John's First Post...Shutter Island

So… we started a blog. I’ve been out of the loop for about six months, with practice court, “big trial,” practice court III final, graduation, and the bar exam. Holy cow. Anyway, Melissa’s been doing most of the work on the blog, so I figured I should make a contribution.

So, the question is…what should I write about? The life-consuming, God-forsaken things I mentioned above are off-limits. I don’t want to talk or think about them, and sure don’t want to relive any aspect of them by blogging about them. Plus, they’re not nearly interesting enough for anyone to actually want to read about.

Which leaves me wondering… what is interesting enough? Well, I really don’t know the answer to that question, but I did decide what I’m mostly going to write about.

Most of my contributions will be discussions on movies I watch. I am a big fan of the cinema. It’s pretty much that simple. I like to watch movies, both old movies and new. I like to rewatch movies. I like to talk about movies…my favorite scenes, favorite lines, movies I don’t like that everyone else does (Tombstone), movies I do like that fly under the radar, classic movies, underrated movies, overrated ones, movies that speak to me, etc. I even have favorite professional movie critics (Dave White is the best. Just about every one of his reviews makes me laugh). I realize the last thing the internet needs is another dude with a laptop who thinks he’s a movie critic, but that’s what the internet is getting.

So…the format is going to be pretty simple. Whenever I watch a movie, I’m going to blog about it. I’ll do my best not to sound like one of those pretentious, nerdy movie critics, because those people annoy me. I’m actually kind of excited to get started.

The first movie I saw after the bar exam was Shutter Island. I had high hopes because of the good trailer, Martin Scorsese, and Leonardo DiCaprio. I generally like Scorsese movies (love Goodfellas, love The Departed, thought Gangs of New York was very interesting and entertaining, but still pretty weird, was honestly a little bored during Raging Bull and Taxi Driver (and I call myself a movie fan…) like The Aviator, and have never seen Mean Streets. I think he directed Mean Streets. I could go to imdb and look, but that’s cheating). I also generally like recent Leonardo DiCaprio movies (there happens to be a lot of overlap with Scorsese…, plus Blood Diamond is excellent and has kind of been forgotten too soon, I think). Because I’m a man, I must qualify the previous sentence with the word “recent.” I mean, it would be social suicide to post on the internet that I love Titanic and Romeo and Juliet.

So...high hopes. And for the most part, the movie delivered. The movie tells the story of Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo (they play characters with names, but I don’t remember them), investigating the mysterious disappearance of a prisoner from a maximum security mental hospital. After a lot of ominous music, dreary, lonely-looking cloudy days, some jump scares, wacky conversations with insane inmates, dream sequences / hallucinations, gory flashbacks, Nazis (Nazis? Yes, Nazis) and a bunch of clues that Federal Marshal Leo just can’t get to add up, the mystery is revealed through a series of twists.

Was I entertained? Wholly. Was it scary? Parts of it really were. Can you see the “twist” coming a mile away? Melissa could, but it took me pretty off-guard (which was especially disappointing since I pride myself and seeing twists coming early… I guessed the “twist” of the movie Hide and Seek with Robert DeNiro and Dakota Fanning after the first preview… Robert DeNiro is the little girl’s friend Charlie that she plays hide and seek with and then starts killing people. I don’t feel bad ruining it either, because that movie is really terrible). Is Shutter Island a masterpiece? Probably not. Was it worth my admission ticket? You bet.

So there we have it…my first written movie review. It happened to be a movie with a lot of twists, turns, and secrecy, so I couldn’t write too much about it because I don’t want to give it away.

Blog Post 1. Booya.