Good morning everyone!
It's about 7:15 in the morning. I've spent the last 6 hours killing zombies with a friend. I'm not remotely tired. and I saw wolf of Wallstreet 10:00 last night. It's time to do the review!
I may come back and tweak this a bit when I'm less loopy. but it should be fine, it's still pretty fresh in my brain.
(also, level 31 on Ascension, with only 2 layers, booyah!)
Pros:
Dicaprio is at the top of his game. he plays the lead character extremely well. from the naive young man (who I never once believed as a young man) to the drug addicted scoundrel he becomes. He's brilliant all the way through it.
The rest of the cast is pretty good, each with their own stand out moments. even the underused ones like McConaughey.
Scorsese is still one of the best directors out there, Wolf of wallstreet may not be his best but it's still quite a bit higher than most other directors out there.
Overall I really enjoyed the film. It's a good mix of comedy and greed and darkness. I particularly liked the Lemmon High scene. just because it broke the long tedious wallstreet talks.
Cons:
It was very long. even though I was entertained I found myself wishing I had a watch to check many times, especially in the last half of the movie. there were many scenes I thought could have been dropped in editing, even though Scorsese claims it cant be edited any more.
One major gripe I noticed is some really poor editing choices. for example theres an early scene where DiCaprio pulls up to a 'penny stocks' business, the establishing shot is a long pan as the car pulls up. it's obviously hand held, but at one point the editor decided to jump cut him ahead a few seconds, it just made for a very awkward shot that felt like it was more a projectionist error and less an editing error.
Also the Over -the-shoulder shots were poorly chosen. if you have a scene of 2 people talking, say Jonah Hill and Dicaprio. If Hill starts talking, framed on him. then you switch angles to dicaprio while hill is still talking, Hill's mouth better be moving, almost every prolonged dialogue scene had the problem of cutting to reverse angles on the listener where the talker's mouth is very obviously not moving, or he's moving in a way that doesn't match the voice. it felt very sloppy.
hell they even went as far as removing moving lips all together when they had the Swiss banker scene...
I also wasn't all that crazy about the boat scene, or the subsequent exploding plane scene. they just didn't fit with the rest of the movie.
oh, and the cinematography felt very lackadaisical compared to many other movies out this year.
Notes:
Wolf of Wallstreet is very R Rated. It now holds the record for the most F-bombs in a movie. I honestly wouldn't have noticed if that wasn't pointed out before hand.
It also has a very surprising amount of sex and nudity. full frontal nudity, it's surprising. Its nothing you haven't seen before but there is a lot of it. so be warned.
Theres also quite a bit of drug content.
usually this doesn't bother me, but I've been reading about all the controversy and figured I'd weigh in.
Closing notes:
Overall I enjoyed the film. It's a fun romp and the characters were mostly engrossing and it moved along, I just found myself rather bored in the latter half. I also still think stock trading is total crap.
FINAL VERDICT: 69
Fine film, just not the masterpiece almost everyone seems to be saying. the horrible editing bothered me most of all.
so that's it! now off to hide in a hole as the Scorsese fanboys attack me.
It's about 7:15 in the morning. I've spent the last 6 hours killing zombies with a friend. I'm not remotely tired. and I saw wolf of Wallstreet 10:00 last night. It's time to do the review!
I may come back and tweak this a bit when I'm less loopy. but it should be fine, it's still pretty fresh in my brain.
(also, level 31 on Ascension, with only 2 layers, booyah!)
MOVIE REVIEW: The Wolf of Wallstreet
Dicaprio is at the top of his game. he plays the lead character extremely well. from the naive young man (who I never once believed as a young man) to the drug addicted scoundrel he becomes. He's brilliant all the way through it.
The rest of the cast is pretty good, each with their own stand out moments. even the underused ones like McConaughey.
Scorsese is still one of the best directors out there, Wolf of wallstreet may not be his best but it's still quite a bit higher than most other directors out there.
Overall I really enjoyed the film. It's a good mix of comedy and greed and darkness. I particularly liked the Lemmon High scene. just because it broke the long tedious wallstreet talks.
Cons:
It was very long. even though I was entertained I found myself wishing I had a watch to check many times, especially in the last half of the movie. there were many scenes I thought could have been dropped in editing, even though Scorsese claims it cant be edited any more.
One major gripe I noticed is some really poor editing choices. for example theres an early scene where DiCaprio pulls up to a 'penny stocks' business, the establishing shot is a long pan as the car pulls up. it's obviously hand held, but at one point the editor decided to jump cut him ahead a few seconds, it just made for a very awkward shot that felt like it was more a projectionist error and less an editing error.
Also the Over -the-shoulder shots were poorly chosen. if you have a scene of 2 people talking, say Jonah Hill and Dicaprio. If Hill starts talking, framed on him. then you switch angles to dicaprio while hill is still talking, Hill's mouth better be moving, almost every prolonged dialogue scene had the problem of cutting to reverse angles on the listener where the talker's mouth is very obviously not moving, or he's moving in a way that doesn't match the voice. it felt very sloppy.
hell they even went as far as removing moving lips all together when they had the Swiss banker scene...
I also wasn't all that crazy about the boat scene, or the subsequent exploding plane scene. they just didn't fit with the rest of the movie.
oh, and the cinematography felt very lackadaisical compared to many other movies out this year.
Notes:
Wolf of Wallstreet is very R Rated. It now holds the record for the most F-bombs in a movie. I honestly wouldn't have noticed if that wasn't pointed out before hand.
It also has a very surprising amount of sex and nudity. full frontal nudity, it's surprising. Its nothing you haven't seen before but there is a lot of it. so be warned.
Theres also quite a bit of drug content.
usually this doesn't bother me, but I've been reading about all the controversy and figured I'd weigh in.
Closing notes:
Overall I enjoyed the film. It's a fun romp and the characters were mostly engrossing and it moved along, I just found myself rather bored in the latter half. I also still think stock trading is total crap.
FINAL VERDICT: 69
Fine film, just not the masterpiece almost everyone seems to be saying. the horrible editing bothered me most of all.
so that's it! now off to hide in a hole as the Scorsese fanboys attack me.
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