I'm the king of the world!

Kristin and I went to see "The Departed" on Saturday night; great movie. I won't spoil any of the plot for you, but it was very well done idea with two interacting, but completely separate storylines that very well could have been implausible if the movie wasn't well done. Anyways, everything you've heard about the movie is true, it's very good.

The acting was excellent as well, which brings up the main point of this blog. Matt Damon, as we all should agree, is fantastic and Ben Affleck should be so lucky to have befriended him and helped write a movie that Damon and Robin Williams carried. Jack Nicholson plays the perfect gruff character as usual, and Mark Wahlberg plays a very funny supporting role. The interesting thing, though, is that I left the movie thinking about how great an actor that Leonardo DiCaprio has become. I haven't seen a number of his movies, but recently: he was great in "The Departed" - equally great in "Catch me if you can" (another really good movie, if you haven't seen it) - and he did a really nice job in "The Aviator" even though the movie was way too long and got kind of boring. Unfortunately, the movies that really put him on the map were "Romeo & Juliet" and "The Titanic" (as far as I can remember, I haven't seen "What's eating Gilbert Grape" - which preceded both). In fairness, I've heard "Gangs of New York" isn't that great, as well as mixed reviews on "Man in the Iron Mask." The point is, though, that he has done a very, very good job in his last three movies, but because of his earlier success that pushed him into the teenaged girl hearth-throb realm, he has this weird repuation about him, I think. Case in point:

Nathan: "My point is, what would you say if I told you Leonardo DiCaprio was one of my favorite actors?"

Kristin: "I'd probably say you're gay."

Exactly. Not that either of us have anything against that sort of thing, but you see my point. Here's hoping that in time he sheds the unfortunately teenaged girl heart-throb tag. By the way, he was also on "Growing Pains" with the former Nathan look-a-like Ben Seaver. I also might go see "Blood Diamond" because he's in it and it has a really cool radio commercial:

"That makes us partners"
"I AM NOT YOUR PARTNER!"