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.
Quentin Tarantino is at his best when working in a man's world. His missteps (regardless of severity) occur when having his inherently masculine dialogue heavily funneled through female voices. It is through no fault of the females cast that these films are flawed; Tarantino simply doesn't write well in the female voice.
In Django Unchained, Tarantino is back walking through a man's world with men spouting his dialogue.
And it is superb.
The premise--freed-slave bounty hunter turns the Deep South at the end of antebellum upside-down with his German partner to free his wife--sets the stage for a deliciously bloody spectacle that Tarantino excels in--it was his panache in both the areas of hyper-stylized banter and over-the-top violence that arguably redirected the course of American cinema in the 1990s.
Using the superb Christoph Waltz, who is extremely likely to be getting at least another Best Supporting Actor nomination, and fellow Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx, Tarantino has a pair whose cause is extremely easy to rally behind. Hell, Waltz was charismatic and likable as the bad guy in Inglourious Basterds. Here, their tête-à-tête is so effective and engaging that the 165 minute run-time flies by, never once letting the film feel long. Waltz is fucking fantastic, and Foxx fills the shoes of badass bounty hunter with a quiet but sure swagger.
In support, or more appropriately opposition, the adversarial cast of Leonardo DiCaprio, Don Johnson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Walton Goggins play up their roles with aplomb. With the rest of the slew of racists being cast and directed for the purpose of hilarity, Django Unchained is cast impeccably well.
Just as importantly, Django Unchained is blessed with a near-perfect script, and Tarantino's eye for the traditions of the genre (loosely, the Spaghetti Western) in relation to the mise-en-scene make for a fantastic film--probably his best since Pulp Fiction. It is a whole lot of fun, gleeful in its destruction and righteous in the vengeance exacted and bounties hunted. It also manages to deal with the subject of slavery in a manner that highlights the atrocities of the slave trade while not taking a Spielbergian heavy-handed preacher's tack. The slave traders and owners are mostly slaughtered, and rightfully so, but it still plays like an extremely violent Spaghetti Western, proving to be a disarmingly effective approach to addressing the issue.
All in all, it is hard to muster up anything negative to say about the film. Even with its length, Django Unchained is one of the most fun films of the year, consistently rewarding from beginning to end.
So you may have surmised I was not head-over-heels in love with Christopher Nolan's latest film, Inception. Really, the stars should have aligned in such a fashion that the end result was a pleasing one to me. Aside from the perceived misstep that was the Insomnia remake*, Nolan has done little wrong in my book. Memento was a total mindfuck, and Batman Begins and The Dark Knight were head and shoulders above your standard superhero fare. Sure, The Prestige was a little cold, but it was certainly better than its Dante's Peak counterpart, The Illusionist, and Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman play pretty well off each other. Even Following was pretty damn good as I remember it.
*While I rather liked the original Swedish film, the resounding critical backlash surrounding the Nolan version combined with the choice of casting the two loudest over-actors in the past, well, ever was more than enough to scare me off.
With Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine, Ken Watanabe, Tom Hardy, and Tom Berenger on board, I think there is justification for being pretty damn excited. DiCaprio has been pretty solid for the past five years or so, especially in the work he has done with Martin Scorcese. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has quietly become one of the most promising young actors in the business. The foreigners brought in were great, and it was pretty sweet seeing Berenger in a major motion picture again. While I am not insanely into Marion Cotillard, she was solid in the film, and the glaring potential problem was Ellen Page going in. She may not have ruined the movie, but she surely didn't help it either.
Now, gauging my feelings by the series of little "Inception is totally the best movie since..." posts, you can certainly tell that my reaction to the film is not the most favorable.
For the most part, I think Inception is a pretty good movie. It has a complex narrative structure that makes you think about the movie after you leave the theater. While you rack your brain trying to piece together the action, working out the layered plot, it would be easy to convince yourself that the movie you saw was mind-blowing.
But what did it really do?
Aside from the superficial complexity of the narrative itself, there isn't a lot of depth to the film. With the arguable exception of DiCaprio's Cobb (and if you are really reaching, Cotillard's Mal), there is not a single person in the film whose is even remotely developed. Even Cobb, the protagonist doesn't really have anything profoundly change him. How is Cobb discernibly different from the beginning to the end of the film?
Additionally, there really isn't much of a deeper philosophical meaning to the film. There is the "what this reality?" dilemma and the open ending, but I would hardly say that either element is anything more than a sly little trick and the existential conundrum is relatively insubstantial.
It may seem like I'm nitpicking, and perhaps I am, but I think the main issue I take with the film is the rave reaction that the film has gotten. It currently sits at #4 on the IMDB top 250. That's of all-time. Granted, as more of the populace sees the film, it will slip down the rankings, but I really don't see how this film even remotely compares to, say, Rear Window or Casablanca.
I will even allow for the fact that the movie is pretty "cool," but I would have to say most of the arresting visuals are in the first 45 minutes, and then we are treated to the actual mission. Within the mission, I would argue that the only sublime scene is the hotel scene with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in zero-gravity. The car chase and the alpine hospital sequence are both surprisingly pedestrian, and a lot rides on those being more than ordinary.
Clearly this review makes it seem like I didn't like the movie. I definitely wouldn't go that far. I liked it for the most part. In what had been a relatively shitty summer for movies up until its release, Inception was a breath of fresh air, but let's be realistic about the film. It has plenty of flaws, and some are fairly significant.
Find me a flaw in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Casablanca. North by Northwest. Hell, The Sting is starting from a better foundation, and that's essentially within the same genre.
I just want the world to have a little perspective about this film. That's all.
Apologies all, I really did see this roughly when I said I was going to but have been unable to get around to this until now.
Now as frequent Pricksters are aware, I actually read the book earlier in the week, so I came at this from a personally unusual standpoint. It is very rare that I actually read books that are adapted into films. I can safely say I have never read the book within a period of time in which most of my memories of the book are anything more than vague recollections of something that may have happened.
This was not the case here, obviously.
It is probably best to first touch on my feelings about the film independent of how it compared to the book.
In Shutter Island, Martin Scorsese has crafted an impressive technical film. Much like in Gangs of New York, the sets are fantastic, especially Ward C, which looks fantastic. His vision of Shutter Island and the Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane is absolutely fully realized. Robert Richardson's cinematography (aside from the storm scene in the cemetery) is also magnificent, and these two elements combine to make a beautiful film. Then there is the cast consisting of Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Ted Levine, Emily Mortimer, Jackie Earle Haley, Patricia Clarkson, and more, all of whom predictably hit all of their marks. DiCaprio makes you wish that he only worked with Scorsese (or at least not ever with Ed Zwick). Ruffalo is perfect as usual.
Now, if you haven't read the book or seen the film, I would highly suggest that you not read any further. There will be SPOILERS ahead...
You have been warned.
As far as the narrative is concerned, Scorsese's Shutter Island is definitely lacking in comparison to Lehane's Shutter Island. Much of the thrust of this narrative is fueled by the seeds of doubt that are gradually planted regarding our protagonist's sanity. Unfortunately for the audience, just about any and all suspense is absent in this film is gone. Yes, one is driven to wonder what is going on to a certain extent, but the clues a dropped on the audience with the subtlety of an anvil. The perspective of Teddy Daniels is not adequately solidified as sane to then be undermined. Without that turnabout, the twist is not a twist; it's just a wrinkle.
And this is where the book plays better than the film. Lehane diligently goes about forging a bond between Teddy and his new partner Chuck. He imbues Chuck with a magnetic personality and traits plausible in a Marshal. He fleshes out Teddy's backstory, fills it with detail after detail that makes him seem more like a man and not an alterego. He adds more layers to the conspiracy, but layers that lend credence to Teddy's quest.
In the film, there is no laying of groundwork. Teddy's story and mission lacks the credibility that it has in the novel. Without that foundation, the structure of the film is a lot more fragile, the reveals are foretold in neon, and the twist is telegraphed. The instant Dr. Sheehan is said to have gone on vacation the audience knows what is really going on. Once that load-bearing card in this precarious house of cards is removed, the entire house comes crashing down.
It isn't that Scorsese's Shutter Island is bad. It is visually arresting and impeccably cast, but the screenplay is lacking something fierce in the way of subterfuge, and the narrative is lacking as a result.
