The Wolf of Wall Street (new Scorsese)

Ouch...I've been mixing up those two words for years, and spell-check didn't save me.

People who are complaining about the length don't get that the point of the film was to hit you on the head with its excess?

Oh well

A sprightly opening 30-40 minutes (his best work in 16 years) that makes all the obvious points fairly well, followed by numbing repetition

even the choices of sndtrk needledrops sucked in this film

Hearty co-sign on these.

I get that point... it just wasn't a good choice. There's a point of diminishing returns on "this guy does sooooooo many quaaludes" and that point came ~90 minutes in, except for Leo doing the worm to get to his Lambo. At that point it wasn't revealing anything about his character or the Stratton world, it was just watching a guy with pancake makeup on do lots of blow off perfect boobs.

in addition to above, it was kind of weird how divorced it seemed from any outside world and never sought to comment on Wall Street or brokers or penny stocks, etc. - the closest was Leo mentioning CDOs and Internet stocks, but the timeline would have put him circa 1993 for the latter.

Most disappointing: shot where the camera seems to freeze frame panning over the Stratton trading floor and an intro drops in like we're going to get some awesome hard soul but then the song itself was completely forgettable.

Probably the only thing worse than thinking this movie was misguided in being repetitive & intemperate is thinking that this movie was gonna reveal some hard truth about how con artists sleazeball really made their money when all you really needed to know is that these were fast talking guys from Queens calling up people in Alabama to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge

yeah I get that "point" too and I don't pay $8 (matinee) for cock and ball torture.

(Leo's DIRTY BIRDIE line as the hot wax is dripping on him was prob the last time I laughed at anything, mostly McConaughey before that)

I definitely got the point of the film's excessive excessiveness (both as it applied to the story, and at the second level of Scorsese trying to outdo himself), but that didn't make it any less numbing to sit through.

fast talking guys from Queens calling up people in Alabama to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge is not worth 180 minutes, QED.

Jonah Hill was basically a squashed Adam Sandler

I didn't ask for hard truths - the inside part of what was going on and how it related to the outside world can be funny! Definitely funnier than the 400th shot of Leo popping a 'lude.

I've thought about this film a lot today and i think i need to add that myself and balls and hungry4ass and gr80 are generally otm here. latebloomer too. a couple others who agree with me also.

Probably the only thing worse than thinking this movie was misguided in being repetitive & intemperate is thinking that this movie was gonna reveal some hard truth about how con artists sleazeball really made their money when all you really needed to know is that these were fast talking guys from Queens calling up people in Alabama to sell them the Brooklyn Bridge

― 乒乓, Tuesday, December 31, 2013 9:03 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

point is if the people making the movie actually had any insight into the people environment or culture they were depicting then you would learn something how they made their money even if it wasnt explicitly taught, the fact that the filmmakers thought "fast talking guy from queens" was a sufficient identity for a character is why even though it has many masterful aspects it is overall not really that great

There isn't any insight to be had. It really was that easy to make money in the early 90s

if that was true than many more people wouldve done just that, the world is not lacking in sociopaths

its a movie that villainizes its characters for ignoring the humanity of others while ignoring the humanity of its characters, i know this is just a huge opening for someone to be all dont you see thats the whole point meta commentary etc but no its just bad writing

I've thought about this film a lot today

ie compounding your original error

bye, off to naked gay butler party!

it such incredible loathing for its subjects that i really think it clouded its vision and obscured all the detail

you got to have some love, you have to at least be intersted

i mean i liked it it was funny it had some sick ass shit in it but it was very insubstantial

I agree that the movie is like being inside of a giant egg. There's nowhere to gain a foothold

That's why I loves the movie. I love eggs

i eat eggs almost every day, make of it what you will

The Egg of Wall Street

You could make the same criticism of taxi driver. Wow what a despicable character. Who could love or identify with such a guy

But that movie revealed that nearly all movie critics and movie watchers are actually lonely psychopathic murderous ragemen. They love that movie

In time movie watchers will realize they are also quaalude popping sleazy caligulan sexmen. Just give it a few years

obviously my criticism was not that its impossible to portray monstrous psychos on film

morbs come back, that party's just going to end with you getting dangled off a building anyway.

its a movie that villainizes its characters for ignoring the humanity of others while ignoring the humanity of its characters, i know this is just a huge opening for someone to be all dont you see thats the whole point meta commentary etc but no its just bad writing

― lag∞n, Tuesday, December 31, 2013 9:22 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

so u wanted a jason reitman movie, got it

eggs taste better than this movie, and are out of your system faster.

u fuckers who can't tell the diff btwn this and Taxi Driver deserve cable

it is the Year Zero

also Marty go play fucking bingo

Would rather have sucky needledrops than the incessant acoustic "theme" all throughout "The Departed" - shittiest Scorsese score by far,

unrelated but bc of discussions on this thread I am finally watching margin call

if that was true than many more people wouldve done just that, the world is not lacking in sociopaths

Wasn't that the point of the movie? Any idiot from the street can do it, but you have to be a depraved psycho with no soul or morals to do it right at such big levels. It could have certainly driven the point home harder that the rest of Wall Street was likely this bad, too, but I appreciated its extremely limited perspective. (The way this can dovetail with Hustle is that Bale's character *does* have morals, and also knows the self-preservation benefit of keeping his head down. Leo is a frat-boy nihilist who, at the other extreme, cynically knows that literal boatloads of money will ultimately ameliorate the human costs of his actions; he's *happy* in Club Fed because it finally forces a break from his permanent vacation.)

I keep thinking of scenes that could have easily been cut - gay butler stuff, dwarf tossing stuff, Leo S&M scene, discussion of non-alcoholic beer, etc. - but they're wacky enough that the movie is probably better with them in it.

so u wanted a jason reitman movie, got it

OTM. The fact that this movie didn't give a lot of people what they wanted is partly what makes it so much better than a Jason Reitman film. Also, I think this movie was immaculately made, regardless of subject, or excess, or whatever. It's the most impressed I've been with Scorsese as a director in years. Decades?

so u wanted a jason reitman movie, got it

― Hungry4Ass, Tuesday, December 31, 2013 11:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

omg i hope yr resolution was to not be like this

"The Departed" - shittiest Scorsese score by far,

That Dropkick Murphys, though.

departed owns, so much better than W.O.W.S.

Most disappointing: shot where the camera seems to freeze frame panning over the Stratton trading floor and an intro drops in like we're going to get some awesome hard soul but then the song itself was completely forgettable.

that song was joe cuba "bang bang" iirc, prob the song I was most stoked to hear turn up

Wow had no idea that "Bad Girls" sampled that!

"Bang Bang" is amazing. In the movie, it barely registered. Compare that with "El Watusi" in Who's That Knocking at My Door.

El Watuwho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVIA1vqQfb8

Genius.

why would Marty play bingo when he could keep making financially successfully worthy pictures such as this and the departed? idgi!!!

the scene with the FBI guys on the yacht would work so much better if the actor playing Belfort conveyed a hint of roiling menace between the lines.

The point of the scene is that Belfort is a buffoon, not the Machiavellian schemer he thinks he's being.

I know, and that's just uninteresting and redundant.

Zacharek:

Scorsese doesn't pass judgment on his characters, which at first seems like a plus. But he can't get a fix on the tone; the movie has the intentionally sour spirit of Goodfellas, but none of its grim humor.

What, exactly, does he think of these people? His portrayal has no sharpness, no skepticism.... Scorsese is one of the few great old-guard filmmakers with the clout to make movies on this scale, and this picture — dreary, self-evident, too repetitive to be much fun even as satire — is what he comes up with?

http://www.villagevoice.com/2013-12-18/film/wolf-of-wall-street-movie-review/

omg i hope yr resolution was to not be like this

― lag∞n, Wednesday, January 1, 2014 9:15 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

yeah i could stand 2 b less right, more lagoonian

i like zacharek but that review couldnt be less otm

Not sure if it's been linked to already, but another negative review that jibed perfectly with my own reaction is Edelstein's:

http://www.vulture.com/2013/12/movie-review-the-wolf-of-wall-street.html

(Agreeing with a critic is secondary to engaging with the critic's writing, but I did find myself in sync with Edelstein a high percentage of the time this past year. Also think he's an excellent writer.)

edelstein's review sucked too, he didnt even think about the movie

plz to link to a negative or at least mixed/conflicted review you don't think sucked?

i only read 3 reviesw, link me some and ill evaluate them 1 by 1