Help Me Out Here
July 17, 2010 16 Comments
I’m in the mood for that totally nonmemorable Leonardo DiCaprio movie where he’s like a cop or something in some foreign country, and in the movie poster he’s holding a gun downward. I think it started with a “B”. You know the one I’m talking about, right?
Actually, maybe I have that wrong. I do know that he was some sort of cop in the movie however. Which was good casting, I must say. Cuz when I see Leonardo DiCaprio, I think “cop”. And – oh! – I think this might help: the poster was like just based on his giant face, and he was all scowling, with pointy-down eyebrows and facial hair and everything.
Cuz he’s a badass, that Leonardo DiCaprio!
So anyway, what was the name of that movie anyway, can anyone help me out here? You know the one I mean.
lol!!!!
The Departed was brilliant, brilliant and … brilliant. And DiCpario played excellently.
He’s damn good in Blood Diamonds, where he’s not a cop.. Go berate Bruce Willis, for that film, you know, that Action film he did.. come on, the one where he’s with a GUN!
And to think when he was younger, my friends and I used to call him DiCraopio.
Terrible.
I’ll take your word for it about Blood Diamond. Netflix seems to think I’d like it, as it’s near the top of my suggestions. (Or is that Body Of Lies. See, the whole point of this post was that I can’t tell them apart…)
You’re also missing the point which is that DiCaprio keeps playing these roles for which he’s not suited. I think whatever else one might say about Bruce Willis, he has earned the right to be considered well-suited to play the role of ‘cop type guy with a gun’. But I look at DiCaprio and still see the orphan kid who was adopted by the Seavers on Growing Pains. That he keeps trying to go for these gritty tough-guy roles lately seems like a form of overcompensation.
Ok.. If this be your point.. not about the similarity of the roles (which is why you’re not gunning for willis) yes, with Die Hard(s) and one or two others, he’s earned the right.. He’s terrible in most other films but that’s ok, because it doesn’t affect what he’s done right. Like Travolta, after pulp fiction, he made a host of terrible films, but he’ll always have a place for what he did do..
Funny that Willis can’t do comedy, considering Moonlighting was great (as I remember, but I was still sort of a kid).
I think in The Departed, he’s supposed to be tough.. but also.. yes, not just tough. You can object to his freaking out (which I don’t. I love the balance his role got) but it is part of the film. In the Aviator.. he’s not cast as tough, badass. The roles are close enough to be annoying if there’ll be one more and due to type-casting there will be. I didn’t bother watching Shutter Island (the trailer put me off, it looked so generic). You don’t have to actually like DiCaprio but if you’ve seen the aviator and one more recent one, you can’t really argue he’s not a good actor. He’s earned the right. He’s not strutting around like a Gangster or with a DeNiro attitude.
>But I look at DiCaprio and still see the orphan kid who was adopted by the Seavers on Growing Pains.
not sure I saw that but I think this is the focal point of what bothers you about him..
DiCrapio even.
Which is just as bad and sad.
Ah and he’s fabulous in The Aviator too lol.
My guess is, you’d have liked him to be (in the Departed) more like depp’s donnie brasco.
Maybe.
I liked him in The Aviator. And he was great in Catch Me If You Can too. Actually, let’s be fair, he was great in Titanic. (What would that movie have been without him?) I’m not anti-DiCaprio by any means. I’m just anti Dicoprio.
P.S. Didn’t much like Departed, which I took to be basically about pedophilia. And yes, Donnie Brasco was better.
>P.S. Didn’t much like Departed, which I took to be basically about pedophilia
You said it once but I thought you were kidding.
Did you see the film or youtube clip where tarantino ‘explains’ Top Gun is about gayness and straightness and what’s his name.. that actor (christ, am getting senile) being seduced by both and having to choose his way?
>And he was great in Catch Me If You Can too. Actually, let’s be fair, he was great in Titanic. (What would that movie have been without him?)
Yep, tough to admit, but true.
The problem with going down that road, is that eventually you have to ask what Titanic would’ve been without that terrifying song.
But yeah, he was great there. Didn’t see Catch Me If You can. And still think you have it in for Leonardo but who knows.
>And yes, Donnie Brasco was better.
Because he didn’t ‘whine’?
He’s more like the way we men feel we’re supposed to be. Somewhere in our DNA. He’s a stand up guy, all the way. It’s great. But in The Departed, Leo’s role is still heroic, even if he gets ‘whiney’. Or I see it that way.
That’s it. Departed is to recovering-from-pedophilia as Top Gun is to struggling-with-one’s-latent-homosexuality.
I mean, isn’t it obvious?
So if in the Departed, jack nicholson wouldn’t flash a prick in porn theatre in front of damon’s face and the couple of mentions of priests and the church were gone, you’d feel like you’re watching a completely different movie? It would no longer be about what it had been about and would turn into a film about what it ostensibly is about?:)
This is like asking, if Iceman hadn’t told Maverick he could ‘ride his tail’, and they hadn’t been shirtless a couple times, would Top Gun have no longer been flaming gay? The answer: of course not. Still gay. Hell of gay!
But seriously, you act as if the pedophilia was a sort of superficial thing I’m imposing on some sort of straightforward gangster/mole story on the basis of a couple of throwaway lines and scenes. (!). Au contraire. The pedophilia subtextually permeated every aspect of this film, it’s just that those lines/scenes made it explicit. But that doesn’t mean if they hadn’t been there the movie wouldn’t have been about pedophilia. I just might not have noticed it so readily.
Seriously!
How easy it is to au contraire someone these days. And to be cryptic too.
>you act as if the pedophilia was a sort of superficial thing I’m imposing on some sort of straightforward gangster/mole story on the basis of a couple of throwaway lines and scenes
Yep. I do.
It permeates the whole thing? How so?
Look, if you’ve ever read some Robert Graves, he has this thing of cocking his head and gleaning information (or ‘information’) out of the blue. Maybe you’ve got it for films. For one thing, this is a remake of a HK film, as I recall. Not that I ever watched it, but presumably it was churchless. And even if no other version existed and even if every single priest was a pedophile and proud of it, even then how would this film be ‘about pedophilia’? At best you could argue Nicholson is something of a priest as well and that damon exchanged one priest for another, and even then, the sexual thing would be minor.
You obviously see it differently.. but how?
Maybe write a blog post on it.
Mmmmm, guess you know the NIN star trek clip. (youtube it otherwise).
It’s fun, hilarious but I don’t see it as really reading anything into closer or into star trek. Do you?
It permeates the whole thing? How so?
It just does.
For one thing, this is a remake of a HK film, as I recall. Not that I ever watched it, but presumably it was churchless.
Aha! This just bolsters my point. Why did they throw the church stuff in there? Suspicious.
And even if no other version existed and even if every single priest was a pedophile and proud of it, even then how would this film be ‘about pedophilia’? At best you could argue [...]
Hmm. You know I’m at least partially being tongue in cheek on all this don’t you? You’re taking this so seriously.
This actually doesn’t sound like the Anon. I know. Are you, in fact, Anon.?
You obviously see it differently.. but how?
Maybe write a blog post on it.
I thought I did but guess I didn’t. Or maybe it was on another blog? Hard to keep track sometimes.
The highlights were something like this:
Both leads played by man-child type actors. Damon’s character was an altar boy. At the very beginning, rise of crime among Irish is linked to demise of church i.e. Mafia has replaced the church (so critiques of Mafia are veiled critiques of church). Strong parallel in how Damon being recruited into Nicholson’s web as a type of seduction. This starts from when Damon is a little boy (Nicholson buys him candy). When Damon is grown the relationship is as if he’s being ‘kept’ by Nicholson; Nicholson pays for his apartment for example. Damon is also clearly meant (at least in movie-logic) to come off as possibly latently gay: impotent with his (not very feminine) girlfriend and isn’t the one who impregnates her, calling firefighters ‘homos’ to overcompensate, uncomfortable in the porno theater. Few female/mother figures in the movie; it’s all men. DiCaprio’s only surviving relation was a priest living in Thailand with his boy lover.
The main conflicts in the movie are revealed and resolved by confessionals/therapy (i.e. precisely how people are supposed to get over pedophile/child abuse). In fact DiCaprio’s whole mien in the scenes with the therapist are that of a child abuse victim (it’s a very similar vibe to Matt Damon’s scenes with Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting). The movie celebrates DiCaprio’s emotional honesty and vulnerability, as much as it lauds him being a ‘rat’ against the Mafia (i.e. subtextually pedophile) world of secrecy; meanwhile the way Damon gains Nicholson’s trust is by proving he can lie and hide things (just as a pedophile would demand).
Basically, the church has receded from moral authority (in part due to pedophile priests?) and (therefore?) dishonesty reigns.
You know, when I spell it all out like that, it doesn’t actually sound that implausible and I don’t feel like I’m being 100% tongue in cheek. The percentage does admittedly vary with the mood I’m in, though….
>meanwhile the way Damon gains Nicholson’s trust is by proving he can lie and hide things (just as a pedophile would demand).
lol!:):):) It’s probably a distinguishing feature of pedophile’s.
No, no, no.. That’s really stretching it, Sonic!
Dunno. It’s almost like you’ve got something but the net doesn’t stretch widely enough.
I think deep inside I was hoping you mean it. Partially tongue in cheek is ok though, it’s good enough:)
>Damon is also clearly meant (at least in movie-logic) to come off as possibly latently gay: impotent with his (not very feminine)
It just so happens that I happen to be a friend of Damon’s. A friend of a friend. I forwarded him this part and he came back to me with: “Hey!! That only happened Once! Just one time, man. Doesn’t make me a fucking homo”.
I think he has a point…
But more to the point of the film… The idea is (come on, you know this) that Damon is a poseur and it won’t be discovered and DiCaprio is the real deal but that won’t really be discovered either. The connection between them is so intense and mirrored that they’re both, after a fashion with the same two jobs (police, mafia) and with the same woman. Damon in an obvious fashion. Leo covertly. And in the latter case, can actually impregnate her. Damon had to show us yet again that he’s all about appearances. Plus he was under a lot of stress that night.
You can take as axiomatic that damon is latently(?) homosexual and then this will support your case but you’re still inventing it out of thin air.
Of course there was that little conversation between Nicholson and the priests (“little boys’ dicks.. what was your excuse? I am as god made me”) except that Nicholson is anything but gay.
Still, as a tongue in cheek thing, your theory almost works. If only Nicholson dressed flamboyantly and walked around with a poodle…
It’s almost like you’ve got something but the net doesn’t stretch widely enough.
I’ll take ‘almost like I’ve got something’. Wasn’t going for anything more than that.
The idea is (come on, you know this) that Damon is a poseur and it won’t be discovered and DiCaprio is the real deal but that won’t really be discovered either. The connection between them is so intense and mirrored that [...]
Come on. That’s not ‘the idea’. That’s the overt, obvious, face value setup. But that in itself is not an actual idea. This is like saying that the idea of American Beauty is that a guy quits his job and then starts buying drugs from the teenager next door. That’s what happens but it’s not the idea.
You can take as axiomatic that damon is latently(?) homosexual and then this will support your case but you’re still inventing it out of thin air.
Actually I think this is one of the stronger parts of my case. Pretty much anytime someone in TV/movies calls others ‘homos’ it’s supposed to signify insecurity about their own sexuality (heck, American Beauty is another example).
Isn’t it? Otherwise why write that line into the movie?
But admittedly, I do think virtually all movie characters played by Matt Damon are latently homosexual…
p.s
You did prove one thing tho’.. That you can tell DiCaprio’s films apart.
>Come on. That’s not ‘the idea’. That’s the overt, obvious, face value setup. But that in itself is not an actual idea. This is like saying that the idea of American Beauty is that a guy quits his job and then starts buying drugs from the teenager next door. That’s what happens but it’s not the idea.
lol:):)
I’ll bite! What’s the idea of American Beauty?
And.. since the idea is not (can not ever be?) the obvious, face-value setup, what would the Departed be about if the script writer wouldn’t have had pedophilia on mind and hence the film would be sans little church scenes and nicholson’s dick but would otherwise be the same because he’d be intrigued by the um, obvious face-value setup? Would you then be looking at a film about what it’s ostensibly about?
(Where will you go with this?)
>I do think virtually all movie characters played by Matt Damon are latently homosexual…
:)
I’ll bite! What’s the idea of American Beauty?
Well, it’s surely something along the lines of: American suburban life is hypocrisy and rotten to the core. But I despised American Beauty so I never spent too much time trying to work out its ideas/themes in any more detail than that. I do know it’s not just ‘a guy quits his job then starts buying drugs from a teenager’ though.
And.. since the idea is not (can not ever be?) the obvious, face-value setup, what would the Departed be about if the script writer wouldn’t have had pedophilia on mind
To clarify, the scriptwriter didn’t have to consciously have pedophilia on his mind in order to write a movie that is (kinda-sorta arguably) about pedophilia…
Just as the Top Gun scriptwriter didn’t necessarily have gayness on his mind yet wrote the gayest movie of all time!!1
and hence the film would be sans little church scenes and nicholson’s dick but would otherwise be the same
You keep reducing it to these two things. But look how much longer my list was than that. So really in order to get to a film that would have been ‘about what it’s ostensibly about’, you’d have to change it around in a zillion ways, starting with not using DiCaprio or (especially) Matt Damon in the lead roles to begin with.
But in doing that you will have removed a lot of the salient, unique, memorable features of The Departed right? In fact, you’d pretty much just have Donnie Brasco…