by Chris Marshall:
At this point in The Oscar Project, it’s hard to summon up
much excitement about the last few films. It has nothing to do with their
quality—all the remaining movies range from good to great—but rather the
realization that there’s nothing new left to watch. The true point of this
endeavor was to give me motivation to watch all the Best Picture winners I’ve
never seen, and now that there are none of those left, it feels like I’m just
going through the motions.
That’s not to say I won’t finish; I would have to be a crazy
person to quit at this point, something I have no intention of doing. But it is
true that I’m more looking forward to the Director/Franchise/Genre of the Week
posts than I am the last few Oscar winners, simply because those are all movies I haven’t seen before.
That’s enough navel-gazing for one post, though. Let’s move
on to the film. The Departed is a
very good movie, both in terms of its technical merit and how enjoyable it is
to watch. I don’t, however, believe it achieves the same level of greatness as
some of his previous films that were unfairly passed over for Best Picture,
such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and
Goodfellas.
