FOT Forum
FOT Community => General Discussion => Topic started by: HaroldBlvd on March 04, 2010, 01:09:38 AM
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Anybody see it?
I just saw it. I really wanted to like it. You ever go to a movie that you wanted to like and the movie makes a bad turn plot wise and never get back on track. That's what this movie is to me. Turns out to be one of those Jacobs Ladder type films that you don't know where reality starts. I hate movies like that. It was too long and got really boring. No suspense.
I spent a lot of the movie thinking about the great Scorsese movies that I have loved over the past 35 years. Many of them can be viewed numerous times. Not this one.
Should be called Shitter Island.
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Disagree.
While not the best movie ever made, or even in Scorsese's top 5, I still had a good time with the movie. I knew little about the plot (other than seeing the trailer 5,000 times over the past 8/9 months), so I had a great time with the whole ride of the film. I think that there's a lot about the first 30 minutes or so that is put there intentionally to be off-putting or suspicious and that is taking a lot of folks out of the movie, but it's part of the whole grand plan of the film. For example, DiCaprio's acting was way over the top for me until the various pieces started coming together and it made more sense.
I think the key is lowering your expectations and knowing little or nothing about the plot. Or maybe there is pleasure in knowing the entire plot and seeing how the film is intentionally messing with you. In any case, I thought it was pretty wonderful.
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I will end up seeing this sooner or later, but from the trailers I've seen and things I've heard I can't imagine that I'm going to enjoy it. It just seems so heavy-handed and lame. (Casting Max Von Sydow as an ominous German doktor? Did he only get the part because John Carradine is dead?)
Then again, I do have an abiding love for BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, which is a deeply flawed but hilarious grand guignol crazyfest, so maybe I will enjoy this on the same level...
But I swear to God, if it turns out at the end that Leonardo DiCaprio is really, like, a patient in the mental institution or some shit like that, Scorcese is going to be dead to me. I swear to God he better not try to pull that kind of sub-GOTHIKA shit.
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For me, the ending was not clear.
Bringing Out The Dead! I was trying to think of the name of that picture. It is better than this one for sure. It didn't get the best reviews but I'll bet it's worth a second look.
Same screenwriter as Taxi Driver.
My Brooklyn College professor assigned my class to see Taxi Driver in76 when it came out. I was blown away.
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**SPOILER ALERT**
But I swear to God, if it turns out at the end that Leonardo DiCaprio is really, like, a patient in the mental institution or some shit like that, Scorcese is going to be dead to me. I swear to God he better not try to pull that kind of sub-GOTHIKA shit.
Heavy handed and lame, also accurate. I really enjoyed the power point presentation near the end to help explain the plot twist. Great cast, beautiful pictures. I still like Scorcese, not his best work.
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But I swear to God, if it turns out at the end that Leonardo DiCaprio is really, like, a patient in the mental institution or some shit like that, Scorcese is going to be dead to me. I swear to God he better not try to pull that kind of sub-GOTHIKA shit.
Technically your beef would be with Dennis Lehane, not Martin Scorsese. I've read the novel so I am kinda curious to see how it works as a film. In spite of the fact that Scorsese is near or at the top of my list of favorite directors, I just realized the other day that Casino is the most recent of his movies that I've seen.
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I liked it a lot. The atmosphere of the thing appealed to me more than the story, which is admittedly kind of stupid. It was really just an excuse for Martin Scorsese to empty his bag of tricks, and I found most of them effective. I thought some of the dream sequences were expertly done (the first one with Michelle Williams in the apartment, the one with Elias Koteas) and as individual scenes they'll probably rival anything else I'll see this year.
SPOILER ALERT!
The plot is pretty holey, though. The twist in itself isn't that bad, and after seeing the clues in a second viewing I actually found it kind of clever, in a dumb sorta way. The reasoning behind the twist is what bothers me. They'd actually let their "most dangerous patient" run loose on the island? During a HURRICANE? With a doctor he could conceivably murder at any moment? And why would they get the other patients to fuck with this guy's head? Aren't THEY insane too? Wouldn't forcing them into some dumb narrative sabotage their own treatments? Wouldn't that skew their grip on reality? And so on.
END SPOILERS!
But like I said, the plot was secondary. SHUTTER ISLAND is nothing if not a feast for the senses, and I had a great time watching it. Though it did kinda annoy me that they assembled this murderer's row of awesome character actors and only gave them like two minutes of screen time apiece. I could've used more Ted Levine and Elias Koteas.
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For me, the ending was not clear.
Bringing Out The Dead! I was trying to think of the name of that picture. It is better than this one for sure. It didn't get the best reviews but I'll bet it's worth a second look.
So, so good. Between Nic Cage, John Goodman, Tom Sizemore, Cliff Curtis, and Ving Rhames, the scenery in that picture gets chewed to a frothy pulp.
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But I swear to God, if it turns out at the end that Leonardo DiCaprio is really, like, a patient in the mental institution or some shit like that, Scorcese is going to be dead to me. I swear to God he better not try to pull that kind of sub-GOTHIKA shit.
Technically your beef would be with Dennis Lehane, not Martin Scorsese. I've read the novel so I am kinda curious to see how it works as a film. In spite of the fact that Scorsese is near or at the top of my list of favorite directors, I just realized the other day that Casino is the most recent of his movies that I've seen.
If that's the case, you should see The Departed, it's definitely in the Scorsese tradition.
On Shutter Island, I also looked forward to seing it because of reading the book, and overall I wasn't disappointed.
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I read the book in a day and a half. I have no desire to see the movie now.
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Is Dennis Lehane worth checking out? I'm intrigued because of his involvement with The Wire and I'm always looking for decent crime fiction.
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It was a fun, easy read, but I was totally disappointed by the ending and I saw it coming a mile away. Like, 5 pages in. I turned to my mom who read it before I did, and I said [SPOILER ALERT], "He's a patient, isn't he?" and she said, "I'm not telling you!"
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I'll say it again...terrible movie for the reason mentioned above.
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Is Dennis Lehane worth checking out? I'm intrigued because of his involvement with The Wire and I'm always looking for decent crime fiction.
I like his stuff. Two of his other books have already been adapted (Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone) and his most recent book The Given Day is also in development. I would recommend Darkness Take My Hand, Gone Baby Gone, and Mystic River. They're fun, solid crime fiction.
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Veronon/Jackson 7 train station.
(http://hphotos-snc3.fbcdn.net/hs173.snc3/20072_313811580841_746065841_3340350_5426663_n.jpg)
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I went in with extremely low expectations, spoilers having been thoroughly spoiled and not being much of a late Scorsese fan... I was rather pleasantly surprised. He and DiCaprio both threw everything they had into this trash heap of a script (I mean that in the best sense if there is one) and for me it had more than enough energy and technical ingenuity scene by scene to carry me through.
I'm sure that (SPOILER) the whiteboard scene near the end was a very tongue in cheek homage to some old b-movie convention. It reminded me of the end of Psycho but there are probably dozens of dumb movies Marty knows and loves that used a similar device.
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It was an ok film but it was layered as hell, clues all over the place. It might be fun to rewatch.
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Saw it a few weeks back. Thankfully my father spoiled it the day before right after I said "i'm really excited to see that." Thanks dad.
Oh and it was okay.
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SPOILERS
Didn't like this much and I hope its success doesn't provide the wrong kind of reinforcement for Scorsese and the Hollywood twist ending factory in general. Scorsese's got kind of an unsure grasp of Kubrickian creepiness, and I didn't really find the alleged b-movie touches "fun," especially since he continues to cast one of the most un-fun leading men this side of Russell Crowe. It was good seeing Max Von Sydow, Ruffalo, and a few others though.
As the ending stands, it's boring, predictable, and implausible, but the premise is kind of inherently hilarious. Everyone is playacting for the benefit of a dangerous maniac running around the island, putting themselves at huge, expensive risk... during a hurricane, no less? That's gold, Marty, gold! I want to see a remake from the POV of the orderlies, nurses and fake (?) patients roped into going along with this shit, preferably directed by a resurrected Robert Altman.
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Just watched it. The Boston accents were funny.
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Late period Scorsese is hit or miss for me. Casino is great. The Departed is good. Gangs of New York and The Aviator didn't do much for me. Still, at some point, I do hope to get around to seeing Shutter Island.
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I thought it was just okay, not great or even exceptionally good.
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Late period Scorsese is hit or miss for me. Casino is great. The Departed is good. Gangs of New York and The Aviator didn't do much for me. Still, at some point, I do hope to get around to seeing Shutter Island.
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The Aviator had such an awkward pace to it.
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The Aviator had such an awkward pace to it.
It wasn't a great movie but I really loved DiCaprio in it, have to say.
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Off-topic, but is anyone else looking forward to the release of Taxi Driver on Blu-Ray? From what I've heard, and read, the restored print is supposed to look amazing.
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I loved The Aviator. Shutter Island not so much.
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The Aviator > Shutter Island
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In the Aviator, I love the fact that Scorsese and his cinematographer used time appropriate film techniques. That's why the peas look blue when Howard Hughes is staring at them all funny.
For me, Shutter Island works as a genre film that entertains but is far from great.
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For me, Shutter Island works as a genre film that entertains but is far from great.
Seconded. I do not regret my time watching it at all as obvious as some of it was. The second viewing was more fun because there was quite a bit of subtlety I missed.
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Yeah, I had fun watching Shutter Island. Nobody's going to mistake it for top-shelf Scorsese, but I thought it was solid, dumb, pulpy fun. Granted, I'd read the book before I saw the movie, so I wasn't really paying any attention to the plot at all. I guess I enjoyed the fevered tone of the visuals and the performances. All of the actors seemed to have taken their tonal cues from something like Kiss Me Deadly, and I think it worked here.
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Off-topic, but is anyone else looking forward to the release of Taxi Driver on Blu-Ray? From what I've heard, and read, the restored print is supposed to look amazing.
Saw a 4k Digital Projection of the restored print of Taxi Driver Tuesday night. Looks great! What a fantastic movie! Looking forward to the Blu Ray, which has the commentary track recorded by Criterion in '86 with Scorsese and Schrader.
Also, I enjoyed Shutter Island.