Excerpt from Arkansas News article about upcoming fall films http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Style/168362/ The Departed — One of the dangers of doing these sorts of things is the possibility of indulging in shameless expectation-rising hype. That said, I’ve seen this one and it’s the best Martin Scorsese movie since at least GoodFellas. I don’t do Oscar talk, but if I did, I’d say this is the one that does it for Marty.

Even the trashy UK tabloid-style (Sunday Mirror) loves the departed! It's a great thing when a film can unite liberals, conservatives, and the gossip-mongers - canoodle-fest :o

The Metacritic page is up, with only 3 reviews so far. I don't understand why Variety's review is a 90. :?

Well and the Music
Wells and the Music Love the sound of this... The musical ride that Scorsese takes you on in this film is great -- a series of late '60s/early '70s rock tracks that fortify the scenes (or portions of scenes) they play under, but not in any literal "oh, the lyrics are commenting on what we're seeing" way. It's more of a visceral -emotional thing, and it feels dead perfect. That the music plays under the scene...not literal use of lyrics and songs in any way. nd that’s exactly why I love Comfortably Numb in TD, even though it's received a lot of criticism from other people. Can’t wait for that soundtrack, but hearing the music in a few days will be great! Thanks for the article, Peanut

Yah, yah, I hate it when directors overdo the music, especially well-known songs and music to try to induce emotion to an audience. Music is important in a film but it shouldn't replace the acting or the dialogue. cameron Crowe has started to be guilty of doing it - its lazy directing in my humble opinion.

Sunday Mirror
I like the Sunday Mirror review. Bloody, brutal and brilliant - DiCaprio and Nicholson shine in the crime movie of 2006. Thanks, Z. Whoa. TD is getting incredibly GREAT reviews! Could I be more psyched for Friday?!?! sky & Abstract... Yeah. It almost seems corny when the lyrics match up to the scene or the dialogue too much. 'Something' should connect but not the lyrics. It's why I liked Comfortably Numb in the trailer too. That sedate kinda dreamy feel of CN is a great contrast to the frenetic pace of the trailer. It just worked for me. But...I'm still scratching my head over a Beach Boys song (any Beach Boys song!) included in TD. Okay. I trust Marty so I'm sure he'll make it work. :wink:

Beach Boys song - there's a song called Heroes and Villians in their discography - or maybe I Get around. Or something hopefully not so literal.

When's the Rotten tomatoes meter going to be updated? So far its only got 7 reviews. Where are the Time, Newsweek, Roeper, Sarris , etc reviews on that site?

Review from New York magazine's David Edelstein: http://nymag.com/movies/reviews/21979/ Rats in a Cage Everyone’s going to hell in The Departed, and Martin Scorsese has fun killing them off along the way. By David Edelstein Closely patterned on the 2002 Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs, Martin Scorsese’s The Departed has an ingenious pretzeled symmetry. The story, transplanted to Boston, centers on two youngish deep-cover agents, a cop (Leonardo DiCaprio) posing as a mobster, and a mobster (Matt Damon) posing as a cop. The first surreptitiously alerts the police captain (Martin Sheen) that a deal is going down, then the second alerts the crime boss (Jack Nicholson) that the cops are on the way. Then the first alerts the captain that the mobsters know the cops are on the way, then the second alerts the crime boss that the cops know the mobsters know the cops are on the way. You can see how things might get tricky, particularly as each rat becomes aware that he has a rat-doppelgänger on the opposite side and attempts to sniff him out. Plenty of movies and TV shows portray the paranoia and loss of identity that come with undercover life. But this one has double-double mirror-image variables to mess with the characters’ heads—and by the way, I mean that literally: The last film with so many geysers of brain matter featured Freddy squaring off against Jason. Major American auteurs don’t usually sign on to do remakes of foreign hits. My guess is that what attracted Scorsese—apart from the paycheck—was the chance to fashion a fast, mean, relatively impersonal crime thriller in which everyone is damned to hell. There’s no mercy—not even for the audience. (The movie’s theme song is the Stones’s “Gimme Shelter.”) William Monahan’s dialogue is Mamet-speak played at Alvin and the Chipmunks speed with a broad Boston accent. While characters spit yahmuthahfuckedme expletives into one another’s faces (along with peculiar citations of Shakespeare, Freud, and James Joyce), Scorsese and his fab house editor, Thelma Schoonmaker, drive the action brusquely. They cut from Costigan (DiCaprio) to Sullivan (Damon) to Costigan to Sullivan, with each man in the same location in the frame. They can hardly sit still in the present; they leap around in time, splintering a moment into its antecedent and aftermath. They chuck in random splattery head shootings and bashings—like demitasses of espresso in the middle of a long road trip. The movie works smashingly, especially if you haven’t seen its Hong Kong counterpart and haven’t a clue what’s coming. But for all its snap, crackle, and pop, it’s nowhere near as galvanic emotionally. The star of Infernal Affairs, Tony Leung, had the stillness of a volcano; in the film Hero, he made practicing calligraphy seem fiery. DiCaprio, as good as he is, is on the lumpish side. He has a wide face and lots of brow to furrow, but Scorsese doesn’t linger on him long enough to help us connect with his feverish alienation. It’s easier to read Damon, with his darting little eyes and slippery-squirt smile, but we don’t give a fig about him. Monahan has made the character more of an out-and-out villain—a conscienceless opportunist—than he was in the original. Sullivan hungers for a career in politics. He has no loyalty to anyone, not even his surrogate-father crime boss, and so he has no dramatic stature. Plus, he’s lousy in bed. The Departed clocks in at two and a half hours, yet it’s two and a half hours of jabber and jolt; even the scenes between Costigan and the court-appointed shrink he tumbles for (the vivid, blue-eyed Vera Farmiga) degenerate into insult-fests. Classical conductors speak of the ability to “sustain the long line”—to stay measured, to resist the impulse to break a passage up into too many climaxes. Scorsese, brilliant as he is, isn’t a long-line kind of guy. He’s a fits-and-starts man, and he and Monahan blow the film’s intricate centerpiece, in which both undercover agents, under tight scrutiny, tap out messages to their bosses on concealed cell phones. The sequence doesn’t have much kick because it doesn’t have much clarity, and it ends abruptly, with a shrug. The Departed has enough tension to keep you engrossed, though, and enough color for ten crime pictures. Scorsese obviously adores his expensive, expansive ensemble, and this is one of the few films in which the actors’ over-the-top Boston accents actually enhance the performances. Sheen, with his grayish hair swept back, does a puttering little avuncular number that’s hugely likable, and, as his snarling sergeant, Dorchester native Mark Wahlberg gets back in touch with his inner Southie delinquent and almost steals the picture. But he’s matched, expletive for expletive, by Alec Baldwin as the head of the police task force—preening happily, his diction overdeliberate, his twinkling self-infatuation contagious. Now that Nicholson’s Mulholland Drive neighbor Marlon Brando has given up the ghost, there’s no one on earth whose appetites seem as mythic. As the crime boss Frank Costello, he looks great. Not healthy, but not puffy—haggard in ways that make him more magnetic than ever, and with burning eyes. The Boston accent does wonders for him—it keeps him from slipping into that familiar lazy singsong. In the first half of The Departed, when Nicholson plays it straight and self-contained, he’s shockingly effective, and very scary. I wish Scorsese had nixed the idea to have him swing a big dildo as a gag in a porn theater. As Costello becomes more unhinged, he also becomes more Jack, and we know you can’t kill Jack with ordinary bullets.

DiCaprio, as good as he is, is on the lumpish side. ?? lumpish?? :shock: Damon, with his darting little eyes and slippery-squirt smile yep, I must agree there :wink: thanks for the review Stucky 8) it seems David isn't an ardent fan :?

Edelstein is evidently a big fan of Tony Leung (nothing wrong there!!!) but lumpish doesn't seem to square with most of the other reviewers here and perhaps he should be reminded that DiCaprio isn't trying to mimic Leung's work anyway -- two actors playing somewhat differently the same character. I suspect he prefers IA, period. He seems to be more than a little squeamish about the dildo. Hmmmm......Interesting! Don't be surprised by similar reviews from other New Yawk critics. They dislike going along with the crowd. :twisted:

Quote:" DiCaprio, as good as he is, is on the lumpish side. He has a wide face and lots of brow to furrow, but Scorsese doesn’t linger on him long enough to help us connect with his feverish alienation. It’s easier to read Damon, with his darting little eyes and slippery-squirt smile, but we don’t give a fig about him. Monahan has made the character more of an out-and-out villain—a conscienceless opportunist—than he was in the original. Sullivan hungers for a career in politics. He has no loyalty to anyone, not even his surrogate-father crime boss, and so he has no dramatic stature. Plus, he’s lousy in bed. " - Harsh. Well, at least he says of Leo "as good as he is". Well, compared to lean and smallish Tony L., I guess LD is lumpish. hmmm, he really dismisses both the leads, especially Damon. But weirdly he still says the movie works smashingly so it''s still a review that's more positive than negative.

"lumpish" - awkward, inept, graceless, etc., etc. Strange terminology to use for someone who's also "good". Dave loves Tony....

"Lumpish"? That's an, uh, interesting way to describe human beings - I wouldn't use it even to describe the Hulk! Ouch. Leo is indeed very tall (I am still amazed by his height) compared to Tony (who measures about 5ft9in) though. Tony...I have a lot of respect for him of course, and since he is one of the stars I grew up with, I find him endearing as well. But while I love IA and I respond well to positive reviews about it, I don't really like these comparison between the way actors look even if it favors the movie. Acting style maybe, but looks - unless it is relevant to the role (for example, how Americans used to play Asians in old movies) - comments on them tend to become inflammatory and ultimately somewhat pointless. Also, I still cannot help to chuckle when people heap praises to Hero or House of Flying Daggers. They are actually considered pretty horrible films by Chinese standards and lots of virtual rotten eggs and tomatos aiming at them had found their trajectories through the local websites; mean as these posts were, they were actually quite funny to read sometimes. Anyways, I found Hero acceptable, but to use it as an example for Tony's performance I could not - he has done much better work elsewhere and Hero with its pretentiousness is not the best showcase of his talents. Perhaps the reviewer was mentioning Hero to get some "foreign movie connaissuer (sp?)" points, but I must confess that for me it is not working very well. :P