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Showing posts with label jackie earle hayley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jackie earle hayley. Show all posts
Friday, February 19, 2010
What I love about Martin Scorsese is that he is a master of the vibrant and complex just as much as he is a master of the subtle; when he’s at his best you get this all in one movie. Shutter Island is one of those movies.
This time out Martin Scorsese weaves the tale of Teddy Daniels, a Federal Marshall who’s lost his wife in tragedy and volunteers for assignment investigating Shutter Island’s escape. Shutter Island is an institution for the criminally insane, and Daniels thinks there is more going on inside it’s fences than they broadcast to the world. Scorsese sets out to create a complex, taunt, psychological thriller that reminds on of Hitchcock in its dexterity and pace.
Leonardo DiCaprio has long since replaced Robert DeNiro as Scorsese’s muse and I have to say his talent truly gets better with every film. Teddy Daniels is a character that cannot have been easy to understand or play. He’s a former soldier who helped liberate the death camps in WWII, he’s a husband who lost his wife, he’s a man fighting the very nature that’s inside of him because of the atrocities he’s seen in his life – DiCaprio becomes the man. DiCaprio has slowly progressed to this point, like all truly great actors he now ceases being any part of himself on screen and replaces himself with the character. As you watch DiCaprio you almost think you can hear the thoughts racing through Teddy Daniels head and see the motives for his actions just under the surface.
What makes Shutter Island a film that truly deserves being a Scorsese film is the interplay of stunning visuals, extreme situations and strong character. Shutter Island is tricky, because in a very beautiful way it is about the obvious and the subtle all at once. This is a film that isn’t really about the ending, or the last act as one might think. Shutter Island is a film about the last line of dialogue that DiCaprio delivers; if you don’t understand what he tells you, then you won’t understand the film.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Laeta Kalogridis
Teddy Daniels: Leonardo DiCaprio
Chuck Aule: Mark Ruffalo
Dr. Crawley: Ben Kingsley
Dr. Naehring: Max Von Sydow
Dolores: Michelle Williams
George Noyce: Jackie Earle Haley
This time out Martin Scorsese weaves the tale of Teddy Daniels, a Federal Marshall who’s lost his wife in tragedy and volunteers for assignment investigating Shutter Island’s escape. Shutter Island is an institution for the criminally insane, and Daniels thinks there is more going on inside it’s fences than they broadcast to the world. Scorsese sets out to create a complex, taunt, psychological thriller that reminds on of Hitchcock in its dexterity and pace.
Leonardo DiCaprio has long since replaced Robert DeNiro as Scorsese’s muse and I have to say his talent truly gets better with every film. Teddy Daniels is a character that cannot have been easy to understand or play. He’s a former soldier who helped liberate the death camps in WWII, he’s a husband who lost his wife, he’s a man fighting the very nature that’s inside of him because of the atrocities he’s seen in his life – DiCaprio becomes the man. DiCaprio has slowly progressed to this point, like all truly great actors he now ceases being any part of himself on screen and replaces himself with the character. As you watch DiCaprio you almost think you can hear the thoughts racing through Teddy Daniels head and see the motives for his actions just under the surface.
What makes Shutter Island a film that truly deserves being a Scorsese film is the interplay of stunning visuals, extreme situations and strong character. Shutter Island is tricky, because in a very beautiful way it is about the obvious and the subtle all at once. This is a film that isn’t really about the ending, or the last act as one might think. Shutter Island is a film about the last line of dialogue that DiCaprio delivers; if you don’t understand what he tells you, then you won’t understand the film.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Writer: Laeta Kalogridis
Teddy Daniels: Leonardo DiCaprio
Chuck Aule: Mark Ruffalo
Dr. Crawley: Ben Kingsley
Dr. Naehring: Max Von Sydow
Dolores: Michelle Williams
George Noyce: Jackie Earle Haley
Friday, March 6, 2009
Since its publication there has been the universal theory that Watchmen is one of the single most brilliant pieces of literature ever written, and possibly right next to Atlas Shrugged as one of the most unfilmable pieces of literature.
I am one of the ones that agrees - Watchmen is unfilmable – but Zach Snyder may have gotten as close to filming Watchmen as anyone can every hope to get. There are simply things in Watchmen that cannot fit into a movie: Hollace Mason’s autobiography, the news stories of missing artists & scientists, the relationship of Sally with her husband/manager, the newsstand, the black freighter, the lesbian cab driver; if everything that were in the graphic novel were in Watchmen the movie would have to be at least six hours long, or 2-3 separate movies.
Watchmen at its core is the story of a group of retired superheroes; it is told from the perspective of a world that is our reality (only slightly tweaked to change history), a world that actually relied on heroes until they began to see them as a threat. The question behind the story is how do these characters deal with being more than the average citizen when they are no longer allowed to use those skills. For some it eats away at who they are, some have no sense of identity, one feels like he is no longer a member of humanity and only one of them remains active despite being a wanted man. This is a story that explore the morality and humanity of the superhero myth.
When reading the graphic novel my favorite character was Comedian, which is actually quite disturbing as he is possibly one of the most amoral characters in history, but he is the character that galvanizes the plot of the story, and he is by far the most symbolic of all the characters. In the filmic version Comedian is played with brilliance by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I have loved watching this man at his craft since I discovered him on the CW’s Supernatural and I hope he has a long career on the big screen.
All in all Watchmen is a damn fine interpretation of Alan Moore’s graphic novel, but it does have a few things I have issues with. However, that is for a different review as I saw Watchmen twice in less than 24 hours.
Director: Zack Snyder
Writers: David Hayter & Alex Tse
Laurie Jupiter/ Silk Spectre: Malin Akerman
Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan: Billy Crudup
Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias: Matthew Goode
Walter Kovacs/Rorschach: Jackie Earle Hayley
Edward Blake/Comedian: Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl: Patrick Wilson
Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre: Carla Gugino
Hollis Mason/Nite Owl: Stephen McHattie
Richard Nixon: Robert Wisden
Adrian Veidt: It doesn't take a genius to see the world has problems.
Edward Blake: No, but it takes a room full of morons to think they're small enough for them to handle.
I am one of the ones that agrees - Watchmen is unfilmable – but Zach Snyder may have gotten as close to filming Watchmen as anyone can every hope to get. There are simply things in Watchmen that cannot fit into a movie: Hollace Mason’s autobiography, the news stories of missing artists & scientists, the relationship of Sally with her husband/manager, the newsstand, the black freighter, the lesbian cab driver; if everything that were in the graphic novel were in Watchmen the movie would have to be at least six hours long, or 2-3 separate movies.
Watchmen at its core is the story of a group of retired superheroes; it is told from the perspective of a world that is our reality (only slightly tweaked to change history), a world that actually relied on heroes until they began to see them as a threat. The question behind the story is how do these characters deal with being more than the average citizen when they are no longer allowed to use those skills. For some it eats away at who they are, some have no sense of identity, one feels like he is no longer a member of humanity and only one of them remains active despite being a wanted man. This is a story that explore the morality and humanity of the superhero myth.
When reading the graphic novel my favorite character was Comedian, which is actually quite disturbing as he is possibly one of the most amoral characters in history, but he is the character that galvanizes the plot of the story, and he is by far the most symbolic of all the characters. In the filmic version Comedian is played with brilliance by Jeffrey Dean Morgan. I have loved watching this man at his craft since I discovered him on the CW’s Supernatural and I hope he has a long career on the big screen.
All in all Watchmen is a damn fine interpretation of Alan Moore’s graphic novel, but it does have a few things I have issues with. However, that is for a different review as I saw Watchmen twice in less than 24 hours.
Director: Zack Snyder
Writers: David Hayter & Alex Tse
Laurie Jupiter/ Silk Spectre: Malin Akerman
Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan: Billy Crudup
Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias: Matthew Goode
Walter Kovacs/Rorschach: Jackie Earle Hayley
Edward Blake/Comedian: Jeffrey Dean Morgan
Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl: Patrick Wilson
Sally Jupiter/Silk Spectre: Carla Gugino
Hollis Mason/Nite Owl: Stephen McHattie
Richard Nixon: Robert Wisden
Adrian Veidt: It doesn't take a genius to see the world has problems.
Edward Blake: No, but it takes a room full of morons to think they're small enough for them to handle.
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