Posts Tagged ‘Shutter Island’
3 items.
Today’s comic is as much about comic Tom slapping Jared for a terrible joke as it is about real-life Tom slapping himself for not coming up with a better one.
I don’t mean to be overtly critical of myself. I’m just explaining the genesis of today’s comic. Sitting around, staring into space and trying to come up with a joke about Shutter Island is no small task.
The marketing for the film has done a very good job of obscuring exactly what about Shutter Island makes it so terrifying. From what I can gather, it’s about the criminally insane, twisted experiments and some kind of psychological time bomb Leonard DiCaprio has roiling under the surface as he tries to solve a missing person case. But beyond that, I can’t connect the dots.
Added to this, Martin Scorsese directed it. Certainly the man is not above making mistakes (Kundun, anyone?) but the man gets a pass on his name alone. Scorsese lives and breathes film and it is evident in his work. It’s a rare treat to watch a film maker whose love of movie transcends money or art. Watching Scorsese’s films, you get the distinct feeling that he tells these stories because he has to. For that alone, I’ll watch anything he directs.
So how do you make fun of a movie you know nothing about directed by an auteur you greatly admire? Like I said, no small task. When the chips are down, just have your characters slap each other silly!
What do you guys make of Shutter Island? Are you excited to see it? Does it concern you at all that the film is being released in the dead-zone traditionally known as February? Would it encourage you to learn that Scorsese picked this weekend on purpose after DiCaprio’s availability pushed the film past awards season?
It was 19 years ago this weekend that Silence of The Lambs was released. If you recall, it did pretty well at the Oscars. It was the last film to earn all 5 major awards – Best Actor, Actress, Director, Screenplay and Film.
I’m skeptical that Shutter Island can repeat the same feat, but I’m excited to watch Scorsese slip on his horror boots again. If it’s anything like his last foray into the genre – 1991’s Cape Fear – then we’re in good hands.
Leave your thoughts about Shutter Island in the comments below!
[ 21 Comments ]
I agonized for a little while whether or not I would have any dialogue in the last panel. While putting the comic together, I found the visual of Tom having a psychotic breakdown almost funny enough on its own. But I thought, “Why leave things to chance?” and added the oft-repeated phrase originally spoken by Will Ferrell as fashion designer/international assassin Mugatu in Zoolander.
I felt a little guilty lifting the phrase because I don’t want people to think that I’m in the habit of stealing jokes. That’s why I give credit where credit is due.
While a more creative writer might have been able to conjure up his own humorous phrase expressing disbelief, I also felt like the “crazy pills” line felt natural coming out of Tom’s mouth. It sounds like something he would say because it’s something that I say from time to time.
People do that. They adopt words or phrases they hear in popular culture and repeat them. That’s how they become sayings.
I’ll give you another example that involves Will Ferrell. “Strategery.” Who would have thought that a made-up word satirizing George W. Bush’s speech patterns would become so popular? It’s practically in the Oxford Dictionary.
Anyway, I’m just saying that “crazy pills” isn’t so much joke stealing as it is “joke referencing.” If you find it uninspired or it offends you… Well, I’ll try better next time.
It is factual that Cami has no interest in seeing Shutter Island. Which flummoxed me up until I started to talk to other women about the movie. No other women in my life, it seemed, held any interest in seeing Martin Scorsese’s newest picture. I can kind of see why. The commercials are creepy. The tone appears to be very dark. Shutter Island doesn’t exactly look like a “feel good” movie.
Of course, this is not to say that Shutter Island is a turn off for ALL women. I’m sure there will be several women in the audience this weekend. Just not any of the women I know.
But I am undeterred. I will see the movie by myself if I have to. And I have to. The last movie I saw in the theater was It’s Complicated. I owe this to myself.
I’m very interested in watching Scorsese turn the screws. I’m picking up a distinct Hitchcock vibe from this film. Maybe it’s the 1950’s time period the movie is set in. Certainly the psychological horror aspects play into things. Ultimately, to me, this looks like Scorsese’s love letter to Psycho, or something. I can’t wait.
We’ve already talked a little bit about Shutter Island in the comment section from Wednesday’s comic, but I’m curious to get your take on why women have negative feelings toward the movie? You’d think they’d at least give Leonardo DiCaprio a cursory pass. But I guess he’s moved beyond his heart throb phase, huh?
Too bad he looks perpetually 12 years-old.
What are your theories about Shutter Island? NO SPOILERS! Leave your comments below!
[ 19 Comments ]
I was fortunate to see Shutter Island on Saturday night. It almost didn’t happen as we celebrated Henry’s birthday with family that day and he was amped up beyond measure. Believe me, after hosting both sides of your family and catering to a sugar-powered 3 year-old who doesn’t want to take a nap… you don’t want to do anything.
But I knew if I didn’t see Shutter Island on Saturday night, I wasn’t going to see it at all. So, droopy-eyed and exhausted, I went. It didn’t disappoint.
There isn’t a lot I can say about Shutter Island without spoiling the details. But I have read a few reviews and the fan reaction online and I have to say I don’t understand where some of the critics are coming from.
Some have complained that the ending is too predictable or that Martin Scorsese has given in to his inner M. Night Shamalyan. These people, I think, have missed the point.
Yes, Shutter Island is rife with twists, turns and red herrings. But the point is not to figure out “the twist.” The point is that Scorsese is leading you down a rabbit hole. He’s trying to make YOU feel crazy. He does a good job of it, too. Thundering orchestral notes in the score communicate a foreboding, paranoid mood almost instantly. Scorsese directs the pants off this thing.
People looking for the twist are only doing so because they want to feel smarter than the movie. And when the ending is revealed not to be as potent a brain-scrambler as they had anticipated, they claim the rest of the film to be faulty.
I will admit that I spent a good part of the second act trying to to stay a step ahead of the movie. I kept anticipating something dramatic would happen to Mark Ruffalo’s character and convinced myself there was some significance to the Band-Aid Leonard DiCaprio’s character wears on his forehead for the majority of the film.
Ultimately, these details don’t matter. But the film makes you question if they are. This is what I mean when I say Scorsese is trying to give you the feeling of insanity. You examine the details, your mind loops over the facts again and again. You can never really trust what you’re seeing, but you feel self-righteous in your focus and concentration.
As New York Times critic A.O. Scott puts it in his review, “Mr. Scorsese in effect forces you to study the threads on the rug he is preparing, with lugubrious deliberateness, to pull out from under you.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Scott saw this as a negative. He panned the film as he continued “As the final revelations approach, the stakes diminish precipitously, and the sense that the whole movie has been a strained and pointless contrivance starts to take hold.”
What A.O. Scott found to be a strained and pointless contrivance, I found to be an expertly executed trip down the darkened mineshaft of one man’s deteriorating mental state.
There are one or two conclusions to draw from this. Either I am an extremely simple man who requires uncomplicated entertainment or critics like A.O. Scott are off-base in their assumption that Scorsese needs to be tackling more “serious” material.
Could there be a little hero worship mixed in with my support for Shutter Island? Sure. I think the last few comics here on the site have revealed that.
But is there also the potential for critics like A.O. Scott to trying and buff some of the shine of Scorsese’s career to counteract the esteem he’s been given in his career? Absolutely.
Even if you don’t like the film, I think there has to be something wrong with you to give it an outright pan. Shutter Island is not a case of lost potential and there are certainly worse ways to spend 2 hours in a movie theater.
That sounds like faint praise. But the point is, compared to what is usually in theaters this time of year, Shutter Island is like a sumptuous feast to a starving man. I think curious, respectful film fans owe it to themselves to see it – if for no other reason than to watch Scorsese do what he does best.
Did you see Shutter Island this weekend? If so, what did you think? Leave your comments below!
[ 42 Comments ]
