The Wolf of Wall St.
Director: Martin Scorsese
Year: 2013
My picks for this year's best picture just got a bit more crowded. Wolf is a powerful, exuberant, thrilling, nauseating though not quite completely satisfying journey that ultimately left me wanting to hit the menu button and watch all three hours over again. There were so many beautiful moments handled with a ton of bravado and force by both the actors and Scorsese -- none of which is a surprise, looking at the players bodies of work, but all of which makes for great entertainment.
And in that last line lies, perhaps, my reason for why this film doesn't have the same level of resonance as 12 Years a Slave or Gravity - I didn't feel the pain for those affected by the Wolf. By making his crime look victimless, it made me care less about the crimes themselves, viscerally, even when the intelligent/logical side of my brain was screaming: "This guy's the worst! Lock him up and throw away the key!" That's not to say sociopaths journeys, told well, are not interesting. And make no mistake about it, the Wolf (DiCaprio) is a sociopath. But in mafia films, for example, and the easy match here is Good Fellas -- the style from which Scorsese and DiCaprio dip into liberally to great effect -- there is pain of the innocent victim shown. Even if the lifestyle is glorified, the collapse is imminent and shown in great detail. I'm not sure how bad the Wolf got it here - and perhaps that's Scorsese's message: these guys get away with financial murder and maybe that's worse than blue collar crime. Not a bad message now that I look at it in type.
Jonah Hill was extraordinary once again. He's grown into the type of actor who I'll likely go to see something just because he's in it. He can be silly, brilliant and dangerous all at once. He has laser focus and drives it into the scenes he's in. He and DiCaprio played off of each other like childhood friends who had been through "it" together, even though their meeting was much more one of happenstance and then a bit of force by Hill.
Matthew McConaughey makes yet another solid turn in what was a spectacular year for him on the big screen. In my mind he should take the best actor statue for "Dallas Buyers Club". His role here, while small, kicked off the movie and set the tone that Hill, DiCaprio and their merry men ran with the rest of the way.
Year: 2013
My picks for this year's best picture just got a bit more crowded. Wolf is a powerful, exuberant, thrilling, nauseating though not quite completely satisfying journey that ultimately left me wanting to hit the menu button and watch all three hours over again. There were so many beautiful moments handled with a ton of bravado and force by both the actors and Scorsese -- none of which is a surprise, looking at the players bodies of work, but all of which makes for great entertainment.
And in that last line lies, perhaps, my reason for why this film doesn't have the same level of resonance as 12 Years a Slave or Gravity - I didn't feel the pain for those affected by the Wolf. By making his crime look victimless, it made me care less about the crimes themselves, viscerally, even when the intelligent/logical side of my brain was screaming: "This guy's the worst! Lock him up and throw away the key!" That's not to say sociopaths journeys, told well, are not interesting. And make no mistake about it, the Wolf (DiCaprio) is a sociopath. But in mafia films, for example, and the easy match here is Good Fellas -- the style from which Scorsese and DiCaprio dip into liberally to great effect -- there is pain of the innocent victim shown. Even if the lifestyle is glorified, the collapse is imminent and shown in great detail. I'm not sure how bad the Wolf got it here - and perhaps that's Scorsese's message: these guys get away with financial murder and maybe that's worse than blue collar crime. Not a bad message now that I look at it in type.
Jonah Hill was extraordinary once again. He's grown into the type of actor who I'll likely go to see something just because he's in it. He can be silly, brilliant and dangerous all at once. He has laser focus and drives it into the scenes he's in. He and DiCaprio played off of each other like childhood friends who had been through "it" together, even though their meeting was much more one of happenstance and then a bit of force by Hill.
Matthew McConaughey makes yet another solid turn in what was a spectacular year for him on the big screen. In my mind he should take the best actor statue for "Dallas Buyers Club". His role here, while small, kicked off the movie and set the tone that Hill, DiCaprio and their merry men ran with the rest of the way.
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