Is there food?

[](http://www.istherefood.com/wp- content/uploads/departed.jpg)There is the most perfect cinematic moment in the later stages of Martin Scorsese’s The Departed. Cut off from his handlers, feeling more alone than at any other point in the movie, undercover police officer Billy Costigan (Leonardo DiCaprio) receives a call on his mobile phone. The phone is his only real point of contact with the powers that be, and yet - under the circumstances - he knows answering it would be a bad move.

On the other end of the line is corrupt cop Colin Sullivan (Matt Damon) - the yin to Costigan’s yang. While Costigan’s role is to infiltrate one of Boston’s most prominent criminal gangs, Sullivan’s origin rests in the heart of that very same group. Sullivan knows that whoever picks up the call is the infiltrator.

Neither speaks. Time stands still. The tension is astonishingly tangible; DiCaprio and Damon both sell the scene with magnificent performances, worthy of actors with far more experience than either of these two relatively young stars. I can’t help but be reminded of the Pacino - De Niro face off in Heat. The tension is that strong.

The Departed is, unquestionably, the best film I’ve seen this year. It’s a film comprised of so many magnificent scenes, like the one I’ve described above, and each scene is filled with equally magnificent performances.

At the top of the list is the one, the only Mr Jack Nicholson. I thought our days of seeing Jack do psycho were over, but I’m happy to say he’s back, and at his maniacal best. Terrifyingly intense, cruel, and at times down right evil, Nicholson’s portrayal of gang boss Frank Costello is one of his best. Nobody can play roles like this the way Nicholson does, and his performance alone is worth the price of admission. It’s such an entertaining performance that it’s hard to criticise, but it does feel like there’s a certain lack - as with Nicholson’s previous performances, most notably The Shining - of graduality when it comes to Costello’s descent into apparent madness. It seems he’s supposed to be driven to greater and more disturbing lengths of psychosis, but some of this is lost as a result of Nicholson’s on-screen lunacy.

And yet, DiCaprio manages to share many of his scenes and impresses just as much. In fact, DiCaprio’s performance here is perhaps more impressive than Nicholson’s, given that we already know how well Jack pulls these roles off. I’ve never seen DiCaprio convey such intensity on screen. As his character passes through a complex range of emotions, from rage, to paranoia, to despair, DiCaprio nails each one. He holds the screen like few people acting today.

Prior to The Departed, I’d have predicted that if Leonardo DiCaprio appeared in a scene with Jack Nicholson, and Ray Winstone, he’d have been acted off the screen. I’m happy to say that this is far from the case, and DiCaprio’s is possibly the best performance here. One of the most impressive elements of The Departed, is that there really are no poor performances at all.

Matt Damon deserves some credit too. Whilst his performance isn’t as powerful as Nicholson or DiCaprio - there’s a sentence I never thought I’d write - he does a good job of making his character at least partially likeable. He’s a scumbag, plain and simple, and yet we do feel something for him, trapped in an impossible situation, groomed from an early age to be fundamentally corrupt.

It’s patently obvious that this is a dream cast: beyond Nicholson, Winstone, Damon and DiCaprio, there is Martin Sheen, Mark Wahlberg, Alec Baldwin, and the impressive Vera Farmiga. And while each performance is good, a few characters aren’t quite as well developed as they could have been.

Winstone, as Mr French - Costello’s go to guy - doesn’t really have a lot to do. We all know that Ray Winstone can do far more than play henchmen. Wahlberg’s Dignam is similarly underwritten, getting to do only fractionally more than deliver some of the best lines in the film. Sheen does a great job as the only really nice guy in the film, Costigan’s boss Oliver Queenan, but Baldwin takes the prize for best supporting actor. As Sullivan’s boss he plays overweight, naive, sweaty, and terminally stressed out with watchable ease.

It’s fair to say that Vera Farmiga is the lynchpin though. There’s a symmetry to the characters: Queenan - Costello, Costigan - Sullivan, French - Dignam, but Farmiga’s Madolyn - psychologist to both Sullivan and Costigan - ties everything together and stands outside of the ongoing struggle. And yet, she’s more a part of it than she knows. Looking like a significantly more attractive Sarah Jessica Parker, and with significantly better acting ability to boot, Farmiga is one to watch. She could have easily been the weak link here, but manages to be anything but.

Martin Scorsese pulls the whole thing together with a masterful piece of direction. The performances he’s managed to produce, the unintrusive directorial style, and the unmistakable ambiance are all testament to what happens when Scorsese makes a great picture. And yet I’d rate The Departed as one of the most effective he’s made; unlike his other works - Goodfellas, for example - The Departed has genuinely likeable characters. Queenan, Costigan, and Madolyn are all inherently good people. Scorsese doesn’t present us with a rogues gallery and ask us to pick our favourite; he takes the time to establish a history, to build a relationship with each character, before tearing everything down.

And down it comes. The Departed is at times harshly unpleasant with it’s violence, and is ultimately one of the most uncompromising films I’ve ever seen. Despite it’s two and a half hour duration, and an ending which takes longer than you’d expect to arrive, it never feels overlong. There are virtually no set pieces, and little action. This is character driven from the beginning, and all the better for it.

At one moment in the film, one of the characters is watching John Ford’s The Informer. The scene in question is the conclusion, when Victor McLaglen’s Gypo Nolan is celebrating his forgiveness in church. If Scorsese was attempting to capture the same atmosphere here as Ford did back in the thirties, he’s achieved his goal. The themes of forgiveness, misplaced trust, betrayal, and greed are all present here, and the film’s emotional resonance is just as strong.

And that, in my eyes, is as glowing a recommendation as I could bestow upon The Departed. Scorsese’s latest is possibly his best. Worthy of numerous Oscar nominations when the time comes, skillfully produced, and thoroughly entertaining, moving, and thought provoking.

Highly recommended.

As reported by TUAW [here](http://www.tuaw.com/2006/10/08/windows-vista-rc2 -doesnt-work-on-macs-via-boot-camp/), Vista RC2 doesn’t work on the Mac Minis. Or at least, it doesn’t work on mine. I’ve heard reports of some Mini users getting the install to work with no problems. On my machine, the Vista installation routine doesn’t like the smell of the partition that Bootcamp creates, and refuses to install.

This is a shame - I thought Microsoft were actively supporting the Mini, and other Apple machines. This struck me as a Smart Move. Shame they’ve broken things in this release. Unless, of course, it’s a Bootcamp, or firmware problem…

I’ll have to continue to see if I can find a workaround. Or wait for the RTM release - not that there’s any certainty that this release will fair any better.

It begins with a CSI style sweep over Cardiff, and a crime scene. There’s blood, a corpse, rain, forensics and the police.

Before anyone can do pretty much anything, they’re all cleared out. Torchwood, apparently, have told them to clear the area. Who are Torchwood? The attending officers are as in the dark as we, the audience, are. Special Ops, they say. As one welsh accented forensics officer says in the opening 5 minutes of Torchwood’s first ever episode - “There’s no procedure any more - it’s a f**king disgrace”. Thankfully, the episode isn’t.

Over the next few minutes we’re treated to the temporary resurrection of a murder victim via some form of mystical gauntlet, a bar fight, and a snarling creature with a nasty habit of biting people in the neck. With spurting arterial blood spray, and everything. 15 minutes in, and it’s clear that this, if anything, is a distant relative of Doctor Who, at least in terms of content. Swearing, blood, adult humour, sexuality, and Welsh accents abound in Torchwood.

Torchwood is, unapologetically, aimed at the adult audience. Perhaps this is why the BBC have chosen to air the series on its more cult focused, and digital only, BBC3 rather than going for a prime time BBC1 slot. It seems that they want to keep this as far from Doctor Who as possible, lest it be mistaken for cuddly, tea-time family entertainment.

For those that don’t know, the series is a spin off from the first and second seasons of the BBC’s new Doctor Who. Taking the Captain Jack Harkness character from the first series, and the Torchwood institute from the second, it takes place in modern day Cardiff, and features a team of, essentially, misfits in their hunt to track down aliens. And presumably any other nasties that the script writers decide to toss their way.

One other thing that links the series to the new Doctor Who is actress Eve Myles. She’s previously appeared in the first season episode “The Unquiet Dead”. At this stage there’s no apparent link between the character she played in that episode and the character she plays here, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility. As Gwen Cooper (her previous character’s name was Gwyneth, fact fans), Myles manages a likeable level of bemused confusion in the first episode. As the audience is discovering many of Torchwood’s mysteries at the same time as she does, it’s important that they can identify with her. Also, as she’s given quite a lot of time on screen, it’s quite important she’s not irritating. Thankfully, she achieves both things well.

As for other cast members, John Barrowman returns as the glorious Captain Jack Harkness, once a time traveling scavenger, now a alien catching superhero, in more ways than one. Barrowman oozes charisma. It’s no surprise that writer and series creator Russel Davies wanted to spin things off into a new series featuring his bi-sexual swashbuckler - the character and performance are both deeply watchable. Harkness’ team are, like Gwen, mostly likeable. Burn Gorman, who plays Owen Harper, has the look of a young Willem Dafoe about him, and is the only borderline irritating team member; Toshiko Sato (Naoko Mori) doesn’t get a great deal to do here, Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) is a likeable, well dressed Quentin Tarantino look-alike, and Suzie Costello (Indira Varma) features more than you’d think. It’s a team with some potential, who you don’t take an immediate dislike to, and that each have a clearly defined role and character.

The script is witty, effective, and not overly clunky. It’s got that Doctor Who style humour, but can take it slightly further thanks to its adult targeted audience. It also nicely references its source; the Cyberman invasion from series two of New Who, the alien spacecraft from the Christmas special, the destruction of Torchwood (one of four offices, as it happens), and there’s even a mention of the good Doctor himself. Fans of Who will already guess why this branch of Torchwood is placed in Cardiff, but there’s an explanation for that too. The nice thing is, none of it feels forced. There’s a pleasing lack of tedious exposition in Torchwood.

The only criticism of the first episode is perhaps that it doesn’t have a great deal of time to produce a compelling villain, or plot. It takes its time to introduce the characters, establish who Torchwood are, why they’re in Cardiff, and what they’re going to do about the fact that Gwen has discovered them. There’s a - seemingly tacked on - plot about some recurring murders in Cardiff that gets resolved, but it’s secondary to the process of introducing everyone. And the episode just about gets away with it.

As first episodes go, Torchwood is a good one. We’re sold the prospect of the ever likeable Captain Jack catching aliens, a team of charismatic assistants, a central character who’s easy to get behind, and an atmosphere not a million miles from US team based Sci-Fi, like Angel.

I’ve often said that the BBC could produce great Science Fiction. It used to - it had a history of some great television - but hasn’t really done anything to impress of late beyond the triumphant return of Doctor Who. Hopefully, Torchwood will change that during its run. The potential is there, the intention is obvious after episode one, and thanks to its adult focus there’ll likely be none of Russell Davies toilet jokes.

Episode one gets my seal of approval, and there’s not a man eating dustbin in sight. And as the BBC showed episodes one and two back to back, my review of Episode two will soon follow.

After the dark, rain drenched start of episode one, Torchwood’s second episode seems a strong contrast. There’s an atmosphere of happiness as Gwen and her boyfriend are out bowling and having a good time. Presumably, they’re celebrating Gwen’s transfer to “Special Ops”. Things are cut short when a meteor of some description strikes Cardiff, and Gwen receives a single word text message: Torchwood. Time to go to work.

“Day One” is even more a statement of intent that Torchwood’s first episode, concerning itself with a gaseous alien life form that has traveled to Earth to feed on the orgasmic energy of sexual climax; the Timelords never encountered anything like this on tea time telly! Within ten minutes of the start of the episode, a man has been reduced to a pile of ash during a quick bonk in a night club, and later Gwen gets involved in a little girl on alien-possessed- girl snogging action.

I was surprised by the reaction to the first episode of Torchwood. I expected nothing more than a continuation of the idea that began in Doctor Who; I expected the tone to be the same - I thought this would be Doctor Who with some late night themes. As a result, I’ve enjoyed what I’ve seen so far. However, a lot of people seem to have been put off; they can forgive the unmistakable whiff of Sci-Fi cheese when they’re dealing with wholesome, family-focused Saturday evening TV, but when it comes to grown up shows they want something a bit more serious and substantial.

Episode two is unlikely to convince the doubters, and it might just go so far as to alienate - if you’ll pardon the pun - a few more viewers. There’s no escaping the fact that this has all been done before. It’s not given any real new twist here - the show returns to the tried and tested “save the innocent” formula for its finale, rather than exploring the alien sex tourist angle - and while it’s moderately entertaining there’s no escaping the fact that “Day One” is weak, filler material. Which isn’t what a series at this stage needs.

Gwen spends most of the episode being irritatingly apologetic, and is portrayed at times as being fairly useless. Why Jack would want to recruit her onto his team is something of a puzzle, based on her performance here. Still, at least she’s not a serial killer. I had hoped she’d be a stronger female lead, rather than spending the series looking confused. Time will tell.

Episode two shows us some more of Torchwood’s technology, including some neat vehicles with modern looking blue strobes on the front window, and lots of IT equipment on-board. There’s also a neat, force-field generating alien pebble device. It all looks very Doctor Who and once again enforces the link between the two shows, when perhaps it would be best to start putting some distance there.

And we get more mysterious glances at Jack. While the audience know slightly more than his team, nobody is really certain where he came from and, more interestingly, how he got to be where he is. I seem to recall series creator Russel Davies stating that he wouldn’t explain how Jack came to be in modern day Cardiff this series, so anyone hoping for an answer to that one might be let down. I suspect anyone looking for a reason as to why Jack likes standing on the edge of tall buildings will be similarly disappointed.

Jack is also responsible for one of the most inadequate and laughable fight scenes in recent TV memory. Whilst trying to detain an escaping alien, Jack arms himself with a wooden sword and attempts to look manly. It doesn’t work - Barrowman is very capable of acting camply smug - or is that smugly camp? - but there’s some doubt over what other emotions he can actually pull off. Based on the comments I’ve heard from viewers so far, it seems that Jack’s attitude isn’t terribly endearing either. Personally, it makes me chuckle.

Doctor Who fans might have noticed the good Doctor’s hand in the jar - at least, he’s the only person I know who’s lost a hand in recent months, so it surely must be his - and again, Torchwood uses this to cling to its origin. Admittedly it doesn’t wave the hand in your face, and it never mentions the Doctor, but it’s a link that perhaps the show could do without. If Torchwood isn’t going to include Daleks, Cybermen, and any other Doctor Who staples, then there seems little reason for it to continue to keep the connection alive, especially this early.

All of the above sounds quite negative, but I enjoyed this episode. There’s some great humor, and I thought there were a couple of fantastic lines in the episode. Maybe it’s just my juvenile sense of humour; who knows? Maybe it’s the lack of any form of British Sci-Fi for so long affecting my judgement? Maybe I’m just a fanboy?

“Day One” is an episode that seems to be attempting to make a comment on society’s obsession with sexuality, but that fails to really make its mark in that sense. It does manage to achieve the dubious accolade of being a light- weight sci fi tale about an alien that reduces men to piles of ash after sex, that isn’t ludicrous and hugely uninvolving.

I’m very curious to see what other people thought of the second episode, and I’m even more curious to see how the series is received further into its run; are people likely to stick with it and see if it picks up, or will Torchwood be abandoned as a result of taking aim at a target audience that just doesn’t exist? If I am just a Doctor Who fanboy, do enough people stand with me to make Torchwood a success?

[](http://www. istherefood.com/wp- content/uploads/texas_chainsaw_massacre_the_beginning.jpg)Sullied. That’s how I felt as I left the screening of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning. I felt unclean. Not because of the film’s desperate attempts at shocking gore and violence - and it’s not as grotesque as it likes to think it is - but because it feels the need to further diminish the legacy of Tobe Hooper’s classic original.

Maybe I’m not the best person to ask - I hold the 1974 original in astronomically high regard, considering it to be a true masterpiece of horror - but I would consider The Beginning to be one of the most worthless horror films in recent memory. Marcus Nispel’s remake - to which this is a prequel, one of the only things it’s actually good at - is one of the few films I’ve ever disliked enough to feel like walking out of (I didn’t, just in case you’re curious). And yet it had a certain style; a look and feel to it that at least made it worth something as a piece of cinema.

The Beginning lacks atmosphere, tension, pace, charismatic performances, and - if I’m honest - gore. But I’ll address the good things first.

As a prequel, The Beginning does its job well. Both the events surrounding Hoyt’s “promotion”, and the manner in which one recurring character loses his legs, can’t fail to raise a knowing smile. For what it’s worth, the continuity between the two films is strong.

The second, and only other good thing about The Beginning, is R. Lee Ermey. It’s clear that the film-makers were so pleased with his performance in the remake, that they wanted to give him more to do here. Ermey spends the film being either deeply unpleasant, highly amusing, or both. They might as well have called the film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The R. Lee Ermey Show, because that’s essentially what it is. If you’re a fan, it’ll be worth a rental to enjoy his performance.

Having covered all the positives, let’s focus on the bad. Sadly, it’s the same sorry list again. We have a collection of pretty protagonists that we don’t care about. There’s the younger brother, wallowing in his older brother’s shadow. Big Bro is a Vietnam veteran, who’s returning to kill a few more Gooks with Little Bro under his wing. Accompanying these two thin cliches are their girlfriends: the dark haired feisty one, and the busty, blond slightly rebellious one, who doesn’t want Little Bro - her boyfriend - to go off to war.

They all look pretty, and they all start the film doing naughty things, like having sex and smoking pot. It comes as no surprise when they’re captured by the evil mutant hillbillies Sheriff Hoyt, and subjected to all manner of unpleasantness. If anything, it comes as a relief; at last, we can stop wondering when they’ll fall foul of the family, and get down to some serious gore.

It’s a crushing disappointment when it doesn’t really happen. The most brutal scene in the entire film takes place in the first five minutes. A character we’re given no time to develop a relationship with meets a fate far more violent than anybody else in the film. From there on in, The Beginning shows us nothing that hasn’t been seen before. Leatherface has been humanized, and given an origin. And yet at the same time has become some sort of stomping man-hulk, more in the vein of Kane Hodder’s Jason Voorhees than Gunnar Hansen’s original, slightly bumbling Leatherface. Andrew Bryniarski has an intensity and purpose that just doesn’t work for me. He’s too powerful, too much of the time.

The beauty of the original Leatherface is that he’s treated like an idiot. He’s prone to bursts of sudden homicidal violence, but he’s not some great skulking brute that’ll tear your legs off when ordered. That’s what Leatherface seems to be here. Despite an attempt to tell his back story - and there’s not a nuclear weapons test, or mutant hillbilly parent in sight - the Leatherface of The Beginning seems far less human than ever before.

But at least there’s some gore, right? Some glorious money shots to please the gore hounds? Sadly, no. The Beginning thinks it’s violent, and unpleasant. There’s face slicing, skin removal, throat slitting, chainsaw impaling, leg breaking, and a little rape. And yet The Beginning actually shows surprisingly little of any of it. Every nasty act that Leatherface perpetrates with his chainsaw takes place partially off screen. The face removal scene is no nastier than similar scenes in several other films.

I can’t help but think of the buzz saw kill in the final stages of Alex Aja’s magnificent Haute Tension when I think about The Beginning. It’s such a brutal, gore drenched and harrowing kill that I’d have expected more people to imitate. Given Leatherface’s weapon of choice, I’d expect to see much horrific splatter here, but it falls short. If people are going to keep telling us that their film is the most astonishing slice of ordeal horror yet seen, they need to start living up to it. It’s starting to get old.

The Beginning even tries to emulate Tobe Hooper’s original dinner table scene, building up to a potential ending that could be really, really unpleasant. I was looking forward to a metaphorical kick in the nuts; a genuine “they didn’t just do that, did they?” moment. Kill ‘em all in shockingly ghastly ways and fade to black. Instead, I got a very cheap looking effect with a poor prosthetic, and twenty more minutes of tedium. Yawn.

Fundamentally, what The Beginning lacks the most is any tangible sense of fear. If someone could just figure out how to combine the splatterific intentions of films like this with the raw, primeval sense of fear induced by such films as Ring, and The Grudge, then they’d be onto something special. Haute Tension is the only recent film in this genre that’s come close.

There’s no psychology to The Beginning. It doesn’t worm its way into your soul and haunt your waking moments. And it should - Leatherface should be one of the most chilling icons in the horror genre. Instead, misguided sequels, tired remakes, and this utterly worthless prequel have diluted one of my favourite demons.

So, in an attempt to purge the memory of both this and the remake from my soul, excuse me while I watch the original again. And if you have the urge to go and see The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning this Halloween, I suggest you do the same. In the dark. With the doors firmly locked.