Dearly Departed

Martin Scorsese's newest film, The Departed, is going to go down as one of the peaks of his career. In my opinion, he's been gold since him and Leonardo DiCaprio started collaborating two pictures ago on Gangs of New York. The Aviator was a great film too, but it's loss for Best Picture and Best Director didn't come as a surprise for me. This new one could have been Scorsese's ticket to his long absent Oscar, but since it's a remake, I see little chance in that. This was easily the strongest film I've seen in 2006 and I'll have to see some mind blowing cinema over the next few months for this one to be dethroned. This cop-and-mouse cop drama is much more than that three word description would suggest. We see stellar performances from Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon (both giving two consecutive career performances with The Aviator and Syriana before this one), Jack Nicholson (could definetely be another Oscar for this veteran) and Mark "Marky Mark" Wahlberg. I was so impressed by Mark Wahlberg's...performance...in Boogie Nights but hadn't seen anything since then that was that great from him, but this is another great performance, although it is in a supporting role. This is going to be one of the best of the year, and let's just hope the Academy rewards it deservingly come awards season. At least one of the following will have to exceed the anticipation I have for them to see this one not be my favorite of the year: Inland Empire, The Prestige, The Fountain, Pan's Labyrinth, or Flags of our Fathers. This will be a damn good year for the movies if The Departed is not the best one of the year.