The Wolf of Wall Street (new Scorsese)

i totally get why someone might look at 3 hours of unmoderated degeneracy and go 'thats it?' (especially if they didnt find it particularly funny) - i just dont think the things he says about it are very apt

otm, yet to find a negative review that doesn't try infer some kind of failed message or misunderstanding on scorsese's part, instead of just saying "i don't need to watch 3 hours of Greed Follies, thank you"

I mean shit like this

Scorsese seems to think that by blowing Belfort’s book up to three hours he’s making an epic statement. But it’s not as if he shows you the consequences of Belfort’s actions.

is so projecting (has this guy ever seen Marty in epic statement mode? cuz this movie ain't it) and moralistic (maybe martin realizes you don't need to see the umpteenth fucking speech about how money isn't everything)

imo the tone was sort of like dr. strangelove in its "the lunatics have taken the asylum" yocky cynicism with a touch of "hey being rich and high IS fun" quaalude nostalgia - which I appreciated him finding a less tapped-out time-period for. Hilarious that while everyone is raiding his '70s jukebox, he's scoring scenes to the Lemonheads and having people dance on a yacht to "hip hop hooray."

granted maybe if i had a college-age kid maybe i'd be all upset that martin went and made my son another shameful dorm poster

hey did anyone watch cosmopolis hahahaha

i tried

same, couldnt deal. one of my best friends rides for it, he's pretty weird though

his other favourite movie is syriana

Crapshitopiss

watching cosmopolis is very close to the experience of redaing cosmopolis, which means it Sucks

I thought the disturbing message from this film, or at least one of them, is that money sort of *is* everything. It even invokes the "I've been rich and I've been poor and rich is better" mantra. It's the fullest, grossest, most OTT corruption of the American dream yet: you, too, can become rich, and fuck everyone else if that's what it takes. If there's anything too subtle about this, it's the film's relationship with the current financial state of affairs, the true Masters of the Universe on Wall Street who still rape and pillage at an almost unheard of scale. The movie is similarly subtle about emphasizing that for all his largesse, Jordan was not a major player. He was a street hustler who got in through the back door. The real power players are born into it, and get away with more (and probably worse).

so awesome that martin can still scare fuddies with excessive dark humor only now the fuddies are twenty plus years younger than him

"grandpa how could you imply that excessive drug use and greed can be enjoyable, let alone entertaining to watch?! my son is watching!"

basics fretting abt glamorizing zzzzz

i mean its a movie its glamour that why its cool

preach

art man, art

also like, that shit was glamorous irl, too

yeah being successful and powerful and rich is glamorous

damn, croup, thought your ass would get numb watching it too

i mean they couldve been even more glamorous if they werent such tools but you know

glamorous tools

numb butts

Meryl Streep as glamorous tool.

it was long, yeah, come trophy-time i'll probably root for llewyn over it (and in part for sentimental "it's about something bigger" reasons!) but there were a ton of amazing performances, set pieces, etc and it wasn't so long that i forgot it's a comedy and started fantasizing that scorsese doesn't realize how cynical he's being. there's more to this world than Strangelove-type movies suggest but that doesn't mean i'll stop laughing and cry out for Fail-Safe instead.

That's my trouble. Apart from being happy to see Scrunchy Face realize he's a good physical actor and hasn't been one since 2002 the rest were pretty much what you'd expect if Kyle Chandler, Jonah Hill, and McConoughheyhey were cast in a movie about glamorous tools.

hill was the best part imho

he's made lovey-dovey eyes at his leading men before cept now he's doing it with his teeth

hill was great (shit, everyone was - margot robbie esp) though i wonder if he'll ever outgrow the gay-baiting improv

Robbie's tease bit was the only thing I remembered she did, but then I like blonde men.

funny that edelstein brings up martin sheen but forgets to mention rob reiner's father figure entirely. reiner calls out how obscene it is, advises his son to be smart, but doesn't pull some pious "i made my money the honest capitalist way" shit - he knows how money works.

martin sheen in wall street, to be clear.

the father in this movie was great

when leo's telling him about the whores

Reiner swearing and shouting was at J-Law levels of unbelievability. Another run at his bit in Bullets Over Broadway.

rare is the ilxor that should be calling a huffy pretentious equalizer fan absurd

so awesome that martin can still scare fuddies with excessive dark humor only now the fuddies are twenty plus years younger than him

I hated it because its dark humour scared me?

def scared edelstein and zacharek - don't think i scrolled up to whatever your issue was so don't take it personal

da croup, my man.

I think its fine to disagree with Edelstein, but he praises Taxi Driver and Goodfellas, and says the worst parts of Wall Street come from Martin Sheen. "Thumpingly insipid" doesn't really translate as cowering from the film's hard truths.

if you're going to assume i read what you wrote 2 days ago you can see the stuff i quoted of edelstein several minutes ago. he says the martin sheen stuff was bad but only because it wasn't nuanced enough ("Obviously, he or she shouldn’t — that clumsily). he still wants the voice of morality, still wants to know What Scorsese Thinks (Which Better Be That These Guys Are Bad) and missed the corollary father figure that scorsese provided that suggests what he thinks (probably along the lines of "these guys are sociopathic idiots but man....i miss quaaludes")

again, you're free to be bored by 3 hours of "OMG WE GOT SO RICH WE GOT SO HIGH" but critics who take it to "scorsese b-b-but do you LIKE these people? how COULD you?" need to get over themselves.

seemed so obvious to me that he despises these people and thats what led to the lack of nuance

eh it's a comedy, i wasn't mad when the zucker bros revealed they didn't respect Airport either

i dont think its impossible to make a subtle depiction of people you hate just in this case it didnt happen

i dont know if its even subtlety exactly that was lacking, they just like werent that intersting

i'm just saying i'm not mad this was a 3 hour cynical comedy about greedy monster people instead of a 3 hour subtle, nuanced depiction of greedy monster people

but yeah, not for everybody

I did read your excerpts, and I think you're misrepresenting the review. I can't see how anyone who understands the visceral power of Taxi Driver, which Edelstein does (I don't remember any voice of morality in Taxi Driver) could be scared by The Wolf of Wall Street. "To make The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese has had to empty out his head and pound his chest." Again, you may not agree with his appraisal of the film, but calling for some kind of guiding intelligence isn't the same as calling for a voice of morality.

especially past the three leads the rest of the characters were like cardboard cutouts