Man on Film: The Wolf of Wall Street

Much like fellow Best Picture nominee American Hustle, The Wolf of Wall Street is a helluva fun ride that ultimately lacks the staying power that some of the other more serious Oscar contenders have. In other words, 12 Years a Slave The Wolf of Wall Street is not.

While much of the negative response to The Wolf of Wall Street has centered around the perception that the film celebrates greed, it seems like much of the point of the film was lost on those people. Martin Scorcese masterfully captures the grotesque excess by indulging in it. A lesser director would have maintained a measured detachment from the greed, using the distance to preach--I'm looking at you Steven Spielberg--against the actions of the characters.

In The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorcese lets the audience get taken in by Jordan Belfort only to crank up the excess leading to a repulsion to contrast more meaningfully against that urge to like the charismatic lead. In the role of rich asshole, Leonardo DiCaprio once again kills it for Scorcese. While one could certainly wonder if Leo is actually having to stretch much to play a role like Belfort, the fact remains that he excels in this immorality tale.

That isn't to say DiCaprio is alone in his greatness. Predictably, Scorsese gets great turns from the supporting cast. Kyle Chandler and Matthew McConaughey are both fantastic is smaller roles, as Jordan's foil and mentor, respectively. In addition to being stunning, Australian Pan-Am and Neighbours alum Margot Robbie is wonderful as the other half in a very mercurial relationship. Rob Reiner, Jon Bernthal, Shea Whigham, Cristin Milioti, and Jean Dujardin round out the rest of the strong supporting cast; but it is Jonah Hill who gets the most screen time of the rest of the cast, and he absolutely earns his second Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor with a blisteringly hilarious and debaucherous turn as Donnie Azoff, Jordan's right hand and enthusiastic co-conspirator.

Now one could levy claims that Scorcese and screenwriter Terence Winter--Boardwalk Empire in the house--don't punish Belfort enough, but do any of the Wall Street bilkers get any significant punishment? His life is in shambles after his self-destruction, but anyone hoping for Scorcese to do a morality tale is barking up the wrong tree.

The real issues with the film lie with the fact that despite its three-hour runtime--a runtime usually reserved for historical epics or dramas with grave import--The Wolf of Wall Street falls a bit on the forgettable side of things. It's a full-blown debaucherous ride, but somehow a three-hour Martin Scorcese film seems to lack the significance that the rest of his fare has in spades.

Man on Film: 21 Jump Street

To say that 21 Jump Street is far better than one could anticipate is a gross understatement. The notion of a reconceptualization of the 80s series seemed harebrained at first glance and was certainly not one to get excited about. Knowing virtually nothing about Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs--and therefore nothing about the directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller--past the fact that it was a children's movie, it was hard to imagine this film being funny in any way past the most safe and saccharine way, even after seeing the trailers that at least pointed to a movie that might be all right. These expectations were way off.

21 Jump Street was uproariously funny. It was so funny that: a.) I am hard-pressed to think of a movie in the past few years that measures up comedically; b.) it elicited perhaps the loudest laugh I've ever had at the expense of a certain show on Fox; and c.) it left me hoping for another film soon.

Perhaps the most shocking thing of the whole endeavor is that Channing Tatum was unbelievably funny. I never thought the words "Channing Tatum was really great" would come out of my mouth, but sure enough when exiting the theater I couldn't help but utter those words. While hearing that Jonah Hill was pretty damn funny wouldn't shock the average person, Tatum was a revelation. Upon having been freed from roles calling for him to either dance or be a Roman centurion, he spreads his wings with aplomb. This isn't like his hosting SNL, which may have been all right (who actually watches fucking Saturday Night Live to be able to say whether he was or not?) but couldn't have been fantastic largely because there's no way the material is good enough to distinguish Tatum as a comedic talent. Along with his partner in crime [stopping] Hill, the success of an entire film and possible franchise lie on his comedic skills, and it is his chemistry with Hill makes the film. Tatum's work on Greg Jenko's transformation from cool jock to science nerd is as awesome as Daniel Desario's dabbling in Dungeons & Dragons at the end of Freaks and Geeks.

Any doubts one has heading into the film should be more or less instantly assuaged with the joke that Hill's character Morton Schmidt is made up to look exactly like Eminem in 2005. The laughs start at the onset of 21 Jump Street and come hard and fast from that point on. The screenplay--credited to Michael Bacall but which also saw Jonah Hill, Joe Gazzam, and Alias scribes Andre Nemec and Josh Applebaum taking a stab at things--is consistently smart and more importantly relentlessly hilarious. Despite all the cooks in the kitchen, 21 Jump Street is spectacularly funny and seems to be driven by a unified vision. Its gags are crisp, its playing up and against genre conventions is done with equal parts affection and self-awareness, and its blend of comedy and action are exceptionally well-executed.

In short, 21 Jump Street is one of the funniest films in recent memory. That this is such a surprise is all the better.

Fuck you, science.

Man on Film: Moneyball

Adapting Moneyball into a film was a loaded proposition. Amongst certain circles, this book was (and to an extent still is) a bit controversial. As someone who stands somewhere vaguely nearby these circles, this was bound to be a somewhat divisive film. It was divisive for me.

On a fundamental level, the film fails to drive home the misunderstood central point of the book. The movie sort of touches on it, but what the book was really about the A's success as a result of exploiting market inefficiencies. Jonah Hill's Peter Brand character (the Paul DePodesta stand-in) hints at the larger issue when he is talking with Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) in their conversation in the parking ramp but doesn't go much further than to say that Major League Front Offices were in the Stone Ages.

Unfortunately, Moneyball the film ends up being an oversimplification of the scouts versus stats debate with an extremely one-sided take on the issue. The scouts are painted as stodgy old men unable to stomach a challenging of the status quo or to adjust to any sort of change.

From a baseball nerd's standpoint, this was a bit of a disappointment.

Having said that, the movie itself was pretty good. While some of the deviations from the book may bother those who read it, artistic license is obviously employed for the sake of streamlining the story and dramatic effect. The changes are understandable, as elements such as the draft had no bearing on the season itself. Working with a Steven Zaillian draft, Aaron Sorkin's presumed polish on the dialogue definitely shows, and Moneyball is rife with humor. The film looks pretty good, although the occasional departure from realistic shooting during some of the baseball sequences was sort of irksome. Not surprisingly, Brad Pitt carries the film, and Jonah Hill ably pulls off being his complement.

The seemingly universal acclaim seems a little surprising but is mostly from the general public with the baseball community seeing the film as much more of a mixed bag. Personally, the film was solid but not spectacular, and it was a bit difficult to separate the book from the filmic interpretation of the book.

Man on Film: Get Him to the Greek

Despite the fact that Nicholas Stoller's directorial debut, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, might just be my favorite of the Team Apatow productions*, I was not exactly excited for the latest Apatow Productions film, Get Him to the Greek.

*Now, it should be noted that Step Brothers is a film that I've seen approximately 30 times (unfortunately, none of those times were in the theater). It's weird because despite the fact that the Apatow Productions title card is in front of the film it feels like this is not a product of Team Apatow. Perhaps it's the "Freaks and Geeks"-lessness of the cast, but they seem only loosely related to one another. I do love Step Brothers but am reluctant to put it in the conversation with the other Apatow products.

Yes, I really loved FSM, but a lot of Get Him to the Greek relies on Jonah Hill, something I was reticent about heading into the film. Generally speaking, I like almost all of the films Hill has been in, yet I often feel like he is one of the weaker links in the film. While he is certainly capable of being very funny, there is something about his energy that can be off-putting. Luckily for us all, Get Him to the Greek is not a film in which that holds true.

Since my reluctance (and I do not believe I am alone in this) lied in the film's obvious reliance upon Hill, I will start by talking about him. As the regular music fan who got into the music industry because of his fandom, Hill's character, Aaron Green, is ideally constructed to suit his strengths. He isn't supposed to play anything that lies outside of his wheelhouse. As a regular dude who has ceded any semblance of a social life to his girlfriend's schedule and her desire to watch "Gossip Girl" (or maybe it was "Grey's Anatomy") on DVD, Jonah Hill is not only believable but also likable.

With the potential dilemma of Hill having been addressed, the success of the film lies largely on the shoulders of Russell Brand, whose reprisal of the character Aldous Snow is pitch-perfect. He is larger than life and unabashedly self-centered. As the caricature of the drug-addled rock star with a posse of enablers, Brand hits every note with aplomb. It is Snow's ridiculously destructive and self-serving behavior that drives much of the comedy and nearly all of the drama within the film. When he is called on to have a withdrawal-fueled freak out, he kills. When called on to deliver the bloated pomposity that is "African Child," he imbues the song with a clueless sincerity not matched since Paul McCartney ripped off David Hasselhoff* for his egregious post-9/11 *cough* anthem "Freedom."


*This reminds me that despite my repeated assertions about Rocky IV and the David Hasselhoff performance above having won the Cold War, I've not blogged about it in this space. For this, I am sorry. Hopefully I'll have the time in the near future to tackle this at length and in detail.

Now Brand is great to be sure, but he is not alone. In his limited role as the executive at the label, Sean Combs is outstanding. From the dressing down of his employees in the staff meeting to his on-set argument with Pharrell, he is hilarious. More surprising (because if you remember Made, Combs's hilarity isn't necessarily unprecedented) is how fucking amazing Rose Byrne is as Snow's ex-lover Jackie Q. Seriously. If you need proof, I'll refer you to the shockingly lewd anal sex single embedded below (stick around through the end).

Despite my hesitancy to embrace Byrne in years past, I am fully on board, as she has been great in everything I've seen her in for a few years now.

Past the cast though, the film works. At its heart, Get Him to the Greek--as so many of the Team Apatow films are--is a film about male bonding and the perils of getting too close to your idol. On both counts, Stoller & Co. succeed. Despite all his faults, Snow ultimately finds value in what Green brings to the table, on a personal and professional label, even if he ends up vomiting on himself at least once a day.

Man On Film: Ketchup

I know, it's been a while. I've been busy.

That doesn't mean I've not been going to movies.

Rather, I've been unable to write about them.

What is to follow could be a bit lengthy. Sure, I could split these up, but this backlog has been piling up. Some of these may receive more time than others for varying reasons but not always related to my like/dislike of the film. Given the ground I'll be trying to cover here, these individual write-ups will surely be lacking, especially in relation to, say, what I did when I wrote about The Dark Knight in two tomes last year.

Here goes:

Brüno

Pretty damn funny. Unlike Borat, it didn't feel like 85% of the movie was recycled bits from "Da Ali G Show". The urethral "Brüno" shout in his pilot was truly shocking.

I am curious as to what Sacha Baron Cohen is going to do now that his three characters have been given the full-length feature treatment.

Funny People

I had a film professor who specialized in screenwriting. He had written F/X but did not end up being the credited screenwriter. In the sci-fi class I took from him, his analysis was limited to breaking down this film into its three-act structure while giving a cursory look at other narrative elements. His hard-on for the three-act structure ruled his life.

While that seemed a little ridiculous during the class, Judd Apatow's latest seems like it could have more closely adhered to the pacing inherent in that Aristotelian construct.

Now I should say that I didn't have any major issues with the film. Of Apatow's three directorial efforts, Funny People is probably his most complete film. It is certainly his most adult. That doesn't mean it is the most enjoyable. It probably has the least re-watch value of the three. Sandler gives his best performance since Punch-Drunk Love. Jonah Hill manages to avoid being irritating, an issue I had upon repeat viewings of Superbad. Rogen is fine as well. The problem when it comes to re-watching is that the two male lead characters are largely unlikeable.

Oh, and there's the fact that despite being entirely watchable, the pacing leaves a bit to be desired.

But, again, the film is good. The stand-up is really damn funny. The interplay between the roommates is great. Schwartzmann is his best in ages (although it all looks to be topped by "Bored to Death"). The horribleness of the show-within-the-movie is hilarious as well. Aside from the pacing issues, the film doesn't have a lot of weaknesses.

(500) Days of Summer

I actually thought I had written about this one and was surprised to find out that I hadn't.

I tend to like the film work of Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Zooey Deschanel wasn't exactly stretching her wings and flying to new territory in terms of playing a new role. That being said, she does it fairly well. The music talk in the film was a little grating, but at the same time the characters in the film were supposed to be my peers, and that is sadly most of what we talk about. The one point I will make is that it seems like a leap to state that someone has good taste in music based on the one song you overhear them listening to. For all she knew in the elevator, he listened to Nickleback, Mariah Carey, and Liberace and that was the one song by The Smiths on his iPod (We are assuming that he wasn't listening to a CD, right? Does anyone (other than me)?).

I did like this movie, though. It was funny, sad, and not necessarily typical of the rom-com genre. Its soundtrack, while littered with tracks by indie darlings like Feist, Regina Spektor, Wolfmother, and Spoon, is entirely appropriate for the demographic that the film is about.

Thirst

The newest Chan-Wook Park movie was pretty solid. It didn't approach the meteoric heights that Oldboy reached, but it was good. It was, however, cursed by what seemed like a ending about 45 minutes before the actual ending.

Harry Potter and the (Whatever Thing is in the Title)

The sixth movie in the series had virtually nothing happen. It's not like it sucked (but holy shit did the first two in the series), but from what the special lady friend says the next movie cannot really have much of anything happen, so that means we're getting like six hours of nothing leading up to what might be a cool conclusion.

I cannot believe that this series has even gotten this good after those abysmal first two movies. We all have Alfonso Cuaron to thank for that. His direction steered this enterprise in the right direction.

The Hurt Locker

So I fell asleep for about 20 minutes at the beginning of this film. As the second-to-last trailer was concluding, I thought to myself, "Fuck. I am tired."

That being said, what I saw was great. Jeremy Renner, who was the star of the underwhelming Dahmer, was phenomenal. The tension was great throughout. I wanted to say more and intended to see it again before doing so. I have not had the chance. This will have to do.

As I'm sure Weibel is glad to hear, The Hurt Locker put me in the hurt locker.

Man on Film: Forgetting Sarah Marshall

In the latest release from the "Freaks and Geeks" sect of the Apatow clan, Jason Segel follows in Seth Rogen's footsteps and tries his hand at screenwriting. The resulting film is one which certainly measures up well to the latter's "Superbad" and assuages the fears of the reactionary Apatow fans who worried that a drop-off in quality was already underway. For the doubters, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" serves as a reminder that when "Freaks and Geeks" people are involved in the creation of Judd Apatow productions the end product will be of the highest quality.

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" follows the downtrodden protagonist, Peter, the composer for a comically horrible CSI-style show, as he tries to cope with having been dumped by the star of the show, the titular Sarah Marshall. In an effort to get over his relationship, he decides to escape to a resort in Hawai'i that she had spoken of before. When he gets there, he sees that Sarah is also there, and she is with a new man.

Any more talk of the plot would be futile. If you've seen any romantic comedies, you can tell where the film is going. The plot is not the important part of "Forgetting Sarah Marshall". This is a character-driven film. From the leads to the supporting cast, the film is brimming over with great characters, like Paul Rudd's sunbaked surf instructor, Chuck, Jonah Hill's gay fanboy waiter, Matthew, or Da'Vone McDonald's sea turtle enthusiast/bartender, Dwyane. Of particular note, though, is Billy Baldwin, who channels the spirit of David Caruso to great effect in his cameo as the TV detective in Sarah Marshall's show. His one-liners are priceless, especially his play on frozen treats.

The true test of the film is whether or not the film is funny, and it is. The comedy is fresh; the jokes are funny; and the audience is given a film that is not simply stock moments with stock reactions. It is not your typical romantic comedy. It plays on awkwardness. It embraces pain. There are three full-frontal nude shots of Jason Segel, all in uncomfortable situations.

Honestly, I think this film works better than last summer's hit "Superbad". While "Superbad" was great, there seems to be a depth to this film that "Superbad" did not reach. It does explore relationships in an adult manner, showing instances in which the disintegration of the relationship is not simply one person's fault, even if that isn't the crux of the film.

And lastly, what Peter's depression culminates into is outstanding.

All in all, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" is a great comedy, which is certain to have one particular line involving the letters B, L, and T repeated around the world.