Leonardo, I Really Want to Like Your Movies...

Recently, Hubby and I saw Inception. It was interesting at first. The whole concept of entering other people's dreams and all was a little fascinating, if not George Orwellian. It jumped around so much it made my head spin. Then came the ending. Are you kidding me? Apparently it took Christopher Nolan* nine years to write this movie and that's the ending I get?

After that movie was over I started thinking about all of the movies that we had seen with Leonardo DiCaprio in them. Granted, we haven't seen all of them, but we've seen a few. 

The last one we saw before Inception was Shutter Island. DiCaprio plays a detective who is investigating the disappearance of a patient. It's set back in the 1950's when psych hospitals were performing lobotomies and doing electro-shock therapy. It's a crazy turn of events and another movie where it's not what you think. A complete and total twist at the end. 

Then we go back ten years to The Beach. A young American goes traveling to Thailand** and he comes across a map that will lead him to a tropical paradise. This was what the trailer portrayed anyway. To get to the tropical paradise you have to cross paths with marijuana farmers who are in possession of AK-47's. They shoot first and ask questions later. Once another "beacher" is attacked by a shark and the colony refuses to get a doctor's help they take him out to the wooded part of this island to die alone so he won't disturb the "happy paradise" they have. Their fear is that if more people find out about it, their paradise will be no more. Paradise is lost when the leader is forced to make a decision that would horrify the entire colony. The paradise seekers are brought back down to earth and decide it's not all its cracked up to be and head home. You think? 

Then, there's Titanic. Seriously, haven't we all broken out in, "I'll never let go, Jack. I'll never let go."? I felt bad for the guy freezing to death in the water and all, but seriously? Also, I'm a sap. I like for my guy and girl to get together at the end. Tie a pretty bow around it and call it done.

These are all very clever movies in their own right, but sometimes - and every time in Leonardo's case - it is possible to be too clever by half. M. Night Shyamalan shares this same fate with his movies. They both seem to be seeking to make a point, but in the end, the only point they have made is one that leaves a sharp pain in my   arse.

*The Dark Knight

**No thank you!