Hate that the felt the need to switch to a generic title. I Heard You Paint Houses is much cooler.
studios probably prefer names that are easier 2 spread through word of mouth (like the departed)
Yeah, in Hollywood, two word title > four word title.
Frank Caliendo does the best Pacino
… why the need to mention no DiCaprio?
Just curious. Wanted to make sure you weren’t one of those mindless parrots who hates DiCaprio in Scorsese films for no apparent reason.
i don’t hate anyone
i do like dynamics, particularly when auteurs are concerned and if dicaprio, keitel and daniel day-lewis all featured, the project would be interesting though not the same feel
the most exciting inclusion 4 me is the great al pacino finally collaborating with martin scorsese :O)
Yeah, whatever. After THE DEPARTED and SHUTTER ISLAND I’m not sure I give a shit what Scorsese does.
scorsese is one of the greatest directors ever!
Scorsese was a great director whose most recent films have been, to put it politely, disappointing.
apparently there is a gangster film called the irishman with christopher walken, val kilmer, vinnie jones and paul sorvino :O(
“Scorsese was a great director whose most recent films have been, to put it politely, disappointing.”
Disappointing for you apparently.
Well, I’ll give you that The Departed wasn’t incredible, but Shutter Island is, while not Scorsese’s best, far from disappointing. Some folks take their filmgoing experiences WAAAY too seriously. Lighten up and just enjoy a good atmospheric piece. It’s like bashing Bergman for directing Hour of the Wolf – it’s called “atmosphere” people, grab a dictionary and loosen your necktie.
… all that being said, this project doesn’t exactly thrill me.
Glad you dug SHUTTER ISLAND, Deckard. As it happens, I was hoping Scorsese was going to deliver a “loose necktie” kind of genre funhouse movie, but alas, Scorsese’s colossal pretensions (mind games, Dachau sequences) kind of suffocated any fun the film might have had.
For me, at least. Not disappointing for you, apparently. Opinions, man, they do differ…
I also thought “Shutter Island” was a good film. I read somewhere that Scorsese was going to direct a film about two portuguese missionaries in Japan during the 16th century. It seemed like an excellent project, but since then we’ve had no confirmation on those news. I’d prefer seeing a film like that than another gangster flick. Martin Scorsese is good in that particular genre, but I prefer new ventures. Time will tell…
“Wanted to make sure you weren’t one of those mindless parrots who hates DiCaprio in Scorsese films for no apparent reason.”
There are plenty of reasons to hate DiCaprio in Scorsese films. He’s ruined three of them: GANGS OF NEW YORK, THE AVIATOR and THE DEPARTED. DiCaprio’s a horrible actor and every time he steps in front of the camera in those films, it takes me out of the film. He looks like a kid who wandered onto the set and got mistakenly fitted out with grown-ups’ clothes. GANGS OF NEW YORK would have been so awesome without DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz. He didn’t ruin SHUTTER ISLAND, because it was already ruined by a bad script and a stupid twist that killed my interest in the film. In fact, the thing I liked most about SHUTTER ISLAND was the spectacle of seeing DiCaprio suffer so much abuse in it. That was fun.
I can’t blame DiCaprio alone for the failures of Scorsese’s most recent films. Bad scripts and Scorsese’s own bloated pretentiousness do as much to sink GANGS OF NEW YORK and THE DEPARTED and THE AVIATOR, to say nothing of that ISLAND thing.
I thought DiCaprio was at his best in THE DEPARTED, interesting and genuinely threatening, in ways that he never was in that GANGS thing, and was quite good in AVIATOR, those little moments where he seems to realize that’s losing his grip, frantically clapping his hand over his mouth, were most impressive.
Vic Pardo: In fact, the thing I liked most about SHUTTER ISLAND was the spectacle of seeing DiCaprio suffer so much abuse in it. That was fun.
That’s kind of…weird. But hey, I don’t judge!
But Roscoe, while opinions may differ (don’t they always), there’s also something to be said for having an opinion that entirely misses the point of what the artist intended. You speak of “pretension” in Shutter Island, but what’s pretentious about it? If you can specifically pinpoint the pretension, I’d love to hear it. Why are you so certain that Scorsese wasn’t laughing his ass off while making the film while you’re quietly fuming in the theatre because he didn’t make the twist “undulating” enough for you?
Vic, that’s the bandwagon response to Shutter Island and so, in a way, it doesn’t surprise me, then again, it’s frustrating because you assume that the twist is the climax of the film (as “too much Shaymalan” has taught us over the years), but really it’s the least important part. In fact, perhaps one should stay with Shaymalan’s films if that sums up cinema for ya.
And it bears mentioning that you sound like you were beat up by DiCaprio in primary school or something … just sayin’, sounds like a personal thing.
Ya, the DiCaprio insults tend to be retarded and misguided “anti-Hollywood” propoganda. He’s SUPPOSE to look too young in Gangs. Thats the fucking point of the movie, if you weren’t too busy searching for Raoul Walsh references or some shit. He nails Boston in “The Departed”. If you don’t think so, you don’t live here. And “Shutter Island”?? Watch it back-to-back with “Shock Corridor” and tell me he doesn’t nail the existensially lost 50’s noir character. I’m dissapointed in a lot of Scorsese’s post-2000 decisions (save “The Departed”, which is such a wonderful 30s gangster film throwback I like to watch it with the original “Scarface”), but I think to blame it on DiCaprio is just looking for far too simple a solution to a clearly complicated problem.
Didn’t you get that memo, Jake, that DiCaprio is the antichrist of cinema?
heh
This sounds fairly interesting, but I want to know why he seems to have abandoned making “Silence”. The thought of Scorsese directing an adaptation of Shusako Endo’s brilliant novel seems like the perfect movie marriage.
“And it bears mentioning that you sound like you were beat up by DiCaprio in primary school or something … just sayin’, sounds like a personal thing.”
No, I’m just a crotchety old man who resents these young whippersnappers. “Now get off’a my lawn!”
Deckard, you have evidently not considered the possibility that you are in fact the one who is missing the point of SHUTTER ISLAND. I see no evidence that Scorsese was laughing his ass off while making the film, all those flashbacks to Dachau and the nattering about “God gives us Moral Order” and dying a good man instead of living a monster indicate, to me at least, that Scorsese was taking the film very very very seriously indeed, intending to add High Moral Significance to an otherwise rather empty genre rollercoaster, and (to me) only succeeding in making a deeply silly (and not in a good way) movie in the process.
Looks like we disagree. Again, it does happen round here. There was a lot of very lively debate about this silly little movie when it was first released.
“Undulating”?
Negative comments about Shutter Island from Roscoe? I’m shocked—shocked!
Yes, Roscoe, I am the only one who has missed the point of Shutter Island (damn, and I thought I was so close), that is a possibility. I seem to forget though (perhaps you can refresh my memory), did Scorsese write the source material for this film or not? And while you’re wikipedia-ing that (or glancing at your bookshelf), perhaps you can ponder this morsel of inquiry: If a film is based on a serious subject (such as moral order, “dying a good man”, etc.) does that necessarily mean that the filmmaker is treating this subject seriously? Mull that undulating tidbit over awhile and get back to us.
Didn’t say you were the only one, Deck. There are plenty of folks who share your view of SHUTTER ISLAND.
No. As you are doubtless well aware, Dennis Lehane wrote the novel upon which the film is based. I don’t see that that has anything to do with the discussion.
Comic films have been based on serious subjects, of course. I don’t see that SHUTTER ISLAND is one of those films. I found it resolutely unfunny. Glad you were so amused by it.
Opinions, dear boy. They differ. You all too evidently like the film. I do not.
Moving on.
What struck me most about Shutter Island was the soundtrack — everything Max Richter puts out sounds as though it should be played at full volume inside the Holocaust Memorial Museum. Perhaps Scorsese knows what he’s doing after all.
like2sleep
:O)
scorsese directing deniro, pacino and pesci in a gangster film!
(and no dicaprio!)