The Wolf of Wall Street (new Scorsese)

Yes, dug this. Though far from perfect it's my favorite Scorsese in many years. And the freaky editing (mismatched/jump cuts galore, ...) worked well here. Exhausting, though.

flopson
Posted: December 29, 2013 at 9:28:35 PM

movie seemed to make the point that there is not really any craft to it, aside from run of the mill ruthless salesmanship. like the mcconaghey speech when he's like "no one knows whether the stock's gonna go up or down just boldly be an asshole on the phone to people and you make money"

well i think the stock predicting and the sales are two different skills, you can have no idea what a stocks gonna do but you still have to be able to convince someone that you do, and i dont think the movie had much idea what that looked like, in general it didnt seem like it had much insight into the whole scene, it didnt feel lived in or consequential or like it really had much internal logic, scorsese maybe gets gangsters more than he does wall st douches

or maybe the goodfellas book is just better than this one

sprawling mess but i still enjoyed it

introduction of bernthal's character on the weight bench was great

otm and worth the price of admission

I thought this movie was absolutely riveting. Excluding the excellent experiments/chamber/period pieces of "Age of Innocence" and "Kundun," I have no problem calling this his best since "GoodFellas." Definitely a director at the top of his game, all the more impressive coming this far down the line. I also thought it was without question the best of his Leo movies, and the first Leo movie where star and director seemed perfectly matched. Even better. Leo was the best I've ever seen him, and considering he's in every single scene, talking non-stop, I was impressed at how well he meshed in the film, never overwhelming the movie, perhaps because everything/everyone else in the movie was ramped up as well. A few of the scenes/sequences were the best I've seen from anyone in recent years, including the bravura Quaalude to coke fueled meltdown/slo mo phone fight, and the pretty much any scene with Kyle Chandler, who is subtle in the best way against Leo.

Twice the movie did the same sort of hypnotic nice to mean flip: the first on the boat with the FBI agents, that almost invisibly shifts from genial to aggressive, the second the final scene with Leo and his wife where it goes from his silver lining stuff to a borderline rape and child abduction with incredible, yet plausible, ease.

The soundtrack, too, was captivating for once, not the usual novelty signifiers, but this weird mix of period stuff (top 40 hip-hop), late '70s post-punk (Devo, Plastic Bertrand), and a couple of covers by '90s bands doing the '60s, "Sloop John B" and the Lemonheads "Mrs. Robinson," the second just one of a few blatant nods to "The Graduate" throughout the film.

Another observation: this is Scorsese's first NYC movie in a while, but NY played such a passive role. A lot of this goes for the sort of manic OTT energy that "Bringing Out the Dead" aimed for but didn't quite pull off.

Anyway, just loved this more than I thought I would ever love a Leo/Marty collab.

Also, this flew by for me.

Oh, and Jimmy Castor Bunch!

or maybe the goodfellas book is just better than this one

― lag∞n

this is decidedly the case fwiw. there's been plenty of what it takes to be a salesman type movies/books/plays so i didn't mind this not really going into that, 'it takes a certain sociopathic persistance' was enough for me. been thinking more about the deliberate echoes to decline of empire, the echoes of rome w/ the bacchanalia and repeated references to incest. there's been alot of talk on twitter on whether it glamorizes belfort and though i think to an extent it's impossible to show anything that achieved this level of success w/o glamorizing it somewhat, i think this does about as good a job as could be imaginable - even w/ goodfellas (which didn't glamorize gangsters nearly as much as say the godfather) you had some some sense of 'honor' (even if it was bullshit) and tradition and nice suits and paulie slicing up the garlic w/ a razor. here these schmucks dress horribly, the sex is bad, the only thing to envy is just the money, these ppl are generally so uncool that jonah hill is the second coolest guy in the bunch and so un'honor'able that a drug dealer is used as a contrast as a stand up guy. even w/ wall street and gekko's 'greed is good' speech there was a certain third man swiss cuckoo clock monologue cold logic to it, here leo's speeches are pure 'fuck them, fuck everyone, and if we can take their money it was never their's to begin with', just an uncharismatic crook. even the never grow up frat boy dude i'm so wasted hijinks are shown to be tedious after three hours.

Wonder what goes through actors minds after they've lived lives more or less like the lives they are recreating.

still think the definitive wall st movie hasn't been made yet and that margin call came closer than this, seemed to be more aware and concerned of systemic issues instead of case studies like belfort. margin call was still ultimately too blunt and way too simplified but it's probably as nuanced and smart a take as you can hope for from a hollywood movie. definitive wall st movie may be impossible anyway, maybe ppl will just have to live w/ reading liar's poker or whatever.

I'm not even sure how much I consider this a Wall Street movie, as such. More like Caligula or something (a la the aforementioned Rome reference).

also i'm sure everyone knows this but that was the real jordan belfort introducing leo at the end

Also cf Tom Wolfe's piece about how the quants made testosterone a less valuable attribute in the WS world.

Margin Call was tackier, more gauche but this was the better movie as far as eliminating scenes in which good actors mourn dogs.

I still think this fucking thing was too long and we've seen this shit already. Margot Robbie was Karen Hill.

margin call was a cool movie, fwiw i dont really mean i needed lots of financial exposition or w/e just that the wolf of ws just didnt feel like it really existed anywhere there was not much revealing detail of any sort character wise or environment or w/e
it was just kinda spinning around in this wacky ass limbo, which admittedly was hilarious and fun but something about it just felt like it wouldve been more engaging w a lil more irl or something

first person to say that was the whole point i disagree and furthermore i dont like you

no way karen hill pulls a move like robbie standing in that doorway. which btw if anyone has a screencap of that to help me illustrate my point it would be much appreciated.

Robbie Robertson?

In the end credits but not in the scene, I'm guessing. Between this and "Ladies of Tampa", Matthew McC's fit to tour.

Karen Hill has moments of complexity, like when she takes the gun from Henry after he pistol-whips her neighbor, or the look in her eye as she tries to take in the immensity of her wedding. If Naomi had a second dimension beyond blonde bombshell, I missed it.

You're right. Jonah Hill played Karen Hill.

key to understanding naomi is after the first and the last time leo fucks her

jonah hill was tommy but ultimately no where near as charismatic. i mean at least tommy was funny, the way he'd tell a story.

lol

i think the film should have spent at least a few minutes explaining/depicting how a pump and dump works, there was only one reference to brokers ignoring clients' calls iirc

Another great moment: the elation/horror of watching that woman shave her head. You can watch her pitiful emotions shifting from humiliation to humor and back to humiliation ... until they hand her $10,000K and she forgets all about her hair.

the low angle shot of her sitting in the chair while the men act like animals was a crushing moment

And yeah, we've seen this movie before, but not in the way we'd seen "Casino" before. One thing I appreciated about this movie is the same stuff others might complain about, that Leo's character is so selfish, and self-interested, that everything else falls by the wayside. So the FBI investigation proceeds, but on deep background. We get glimmers of what Naomi is like, but not much, because Leo's character barely acknowledges her himself when she's not in the same room.

Some more cool stuff: the occasional mind-reading gags, the aspect ratio/film type changes, the way it just cuts to the chase with the sex and drugs and rise to power. The flash horrific cut of that guy's suicide midway through. Oh, and yeah, again, the Jimmy Castor Bunch.

I thought the relationship between Leo and Jonah reminded me of the twisted relationship between Greg Kinnear and Willem Dafoe in "Auto Focus."

Oh, and the double punchlines of Leo strapped to the chair and also the FBI bust mid-infomercial.

One thing I didn't quite get was the near absence of AIDS from the picture. Lots of hookers (of all stripes) and references to penicillin shots, but given the time period you would have thought the threat of AIDS would have been a real consideration.

Other than the "Mrs. Robinson" cover (which I've always liked), what Graduate references were there, Josh? I guess I was so disheartened by the film they went past me. (When I think about it now, I guess there was a shot of Naomi meant to echo the famous shot of Bancroft with her legs crossed.)

Definitely that shot, but also (implied/echoed) with the (non) seduction of his wife's Aunt (who, of course, "lived through the '60s"). Maybe there's more. Little things.

some testimonials

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYXB8crww0I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPU08GnSjx4

Good viewing : http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60318162

oops. Sorry. That's an hour long intvw with Scorsese and DiCaprio on the film.

Worth a read in light of the movie:

http://nymag.com/nymetro/movies/features/2793/

thats great ty

Amazing movie

Spiritual companion to Casino. Best Wahlberg performance of the decade

Well I don't remember Casino too clearly except for the part about stealing hotel toiletries

But the shot at the end of Jordan giving a PUA seminar for Kiwis ======== Shot at end of casino of senior citizens overwhelming Las Vegas

still think the definitive wall st movie hasn't been made yet and that margin call came closer than this

i rescreened 'margin call' a couple of days ago before seeing 'wolf of wall street' and i kinda agree - 'margin call' felt a lot more true to 'what its like to work in finance now', it had a lot of subtle details that i appreciated: the way characters would shift btw using first name and surnames to address other characters, 'how much do you think x makes', the mentalist guy telling demi moore's character 'i'm not sure i do know that' &c &c. not sure all those details added up though in the big picture, i liked margin call a lot but its not a 'good movie' in the same way 'wolf of wall street' is? ego vs id or w/e

anyway i thought this was entertaining but hard to have any thoughts about, really. music was rad though

^ Yeah the part at the beginning with the dwarves, I was like, there's no way Wall St is like this now and then I realized it was a period piece, then I thought I'm glad somebody made a movie about Liar's Poker

Movie about today's wall street is a bunch of quants sitting in a room staring intently at Black Scholes models on three widescreen monitors

Like I was thinking that man, Marty is maybe finally senile, it doesn't work like this anymore

Then I realized it was 1987, and then there was a shot of the strip mall and it was so beautiful

Loved all the period detials in this, those floppy double breasted suits and Bill Blass abstract geometric ties

they still drop 20 gs at dinner tho

Oh sorry just reading the thread through now and raelizing those points have been covered up thread

margin call was a cool movie, fwiw i dont really mean i needed lots of financial exposition or w/e just that the wolf of ws just didnt feel like it really existed anywhere there was not much revealing detail of any sort character wise or environment or w/e
it was just kinda spinning around in this wacky ass limbo, which admittedly was hilarious and fun but something about it just felt like it wouldve been more engaging w a lil more irl or something

first person to say that was the whole point i disagree and furthermore i dont like you

― lag∞n, Sunday, December 29, 2013 9:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Haha not gonna say that was the whole point but it's a nice sleight of hand to name it The Wolf of Wall Street where the Wall Street part is more like, idk, the hardwood upon which the real performers are tap dancing

The movie's also pretty explicit about setting up these boiler room guys as not having a street number on the proper white shoe Wall Street, they keep on trying to barge onto the scene with the GS and Lehmans but never quite get there

The other part where I thought Marty lost it was when he kept on playing all these Me First & The Gimme Gimme & that cottage industry of pop punk covers of all the songs he would have used if he hadn't already used them all before

i've actually developed a soft spot for marty having lil clue or curiosity about music post-1981 or so beyond shit that reminds him of the clash maybe, when 'everlong' came in i actually chuckled. can actually imagine him cornering jonah hill and playing the lemonheads' 'mrs robinson' and going 'now do you know who originally had a hit w/ this?', not realizing jonah's too young to likely even know who the fuck the lemonheads were.

'heres to you, mrs. robinson'