Saw The De-pah-ted this weekend with The Lovely Becky. My blurb would be this:
"I laughed, I cried, I got my brains blown out!"
There are so many brains splattered in this movie, even zombies would say, "no thanks, I'm all full." You know it's bad when, during the climax of the film, people are laughing at the excessive head shots.
All in all, a very good movie that could have been great had it used its last red herring to cut down the largest tree in the forest instead of slapping me in the face with it. I don't want to give anything away but I felt a bit cheated at the end.
One fun note: some idiotic parent who clearly possessed no brains brought her toddler to the movie. I was sitting on the aisle when she brought the kid in, and I heard the slow Doppler effect of "what the fuck?" from other moviegoers behind me as she walked past. For good forming-language-skills measure, Nicholson drops the N-word about 15 seconds into the movie and there's carpet f-bombing all over the place. Thankfully, the 417th bullet to the head caused mom to come to her senses and take the kid outside.
Anyway, this seemed like a good idea to recycle my Manifesto on the Criminality of Bringing Small Children to Movies Where They Do not Belong nor Are Wanted.
9 comments:
Lucky you -- I went to Shortbus with UC. Would have rather seen the Departed. The people behind us couldn't handle it and walked out.
Prudes.
That's so funny. A woman I work with went to the same movie last week and was incredulous that someone brought their toddler to it as well. Do you think it's the same person continually taking her kid to desensitize her/him at an early age?
I can't imagine anyone being so stupid as to bring a child to this great flick, but I guess I shouldn't be so surprised .. When I went to see "Hustle and Flow," an even less appropriate flick for kids, there must have been at least 15 really younguns in the audience, with their parents .. unbelievable!
My personal fav is the night we saw an entire passle of ten-year-olds being dragged to a 10:30 showing of South Park: The Movie. They left after the "Uncle Fucka" song. Oh yes, they did.
I loved the recycled rant, especially boo(m)!
I myself have much more of a problem with adults asking their seat companions to explain the plot than I do little kids. During Syriana, for example, I hypothesized that the obesity epidemic is due to the excessive spoon-feeding of the American people. About an hour in, I was sorely tempted to produce my own Tarantino movie right there in the theater: "Damn. We should have shotguns for this kind of deal." Forgot my sawed-off in my other raincoat, to the majority of the audience's great good fortune.
The ending of The Departed was just a tiny bit weak, I'll agree, but I'd not advise people to miss it, at least not for that reason. I found it quite enjoyable, overall.
I suppose when you consider the list of my favorite movies, I might evidence a disturbing fondness for head shots, but really, it's all about the dialog for me. If you have a problem seeing a large number of caps getting busted in a large number of skulls, then don't vote Republican. I mean, don't see Scorsese flicks.
Other personal random reactions to The Departed (warning: mild spoilers ahead):
My biggest moment of dread came when I thought Alec Baldwin might be getting ready to deliver another Glen Gary Glen Ross scene, but thankfully, that didn't happen. (Such great moments of cinema should never be repeated, even as tribute.)
I was thinking, while watching the closing credits, "Damn. Great soundtrack. I gotta get this one …" until I remembered that I owned every song played in the movie.
It was good to see Jed Bartlet getting some post-Oval Office work that didn't involve having to play golf with 41. I could have stood a tad more evil from him, but it could be that Martin Sheen is just too fundamentally decent a guy. Or, it could be that I project way too much.
Vera Farmiga was quite stunning. I've never seen her before. Someday, I'd like to take her on a date. And buy her a sandwich. Or twenty. I heard that a minimum BMI for runway models was instituted at a recent fashion show, to near-universal acclaim. Such an idea can't spread to Hollywood soon enough for me.
I thought that the couple that brought their 3 year old to Matrix: Reloaded was bad, that was before I read tlb's comment. Now that is teh stoopid.
The South Park incident was something to see. TLB and I watched this woman bring in four kids -- not sure if they were all hers as they were about the same age (8-10 probably) and didn't look related. Everyone in the packed movie theater watched her bring them in and walk toward the front. You could hear people buzzing about it.
The movie starts, and while the first song isn't bad, "Uncle Fucker" kicks in and everything goes downhill from there. Right after the song ends, we see this large silhouette and four smaller ones stand up and march out of the theater. They walked past me on the way out and I swear, the kids looked so disappointed, like they thought they were going to get away with a fast one. Talk about life imitating art.
Brendan, I liked The Departed. The performances were all stellar, especially Baldwin and Marky Mark. The dialog was also razor sharp. IMHO the movie should have ended with the last line DeCaprio says. The stuff beyond that was a little too much.
It's been a couple of weeks since I saw it, so I don't remember the line exactly. I agree, though, the end was a little forced.
We should probably leave it alone until all of the teeming masses that read CJSD have had a chance to catch the movie, though.
I also liked the performances, and I don't usually care much for Leo. Damon's always good, too.
On another note, I once recommended the first South Park movie to my sister and her kids for family movie night. The kids were a little older, maybe about 11-14, so I figured they wouldn't be scandalized by the language. They called their uncle after the movie to sing me a chorus of, well, you probably can guess.
My husband and I went to see Jurassic Park eons ago and I think the 5 yr-old sitting behind us was making more noise than the T-Rex. I can kind of see how the parent might be confused and think this was a Disney-esque movie, but you would think that once the movie started, the parent would flash on the child's pure terror and would get the kid out of there. She did not, she just kept reminding the child how *fun!* this was.
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