We can probably determine a factual answer to this by looking up what other movies Paramount has coming out in November/December and seeing if any of them look like Oscar contenders. If those aren’t getting pulled as well then Paramount’s a bunch of lyin’ bastids.
With this move Paramount only has two releases in the fourth quarter. The Lovely Bones and Up in the Air. Whether those are award bait films I don’t know.
But having another award bait film wouldn’t necessarily make them a liars. Having multiple movies after the same awards promotion budget would be a problem as well if money is tight.
Certainly, but they’re going to remove the movie that seems the least likely to win anything. True, that doesn’t make Shutter Island a “clunker” per se, but it certainly removes the chance of particular awesome.
Someone spoiler the book for me please. The big secret turns out to be…
The main character IS the missing patient. He’s a former marshal who is now in a high security mental hospital. His partner is actually his doctor. They are trying an experiment where they act out his delusions in an effort to snap him back to reality. The secret is that he’s the patient, and he’s in the hospital for killing his wife after she lost her mind and drowned their children.
Wow… So the movie was spoiled for me by readings the one line description in the paper.
**jackdavinci’s **unboxed spoiler did it for me.
LOL.Sorry if I somehow truly spoiled you. I haven’t seen the movie, read the book, or read any articles about either. I have only seen the trailer. If my guesses about the mystery are correct, they are either very obvious, or the trailer was way too revealing. I believe the policy is that speculation is not a spoiler.
Bumped because this opens this coming week.
I haven’t read the book or heard about it. But the trailer does strongly lead me to believe that it is what has been mentioned here. No need for me to repeat it. I’ll pay to see it since Scorsese is a genius and DiCaprio gets better every film.
Since commenting originally above I have read the book.
It was so awful that it is going to take amazing reviews for me to give the movie a shot.
Dennis Lehane, the author, is one of my favorite writers. But this book was by far my least favorite of his. It felt very rushed, the plot felt very thin, the characters undeveloped. It felt like he didn’t care. I actually had to restart the book a few times before I made it all the way through, and even then, probably only finished it because I really do like Lehane’s other work, and wanted to see if it improved by the end. It didn’t.
So, I’m not especially looking forward to the film. Hopefully Scorsese can bring something that was absent in the novel.
By the way, Lehane’s latest novel, The Given Day, is back up to his usual standards, and is very good. Hope they make that one into a film.
Agreed with this. I wonder why Martin Scorcese chose to film this particular book when Lehane has some much better books to film (Ben Affleck’s Gone Baby Gone was terrific). I do hope, however, that the delay in releasing the film is to change the ending. If that can be done, then maybe this might be decent enough to see.
Certainly, the trailer looks terrible. The whole “institution run by a psycho but no one believes you if you try to tell them” conspiracy is so overplayed its not even worth humoring. Im not even sure how DiCaprio gets roles like these. His range is so limited, its embarrassing. I was hoping this was one of those rare movies with a crap trailer but ends up being pretty decent, but being pushed into Feb isnt a good sign.
Bumped up because it opens today. So far the reviews look mixed.
I went and saw it last night. I’ll probably go and see it again today. For the past 6 weeks, I’ve been watching Scorsese movies because I realized I had never seen any before. I’ve been fully immersed in his aesthetic and his characters (I have seen all of his films at this point). The last one we watched was Gangs of New York on Wednesday, and we’ve been full of excitement for Shutter Island. We planned to see it as early as we could last night and our hopes were very high. Even though we didn’t like all of Scorsese’s films (Casino, New York, New York, The Age of Innocence), several of his other movies have now become our favorite films of all time. To say that expectations were high would be an understatement.
I fucking love Shutter Island. I honestly think the people who gave it poor reviews simply don’t “get” Scorsese. One person for the SF Chronicle wrote that it should have been a “taut 100 minute thriller” and that Scorsese should “stop trying to make great movies.” Scorsese has never and would never make a 100 minute taut thriller, and he doesn’t try to make great movies, he just does make great movies because he’s a fucking genius. The twist mentioned further up thread doesn’t matter. This isn’t the fucking Sixth Sense or bullshit like that. As movie goers we’ve been trained to expect “the twist” and be shocked, but this isn’t that kind of movie. This is a slow, thoughtful, careful, brilliant film about madness, about reality, about redemption, about fear, about guilt, about pushing a mind until it breaks and how to possibly put that mind back together again.
Scorsese’s signature is all over the film. The editing is amazing. The camera angles he chooses are deliberate and help tell the story. The score is like another character. The acting is perfect–everybody meeting their role perfectly. DiCaprio was amazing, and I love the fact that Scorsese has chosen him for his new actor muse or whatever. I mean, he’ll never be as great as DeNiro, but even DeNiro hasn’t been as great as DeNiro for quite some time. The dream sequences were the best dream sequences I have ever seen–they managed to convey the strangeness of dreams without being weird just for the sake of being weird.
If you think you’re going to this movie just to be scared, then yeah, you might be disappointed. It’s wonderfully gothic, atmospheric, and creepy. There were moments when I was genuinely creeped out, and I even jumped a few times. But it’s not about being frightened. This isn’t a traditional horror movie. Or a thriller. It’s a Scorsese movie, and he makes films about men who are losing control or who have already lost control.
Vague spoilers for the thing that’s already been spoiled in this great
If you want to stay away because you “guessed” the twist or you think it’s been done a million times, then you’re only hurting yourself. The twist is not the point of the film. You can figure it out before he’s told the truth. But that doesn’t subtract from the pleasure of the film. There’s so much going on, so many beautiful little moments, so much skill and craft.And the plot is really about more than that.
I don’t think another director could make this movie. But I’m biased, I’ll admit it. I think everything Scorsese has done is a literal work of art, a masterpiece. Even the ones I don’t like. People should just see this movie for the pure joy of watching a master at work.
Ebert gave it 3 and a half stars, but I’ll give it 4. It’s no Taxi Driver or The Departed but I think it’s right up there in the top ten, maybe even the top five, of Scorsese’s films. I think DiCaprio should definitely get an Oscar nod, and the movie itself should as well.
That’s not what the movie is about. At all. And Dicaprio gets roles like these because Scorsese likes working with him. Watch Gangs of New York, The Departed, and The Aviator–his range is far, far from limited. If Scorsese thought he was a shit actor, he wouldn’t have been cast in any of those films.
Its good to hear that the movie isn’t a crapfest. Like I said upthread I think this is one of those rare instances where a February opening doesn’t mean terrible things, it just means that the studio is having some serious financial difficulties and decided to shift its focus.
I haven’t read the book, but form talking to my friend who has it sound like the advertising campaign for the movie has been horrible, totally misrepresenting the story. I argued that it might be Scorsese who changed the story, but from your review it sound like this is another example of the studio screwing up the PR for the film.
Fortunately, Scorsese is in a position where he doesn’t have to care. He’s entered the same realm that Woody Allen has been living in for the past decade or so. He can just make his movies and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks.
Saw it last night and enjoyed it. The movie was a bit indulgent at times and it was absolutely about 20 minutes too long, not because it’s some 3 hour epic but because the movie’s pacing would have benefited from some tightening up. DiCaprio is predictably excellent and the “twist” isn’t really a twist at all. I was actually expecting there to be another “double twist” at the end, and I thought the last line of the movie was excellent.
Parts of the movie are very creepy and the setting they chose was impeccable. The movie is simply gorgeous and spooky. Definitely worth the trip to the theater in February. I’m not sure the movie would have garnered much Oscar buzz, maybe for DiCaprio and for Cinematography, but I’m not sure it deserves Best Picture talk.
I love that! You hadn’t seen any Scorsese, and in 6 weeks you’ve seen them all, and have become such a fan…that’s so fantastic! I loved your post. I saw Shutter Island last night and liked it a lot too. Your post made me like it even more, and I’m going to see it again, with a different perspective. Great, great post!