"Departed" smoke signals

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In a Leonardo DiCaprio profile that went up on 9.10, L.A. Times writer Mary McNamara conveyed that unlike the vast majority of entertainment journalists thus far, she's actually seen Martin Scorsese's The Departed (Warner Bros., 10.6), in which DiCaprio costars with Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson.

The film "burrows into the Boston underworld [and] is vintage Scorsese, rife with grit and gore and more expletives than Snakes on a Plane," McNamara writes. "As a cop who infiltrates a mob run by Jack Nicholson, DiCaprio stands fully baptized into the Scorsese canon, smashing gangsters in the head with beer mugs, holding fellow officers at gunpoint and going mano a mano with Nicholson in all his maniacal glory while trying to decipher the code of true loyalty."

The Departed's press junket will happen in Manhattan later this week. I've been asking for the last two or three days about attending a local press screening of The Departed in Toronto, but the responses have been vague. Last night a visiting publicist told me that a journalist told him that a local screening had been slated for either yesterday or today. These developments on top of the weeks-old decision not to show The Departed at the Toronto Film Festival obviously sends out a certain type of smoke signal that I don't have to decipher for anyone.

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Posted by Jeffrey Wells on September 11, 2006 at 6:15 AM

comment #1

insidah says ...

I don't know why I'm so hard on him, but I just don't buy Leonardo as a man. He's still such a boy to me in appearance and disposition and knowing that he lives in Hollywood only confirms my suspicions of his arrested development. Scorcese always made films with real men for so long, that this dragged out creative partnership doesn't make sense to me. Maybe this will be the one that works.

Posted by insidah at September 11, 2006 7:45 AM

comment #2

houmas says ...

Isn't this basically a puff piece article designed to make Leo seem all rugged and "manly"? I remember reading similar puff pieces pre-Gangs Of New York, with some suitably breathless journalist commenting on how muscular and manly Leo was in GONY, and how he'd finally arrived a "manly" leading man. Yeah, he did look bigger. But his performance was typically "boyish", and standing next to the brilliance of Daniel Day-Lewis, phenomenally inadequate. He was more of a "boy" than ever in that movie, despite the pre-release press machine trying to suggest otherwise.

Leo's a fine actor when cast correctly. But this is just another pr-Leo puff piece, and I wouldn't expect this journalist to say otherwise (even if she has seen the movie). Alpha males are born, not made. No amount of gym training will turn Leo into a Steve Mcqueen type or a Robert DeNiro type. He's not an especially convincing "tough" or "macho" type, so it's a mystery why he keeps getting pushed in that direction.

Posted by houmas at September 11, 2006 8:08 AM

comment #3

Dixon Steele says ...

Why not actually wait until seeing the movie before deciding if Leo is "man" enough? He obviously is to Scorsese but I guess his standards aren't as high as yours.

People have been saying the same about Affleck, who's giving an award-winning performance in Hollywoodland. Maybe this will shut up all the naysayers who claim he can't act. Probably not.

Posted by Dixon Steele at September 11, 2006 8:49 AM

comment #4

MovieBob says ...

"People have been saying the same about Affleck, who's giving an award-winning performance in Hollywoodland. Maybe this will shut up all the naysayers who claim he can't act. Probably not."

I don't see the Affleck oscar thing panning out. He's good in the movie, but the rest of it just sits there like a lump and doesn't know where to go. Highbrows will struggle to find reasons to like it more than it deserves, regular audiences will just be annoyed by it. The #2 opening is a fluke, it's gonna sink like a stone once the word of mouth gets out.

Posted by MovieBob at September 11, 2006 11:39 AM

comment #5