Shutter Island

Greetings!!

The name Martin Scorsese elicits many images to many people. He is considered one of the greats by most. He has been around forever-- well, since the 60's-- and he just commands attention, if not regard, for his work.

My favorite piece by Scorsese is a "short" they play at cinemas before the feature presentation starts. In this short, there is a guy on a phone-- talking to a girl. As he struggles to tell her how he feels about her, Mr. Scorsese abruptly interrupts him.  He actually starts being this guy's director-- berating his lines, criticizing his delivery, doubting his sincerity, etc-- and it disturbs the guy so much, he cannot continue his phone call. The moral, or tag line is:  "We don't interrupt your phone calls with our directing, so please don't interrupt our movie with your phone calls." It's classic, and I secretly wish I was able to do the same to some phone callers in cinemas-- but I'm no Scorsese.

While I admire the legend, most of Scorsese's film are not my cup of tea.  I had to watch them all once-- out of respect, and to expand my cinematic horizons. Movies like Casino, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, Cape Fear-- all superbly well done, by the way-- were just too violent and profane for my taste.  I mean, I know guys like that are out there, but, as a rule (and by the grace of God), I am able to stay far away from them.

You know that feeling when you go into a movie with low expectations and you walk away pleasantly surprised!! OK, you probably don't go to a movie if you have low expectations, right??  But, what if a friend, or a significant other wanted to rent a movie that you didn't really think you would like?? Ever happened to you?? Be honest.  Have you ever said, "Well, that wasn't as bad as I expected."? That is such a good feeling for me.

That is what I felt after watching "Shutter Island." I have had the DVD box in my hand many times, but always seemed to find a replacement video rental. It seemed I wasn't in the mood for a dark film, so I would pick up, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" for the thousandth time. Or a James Bond movie, or anything but "Shutter Island."

Last night, I finally broke down and rented it.  I had low expectations- I don't really care for DiCaprio.  I don't really care for scary or supernatural or demonic movies-- and I thought this would be a combination of all three.

It turns out that the movie has a good story (have I mentioned I love stories??). The characters were solid and I found myself caring and wanting to know more.  And I hadn't realized Mark Ruffalo was in it. I find I like his roles. For those of you not acquainted with Mark, he is a dark-haired guy who delivers most of his lines as if he was whining (whether or not the lines are whiny, he still delivers them as if they were), and somehow it works.  Whether he is military (Last Castle, Windtalkers), or a cop (Collateral), or the leading man in a romatic-comedy (13 Going on 30, Just Like Heaven), he whines his lines and I laugh or cry as he intended. He's kinda magic.  My favorite line he's ever delivered on screen was in "Rumor Has It," with Friends girl- oh, blond, very whiny herself-- but in a way I can't stand.  Her name escapes me, and it's just as well.  My mom taught me if you can't say something nice about someone, don't say anything at all.

But, back to my favorite Mark Ruffalo line. The movie is about a girl who discovers her grandmother is "Mrs. Robinson" from, "The Graduate" (Another classic--early 60's-- worth an entire post, so I'll get to that later). So this means that her grandmother was portrayed in the movie by Anne Bancroft, her mom was portrayed by Katherine Ross.  The guy who was supposedly portrayed by Dustin Hoffman was Kevin Costner. Of course, Jennifer Anniston (thought of her name, YAY!) wasn't born when the movie was made.

Wow! There is a lot of work involved at getting to Mark's best work! I just now figured out why I was the only one in tears, when he replied to his girlfriend (Jennifer) when she first found out. She said, "OMG!! Why didn't anybody ever tell me???!!!??) and Mark, in perfect timing, came back with:

"Because, most of all, you've got to hide it from the kids...koo koo ka choo...."

I know I'm easily amused, but I thought that was brilliant. If you are Gen X or Gen Y, I doubt I have little chance of getting you to agree with me, but, fortunately, I need no one's approval to laugh.

(Oh, I'm back to Shutter Island, my friends). The story was, indeed, sad.  Morbid, actually. But at the end, I didn't feel depleted of all humanity-- it didn't have all the bludgeoning of "The Departed" or the profanity of "Casino" (I know, I know-- it's a classic, and many a person's favorite all-time movie, but, still-- c'mon!! Enough is enough... I get it: they beat him to death!!). 

A good indicator, for me, that the Shutter Island was good was the fact that I immediately thought about watching "Shutter Island" again to see how much-- if at all-- the story would change, now that I had seen it in its entirety. I don't analyze as I watch a movie (roller coaster mentality, I guess), but afterwards, I enjoy dissecting and bisecting and playing around with it.

I hope you will enjoy it, too!! Have a great week--it's the last one of the year!!

Warm regards,
Fred T Wyrick