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.

Parkland

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2345112/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Unable (and unwilling) to escape the hype of the 50^th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, I couldn't wait to see Parkland, an hour-by-hour account of what happened to various individuals who were directly impacted on the day’s events. There are some good performances, but, overall, is a screenplay that just isn't up to its subject.

The neat stuff that assassination nerds will be interested in is done well. Abraham Zapruder’s (Paul Giamatti) reaction as he films away is startling. The young resident (Zac Ephron) who must act first when the president’s body reaches the ER at Parkland Memorial Hospital leaves us with the sense of unprepared hopelessness that must have overcome the actual doctor on that day. Billy Bob Thornton is the secret service agent trying to keep the crisis from turning into something worse. But the best part of the film is the previously noted best-actor-in-an-obscure-yet-pivotal-role James Badge Dale as Robert Oswald, the shooter’s (?) brother who must now contend with the lifelong infamy.

One of the more touching scenes belongs to Giamatti as he negotiates with the folks from Life magazine for his film. His chief concern is preserving the president’s dignity.  (In fact, the film was never shown in public while Zapruder was alive.) Too bad the filmmakers weren't similarly inclined. They spend too much time with too many stories and never tell us much about what they think it all means, nor give us much to draw our own conclusions.

Graciously, they skipped nightclub owner Jack Ruby’s story although I wonder if it simply wasn't cut out. In so doing, they scrimp on the main figures, with forgettable faces (Jackie, LBJ, Oswald) in key historic roles. Watching this film, one might never know that Texas Governor John Connally was also seriously wounded.

The historic bits reproduced include the well-known and literal tug-o-war over the casket containing the 35^th president between members of the Secret Service and the Dallas coroner’s personnel. With armed police in route, the agents spirit the president’s body back to Love Field for a hasty departure. Another nice touch is the actor portraying the priest who gives last rights.

Abraham Zapruder (Paul Giamatti) makes movie history.

All in all, this film offers little that is new and will be of little interest to folks who aren’t JFK assassination nerds, like me.  This is the kind of film you might watch once on a dreary day when there’s not much else on, but I doubt you’d watch it a second time. Paul Giamatti, excellent as usual, saves this from being a total flop and that’s why I’m giving it one Wilder out of four.

   

This week’s Overlooked Film of Significance:  The House of Yes is a macabre examination of the cult of personality that surrounds the days of Camelot.

Gravity

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1454468/combined

Sandra Bullock, in Gravity, gets the chance to reassert her megawatt stardom in a role that commands your attention from beginning to end. She gets to stretch her acting legs in a marathon performance that could well be the cornerstone of her career. Whether she’s out in space or out of her spacesuit, in homage to Barbarella (1968), this movie is all-Sandra, all-the-time and she’s open for business. 

In the emotional department, she can break you down with a glance and keep you cheering for her even when her character’s spirit wanes. She also handily demonstrates that the best way to overcome gravity is with the help of some of the best surgeons money can buy. I could go for that kind of work if I could come out the other side looking as good as she does.

Sandra Bullock gives her best Jane Fonda impression in this shot from Gravity.

No doubt about it, she’s real and makes you want to jump up on the screen and tell her everything’s going to be okay. This is easily her best film to date and certainly has the substance lacking in many of her most popular films.

Alfonso Cuarón directs. If you aren't familiar with his landmark films Y Tu Mama, Tambien or Children of Men, you've doubtlessly seen his work when he directed the Harry Potter/Azkaban installment. What he presents on the screen is some rare high-drama and some mind-blowing special effects that make a whole new, and valid, argument for the 3-D process. If you’re not a sufferer of motion sickness or vertigo, you must see Gravity in this format.

I don’t know a lot about the details of working in the zero-gravity environment, but everything seems to fit the science as I understand it. Perhaps I’ll hear from some experts in this area.

In many ways, Gravity is the perfect date movie. Women get to watch the reigning queen of chick flicks do her empowering thing while guys don’t get compared to Ryan Reynolds, Ryan Gosling, Richard Gere or Ashton Kutcher. They do have to measure up to George Clooney, but only his face, formidable as it is, because the rest of him is covered up by thick bulky space suit. Even this slight portion of him might be enough to earn him some Oscar attention early next year as Sandra undoubtedly will.

This is the kind of movie where everybody gets what they come to see. Unlike films like Alien or Prometheus, I can’t tell if it will be as interesting ten years from now and for that I’m giving Gravity three and a half Wilders.

   

Our Overlooked Film of Significance for the week: Children of Men. This is the rarest of scifi movies – a British scifi film that’s actually watchable. More than that, it's a minor masterpiece with a really hard-to-believe story that's pulled off with wit and expert film making  Not unlike French rock-n-roll, the Brits haven’t been able to produce (m)any noteworthy scifi movies since Kubrick was in his prime.

Prisoners

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1392214/combined

Prisoners tries real hard to be the epic kind of thriller that The Silence of the Lambs was, but falls way short. Although nicely photographed and generally attention-grabbing for about two and a half hours, there’s just too much missing for it to be the movie it wants to be.

First, there are hero issues. There are too many. Two fathers, one and a half mothers, a cop and a suspect are all involved with two girls who vanish in broad daylight. Father #1, played, maybe over-played, with intensity by Hugh Jackman and Terrance Howard’s more believable Father #2 go after the first suspect they come across. Then a cop played by Jake Gyllenhaal gets assigned to the case and wants so badly to make the lambs stop screaming he’s willing to bend some rules.

Then Mother #1, Viola Davis, gets involved with what the dads are doing while Mother #2, Jackman’s wife, retreats into a pharmaceutical fog. All of this is fine as far as thrillers go and the director does keep us interested in these people far longer than the story should allow. There are just too many characters to root for and no one really ends up earning our admiration or support. It might be Jackman’s 16-year-old son who is having a tough time living up to dad’s hyper-masculine countenance. You might feel sorry for Paul Dano as Suspect #1, but then again, he probably could have solved the whole thing for us in the first hour and we all could have gone home. Bad differently-abled character - no sympathy for you.

 Hugh Jackman begins his assault in Prisoners

In addition to having no hero worthy of Clarice Starling, there’s no villain in sight to compare with Hannibal Lector. What we get is a bizarre kind of B-movie, People Under the Stairs styled denouement and a shady priest with corpses in the closet thrown in for additional ickiness and to help add another hour to the film. (Fans of Sweeney Todd, the play-not the movie, might appreciate Len Cariou in the role of the priest.)

The worst… The very worst… After 160 minutes there are a lot of holes that don’t quite get filled in, if you’ll excuse the expression. It’s a shame because the movie looks great and there are some fine actors in roles that simply weren’t completely fleshed out. These lapses caused me and some others in the audience to leave the theater scratching our heads and then scratching each other’s heads for camaraderie.

This is the kind of movie you might rent for a buck or just wait for it to come to cable to watch on a rainy day when there’s nothing else on. And for that I’ll give it one Wilder because I did like looking at the pictures.

 

Our Overlooked Film of Significance for the week: Just see The People Under the Stairs. It’s a schlocky, cheaply-made, B-movie that somehow rises above its pedigree, with more substance than you might expect.

World War Z

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0816711/combined

Scifi movies create a set of unbelievable circumstances and draw you into a world where the rules of reality do not apply. Great scifi movies do this by following their own rules set down in the beginning and keep you spellbound without violating any of these. The worst walk all over these rules as if you’re just supposed to accept whatever comes at you as some strange new (anything goes) world. Somewhere in between is World War Z.

This film is the baby of megastar Brad Pitt. The unrelenting action and terrifying situations endured by Pitt just to get it finished and in theaters (and now on DVD) could be a movie all its own. The credits list numerous writers and the resulting rewrites of previous writers’ works. This is usually a bad sign. Then the film was tested and taken back to have a different ending re-shot and spliced onto the film just days before release. Generally critics await such films with sharpened knives.

Whether it’s the fact that the source material was so good or Brad Pitt has learned enough from some of the best directors is hard to tell. Pitt was involved in all aspects of the film up to and including the final re-shoots  I think he taped up the box with the final print to get it off to the lab for duplication. He had a lot riding on his success. The overall result is satisfying, but it’s no Bladerunner. For Pitt, the world continues to say ‘yes’ so we can all rest more easily at night.

 World War Z

Based on the novel by Max Brooks, son of Mel, the story begins quickly with an outbreak of a bad case of zombieitis and proceeds at breakneck speed with the hero trying to find a cure. I’ll let those people Hitchcock referred to as The Plausibles to point out the few flaws in the film’s logic. None is enough to make the whole thing crash like a zombie-filled jetliner.

I’m not familiar with the source material, so I don’t know how much of what is right with movie comes from the original author and how much can be attributed to the good acting and eye-popping CGI scenes. The special effects are a major part of the film but somehow fail to overshadow the humans at the center of the story. That’s about the best compliment a special effects film can get.

Pitt is always great as a hero even with his straggly hair and mangy beard. He can play a tender father and then effortlessly convert into a world-saving scientist. Ultimately he’s driven to find the solution more to save his family and less to save the world, but as long as he’s on the job, we’re all better off.

I do want to point out the appearance by James Badge Dale who had a lead role the fine mini-series, The Pacific. In recent years, he has played a number of obscure-yet-key characters in films like Iron Man 3 and Flight. As I watched his scenes, I made a mental note that he’s taking on roles that were once a specialty of David Morse. I’d no more than thought this when the film introduces a burnt-out, crazed ex-CIA guy, played by David Morse! I guess they’re following in the footsteps of Strother Martin, Dub Taylor and Chill Wills. If you don’t know the names, Google them. Chances are you’ll recognize their faces.

World War Z is the kind of movie you want to see when you want to be carried away to another reality and forget about yours for a while. For that, it gets three Wilders out of four.

  

This Week’s Overlooked Film of Significance: Go to your library, Amazon or maybe even Netflix and take a look at A Boy and His Dog, my all-time favorite scifi movie. A horny teenager and his telepathic dog wander post-apocalyptic Phoenix looking for canned food and good times. The film has some great things to say about survival and even patriotism and never violates its essential premise while telling a very compelling story.