Frenchy’s Fracas

General Info
Title:The Departed
Year: 2006

In Short
Two sides of the harsh life in Boston: one rookie cop going undercover to infiltrate the mob and one young mobster returning the favor by infiltrating BeanTown’s Finest. Their deception is directed by their superiors like pawns in a chess game (waxing metaphorically, me..). Both guys are trying to stay alive in a very hostile environment and at the same time finding out who’s the rat on the other side.

Extra Info: this is a remake of the super-incredible Mou Gaan Dou (Infernal Affairs) - a Hong Kong cinema classic!

Extra-extra info: my pal Harlem Ron, movie buff extraordinaire, will be adding his two cents to this little review.

The Movie
Visuals
Harlem Ron
Meh.. Too heavy on the symbolism, for example: the office scene with Matt Damon where he senses his time has finally come; just not working.
frenchy!
Great shot of a great city, Boston brings back memories! Nothing special, visually sound work. Lighting in the opening scene was classic.

Plot
Harlem Ron
Way too convoluted, Keep It Simple, Stupid! The writer and the director (the ever enigmatic Martin Scorsese) deliberately chose to skip the original script and tried to add their own sensibilities to the storyline. But this was a not very satisfactory, quite a lot of missed opportunities and the story got worse as it went on and on..
frenchy!
Well, for me from the start I couldn’t separate the original story from this movie experience: I kept comparing it over and over during the first half of the flick. I lowered my expectations for the second half and behold, I was less disappointed..

Cast
Harlem Ron
Jack Nicholson’s opening scene: man! He still is the one and only scene stealer. Leonardo DiCaprio’s on top of his game. Matt Damon’s a big nobody in this film.
frenchy!
I was again impressed by DiCaprio: still laughed my ass off when he drowned in Titanic, but the last coupla movies he’s been doing some great acting. Nicholson got on my nerves after a while: his over the top performance isn’t going anywhere, acting like nobody ever saw Pacino’s Scarface. Matt Damon? Ehm.. Next!

Conclusion
Harlem Ron
Quite some things bothered me about this movie. First off: the score. Scorsese’s movies almost always have a great score to accompany the great story (GoodFellas for example), but now it was incredibly incoherent. This movie has to be compared with the original flick and the remake falls short of the epic feel you get from the Hong Kong version. And that final scene, with the rat? Why?!?
Seems to me that Scorsese’s in a slump these last couple of movies. The Departed scores 2/5 as a remake (changed the whole feeling of the movie) and a 3/5 on its own strength.
frenchy!
Well, Harlem Ron was more positive than me during the first half of the movie and more disappointed by the second half than yours truly. I was kinda appalled at the way some stuff was handled like the elevator scene at the end of the story: why add to the body count in that scene? Why?!? I really wondered how people would rate this flick without ever seeing the original. A friend of mine, MeekeMar, liked it and thought it was entertaining. I remember some people leaving the theatre discussing about the ending: I’m not sure if everybody liked the story.
As a remake: 1/5. As a movie on its own: 2/5

Rating: Oscar Winner?

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General Info
Title: The Aviator
Year: 2004

In Short
Howard Hughes, millionaire eccentric, flying industry pioneer, movie mogul and so much more. The movie tells us the story from his first giant movie production Hell’s Angels up until his demise as one of the most successful industrialists of the world. It’s about ever decreasing circles..

The Movie
Visuals
Great work by director Martin Scorsese combining CGI, outtakes from original movie material and excellent camera work to create a total sense of the period. The attention to detail is incredible and adds to the overall feeling.

Plot/Cast
Simple, yet interesting plot, it’s a biopic conveying the life and times of one or many characters in this case the young multi-millionare from Texas, Howard Hughes, incredibly portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio. We start with a small but significant insight into Hughes’ childhood which sort of forebodes the mental development of the man. We see the total dedication of Hughes to achieve bigger and better things, beit movies or airplanes and the risks he’s willing to take to achieve these goals.
The rewards arrive, as well as the new life in the spotlight where everybody wants a piece of you or your action. Hughes’ distaste for the Hollywood style and people has only one exception: his true love Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett). With these achievements and successes there’s also a real flipside: Hughes’ phobia start taking over his life and threaten to ruin everything he’s achieved while at the same time driving him also to new successes.
The cast is great, although like many people, I’m assuming Cate Blanchett’s Oscar for Best Actress was more like paying tribute to Hepburn than a reward for her great acting. Alec Baldwin, playing Hughes’ greatest adversery, is in truely great form, showing us that age and extra weight can improve performance even though it’s only in front of an audience, heh. And ultra-hottie Kate Beckinsale did a really great Ava Gardner!
Conclusion
170 minutes is way too long. Should Scorcese have won the Oscar? No, he should’ve received an Oscar for his previous work, like Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas. The Academy people should start kicking themselves for not giving him the prize earlier on.
Although this movie’s very well directed, produced, cast and performed, it still isn’t worth the top prize. The movie should’ve lasted no more then two hours; to tell the story of the demise of a great and interesting character of such mythical proportions shouldn’t have a time limit, I know, but this length was making the movie a bit tedious. Too bad.
DiCaprio? He’s getting better and better, with Catch Me If You Can and Gangs of New York this is the third movie in which his performance was impressive, almost making me regret my cheering during his drowning scene in Titanic. Almost..

With that said, let’s Gizoogle this review: read on.. and mad props to my homie The Balko formerly known as Gort for finding this great link!

Rating:

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