“I had so many messages on Rotten Tomatoes this weekend that said something along the lines of “”Read this review of Shutter Island””. I swear, it feels like the whole world saw it this weekend. I actually had some difficulty in managing that task. For some reason, all week I was really in the mood for an opening night movie. I usually avoid these like the plague, and much prefer Sat and Sun matinees or weeknight movie trips. But I rushed home and got there about half an hour early and it was sold out. The roomie had wanted to come with, but had other plans so I told her we’d go to one of the late shows. Showed up early for the first after 10 screening and both of ’em were gone. Decided to postpone til Sun, and on Sat afternoon she shows up with tix for the 6:45 on Sun. But I had tix for New Found Glory so she had to go switch ’em for an earlier time. And then, well lets just say I partied kinda hard on Sat, so I was really \m/ out of it. I half expected to either fall asleep or completely not catch onto anything at all. Thankfully, that was not the case.
I actually went into this one with pretty high hopes, which isnt typically a good thing. I was so pissed when it got pushed back from its October release date. I’d been so psyched for it, and then last minute ended up having to wait longer. And what was worse is that I was already starting to get sick of the trailer that had been playing all summer, and then just like with The Soloist the year before, I got an extra 3 months of watching the trailer at every other \m/ movie I went to.
But was it worth the wait? Oh hells yeah. I absolutely loved it. This sorta psychological thriller is right up my alley (and ya’ll had better not be surprised by that statement). I just thought it was brilliant. Really creepy and suspensful, but very clever and well thought out. And a fantastic cast on top of that.
With this sort of movie, I like trying to solve the mystery. There’s two things that will make me really enjoy the process: I need to not figure it all out too quickly, and if it is something unexpected I need to believe its possible. It cant just be “”oh yeah by the way Ben Kingsley is an alien””. For Shutter Island, the wheels in my head were turning the whole damn time. I did figure out most of it, but there wasn’t really a point where I knew I’d solved it. This is kinda tough to get into without giving stuff away, but I’ll try to be cleverly cryptic. I’ve seen a fair amount of these types of movies, so from the beginning I had about maybe 3 or 4 ideas for how it’d play out. By the halfway point, I had it narrowed down to 2. I knew it was one of those, but I was never convinced one way or the other until everything was revealed. And when it was, it all just made perfect sense to me. Or perfect enough.
I become a bigger and bigger fan of Martin Scorsese with every movie of his I see. Im jealous of Leonardo Dicaprio having been mentored by this genius of a director. The man knows his shit: the dead silence suddenly being shattered, dim & spooky lighting, flawlessly framed shots. You really just can’t get much better.
Speaking of Leo, I still love him so much. One of those rare actors who is as talented as he is gorgeous. I hear that he was really close to insanity a few times as he’d just get lost in the role, and it really paid off. This is gonna sound cheesey and cliche but he really is one of the absolute \m/ best actors of his generation.
Im contemplating seeing this one again this week. I got no plans for my bday on Thur, so the default plan is catch a movie. Right now the options are From Paris With Love, which is likely to suck but I haven’t seen it before or Shutter Island again, but its a bit on the lengthy side (just north of two hours) and likely to get out a touch later than I’d like. Really leaning for the repeat though.
Shutter Island – \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/