Lets wait and watch.
Jackass - ROCKS. That is so effin Hilarious.Gross but hilarious.The humor is in the fact that people even do stuff like that.
Yup - The new Pink Panther sucks (and sucked when I watched it) because I've watched the original with Peter Sellers and while Steve Martin is great in his own right, he cannot hope to come close to Peter Sellers' portrayal. That's why I didn't like it.
Thrillers are different, aren't they? Time will tell...
You are getting too many comments on your 2nd post....I guess advertising does pay off.
Indeed, ViM adopted a much abused name in the blogosphere, did some publicity on his own and is now reaping the rewards for it.
Anyway, FSN idiot...the only thing that you have been able to harp on for the past year or so about Batman Begins is Bale's voice change. Is that all you got? and worse...the complaints about Batman Begins coming from a guy who finds Jackass 'hilarious'! Is it just 'cos the title is something you identify very well with?
DeSPO: Did you come up with that all by yourself? You've surpassed ASStronomical levels set previously by, well you.
When Batman dons the cape, he doesn't change as a PERSON. He's still Bruce Wayne inside the suit. Why the f does his voice need to change? Facemask gets in the way? He's allergic to black leather? Long cape pulls on his neck?
Dream Sporting: Good to see you hear mate.
fsn 2.2: What's with the language dude? I don't see anyone swearing in your blog. In spite of ur hatred for the "Batman Begins" movie, you seem to be eagerly waiting for "The Dark Knight" which has the exact Director/Actor combination. Why so?
Did you get tipped off on some secret surgical voice restoration that Batman underwent?
Whatz with all the hatred towards Jackass II . Agreed the movie has a lot of "sick groan" moments. But its definitely worth the 10 buck ticket. There are stunts that will definitely make u rip ur guts apart. The movie opens with a guy disguising his dick as a mouse and putting it into a snake enclosure. So if you are willing to overlook the sick part of the movie......the movie is worth a few laughs...
FSN...have you heard of masquerade? Do you think that it pertains or should pertain to visuals only?
ViM...looking for consistency of speech from FSN is a futile attempt. His favourite movies will be Sivakasi and Jackass. But he will denounce Batman Begins because of a voice change.
Anyway, saw THE DEPARTED yesterday. "It's not a movie that can't be rated VERY GOOD, but not quite a movie that can be rated GREAT" :)
Some of the screenplay wasn't great. But of course, all this is nitpicking due to the enormous expectations with which I went for the movie.
Another annoying part was the number of loud laughs from the audience through the movie. The idea of dry humour appeared to be lost on most and the jackass sitting next to me wasn't any exception either.
lemme tell u whr u got the Marine Biologist from...Seinfeld.
-----------------------------------
George: I got about fifty-feet out and then suddenly the great beast
appeared before me. I tell ya he was ten stories high if he was a
foot. As if sensing my presence he gave out a big bellow. I said,
"Easy big fella!" And then as I watched him struggling I realized
something was obstructing his breathing. From where I was standing
I could see directly into the eye of the great fish!
Jerry: Mammal.
George: Whatever.
------------------------------------
-The Real Vik
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DeSPO: Have you ever followed Batman? I've been reading/following both the Batman animated series as well as D.C comics quite regularly, and Cristian Bale's portrayal SUCKS.True the screenplay is much darker than the others and fitting for a Batman story.
I was only chuckling but as ViM knows, the Jackass Two next to me BELLOWS, under the mistaken impression that its appreciative laughter. (ViM - please imagine the fathead going HOOHOOOOOHOOOOHOOOOHOOOOOOO)
@Vim: Sorry about the language buddy. My apologies. If you've learned to read you'd see that I said "The Dark Knight promises to be better. Lets wait and watch'.That is all I said, and yet you were able to get the fact that I am 'eagerly waiting' for it?
In any superhero movie, the Bad Guy matters a lot. The Scarecrow is NOT one of them. The JOKER is. In fact he's probably the biggest baddest Batman-world villain out there.In The Dark Knight he makes an appearance, although after Jack Nicholson played it so delectably, it will be interesting to see how Heath Ledger (he's the long haired charmer in 10 Things I hate About You) could even attempt to play him.
Now About the Departed. Dei ViM. In the last 20 minutes nobody's eyebrows went up.You sort of hyped up the movie and we were expecting a lot out of it.It was a letdown in that instead of some unseen twist, all we got was a pedestrian attempt at 'realism' that movies like Scarface have done, and done so well.
Guys...I have done the one thing that I hate when others do it and that is raising the expectations of a movie.
As I had no pre-conceived notions about the movie when I went to watch it, I loved every bit of it. Some of you on the other hand, obviously went with a larger than life expectation that let you down.
Nevertheless, it was a good movie.
Now let's get over it.
PS: @fsn2.2 - Peace.
So aficionado has run out of things to say,after a few posts then.
-fsn 2.2
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