The Wolf of Wall Street (new Scorsese)

wows did not need speeches about america written by oliver stone

its kind of unfair and pointless to compare the wows to a stone cold classic like scarface imo but they are p similar in what they're trying to do

the original Scarface, of course

yeah see scarface is a movie i'd say has great bits but is not a stone cold classic mostly cuz it bogs down in stone speeches

like, if you're saying you wish there'd been more of a balls-out action climax in wows fine

xpost assuming yr talking about depalma/stone's

ya the more recent one

but wait you were saying you needed more character detail - is that what you think scarface had and wows lacked?

the climax of wows where leo changes his mind in the middle of his retirement speech is prob the best in the whole movie except maybe when theyre wrestling over the phone on ludes imho

yeah both those are great

idk abt character detail just good compelling characters that are meaningful within the movie their personalities affect how things play out instead of just being window dressing, i mean one thing abt wows is maybe the actors were not so great which compounds things, obvs the scarface cast has a lot more natural charisma, also w movies like scarface and goodfellas u have at the end a real sense of the journey these people took through their criminal ambition but wows just rushes through the rise and fall and is kinda static in that sense

I liked well enough a few sequences but the movie's too damn long and w/out having read book I wonder if the characters' venality couldn't sustain a three-hours-plus production because unlike Goodfellas they didn't do much day to day that was all that different? At least in Goodfellas Scorsese could show the guys ripping off truckers, feeding finks to the lions, play card games, shoot Spider's foot, Henry cooking veal cutlets, etc. After a couple sequences showing how the scams work and how they spend their dough, what else is there? I don't care about character depth here because, yeah, it's the wrong point to raise -- I just don't think dudes in an office on phones are interesting.

i get why you're like "no this is trying to be scarface not dr strangelove" in terms of story, but i think scorsese's tone is way more dismissive re: belfort etc than he was with mafia folks or stone was with tony (depalma was mostly taking a paycheck). he doesn't WANT you to get a "real sense of journey" and feel for them, he wants to keep you at a remove even as he chronicles their madness and follies. because they're young little world-wrecking shits even if he too knows that quaaludes were the best

if you weren't laughing fine, 3 hours is 3 hours, but man oh man am i glad he didn't try to treat belfort the way he treated jake lamotta, travis bickle, etc

I had a better time watching Belfort than LaMotta tbh

I can see if someone sees it disappointedly as goodfellas minus sympathy but its also king of comedy with more understanding for what the rabble is seen lapping up at the end of the film

American friend of mine living in japan saw this in the theater there and said he was the only one who laughed the entire time. Idk how anyone would not find this funny.

Alfred p otm tho

My boss had a real "uh I was around guys like that at the time, didn't want to laugh and didnt need another three hours with them" - I totally am not demanding people laugh about the jerks wrecking the economic system any more than I would demand they laugh about nuclear war.

That said if someone says "I wish dr strangelove was more like fail-safe" my response is "I don't"

Said boss was way more into American Hustle

american hustle is desperately eager to please and oppressively flattering of its audience and god help me your boss OTM

i mean obvs guardians of the galaxy over both

AH was even stupider and emptier but also not funny. Or engaging.

american hustle is desperately eager to please and oppressively flattering of its audience

― resulting post (rogermexico.)

precisely why it sucked

Οὖτις, my man, I am an OG russell hater since flirting with disaster but come on, science oven was funny

This movie is like Prometheus in its ability to get hundreds of new answers every time it's bumped

american hustle was barely even a movie

Haven't seen, mostly because I don't think there's a current auteur that I find less interesting than David O. Russell.

AH was just a bunch of costumes and a sdtk

...and sideboob.

This whole thing about us not seeing the inner lives of these characters strikes me as totally wrong...their inner lives are all on the surface. Belford is transparent and honest about his motives, thoughts, desires. He's a superficial person but that's because that's who he is. Nothing is hidden from us

right right but the problem isn't that he's superficial it's that he's boring

american hustle is desperately eager to please and oppressively flattering of its audience

― resulting post (rogermexico.)

precisely why it sucked

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, August 24, 2014 12:33 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If you hated the film, you might feel as I do: making a bad imitation of your best self is another way of flattering your audience.

(Meaning Wolf, not American Hustle.)

"eager to please" is a weird criticism of american hustle. it's an enjoyable farce; i don't think it aspires to be any kind of serious social commentary. it does more with the love triangle conceit than any recent movie i can remember.

Personally I kinda enjoyed AH as it was happening but when it was over it felt like nothing was had even happened - similar to reading "A Visit From The Good Squad" in a way.

that's the brilliance of it though. it's a well-crafted movie that doesn't try to transform the audience in any way. compared to other oscar nominees this year, that aspect was refreshing.

maybe not "brilliance", but i do think that the way the movie owns the fact that it's an entertainment product -- but doesn't use this as an excuse to be boring or predictable -- is a strength.

right right but the problem isn't that he's superficial it's that he's boring

― resulting post (rogermexico.), Sunday, 24 August 2014 22:13 (Yesterday) Permalink

We watched a different movie

Do the haters (and, I mean, I walked out) hate the opening McCog scene?

dug this. isn't fresh in my mind as i saw it opening week, but i do remember that i laughed a fair bit and actually enjoyed LDC's performance, remarkable in itself. wasn't at all bothered by the length, superficiality, or vicarious overindulgence in the characters' amorality. could have been tighter, but i'm not above cheap flash for its own sake. not in any hurry to see it again, but like goodfellas, a hell of a rush the first time through.

raymond c otm re: american hustle

and fwiw i wasnt crying or moralizing abt it, the characters are just generally flat and not very compelling in this movie

― lag∞n, Sunday, August 24, 2014 9:55 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

except this guy

http://i.imgur.com/k4ApTOw.jpg

― lag∞n, Sunday, August 24, 2014 9:56 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

like he had some idiosyncratic qualities that are the markers of a real person the rest of them were just lazy types

― lag∞n, Sunday, August 24, 2014 9:57 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the fact that they're based on real people from one's own telling doesn't change this judgment at all?

they weren't interesting people!

^^^ terrible argument

and i say that as a lover of this movie and its non-stop dancing

¯\_(シ)_/¯

They *were* interesting dancers, I'll give you that.

i mean, they weren't 'naturally' good at anything. they didn't have human qualities that elevated them above being just average-ass dudes. besides raw desire, which they got the chance to let run riot after belfort (who has more going on obv) takes them in. isn't that the point? isn't that what he saw in them?

american hustle is desperately eager to please and oppressively flattering of its audience

― resulting post (rogermexico.)

precisely why it sucked

american hustle is desperately eager to please and oppressively flattering of its audience

― resulting post (rogermexico.)

precisely why it sucked

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, August 24, 2014

Right. Just (astonishingly) slightly less than TWOWS.

i mean, they weren't 'naturally' good at anything. they didn't have human qualities that elevated them above being just average-ass dudes. besides raw desire, which they got the chance to let run riot after belfort (who has more going on obv) takes them in. isn't that the point? isn't that what he saw in them?

― goole, Monday, August 25, 2014 1:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

naw i dont think thats the point

the movies super long yet somehow still feels really sketchy