Author: mfordfeeney

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

Much better & shorter when it was called Goodfellas, it achieves something no other Scorsese picture has: irrelevance. For fanatics only…

Spoiler-free Movie Review of The Wolf of Wall Street:

I was very upset when I watched The Wolf of Wall Street because I had not heard that Thelma Schoonmaker, long-time editor of Martin Scorsese’s films, had passed away. I knew she must no longer be with us, because I couldn’t imagine that she ever would have approved of this tedious marathon of a film. Imagine my surprise when I found out that she was alive and well. While of course this is great news, it left me terribly confused about what happened with this picture.

I suppose there’s nothing really wrong with The Wolf of Wall Street; it just serves absolutely no purpose. There’s nothing here you haven’t seen before and seen better.

Let me see if I can describe it for you: based on an embellished but true-life story of an anti-hero who will nevertheless be glamorized for the length of the picture, the story follows the ascent and fall of a remorseless criminal over a lengthy period of time, during which he will repeatedly break the 4th wall to boast of his misdeeds, before ending with a smirk as he gets off without proper punishment. In filming said story, there will be lots of period music, sure to include the Rolling Stones, there will be a strong male supporting actor and there will be absolutely no positive female presence at all. There will be a ton of profanity and objectification of women and absolutely no one will apologize for their behavior, betraying the director’s complete acceptance of and promotion of their criminality.

Sound interesting? It’s called Goodfellas and it came out in 1990. It is also a description of The Wolf of Wall Street.

This film is a longer, less interesting and more sprawling update of Goodfellas, with the criminals using phones instead of pistols. It represents a complete lack of originality or creative effort. Yes, I understand that it’s an entirely different real-life subject with a different story to tell, but really, what is the difference between the two films and why did the story of this guy need to be made into a film. What’s so disheartening about this complete regression by Scorsese is that with his last picture, Hugo, he seemed to be taking a real chance for the first time in a very long time.

Don’t misunderstand – I love Goodfellas, I love Scorsese movies, I love dark, violent stories. I’m not suggesting that Scorsese should limit himself to children’s movies or be afraid to deal in moral ambiguity. But this isn’t ambiguous – he is glamorizing white collar criminals in this picture. Don’t give me the Godfather argument that he isn’t celebrating these characters but simply telling an interesting story. He’s too good at his job; he makes crime look too good in his pictures. The punishment is never adequate and never lessens the “cool” factor of the characters. Disagree? Go to the mall and see if you can find any lithographs or t-shirts of Kundun‘s Dalai Lama in between all of the images of Tony Montana, Don Corleone & Henry Hill.

The film is technically an independent since it was produced by independent companies like Red Granite Pictures, but really, can any 100 million dollar film distributed by Paramount be considered indie? What it does mean is that Scorsese was allowed to do whatever the hell he wanted. And did he ever. The film is staggeringly long – 3 hours of total indulgence by the characters and the filmmakers. Watch this trend carefully – a number of pictures are getting greenlit by production companies with little to no experience in filmmaking. They are dangling huge monies in front of filmmakers, often based on international receipts, and offering creative freedom. This isn’t a bad thing in of itself, but auteur directors don’t need any encouragement to indulge themselves in their vision – they need input and criticism by contemporaries and experienced producers.

The Wolf of Wall Street is the most disappointing film release of the 2013 awards season. If I had never seen any of Scorsese’s other, better movies, I might have been impressed, but the complete moral vacuum of the picture would probably still have been a deal-breaker for me. It’s a long, rambling, uneven, rerun of a film that glamorizes securities fraud and financial corruption. A huge step backwards for the director.

Poster:

Trailer:

Bechdel Test:

Fail

The Representation Test Score: F (0 pts)

(http://therepresentationproject.org/grading-hollywood-the-representation-test/)

[schema type=”movie” name=”The Wolf of Wall Street” description=”Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stock-broker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.” director=”Martin Scorsese” actor_1=”Leonardo DiCaprio” actor_2=”Jonah Hill”]

Main Cast	Leonardo DiCaprio Jordan Belfort, Jonah Hill Donnie Azoff, Margot Robbie Naomi Lapaglia, Matthew McConaughey Mark Hanna
Rating	R
Release Date	Wed 25 Dec 2013 UTC
Director	Martin Scorsese
Genres	Biography, Comedy, Crime, Drama
Plot	Based on the true story of Jordan Belfort, from his rise to a wealthy stock-broker living the high life to his fall involving crime, corruption and the federal government.
Poster
Runtime	180
Tagline
Writers	Terence Winter (screenplay), Jordan Belfort (book)
Year	2013

July 16, 2014

A Little Bit of Heaven (2011)

140 Character Movie Review – #140RVW

This maudlin tear-jerking rom-com isn’t terrible – it just isn’t any good. Overlong, has impressive roster of actors – every one wasted…

Spoiler-free Movie Review of A Little Bit of Heaven:

Quick note about this site: I don’t have a comment section – it’s just spam bait. I can’t bear it. But I definitely want feedback and requests, so I direct you to the social media channels for this site:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NowVeryBad
Google+: https://plus.google.com/+Nowverybad/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NowVeryBad

This review was written after one such request. I really want to encourage people to submit requests, so I’m going to try to take it easy on this movie, which otherwise I might be more snarky about.

Also, big caveat about this review: I have been extremely fortunate to have never lost anyone to cancer. I am so grateful for that. So my view on this movie may vary wildly from someone who has experienced that loss.

A Little Bit of Heaven is exactly what it looks like; a tear-jerker romance with that cute Kate Hudson. It’s funny, but I almost feel guilty picking on Hudson, because whenever the Academy drags her onstage to do something at the Oscars, knowing full well that she won’t ever be on that stage through her talents, they always pan the camera to her parents, Kurt Russell & Goldie Hawn. The two of them are totally adorable, obviously beaming with pride at their little girl being up there. It’s an image I can’t get out of my head and so I can never be too harsh on her, knowing she’s their pride and joy. It’s a good reminder to all of us critics that everyone involved in making motion pictures is a human being who is loved by someone and deserves a little kindness.

So I apologize to Goldie & Kurt, because I can’t say anything nice about Kate Hudson, so I guess I’ll try to say nothing.

She isn’t really the problem with this picture, anyway. It is true that she has a nose for poor projects and is as reliable a coalmine canary as Louis Gossett Jr. for which films to avoid. The streak continues here with as syrupy a movie as you’re likely to come across.

Hudson plays a rather fun character named Marley Corbett, an ad exec who speaks plainly and is surrounded by too many characters. She contracts a movie-attractive version of terminal colon cancer and unaccountably takes 107 minutes to die of it. (Note: I maintain this is not a spoiler – it’s the MO of the film – I’m not spoiling things anymore than suggesting that the actors in a rom-com will kiss at the end.)

Marley falls for her doctor, Gael García Bernal as Julian Goldstein (?), who despite being emotionally distant and stilted, takes about three minutes to decide to abandon any ethics over getting involved with a patient. Bernal and Hudson have absolutely zero chemistry.

There aren’t just too many characters in this movie, there are far too many talented actors for a movie so poor. Kathy Bates, Lucy Punch, Treat Williams, Peter Dinklage, Romany Malco, Rosemary DeWitt, Steven Weber and Alan Dale all have scenes, but the characters are totally one-dimensional (even Dinklage’s gigolo). It also fails the Whoopi Goldberg test (it contains Whoopi Goldberg).

Possibly the only unique thing about so formulaic a film is that it doesn’t take place in New York – although it so easily could. New Orleans must have offered more attractive tax credits. The setting is a nice change of pace, although it did attract one of the Neville Brothers (Ike) to do the music. I wonder if they asked him to or if he just showed up and they couldn’t get rid of him.

I guess I didn’t do a very good job of laying off of this movie. It really wasn’t a bad movie, per se, it just similarly had nothing going for it. This would have been a perfectly serviceable made for tv movie on Hallmark or Lifetime. But as a feature it is cutesy, underachieving treacle.