Leonardo DiCaprio

A word about Leo's movies. I loved Leo when he played nice, sweet, young guy roles. He was good. And cute. Some serious roles and he has been fantastic. I can't believe he hasn't won an academy award by now (since he has been nominated.)

But I don't trust his movies anymore. I think maybe he's stuck in the horror genre.

First it was Titanic, that started it all for me. I refused to see it until someone told me the end. They advertised it as a "love story." I know enough to know the difference between love stories and romances. Romances have happy endings. In love stories, one or both of them die. so I knew in advance his character didn't survive the north Atlantic icy waters.

Then was in that true story where he played the guy who went through life as an impostor and forger, Catch Me If You Can. (By the way, I can remember seeing the original guy on "What's My Line" about a hundred years ago.) Leo's character languished in a foreign jail for years and nearly starved. Icky. However, my BFF movie star Amy Adams is in this one too. Brava.

Then it was Blood Diamond. It was a violent, politically apropos story. And he dies at the end. Heart breaking. Horrible.

And then The Departed. I should have known better. Hel-lo!!! Departed means dead. Everyone died at the end but that one guy and I can't remember if he was one of the good guys or bad guys. They had undercover good guys in the nest of bad guys, and bad guys serving as cops. Leo was an undercover good guy but did everything the bad guys did, so it was hard to decide. I was disappointed to see Leo bite the dust but glad to see Matt Damon finished off. (I seriously don't like Matt. It's not that he's a bad actor. He just doesn't act at all. He may have made a turn for the better in Hearafter. Clint Eastwood actually squeezed a real performance out of Matt.)

I was recently freaked out by the DVD of Shutter Island. This movie makes Leo a bonafied horror movie star. He is insane in this movie and undergoing some weird & awful therapy. When he remembers the real circumstance of why he is in an asylum for the criminally insane, believe me, the most sane thing he could have done was go insane. It was genuinely horrible. And it's unusual that I saw it in the movie theater about a year ago and don't even remember it. Maybe I belong in an asylum for the forgetfully insane. (Is bonafied a word?)

So, I would love to see Leo in a romantic comedy. Come on, all the other popular actors have had to endure them, why not you? Get into a chick flick and learn to be a little lighthearted for us women. Laugh it up a little.

The Departed Review SPOILER

Okay, I broke my "vow" to never go to a Matt Damon movie ever again...yet again. But I love Leo DiCaprio so much, I thought I would take a chance on this movie. And the fact that it is almost an all star-cast and nominated for best picture made me curious.

When will I learn? !!???!?

I should have taken a clue from the title... The Departed, hello!???!

Departed means dead. Duh-uh!!!!

And Jack Nicholson's character sums it up in the first part of the movie, the basic premise of the movie. He says something about people being either good guys or bad guys and then "When you're looking down the barrel of a gun, what's the difference?" (He said this to a little kid, too.) That was absolutely on the mark for the theme of this flick.

I would not go to see Titanic until someone told me which of the main characters lived and which died. I can take a shock if I know it a head of time. It is sort of like that axiom, "If it's a romance they live happily ever after. If it's a love story one or both of them die." I wish I had known who was the bad guy and who was good guy and who got croaked before I switched on my DVD player.

I was delighted to see Matt Damon playing a bad guy and wanted him to get justice not just "getting dead" (which was postponed until the last 30 seconds and then, no blood, no body falling to the ground. I wanted to see the girlfriend turn in the letter and get the SOB into trouble and see him squirm while she triumphed over him. But alas, no feminine triumphs in this movie. At least in this movie they weren't victims.)

What kind of agent does Damon have that gets him him all the breaks in his movie contracts? Geeze.

The good guys got just as dead as the bad guys. What kind of justice is that? Was the point that the cops and bad guys are the f' ing SAME? It seems so in this script.

I would not have watched this if I had known it was both anti-crime and anti-cop. In other words, they wuz all bad-guys and nobody wins in the end. Everybody loses. Especially the viewer, at least, this viewer.

Is this is what our country is coming to? Not just the criminals but the cops and the average citizens taking the law and justice into their own hands? I don't believe in that. That is not right. I don't think it's true, either. Not yet. I still believe there are some good guys left in our organizations and institutions.

I wanted the good guy, even tho he was doing some pretty bad stuff (not by principle but because he was undercover) to live happily ever after. Or at least survive after he was put into a no-win situation and badly and immorally taken advantage of by everyone for his newbie dedication and willingness to participate in the fight over evil. Maybe he was too "innocent" or something and they had to "punish" him for that? I don't know. Are we doing that to our children now to "make" them grow-up? God forbid. And I doubt that guys are going to be lining up to go to prison and beat the crap out of someone just so they can get a wonderful, dubious, job of undercover superhero.

If I had know that the shocking scene that upset and angered me most about the movie was in there, I wouldn't have touched this DVD with a ten-foot pole. It felt like I GOT SHOT in the heart and mostly the mind. A thinking person shouldn't expose themselves to this kind of genre.

I can't believe it's nominated for a couple Academy Awards. Or yeah maybe the acting was good. Leo was fabulous and not just because I love him. He has matured as an artist and a man and is an exceptional actor in all his movies now. (He was actually the main character in this movie, so why the hell did Matt Damon get the "good" scenes?)

I don't think the screenplay nor the directing is worthy of an Academy Award, but that is just my opinion. They might give the award for directing to Scorsese because they admire him as a director regardless of the movie. I wouldn't be against that...the way they gave a bunch of black people all the awards one year to prove a point in equalization. That's cool.

Leo yeah he deserved a nomination for this movie role, the way Russel Crowe deserved the nomination and award for Beautiful Mind, but couldn't get it because he had one the year before in Gladiator. Or was it because he made a fool of himself with the press one time? The American public is very hard on foreign actors.

But Leo was already nominated for another movie role, so I guess you can't "run" against yourself. What would happen if someone is nominated for ALL the slots for best actor since they are so good all their movie roles prove it? I don't know. I doubt many people in the Academy even give a rats arse what movie or actor wins if it's not themselves.

This movie was an average, typicl cops and crime syndicate Hollywooded-up movie with some pretty gross special effects.

It was not so much suspense but a guessing game...Guess what's coming up next, HUH? Not the same thing.

And if it weren't for cell phones, this movie couldn't have existed.

This was a supermacho-macho, low-brow, caveman type movie for people who just delight in seeing people get offed in inventive and gross ways. They all did, get offed, I mean. Most of the main characters. The Departed. No intellectual integrity in that. Not literature. Just an updated form of the Godfather. The "grosser" the better I guess.

Go ahead and watch it. Some of you will love it. I was disappointed, especially with the end. You don't have to be a pussy to like "happy" or at least rational endings with some justice.

I have had it with violent graphic movies. This was not a horror movie. Just a cop/bad guy movie with a lot of talent crammed into it. Too bad. I would like to have an apology, but since they got my money already, fat chance.

Signing off, Sandy -- your movie critic.