The Defarted

As I *sqeeeeeze* out yet a tiny bit more Blistex from my mostly spent Blistex tube, I write this blog. And I should probably also have some caffine too, as it is currently 6:30am. Yes, I said it - AM! I totally fell asleep last night at 10:30 and now I'm up and actually feel mostly rested (we'll see how long it lasts).

Anywho... here's the dish on my first Netflix movie, the Oscar winning, Irish bashing, face smashing, bullet ridden, brain splattered roller coaster ride that is The Departed. I had high expectations for this movie, and while not completely disappointed, it wasn't as good as I hoped it would be.

The very first thing you'll notice is that everyone kind of looks the same at first. Why, why, WHY, when filmmakers are introducing 15 characters would they ever have them all wearing similar clothes with the same haircut? I understand it's Boston and all, but at least have someone have a limp or a flower in their lapel or something so that we can easily distinguish one person from another (in the movie, everyone has a bad accent, bad haircut, and bad attitude - also the entire city consists of all Irish men, slutty therapists, and two black guys).

Everyone involved does a pretty good job, but DiCaprio and Nicholson both deliver stand out performances (in my opinion anyway) and I was very surprised they weren't nominated for anything (Wahlberg did a good job as well, but his part is so small and one dimensional, I would hardly even qualify it as a supporting role). If you can look past giant plot holes and things left unexplained, you'll enjoy yourself lots.

One side effect of this movie is that for at least 6 hours afterwards, I felt as though someone at any moment would come bursting into the room to shoot me in the head, splattering my brains and head full of blood all over the room. Seriously, I'm NOT kidding! There were a lot of graphic head shots in this movie and I'm not sure if all of them were necessary. It was pretty traumatizing. On the flip side, the next day I had feelings of being able to solve any issues I had with anyone by shooting them in the head. Who says violent movies don't make people violent? :)

ps. Scorsese may have won for best director for this film, but I personally would choose Bringing Out the Dead or Kundun as better representations of his incredible talent.

pps. I'm always disappointed when I see some fantastically designed posters for a movie that's not carried through in the titles or in other marketing material. Instead of the above stark, traditional design, they moved on to a crappier standard poster.

ppps. Who did the soundtrack for The Departed??? It seriously sucked big donkey brains.