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Opening this Friday: The Grudge 2 and Man of the Year. I’m looking forward to “Man of the Year,” a thinly veiled attempt to beg the question⎯“What if Daily Show host Jon Stewart ran for president?” Of course, it isn’t Jon Stewart, it’s Robin Williams, but still, parodying American politics and election year campaigning is always fertile ground for laughs. Meanwhile the real Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert continue to downplay the growing influence their programs have over youth political pathos.

So, The Departed pulled in $27 million in its opening weekend, pretty good for an R-rated movie. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, but it is essentially a cat-and-mouse, or cat-and-rat game, between Boston’s mob kingpin and the local police department. The mob has an inside man on the force, the cops have an undercover agent with the mob, and that’s where the trouble begins. Scorsese is such a craftsman as a filmmaker. He’s a workingman’s director, and yet, when his work is done, it looks spectacular. “The Departed” is a well-written and well-paced thriller. Of course, typical Scorsese bloodshed is there, but at one point near the end of the film the violence nearly approached parody. A couple guys in the theater near us laughed uncontrollably, like they were watching the overkill slapstick of Kill Bill or The Evil Dead. That sort of ruined those scenes for me, but I could still see where Scorsese was going with it. “The Departed” is a morality tale, and one that, like life, does a pretty bang-up job of hiding the morality.

It’s definitely Scorsese’s best film since Goodfellas, and I’m going all in that the director takes home his first Oscar for the film. If you tally the number of great performances alone, Marty should come out ahead. Nicholson was vintage vile, and also hilarious talking about the music of John Lennon while holding a severed hand, and shouting, “This is not reality TV!” after running linguistic circles around one of his smirking henchmen. Leo DiCaprio outplayed Matt Damon, but both were superb, as were Alec Baldwin and Martin Sheen in smaller roles. The surprise of “The Departed” was Marky Mark, who stole several scenes with his foul-mouthed “Bean Town” jerk routine. He was so honorably belligerent; you will love watching him mix it up with everyone.

NEWSFLASH: Sienna Miller hates Pittsburgh. You know, this is pretty good pub for Shreveport. Miller hasn’t had anything negative to say about our film Mecca to the north—she filmed Factory Girl there this year, but apparently Jude Law’s former lady just can’t stand the Pitts.

And finally, here is the trailer for “Déjà Vu,” the first major production shot in New Orleans after Katrina. I was down there at the House of Blues for the press conference that launched the movie. At one point, someone asked Denzel Washington if he had toured the wreckage of the 9th Ward yet, and he responded that he would do anything he could to help those in need while filming in New Orleans, but that he would never consider it a “tour.” I liked that. As for the film itself, the trailer makes it look like a high-concept action fest in the vain of “Con Air” or “The Rock.” You know, lots of explosions, vamping to the camera and flashy editing. But at least NOLA is up and running in the movie business again.