The Wolf of Wall Street

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993846/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm#cast

For years I wondered how tall Leonardo DiCaprio is. He seems really short in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Titanic. Imagine my surprise when I found out he’s a full six feet tall… and boyish. In fact his boyishness became a problem for me as he moved into mature roles.  In The Aviator and J. Edgar, I felt like I was watching a high school production of something like Valley of the Dolls.  In The Wolf of Wall Street, DiCaprio is not only the perfect age for the part; he also looks like someone who has burnt the candle at both ends and giving himself over to every hedonistic whim.  This is not your tweener’s My-Heart-Will-Go-On Leo.

The film benefits from the authority of Martin Scorsese, likely our greatest living American film director. Not only can this guy make great films, he makes great films for people who love movies – count himself among them with his encyclopedic knowledge of film. These characters, with their shallow personalities and vulgar situations, beg you to hate them, just as in other Scorsese films like Raging Bull and Good Fellas.

 Leonardo DiCaprio is up to his (eye) balls in earthly pleasures in The Wolf of Wall Street.

My bourgeois moral code didn’t want to like these characters as much as Scorsese wanted me to like them. In the end, though, I think I was wrong. Scorsese doesn’t want me to approve of these people. I think he simply wants me to understand what their motivations are and think about whether I could resist temptation as well. I also enjoyed seeing a master of the art stretch his formidable, story-telling wings.

The movie is about depraved people so you’re going to see a lot of filth. I rushed out of the theater as the lights were going up so I wouldn’t have to experience the glare of other audience members because I’d brought my 14 year old nephew. Twenty years ago this film would have gotten an NC17 rating and thirty years ago, an “X.”  Now I’ve warned you. But if you don’t care about that, you’ll have little to complain about this film. 

Scorsese is on top of every detail and his visual story telling keeps things from ever getting dull in the two and a half plus hours he takes to tell the story. By the way, did I mention it’s about shady stock brokers?

This is the kind of movie you purchase the DVD Special Edition and watch once or twice a year for the rest of your life, if you’re a true movie fan. And for that, the Maestro demands that I give it four out of four Wilders. This is certainly the kind of movie he would make were he with us today.

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This week’s Overlooked Film of Significance: Catch Me If You Can sealed the deal for me as far as considering DiCaprio’s acting talent. It’s also Spielberg’s third or fourth best film and that’s saying something. If you can take two hours of Tom Hanks’s horrible New England accent, you’ll enjoy every minute.  Especially fantastic are all of Christopher Walken’s scenes and the prayer scene with Martin Sheen.

Hunger Games: Catching Fire

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1951264/

It’s the future and things are pretty weird. The country of Panem is holding its annual snuff fest known as the Hunger Games, a nationwide television competition in which representatives from around the country fight to the death for fame and prizes. This bloodletting, with the sons and daughters from the various districts, we’re told, is the method by which a harsh, corrupt regime pacifies the masses and helps them forget that their everyday life isn’t all rosy. If only Stalin had known…

Each competition has one winner whose family gets to live in concrete splendor while he or she lives out his or her years as an ambassador of good will for the system. In the first film, The Hunger Games, all this is set up and then promptly violated. Two winners are announced and they immediately become poster children for a well-hidden insurgency that has so far accomplished only a whistled theme song and secret handshake. All this is done with a cast decked out in far out clothing designs that must have been extracted from the deepest recesses of Lady Gaga’s mind.

Nasty government and worse fashions continue in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is the second installment of this Tween-centric  franchise. Things are really tough for the working masses that, having the leisure to wander verdant meadows, have to return to dilapidated early 20^th century industrial sites. Is there no justice? Katniss Everdeen, the previous year’s co-winner is reluctant to fulfill her role as spokes-killer for the regime. She’s too busy with a love triangle involving her hunky boyfriend and the half-a-head shorter guy she shared the big prize with in the first outing. As the games begin, a fourth leg of this love triangle gets added and, well, how's a girl to choose when she's the also got to be the face of counter-insurgency?

I didn't mind the first film so much. Once the game started it was somewhat interesting. There are some serious flaws to the premise and the role Katniss plays in the proceedings, but fans of the book seem to know more than I do, so what does my opinion matter? If you love the books, you’ll love this movie. If you haven’t read them, like me, you’ll be sitting in the theater twisting your head the way a puppy does when he hears his master’s voice on the telephone.

One thing this series has going for it is Jennifer Lawrence who is best actress of her young generation already with an Oscar and, apparently, more on the way. Donald Sutherland, the president of this slanted republic, is as usual more interesting than anything around him. Few actors can communicate subtext as he does. You always feel he’s working on a grander, hidden strategy that, I fear, simply isn't in the story.

A welcome addition, or so I thought, was Philip Seymour Hoffman as the game master, but his character is detached to the point of dullness. It’s funny that in a film in which stylists are elevated to the level of High Lama and outrageous costumes come and go with every scene, Philip Seymour Hoffman essentially wears the same costume he has used in his last six movies.

This is the sort of movie you can pop in for the kids while the adults prepare the holiday dinner, especially if they’re too old for Jim Carrey’s Grinch. There are some nice special effects and some relatively good acting and for that I give The Hunger Games: Catching Fire two out of two Wilders for the fans and zero out two for the rest of us.

   

This week's Overlooked Film of Significance:  If we're going to discuss post-apocalyptic visions, few are better than my favorite scifi movie of all  time, A Boy and His Dog. The film version of Harlan Ellison's masterpiece features no trying love triangles, no flashy clothing or special effects, just a great story about how things will likely go down when the shit hits the fan.

The Hangover III

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1951261/?ref_=nv_sr_1

A number after a title usually is secret Hollywood code for the level of suckiness  to be expected.  This explains the “6” in the classic flop Leonard Part 6. Now you know. Of course, there are exceptions and you should know what they are. Modern filmmakers have attempted cover their tracks by giving sequels different titles, or, as with Star Wars III, II and I, counting backwards.

For The Hangover III, well you know, it didn't suck as badly as I’d been led to believe. Actually it was a lot better than The Hangover II, but still can't touch the original.

The boys are back in town: Alan photobombs his father's funeral.

You have the same four guys from the other movies Phil, Stu, Alan and Doug, but it’s essentially The Zach Galifianakis Show as his character Alan continues his icky adventures with Mr. Chow played too well by Ken Jeong. There’s the device wherein Doug gets taken out of the action and the other gents go off on outrageous adventure to save him.  But it’s all Galifianakis all the time and that’s enough if you’re a fan. (After watching his stand-up routine dressed as Little Orphan Annie – available on Youtube – who couldn't be a fan?)

There’s lots of gross, improbably situations, including a couple that will make animal-lovers’s skin crawl. But there is also some fun with some new characters played by John Goodman and another up-and-coming comedy star and I’ll save that surprise for you. If you’re watching a movie with hilarious funeral and intervention scenes, chances are it’s part of The Hangover franchise or one of its imitators.

 

This is the kind of movie you might catch on Comedy Central late one night, but I can’t imagine it being the least bit funny once it’s edited for television.  There’s probably a little too much serious violence and a little too much fun, as usual, with Demerol injections, but I have to admit I laughed out loud several times. Zach Galifianakis is a master of uncomfortable humor and if you are too, you’ll enjoy this movie and for that I’ll give it three Wilders out of four.

  

   

This week’s Overlooked Film of Significance: Cedar Rapids, in which Ed Helms plays small town insurance salesman cast adrift in the urban nightmare that is a slightly bigger small town known as Cedar Rapids.