DennisLehane Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I'll always remember reading a review of Casino where a reviewer said that even a mediocre Martin Scorsese movie is better than the 'best' movie made by any other director. That particular piece of wisdom has always stuck with me whenever I was plunking down my hard earned dollars on a Scorsese film that wasn't necessarily 'my thing' -- cough, Kundun, cough. So with that in mind, you can be sure that I'll be there on opening day for his new thriller, Ashecliffe (formerly Shutter Island). The Boston Herald recently scored some pictures of star Leonardo DiCaprio and Scorsese on the set of the period thriller, with the added bonus of getting to see DiCaprio brandishing some firearms (thankfully, it was for the movie).

The film is based on a novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River), and centers on two U.S. marshals who are sent to investigate the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane. Things start to go downhill when a riot on the island has them trapped, and not to mention some events that are outside of the realm of the everyday. Mark Ruffalo joins the cast as DiCaprio's partner, and Michelle Williams also stars as DiCaprio's wife. The film immediately brings Spellbound to mind, and knowing what a Hitchcock fan Scorsese is, I will look forward to seeing Scorsese work in a few of those 'master of suspense' touches.

Ashcliffe is scheduled to arrive in theaters on October 2nd, 2009.

Would you be surprised to hear Sam Raimi and Oscar nominee in the same sentence? Well, it could happen in the near future. Variety reports that Raimi has nabbed the director's chair for the big-screen adaptation of Dennis Lehane's novel The Given Day.

Two of Lehane's novels have already hit the big screen with critical success -- Clint Eastwood's Mystic River, and Ben Affleck's Gone Baby Gone. Martin Scorsese will no doubt make it a threesome when he releases Shutter Island.

The casting news just keeps piling up for Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese's upcoming adaptation of the Dennis Lehane novel. (Films of Lehane's books have a pretty damn good track record -- see Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone.) Scott told you that Scorsese will be teaming (yet again) with Leonardo DiCaprio, who will play the lead role of U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels. I told you that Mark Ruffalo signed on to play DiCaprio's partner, U.S. Marshall Chuck Aule. Christopher told you that Ben Kingsley is on board as Dr. Cawley, "the chief physician at a Massachusetts hospital for the criminally insane." And now I shall tell you that Michelle Williams is playing DiCaprio's wife in the film.

Variety reports that the drama "revolves around the trip made by Daniels to a remote New England island in 1954 to figure out how a multiple murderess escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane. He is grieving over the recent death of his wife, who was killed in a fire by one of the inhabitants of the facility." I'm about a hundred pages into Shutter Island, and have not yet been made aware of this wife/patient connection, but I do wonder how large a role Williams will have in the film. The only involvement her character has had in the novel so far has been brief flashbacks. I realize I'm setting myself up for meanie readers to spoil the book's secrets in the comments, but please don't! I'm just speculating. Regardless, I'm loving the novel and can't wait for the film...

He's always a great actor, but Ben Kingsley has a habit lately of working with undeserving directors (e.g. Uwe Boll) and appearing in undeserving movies (e.g. A Sound of Thunder). Give him a great director (Spielberg, Glazer) or even a good one (Attenborough, Levinson) and he shines. So, it's an enormous treat to learn he's finally working with Martin Scorsese, appearing in the newly Oscar-winning director's next film, Shutter Island. According to the Hollywood Reporter, Kingsley (or Sir Ben, as he's typically referred to on set) will play Dr. Cawley, the chief physician at a Massachusetts hospital for the criminally insane who must play host to two U.S. marshals played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo. Based on the novel by Dennis Lehane (Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone), the plot follows the marshals as they investigate the disappearance of a mental patient/inmate. While on the case, they experience a hurricane, get stuck on the eponymous island thanks to a riot and of course, "encounter a web of deceit."

Best known for being the fourth collaboration between Scorsese and DiCaprio, Shutter Island will also hopefully be known as the movie in which Sir Ben has a Massachusetts accent. As a cranky "enigmatic" doctor, though, he could be from anywhere (and with Kingsley, I truly mean that literally). Actually, this could be a rare Lehane adaptation where none of the main characters have that Boston-area intonation. Regardless, it should be entertaining to watch Kingsley as a slightly villainous physician who performs illegal brain surgery. Picture a cross between Don Logan, his character from Sexy Beast, Cosmo, his character from Sneakers, and Xavier Fitch, from Species. I would add in his loony psychiatrist character from the upcoming The Wackness, but I've only seen one scene and you likely aren't familiar with any of it. Of course, under the masterful direction of Scorsese, Kingsley will probably give us something fresh, like no character of his we've encountered before. I see a fifth Oscar nomination on the horizon.

Mark Ruffalo probably just sent an expensive bottle of something to his agent -- he's got a plum role in the new Martin Scorsese flick. Ruffalo will co-star with Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter Island, an adaptation of Dennis Lehane's 2004 novel. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ruffalo plays "U.S. Marshal Chuck Aule, who travels with his new partner (DiCaprio) to the eponymous Massachusetts island in 1954. As they investigate the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, they encounter a web of lies, a hurricane and a deadly inmate riot that leaves them trapped on the island." Oh good Lord, can't wait for this one! But...

Does anyone else wish the Scorsese/DiCaprio collaboration would come to an end? Scorsese is my favorite director, and DiCaprio is a talented actor, but we're not talking about the second coming of DeNiro here. Shouldn't Scorsese share the wealth a bit, spread the love around? I don't think the pairing has gotten stale yet, but why push it until it does? Oh well, anything that keeps Marty from movies about Tibetan monks is okay by me. Laeta Kalogridis (writer of -- uh-oh -- Alexander, Pathfinder and the Bionic Woman pilot) will adapt Lehane's book, which I will be reading on an airplane in about three hours. Lehane is mighty hot in Hollywood these days. He writes for The Wire -- the best show on television, and his books have been turned into Oscar winners (Mystic River) and Oscar hopefuls (this fall's Gone Baby Gone, which was great baby great). Shutter starts shooting this March.

They first teamed up to create the Gangs of New York. Then it was a very fine flick about an Aviator. Most recently they were Departed to very fine effect. And now it looks like master director Martin Scorsese and prolific actor Leonardo DiCaprio are about to team up for a fourth film. According to Variety, Marty and Leo will collaborate on Shutter Island, a crime drama based on a novel by Dennis Lehane. (The author also penned Mystic River and Gone Baby Gone, both of which were made into films.)

Variety offers a plot synopsis that reads like this: "Drama is set in 1954, with DiCaprio in final talks to play U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels, who is investigating the disappearance of a murderess who escaped from a hospital for the criminally insane and is presumed to be hiding on the remote Shutter Island." Screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis (Alexander, Pathfinder) will be on adaptation duty. The Paramount-Columbia co-production looks to begin production in March, and apparently the goal is to shoot somewhere in New England.

All I know is we're getting a new Scorsese movie (relatively) soon. Leo's involvement is just a little good news on the side.

"Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. ... He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it."

-- Raymond Chandler, The Simple Art of Murder

The detective's job and nature haven't changed much since Raymond Chandler wrote those words in 1945; the streets, though, are another matter. Directed by Ben Affleck, Gone Baby Gone follows two detectives, Patrick Kenzie (Casey Affleck) and Angie Genarro (Michelle Monaghan) as they go down the main streets and back alleys of shabby South Boston investigating the disappearance of little Amanda McCready (Madeline O'Brien). The girl's mother Helene (Amy Ryan) is a drunk, a druggie, a loser. In the early scenes where Helene stands in front of the media circus that's erupted around the case, Ryan brings a perverse, compelling mix of emotions to life in Helene's eyes, fear and confusion and a fierce, wretched kind of glee: She finally matters.

And normally, she doesn't, and she knows it. It's Helene's sister-in-law Beatrice (Amy Madigan) who actually hires Kenzie and Genarro -- Helene and her brother Lionel (Titus Welliver) both can't imagine anything above and beyond the efforts of the Boston PD. Kenzie and Genarro take the case, figuring they'll ask a few questions and earn a few bucks. The cops working the abduction (John Ashton and Ed Harris) are driven and competent and not overly fond of private investigators; their boss, Captain Doyle (Morgan Freeman) lost his own daughter to an abduction-murder years back, so he's driven, too. But everyone involved knows the math: The longer Amanda is lost, the more likely she'll be lost forever. And, through the days that turn to weeks, something happens: Kenzie can't stop looking.

Novelist Dennis Lehane, whose Hollywood career once seemed to have begun and ended with the successful adaptation of his Mystic River, has seen his star rise rather dramatically over the past few months. It's already been announced that Ben Affleck's directorial debut, Gone, Baby, Gone, is based on a Lehane novel (from Clint Eastwood to Affleck - I'm sure he's so proud), and now comes the news that Oscar-nominated A History of Violence scribe Josh Olson has written and will direct Until Gwen, a film based on a short story by Lehane. The story, which Olsen describes as "one of the best...I've ever read," is "a dark crime drama that explores a relationship between a father who is a con man and a son who has been raised on the edges of society." Among other things, the story deals with the issue of identity, which is one of the reasons for Olsen's interest.

Olsen's screenplay is already finished and has won praise from Lehane; the movie is about to star casting and will shoot later this year with a budget of less than $10 million.

Karina reported last March that Ben Affleck had inked a deal to direct Gone, Baby, Gone for Paramount. The project is an adaptation (which Affleck himself penned - hey, he's an Oscar-winning writer, haters) of Boston writer Dennis Lehane's novel about a missing child and the private detectives who try to track her down. Lehane also wrote Mystic River, and Gone, Baby, Gone is described as just as complex and disturbing as that novel. However, it's the fourth installment in a series about the two detectives - God only knows why Paramount and Affleck thought it would be a good idea to make it into a standalone movie.

Anyway, it's taken a while, but the movie has finally been cast. According to the Boston Herald, Affleck searched the world for the best man to play the male lead (Patrick Kenzie) and finally found him: Casey Affleck. Brilliant, Ben! Good work. Because your little brother really proved himself as an actor with his token appearances in the Ocean's movies. Kenzie's partner, Angie Gennaro, will reportedly be played by Michelle Monaghan, best known, probably, for a recurring role on Boston Public. She's no superstar, either, but for the love of God, at least she's not related to the damn director!

Shooting on Affleck's effort to revive his career starts in Boston in May. Maybe his mom can be in it, too - that should help.