Posts Tagged ‘Valentines Day’
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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!
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As promised yesterday, here is a BRAND NEW comic celebrating Valentine’s Day. Yeah, so what if I’m a day late. It doesn’t mean I love you any less…
Actually, this is a bit of a milestone because I can’t remember the last time I did two comics in one week – let alone back to back. I think this is the first time I’ve produced two comics in one week since I made the announcement of going to a once-a-week schedule last summer.
So, fingers crossed… hopefully it will be the start of a new trend?
I really don’t have anything to say about Justin Bieber: Never Say Never except that I’m glad that it wasn’t number one at the box office this weekend. It did come close, however. It was a million bucks short following Adam Sandler’s Just Go With It. So, y’know. Look out.
You might be surprised to learn that I really don’t have that much animosity toward Justin Bieber. Quite truthfully, I spend very little to any time thinking about him. But from what I’ve seen, he appears to be a competent performer who has a sense of humor about himself not unlike, say, Justin Timberlake.
People used to really, really, REALLY hate Justin Timberlake, too. But that turned out okay, I guess?
Incidentally, I didn’t mention that I saw Just Go With It on Friday night. That might be worth revisiting in a review later on. Keep an eye on the Bonus Materials blog for something like that in the future.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed today’s comic and had a fantastic Valentine’s Day. If not? Well, there’s always President’s Day!
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First things first, see that little graphic to the left? That’s a button you can use to vote for Theater Hopper at Top Web Comics. As a reward, you get an incentive image that I’ve drawn. I polled my followers on Facebook and Twitter for ideas and someone thought it would be interesting to see a Muppet version of Cami. So that’s what you can expect to find if you click on that link.
I’ve flirted with Top Web Comics several times over the years and I’m giving it another spin for a couple of reasons. I was probably prompted by nostalgia since I’ve been busy adding transcripts and cleaning up the archives lately. I’ve been neck-deep in posts from 2003 and there are a lot of references to Top Web Comics from that time.
I also saw Paul Taylor from Wapsi Square pointing his readers to Top Web Comics recently and it made me a little homesick.
I’m not necessarily under the impressing that we’ll make much of a dent in the Top 10 especially since I’m only updating once a week now. But I like the ritual aspect of it. Drawing the comic, then drawing something ancillary to it. I have a stack of these sketches left over from the last time I attempted this in 2009 and I’m thinking I might add them to the Theater Hopper store soon. If someone wants to buy them, great. If not, no big loss, either.
By the way, Storenvy, my storefront generator recently announced some new discount and promotional options built into their site. So keep an eye out for some good deals there in the future. I’ve got way too much inventory right now that I want to get rid of. I’m prepared to get drastic.
Anyway, onto the comic.
First, I have to apologize for the comic being late this week. But I have good reason. The reason is two feet tall with pigtails.
Pearl turned 2 years-old on Saturday and (as I am wont to do on my children’s birthdays) I wanted to share a picture with you here.
I had mentioned Pearl’s birthday on Twitter over the weekend and I received several messages from people who couldn’t believe how fast time had gone by. Lots of people commenting on how it was like I just announced she was born yesterday… and now she’s 2!
Believe me, I empathize. The time has gone by very fast.
We had a great time celebrating with Pearl over the weekend and I want to thank everyone for their well-wishes.
The birthday fun didn’t stop there, though. Oh, not at all! On Sunday, we celebrated my father-in-law’s birthday. So between the two of them, I didn’t have much time to think about anything else. By the time Sunday evening rolled around, I was shot.
BUT THE COMIC!… We still haven’t talked about the comic, have we?
I knew when I put director Garry Marshall’s New Year’s Eve in my sights, I wanted to do something to the comic I did about his previous film, Valentine’s Day. That comic was very well received and – to be truthful – it’s a blast coming up with the oddball celebrity choices to list on the fake IMDB page.
My problem, however, was not wanting to recycle the same joke. I didn’t want to be guilty of plagiarizing myself. So, I went to Twitter with my problem.
Most people said the same thing: “The producers of New Year’s Eve didn’t show any originality with their new film. Why should you?”
But I got to give it up to Josh Anderson from Sketch Layer who came up with the idea to have Tom show up as a cast member in the film.
I decided to ad a little bit of a paranoid spin to the concept and sneak the cameraman into the last panel. But the genesis of the idea was all Josh. So thanks, Josh!
I don’t know if I have much more to say about the comic than that. But talking about the comic last night on Twitter gave me some ideas going forward. We’ll see what happens.
In the meantime, I would really appreciate it if you used the li’l old ShareThis links below this post to help spread the comic around. Since it was late, it helps to let people know that the site’s been updated.
Thanks again for your patience. See you soon!
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