- FINALLY. It really sucks to see a movie’s release date delayed seven thousand times over the span of a year-and-a-half.
- Leo, it’s been a long time. It’s nice to have you back on screen. Speaking of which, how the hell do you have twenty-seven in production credits on IMDB? My god. Leo was Meryl Streep average in this, i.e. perfectly fine and better than everyone else on a bad day, but nothing to write home about. I love him, I really do. I also enjoy any movie in which he gets to cry, so I was quite satisfied on that front.
- I think this is only the second movie where Leo plays a father. Sadly, his children are never actually alive in his presence but still, it counts, right? I’d have his babies, at any rate.
- I didn’t feel like Mark Ruffalo’s character needed to be Mark Ruffalo, perhaps because I’m under the impression that Ruffalo has become a lead actor in recent years and it felt weird to have him in a supporting role in a movie that was so strongly focused on the main character. I almost wanted someone slightly less well known in the role. Also, I feel like they stuffed his mouth with cotton balls to reshape his jawline or something. Weird.
- Let’s throw around the word “genre”: genre! I felt like this aspect faded in and out a lot and with varying degrees of success. When our two U.S. Marshals introduce themselves to each other right off the top, the dialogue felt really unnatural even if perhaps it was fairly true to the kind you might find in 1940s-50s films. The doom-laden music was really unrelenting in places as well, which was distracting at times. It made the film feel really disjointed at times.
- Raise your hand if you got upset when you realised the warden was Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Shudder Island, indeed.
- Every time Emily Mortimer came on screen, I wanted her to tell Teddy that she suffered from avian bone syndrome.
- Surprisingly funny in places. I liked when Teddy finally declared how hideous he thought his tie to be since it was indeed frightfully ugly (but kind of awesome in a Miami Beach kind of way).
- Best part of the film: the bonus Holocaust movie that I had no idea was part of the story. While I didn’t always enjoy the surrealist parts of his hallucinations and flashbacks, I thought the way Teddy’s past was integrated piece by piece into the story was good and I particularly liked the liberation of Dachau scenes.
- While I don’t really love “It was all in his head!” type stories — come on, seriously? — I think what really annoyed me about the revelation was the dramatic reveal of the hilarious flip chart with the anagrams of Teddy’s and his wife’s names written on it. Anagrams, Dennis Lehane? Really? REALLY? Fuck. If I’m not mistaken, with amazing wordy skillz like that, Teddy might also be Lord Voldemort.
- Mostly, I’m being generous and giving this movie an extra half star for a) being the first regular Marty film since The Departed — this has been a long and torturous drought for me, I tell you — and b) for the bonus WWII flick embedded in the middle.
Shutter Island
I’ll probably enjoy this more on repeat viewings because a) Leo, b) Marty, and c) Leo.
IMDB Plot Synopsis Drama is set in 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on the remote Shutter Island.
I almost had a heart attack when I read #7. I literaly thought as Leo was hugging her, “Careful! Her bones!”
Also, I feel like they stuffed his mouth with cotton balls to reshape his jawline or something. Weird.
Right? I was trying to figure if he had Bell’s Palsy or something, but he talked just fine. It was kind of distracting.