When Long Is Good
After surviving a screening of the over-rated and offensive Borat about a month ago, not surprisingly I found myself a little reluctant to return to a movie theater; well, that and I’ve just been too busy to get my ass into one. But with many possible Oscar contenders being released this month, I figured I should probably start seeing some films of interest now before it’s a case of there simply being too many films to see and not enough time to do so.
About two weeks ago I attended an advance screening of Pedro Almodovar’s latest film Volver, featuring a great all female cast lead by Penelope Cruz (well, all female with the exception of the hot actor who briefly appears on screen as Cruz’ husband; such a shame he wasn’t given some more screen time, I’m telling you…). Although a little too long for my liking, it was still a splendidly acted film—Cruz is so much more effective when she doesn’t have to act in English—and I’d be really surprised if Volver wasn’t nominated in the Best Foreign Film category. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Cruz found herself nominated as Best Actress.
This past week was a banner one for seeing films. I finally (“finallyâ€, it’s only been out a couple of weeks for god’s sake) saw the new James Bond film, Casino Royale, and as hoped I absolutely loved it. From the theme song (“You Know My Name†written and performed by Chris Cornell of Sound Garden fame) featured in the opening credits sequence, to the interesting and fast-paced plot, to the huge pay-off of having cast dreamy, hunky, talented Daniel Craig as the new (and best) Bond, my expectations were far surpassed. In fact, as the final credits were rolling I was pleasantly surprised to realize that the film had a running time of nearly 2 ½ hours. Talk about having too good of time to notice the time!
The second film I saw this week was The Departed, directed by Martin Scorcese and featuring a very impressive cast including Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin and Martin Sheen. (Am I forgetting anyone?) Going into this film, I was already aware that it was going to be a long one; hence, only one glass of wine beforehand and nothing to drink during the film so as to avoid having to run to the bathroom at a potentially crucial point in the movie. But again, as was the case with the 007 flick, The Departed was so engrossing, so well-done and beautifully acted that it could have been double its length and I still wouldn’t have noticed.
And by the way, hasn’t Leo DiCaprio grown up nicely? I’ve always thought he had a cute, pretty boy quality to him but over the years (and especially in this film) he has really evolved into quite the beefy stud (yes, he has a couple of shirtless scenes); one who acts even better than he looks, and that’s saying something. With a cast such as the one in The Departed, it should be interesting to see who doesn’t get nominated.
Cheers!
S.R.
