I had no idea it was opening in bascially every other territory before the states either, wow, thats incredibly odd.

Exactimundo. I've thought about it a lot tonight, and it's for just that reason that I think Universal's decision to move Children of Men to December (especially knowing now that it'll be released early fall everywhere else) might be one of the stupidest decisions of the 2006 Oscar race to date.

"The Departed, which I have seen, will be the year's best American film as of it's October 6th release date," reader David Erlich has proclaimed. "It is, without a doubt, the most riveting work that any of the players -- Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson -- have been involved with in ages. That being said, the film has no chance of Oscar recognition for Best Picture, if only because of the last act."

It doesnt seem like an academy award type picture to me. The only major nomination I see is for best director

The movie was very entertaining, but the best parts were taken quite literally from the HK original. Scorsese's lucky in that so few people saw or know about it. The movie won't get nominated for Best Picture, because I don't think it will appeal to the Academy the way that The Aviator did.

Posted on Hollywood Elsewhere:

the third act can make or break a film.

I'm not going to say much about The Departed right now, exceot to say that Scorsese is trying a lot of new stuff, it is perhaps the funniest cop movie ever, and once he gets out of the too-long first act, this is Scorsese's best work since Casino. In many ways, it is better than Casino, but really, I want to look again before writing much more.

DiCaprio makes his next step from The Aviator. Damon continues to ascend. Nicholson is terrifc, though not chewing as much scenery as you might expect, considering how broad Bill Monahan's brilliant scipt is. And smaller roles by Wahlberg, Winstone, Sheen, and especially home run pinch hitter Alec Baldwin are something special to behold.

This might be a truly great movie. (A 15 mimnute trim of the first act would help.) And while, in "Old Scorsese" tradition, this is an unlikely Oscar Best Picture player, you never know. I would be chasing acting, writing, directing, and craft nods in a big way if I was WB.

Poland enjoyed the film, but again not a movie Oscars would really embrace and again being compared with Casino rather then one of his masterpieces. He does think they WB should push acting and directing though.


http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/

Looks like Alec Baldwin will have a great year, hopefully he can pull a supporting actor for something.

Oscar Alert: Leo (the Great) DiCaprio
One of the most exciting things about going to the movies--and being a film critic--is the discovery of new talents. In 1993, I experienced such sense of discovery twice, when Leonardo DiCaprio gave two riveting performances: As Robert De Niro's abused stepson in "This Boy's Life," and as Johnny Depp's mentally handicapped brother in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape."

DiCaprio held his own against De Niro and Depp--no mean feat--with intensely demanding roles in films about dysfunctional families and parental abuse. In both, DiCaprio played a confused teenager, a misfit who doesn't know who he is. At the age of 18, DiCaprio received a supporting Oscar nomination for "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," immdiately estbalishing himself as a major talent to watch.

This season, perhaps even more impressively, DiCaprio holds his own in "The Departed," Scorsese's best film since "GoodFellas," against such heavyweights as Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon, and Martin Sheen. With justice and luck, "The Departed" should garner DiCaprio (and Scorsese) Oscar nominations.

I had reservations about Scorsese's previous Oscar-nominated films, "Gangs of New York" (2002) and "The Aviator" (2004), both staring DiCaprio. The latter, a glitzy, old-fashioned biopic of Howard Hughes, garnered DiCaprio his first Best Actor nomination for playing the eccentric mogul-recluse.

If DiCaprio will be recognized by the Academy for "The Departed," it will be his third nomination. What's remarkable about his work in this Boston-set gangster saga, is that it's the first time that DiCaprio looks and behaves like a young man. Though he is 32, it took him a long time to mature on screeen, physically and emotionally; DiCaprio's boyishness was always integral to his charisma and major element of his appeal to girls and young women. Before I discuss DiCaprio's achievement in "The Departed," I'd like to place his career in context.

Double Score in 1995

In 1995, DiCaprio (or Leo, as he's known in the industry) again appeared in multiple features, first starring as Romeo (opposite Claire Danes as Juliet) in Baz Luhrmann's updated avant-garde version, "William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet." He then joined an all-star cast, headed by Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, and De Niro, in the family melodrama "Marvin's Room," as Streep's alientaed son. But the film belonged to the two femmes, and indeed Keaton was Oscar-nominated.

Titanic

The film that put DiCaprio on the map and made him an international household was the disaster-romance epic "Titanic," which swept the 1997 Oscars and shattered box-office records; it became the first picture in history to gross over $1 million. In a much-publicized scandal, "Titanic" garnered 11 nominations, including two acting nods (Kate Winslet and Gloria Stuart, for playing the same role at different ages), but denied DiCaprio's recognition. The snub sent shock waves in the industry, since consesnus held that it was DiCaprio's role that held the episodic, tone-shifting picture together.

The late 1990s were not particularly beneficial for DiCaprio, but then in 2002, the versatile actor was seen in two radically different roles. In Scorsese's "Gangs of New York," DiCaprio plays the pivotal role of Amsterdam Vallon, and in Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can," he's cast as Frank William Abagnale, the con man who worked as a doctor, lawyer, and co-pilot before his twenty-firth birthday.

Gangs of New York: Scorsese Chapter I

DiCaprio said that his Amsterdam was influenced by a handwritten journal that described the life of a man who spent his youth in a juvenile prison called "house of reform." The journal conveyed such extreme desperation, that it became the back-story for Amsterdam's obsession with avenging the cold-blooded murder of his father. He saw the film as imbued with Freudian psychology: "To rid himself of his father's ghost, Amsterdam learns the hard way the skills necessary to challenge the villain, Bill the Butcher (Daniel Day-Lewis), on his own level."

DiCaprio began preparing for the role one year before shooting began, with a regime that included weight training, knife-throwing, and other fighting methods. Having always wanted to work with Scorsese, he recalled: "It was great to collaborate with a director whose passion for accuracy in every detail of the period resonates through the work. I was so determined to do this project with Scorsese that I actually changed agencies when I was 17 in order to be in closer contact, at CAA."

The actual work became the most rewarding for him to date, as he recalled: "Despite our initial operatic Italian arguments about Amsterdam, I will never forget our meetings. I was working with a true visionary who can masterfully assemble all the hidden mechanisms that make a movie operate with seamless reality and dramatic force."

Nonetheless, "Gangs of New York" opened to mixed reviews and moderate commercial success. Furthermore, most critics, even those who didn't like the movie, singled out not DiCaprio but Daniel Day-Lewis' astounding work, for which he received another Oscar nomination, again leaving DiCaprio in the cold.

The Aviator: Scorsese Chapter II

"The Aviator," the entertaining biopicture of Howard Hughes, is a uniquely American saga. Marked by scope rather than depth, the old-fashioned film covers two crucial decades in American history. DiCaprio plays one of twentieth century’s most compelling figures, influential innovator, savvy industrialist, glamorous film producer, American risk-taker, and paranoid who ends as a recluse.

Framed between two milestones in Hughes’ life, the story opens with the making of “Hell’s Angels” in the late 1920s, and it culminates with TWA’s emerging as international airline in the late 1940s. Between these two junctures, DiCaprio explores the torment and tumult of Hughes’ character, providing a glimpse into his dreams and demons.

The movie also allows DiCaprio to explore Hughes' emotional life, specifically his love affairs with two of Hollywood’s most famous stars: the elegant Yankee-bred Katharine Hepburn (Cate Blanchett) and the luminous sex symbol Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale). Hughes’ various medical maladies are detailed: the childhood loss of hearing that made him nearly deaf, the undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder that, combined with germ phobia, provoked bizarre behavior, eventually leading to borderline madness.

Portraying a larger-than-life man in a larger-than-life manner, DiCaprio mythologizes Hughes as a legendary figure with aura of excitement, mystery, glamour, and eccentricity. It's a role made for order for Oscars, and the Academy dutifully responded with an Oscar nomination, but not the award; the winner was Adrien Brody for "The Pianist."

As a moviegoer, DiCaprio enjoys watching movies about sensational rogues, like Paul Newman and Robert Redford in "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "The Sting." For him, these and other American classics like "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," focus on "individuals who work on the wrong side of the law and are against society, yet you root for them because they're so incredibly charismatic."

In most of his films, DiCaprio has tried "not to be too perfect," specializing in playing heroes that are seldom perfect but always human and charming.

Scorsese's Departed: Third Time's Charm?

The gritty crime drama is set in South Boston, where the Massachusetts State police Department is waging an all-out war to take down the city's organized crime ring by ending the reign of powerful mob boss Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) from the inside. The story centers on two highly complex, morally ambiguous cops: Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) and Billy Costigan.

DiCaprio plays Billy Costigan as a street-smart tough, who suffers from a violent temper that has cost him his badge and eventually lands him back on the streets of South Boston, where he is recruited into Costello's ranks. Initially a promising cadet at the Police Academy, Billy is selected for a dangerous undercover assignment before he has even had a chance to pin on a badge.

The role represents more than an opportunity to work for the third time with Scorsese: "I read the scrip and immediately wanted to be part of it. I just couldn't put it down. I said 'yes' without any deliberation or hesitation. It was an intense story with multi-faceted and compelling characters."

For DiCaprio, his character's motivation to become a police officer is rooted in his desire to escape his upbringing: "Billy comes from an underworld background and has all the chips stacked against him. He joins the police because he has no other options, and wants to do things differently than his family did."

Though Billy tries to redeem himself and not just be a product of his environment, he ends up deep in a situation that's dangerous and deceitful: "There are moments when he could so easily be caught--all the arrows are pointing in his direction as the 'rat,' and everything begins to cave in around him."

Matt Damon and DiCaprio's characters are two sides of the same coin; they even come from the same neighborhood. Damon's Colin chooses one path and Billy chooses another, but their lives are fatefully intertwined in ways they themselves cannot understand, turning the film into a chess game of information and misinformation.

DiCaprio holds his own against Jack Nicholson, in the same way that he held his own against De Niro in "This Boy's Life." Says DiCaprio: Jack is a force of nature who can be very unpredictable when he's on camera, so you have to learn to roll with the punches. There were moments during filming that I didn't know what was going to happen next. I was never sure which side of Costello Jack was going to be playing on that particular day. That can be very exciting for an actor because it really keeps you on your toes all the time."

To play a native Bostonian, DiCaprio immersed himself in the local culture, taking long walks around Boston, getting a feel for the people. He was then introduced to a man he hung out with, who took him down to the old neighborhoods and helped him with the accent, which helped him get the character right.

Spielberg, who has worked with Hollywood's best actors (Liam Neeson, Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford, says he has always been "a huge fan of Leo. He's a very inventive actor with a lot of ideas, but he's also his own best critic. There were times I'd accept a certain take, and Leo would say, 'No, no. I think there's something I haven't found yet. Let me do it again.' And he would invariably come up with something that was just brilliant."

But perhaps the final word on DiCaprio belongs to his frequent and favorite director, Scorsese, who says: "I knew Leo would convey the conflict of a young man who has gotten himself into a bad situation, and then wonders what the hell he is doing there. You can see it in his face, in his eyes. That's one reason I like working with Leo. He knows how to express emotional impact without saying a word. It just emanates from him. It's quite extraordinary to watch."

It remains to be seen whether the Academy would acknowledge DiCaprio (and Scorsese) with Oscar nominations, and perhaps the award itself. Stay tuned.

Unless this dissapoints at the box office, I'm prepared to say that The Departed is a lock for a Best Picture nomination.

It's stock went way up now that it's getting better reviews and some wannabe oscar contenders either fell flat on their back or just arent getting the rave reviews everyone expected them to get.

BUT!!!! It still doesnt sound like a film catered to the Oscars, sounds like it'll be great, but even some of the great reviews mention how even they dont think it's chances are that hot given the type of film it is and when you read the description they give on the film it just doesnt scream out that it's something the Oscars would embrace. What does raise it's chances is the movies cast and director, you made the same film with small time actors and director it absolutely wouldnt be at the Oscars.