The Wolf of Wall Street (new Scorsese)

yeah, it was ultimately kinda boring.

but loud boring

i'm more shocked at the number of smart ppl who can't recognize its badness.

I'm just genuinely shocked

I'm just shockingly genuine.

i think everybody recognises this film's 'badness' - it is a brash film almost fully dedicated to cataloguing badness - & thinks it employs it meaningfully

More meaningfully than in Goodfellas at any rate.

& thinks it employs it meaningfully

Not everybody, schlump.

This is a great movie & u r all insane

Martin Scorsese made a bonafide "polarizing" movie that's three hours long and did big box office. In 2013.

d-40 otm

omar little otm

so long as "Road House" falls into the great movie category, i'm a-ok with this

Obviously. I mean, there's "didn't like Wolf of Wall Street" crazy and "not a normal human being" crazy.

wwbf otm

A small point, I suppose, but was anybody bothered by the cerebral palsy joke?

― clemenza, Monday, December 30, 2013 10:06 PM (6 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LOLs @ crips seem to be Marty's thing lately (see also: Hugo)

liked this movie in general although i'm not sure what it contributes to the depiction of the finance industry in american cinema. want to add that the cerebral palsy joke was bad, but also bad was the scene where they were discussing little people who they planned to exploit for entertainment in the office (throwing them at targets, stuff like that). donny puts forth a bunch of painful stereotypes that he believes about them. this is clearly meant to show donny as an idiot but, for the audience, this is played for lols and i don't think the movie really registers that fact that what he is saying is not only ignorant but hurtful.

i guess this is all part of the risk of "glamorization". by telling the stories of these people from their perspective, more or less, you wind up reproducing their shitty attitudes. the misogyny in this film was unbelievable, and i know it was formally all in the name of criticizing it, but still, i'm not sure how strong of a critique the movie offered to the culture. like, treating women as depersonalized status objects is shown to be "empty" like other forms of consumerism, but is this really a feminist critique? the reason you're not supposed to think and act like that is because it is oppressive, not because it impoverishes your own experience as a man.

but then, maybe that's the point of the film. even in hindsight, jordan doesn't really think about any of his victims. the massive fraud scheme he perpetrated winds up being bad because it lands him in prison, not because it financially devastates a bunch of naive investors. maybe scorsese's brave. he's sticking with his narrator and his perspective, no matter how it looks.

donny puts forth a bunch of painful stereotypes that he believes about them. this is clearly meant to show donny as an idiot but, for the audience, this is played for lols and i don't think the movie really registers that fact that what he is saying is not only ignorant but hurtful.

in this scene they are legalistically hammering out the terms by which they may brutalize+exploit these people: literal little people. it's all right, they explain to each other, because these people were made for this role; they enjoy fulfilling it, just as the people in the conference room enjoy fulfilling theirs. there is no power differential; there is only a Deal. the total absence of any kind of standard or metric or way-of-seeing beyond capital is made even clearer when rob reiner, voice of parental authority, bursts into the room apoplectically shouting because leo&co have done a terrible thing: they have wasted money. this is all played for uncomfortable un-pc lols yes but it also rly clear where these people's values come from. there might be some unnecessary donny lines i've forgotten about but the scene itself is pretty central i thought, even if i found it rly unpleasant too.

agree that the movie's not much for feminist critique. i thought it was brave in that it remained imo a polemic Against this stuff but also thoroughly understood+communicated its power -- not just superficial attractions like hookers and blow but the power to lie your way to a new self, to conjure up yr desires with words that you read off paper like spells. that last shot of the expectant, yearning faces, the congregation. no one knows how to love+hate a church like a catholic.

idk if it needed to be eight hours long or whatever, not submitting an opinion on that.

movie was great entertainment idk if the views expressed therein were salutary warnings or str8 lols if I get a chance to ask scorsese I will check 4u but caveat emptor he may lie or not know himself or be fooling himself or have tried for one thing but have gotten it wrong and even then any of the actors might have taken his instructions and intentionally or in error misconstrued and have performed their parts ironically or unironically against Marty's will in short this movie was great entertainment don't use it as a primer you should make it thru lyfe ok

I don't necessarily believe that Scorsese is anti-feminist, although his recent depictions of disabilities is irresponsible and frequently mean, but with its non-stop scenes of debauchery and minuscule attention paid to consequences, I do wonder about the film's potential to serve as a training manual for Future Douchebags of America.

Like real life NJ mafia using Goodfellas as a guide

or john hinckley and taxi driver

thought it was brave in that it remained imo a polemic Against this stuff but also thoroughly understood+communicated its power -- not just superficial attractions like hookers and blow but the power to lie your way to a new self, to conjure up yr desires with words that you read off paper like spells. that last shot of the expectant, yearning faces, the congregation. no one knows how to love+hate a church like a catholic.

otm. terry southern supposedly told kubrick that eyes wide shut would play better as a farce and kubrick freaked out. i'm glad marty doesn't have to be told.

it's just funny that martin scorsese has been making comedies about psychopathic american behavior for forty years, all full of uncomfortable improvisation, and the same concerns and grievances come up each time like he's suddenly gone sour

this is a guy who had robert deniro harassing liza minnelli over and over and over for minutes at the beginning of his homage to studio musicals

Now THAT was funny!

it was! uncomfortable sure, but i guarantee scorsese was laughing, seeing how long they could keep the scene going

saw the quualade scene again, never noticed before how the number of stairs keeps changing

sorry i mean qualudde

I do wonder about the film's potential to serve as a training manual for Future Douchebags of America.

Don't forget Douchebags from Overseas coming to NYC assuming this is how they're gonna live.

There's a great Paul Haggis / Iñárritu comedy-drama to be made about some UAE bros who divide into ISIS soldiers and Wolf of Wall Street disciples.

btw the moment i finally decided to see this movie was vgrrl's post

one of my favorite scenes/moments that has been stuck in my head for the last few days is when Leo's first wife finds him in the limo with the duchess chick, when they're standing on the sidewalk in front of the hotel/casino and there's that repeated shot of them from across the street where it's just this huge wall of reflective brass and windows and lights and him looking defeated and her with her hands on her hips

I love it

― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, April 16, 2014 2:53 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but i had to rewatch it to notice it's trump tower

There's a great Paul Haggis / Iñárritu comedy-drama to be made about some UAE bros who divide into ISIS soldiers and Wolf of Wall Street disciples.

― the one where, as balls alludes (Eazy)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKcAYMb5uk4

i think everybody recognises this film's 'badness' - it is a brash film almost fully dedicated to cataloguing badness

yeah very obv not what i fucking meant

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 (7 months ago) Bookmark

I cant believe this weenie liberal who talks about loving capitalism all the time and glued a dildoe to his ipad so he could suck its dick, is crying about how the humanity of rapacious monsters is being shortchanged.... you stupid fucking jew devil faggot

pfft ur a stupid jew devil faggot

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

except this guy

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

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

I think they're flat, but only in the sense of a panicked avoidance of any inner life at all.

even people who have a panicked avoidance of any inner life at all are more interesting and varied than the characters in this movie

i dont doubt the book the movie is based on is bad in that sense too but still

Like, couldn't you say this about dr strangelove? It's a mean dark comedy mocking those who may destroy us

imho the mode dr strangelove was made is quite different than this movie

Why should there be a tender scene of Donnie painting to suggest an inner life worth exploring

man have u ever considered writing scripts

I can think of lots of great films where the main characters shut themselves off from the world to the point of willfully killing off whatever inner life they might have--Shoot the Piano Player and The Conversation are the first two I think of--but I don't think that's what Ryan means by a panicked avoidance of any inner life at all...I'm not quite sure what that means.

None of your business