I'm going to see this again, it was so good. Real good. The acting was tough, believable. Even though it was nothing like real life as I've experienced it, it was believable. I've never been anywhere near Boston and her Irish mobs and Irish cops so it could have been total bullshit but what do I care, it was believable. Tense, too, never knew what was going to go down next or just who was scheming what and where with whom.
Am I supposed to write a real review? Synopsis? Who's in it? You can get that anywhere. All's I'm telling you is it was good. Real good. And I think it was the first movie I'd seen where someone fell out of a tall building and splashed when they hit. *evil chortle*
Okay. Martin Sheen was good, as usual, and Alec Baldwin, well, you know. But Jack Nicholson, what a role for him. And Leonardo DiCaprio, for an Us Magazine regular he really can act. Matt Damon's no slouch, either, he's tops in certain types of roles. My hero, though, was Mark Wahlberg, just for being the right kind of asshole. And of course Vera Farmiga, who has amazing eyes. Oh, and eagle-eye props to Kristen Dalton for wearing a dress that fit really, really well.
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I also love this movie. Matt Damon and Leo were both excellent, and while I found the direction a little heavy-handed at times in that usual Scorcese way, it was of course excellent. I thought DiCaprio did lots of really top-notch acting-with-just-the-eyes in this film. He really is a great actor.
And props to Leo for getting the accent right, which almost never happens, every non-native who tries it comes out sounding like either a New Yorker or a Kennedy. Nicholson's sucked, but at least he only used it for, like, 30% of his dialogue.
Wahlberg gets an Oscar nomination for playing a Dorchester hoodlum (uniform notwithstanding). Um, yeah, cause big stretch there. But it was a fine performance.
He got an Oscar nom? Nice. I never even heard of this movie until I saw it at the store. I'm not exactly up on my frou-frou.
Do you have a Boston accent? I don't have a "voice" for you, or anyone, but that would be interesting.
I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it. Well, I hated that freakin' rat symbolism at the end. I mean, COME ON, Scorcese!
But Teacake, I agree that Leo nailed the accent (I live in Metrowest,) and that Nicholson's accent sucked bigtime!
I love witnessing Boston locales on film, though. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
Do you have a Boston accent?
No. Growing up I only spent a couple/few months a year in Boston, the rest of the time I was in sunny beautiful Buffalo. Red Sox and Bills, who says divorce hurts kids? By the time I lived in Boston full time my pseudo-Midwest Buffalo accent was fully formed. Gone now though, I haven't got much of anything.
But I still find the Boston accent hawt in a man. Some things just make you harken back to your romantic youth, no?
But Teacake, I agree that Leo nailed the accent (I live in Metrowest)
Oh, good, then can we please take a moment to mock Laura Linney in Mystic River? WTF was THAT? I love her normally.
I had to do a Boston accent -- pretty heavy blue-collar Boston -- for a shoot I was on a few years ago. Studied and studied and studied. Had a ball. Was told by a Southie I did an admirable job, so that was cool. Funnest line I had was, "You nevah heard uh Bobby Oah? Numbah foah? I swear to Gawd he was only the greatest Broon evah!"
Was told by a Southie I did an admirable job, so that was cool.
Well as long as it's an admirable job and not an admirable effort... :)
I have no idea whether other places are like this, but people in Boston are really, really sticklers about outsiders trying to do the accent (actually New Englanders are generally harsh on outsiders period). Which is why they rounded up a bunch of Cambridge boys for Good Will Hunting instead of outsourcing it. I'll bet you every single review of The Departed in the Boston area media reviewed the accents alongside the acting, direction, etc. And probably mentioned the accents first.
Who never heard of Bobby Orr? Clearly that was over-the-top fiction.
From boston.com:
"... for once the local accents are spot-on (mostly; Sheen's still doing the Kennedys)."
Ha! So true about Sheen's! But he was still better than Jack. Jack was channeling Costner and using the accent occasionally, weirdly dropping in and out of it.
"New Englanders are generally harsh on outsiders period" HOW TRUE! When I taught the word "Massholes" to a bunch of walkers last weekend, a group behind me asked me, "And WHERE are you from?" I told them and they said, "Ok, you can say it. They can't." Loved that!
And Laura Linney. I think her dialogue coach was probably a New Yorker. ;)
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