Movie Review: The Departed (and an update on our weekly menu)

After carrying around The Departed for more than a week thanks to our Netflix subscription, (seriously it came with us to Peoria and to South Haven but never left my bag), we finally sat down to watch it last night after dinner.  As fate would have it, we made corned beef and cabbage last night for dinner before we watched a movie about Boston and the Irish mob.  I couldn't have planned that dinner and a movie pairing better if I had tried! 

So this photo has very little to do with corned beef or the movie, but it reminded me of my beloved childhood dog Rojo, so I had to share it!

You may recall that corned beef was slated for Tuesday night dinner but when the TV meteorologists were calling for power outages, thunder snow and thunder sleet, I thought twice about making it (luckily the reports were over exaggerated for our area!).  I didn't want to start making the corned beef in our crock pot only to lose power half way through its cooking.  So we had frozen pizza for dinner instead. 

Turns out one of the main ingredients you need to make homemade miso soup, dashi, can only be found in Asian or specialty food stores around here and I didn't make it out in time before the storm hit.  Miso soup and spring rolls will be pushed back until this weekend.

Anyway, back to the movie.  The first thing that must be said is that it has an amazing cast.  Beforehand I knew that Jack Nicholson, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Matt Damon were in it, but I was blown away by the supporting cast as well: Alec Baldwin, Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, and Vera Farmiga (from Up in the Air)!  All of the players were wonderful and it was great to see so many "familiar" faces pop up throughout the film.  And of course, it was directed by a very famous director, Martin Scorsese, which always helps when trying to get big players like Baldwin, Sheen, Wahlberg and Nicholson together for a film.

I am by no means a Scorsese film expert but it was obvious to me after watching the film why he finally won the Oscar for Best Director for this film versus all the other times he was nominated (7 times total thus far).  The film was better composed and carried out than Gangs of New York or The Aviator.  I felt that Scorsese delivered on his promise much better in The Departed than he did in his other films (Goodfellas notwithstanding).

Image taken from here

Both Gangs of New York and The Departed seemed to be odes not only to organized crime (Tamnaney Hall and Boss Tweed in Gangs of New York and the Irish mob in The Departed) but to the cities themselves.  The character of the cities and the varied backgrounds and cultures of their inhabitants really shone through on screen.

The movie is suspenseful and full of twists and turns, so I won't spend much time here going over the plot so as not to ruin it for those who haven't seen it yet.  Just know that it was a great movie and that it was another Best Picture film to add to my 130 list!

Have you seen The Departed or any other Scorsese movies?  What do you think?!