The Wolf Of Wallstreet (Dir: Scorcese)

[Larry2times]

was the Django thread this good?

[Combo7]

If the financial services industry were to suddenly vanish, your way of life would collapse overnight.
You'd feel like you were living in the Dark Ages. You guys could show a little bit more respect.

We get that buuuuuuuuuuut........


Cmon man, you mean to tell me none of your boys at the firm of Metthem, Screwedthem, & Leftthem would not laugh at least at the slow mo qualudde fight and the bang a prostitute on your lunch break scene? I would fuckin' quote that movie if I was trading stock for a joke or two.

I said I liked the movie.

[ardamus]

Yeah I know that but cmon, Larry even said one of his boys who works in stocks cracked the fuck up watching the movie. We got too many Wall Street flicks where you can follow it but the shit is one dimensional for the most part. And its mainly suspenseful. Wolf On Wall Street was much than I expected with the cult-like criminal mindset they displayed. Which made it hilarious.

[seagrams hotsauce]

Respect these nuts, you dumb fuck. You've done more in four posts to further lower my respect for the people you're defending than three hours of this dumb movie. Go jump in a lake.

[david111]

Classic film. Richard Brody's writing about it in the New Yorker is essential

[wizeguy]

Watched American Hustle last night. Found this comparison with WOWS on IMDB with which I agree completely (though I enjoyed American Hustle):

I seldom care about the morality of fiction, which no doubt helped making The Wolf of Wall Street my favourite movie of 2013. But I've gained a new perspective on the criticism this excellent movie received after recently watching American Hustle.

Comparing reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, one can see that the same critics who attack Scorsese's movie for being shallow, immoral, corrupt, pointless, praise Russell's movie for being dark and gritty, for being nuanced, for having deep characters. Several fawn over the poorly articulated romance between Irving and Sydney, convincing me that critics in the end just want to be hustled over cliches and traditional storytelling. It must upset them severely that Jordan Belfort never sees Naomi as much more than a trophy wife, where's the romance in that? That's so not Casablanca.

But what I find fascinating about The Wolf of Wall Street is how it proves, much to the consternation of critics, whose rigid views about art have metastasized over time, that life is actually a lot morally simpler, more morally predictable if you will, and shallower than we give it credit for. Jordan Belfort was an unrepentant man; he did lead a wicked life of sin without regret; he did have all-night orgies at his office. This is well-documented, even the FBI confirms it. He portrayed himself in adulating terms in his autobiography, of course. Jordan Belfort, alas, is not a complex literary character, he's a shallow but very real man who scammed people to support his vices.

What's interesting, to me anyway, about American Hustle, which is based on the career of a small-time conman called Mel Weinberg, is that, from what I can gather, the real-life morality was made a lot (when not less, but under disguise) more complex for the movie. In real life Weinberg, as we can see from a 60 Minutes interview, was a con-man who got busted by the FBI for "small-time investment scams" (words of The Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips) against ordinary people (whom we never see, an important point considering so many critics complain Scorsese's movie doesn't show the victims' side. No one complains about the victims of Weinberg; apparently scamming is alright if it's done on a small scale) and who was offered a deal of giving in 4 conmen in return for his freedom. Until then the movie is faithful to reality; it just ignores the damning bit that after turning him 4 conmen, Weinberg continued to work for the FBI. To Mike Wallace he confessed he did it just for money. In the movie, poor Rosenfeld (played a by a very likeable Christian Bale) is bullied into working for the FBI by a dangerous control freak of an agent called Richie (Bradley Cooper) who, in Rosenfeld's words, starts getting 'power drunk' on his ojectives of bringing down powerful people: congressmen, senators, etc. In fact, Rosenfeld, the voice of reason, is against this because, and this is a hilarious explanation, the country just came out of Watergate and Vietnam, and could do without more politicians dragged through the mud. In real life, Weinberg confessed to Wallace that he was ecstatic about showing the American people what a bunch of perverts their politicians were.

There are more bits here and there - Weinberg's morally upstanding wife, Marie, who reported he was taking bribes even during Abscam, and who killed herself after a campaign of smearing and intimidation, is turned into a bipolar ball-busting bitch of a wife who sics the mafia on poor Rosenfeld; the mayor of Camden, whom Weinberg admired for being corrupt to the core, is turned into an upstanding but gullible man who just wanted the best for his constituents; Rosenfeld is such a nice guy he cons the FBI to get Polito a reduced sentence, which of course never happened - but the main point is this: the true story of Abscam, morally speaking, was shallower than a puddle of piss: there was a bad man who was pinched for being a bad man; and while working for the FBI, he continued being a bad man, much to chagrin of those who believe in things like redemption and contrition (that bastard Belfort getting the last laugh, how dare he?!), and who even publicly gloats that he got immunity for his crimes. This, by the way, could have been a splendid movie, this could have been the complex, nuanced, movie that explored the "dark and dizzy heart of American ambition from a number of angles" (Tom Long, from The Detroit News) that American Hustle never was.

Because ultimately David O. Russell's movie is marred by 101 Hollywood Storytelling, with special emphasis given to the chapter on How To Make Make Likeable Characters. It's never needed updating since 1927. It involves stripping the character of all his real-life vices, giving him virtues he never had, and burdening him with nemeses he never had. In the end they concocted a loveable rogue who scammed a couple of people, but then got pinched, and that's punishment enough, and had to start working for an odious FBI agent (fascinating that the law enforcement agents are the bad guys here; compare that to Kyle Chandler's FBI agent in Wolf) who abuses him and is capable of feeding him to the mafia, because that's how big a prick this FBI agent is. So of course he deserves to be conned and humiliated in front of his superiors. It's so manipulative, the con is really on us.

The morality of The Wolf of Wall Street may be shallow, I concede it may be even celebrating the hedonism of Belfort a bit, but the morality of American Hustle is just warped, it's twisted, it's almost black and white. Criminals are overtly good, authorities are crazy and evil, and politicians, after a bit of historical whitewashing, are just foolish but good deep down. I admire Scorsese and DiCaprio for their courage: they played the life of Jordan Belfort as it was, they ripped out that chapter on likeable protagonists, and made a movie that takes no stand on his behaviour. For being true to life, Scorsese is accused of being shallow, or indulging in excesses, etc. Russell, confronted with the difficulty of making an unlikeable character a protagonist (the main problem that had been foiling adaptations of this movie since 1982), immersed himself in the lessons of the chapter and played it safe. For basically lying about the morality of a real life story, he's been praised for making a complex, multi-layered movie. Am I the only one who finds this weird? Isn't it strange that a a real-life story, in order to be considered deep, in order not to play to preconceptions (criminals don't have redeeming qualities, for instance - but perhaps sometimes they really don't) has to be massively fictionalized? And a movie that portrays a man as he was is lambasted for its honesty? Are we expecting more moral lessons than reality is prepared to give us? Has fiction habituated us to a complex moral world that perhaps is not how the real world works, the same way porn has habituated us to perfect women?

I must repeat this: I don't care about morality in fiction. But this has been an awards season especially sensitive to that topic, and the critics have come out in force handing out A's to Russell and C's to Scorsese on this precise matter, barely hiding their disgust at what they see as the glorification of Jordan Belfort. So this has become an interesting topic to me, I see a hypocritical paradox at the heart of it that I think only a few have noticed.

What do you think?

[Mindbender Futurama]

I think you're absolutely right, and your deconstruction of 'American Hustle' is the best analysis I have seen thus far.

it's actually commendable that Scorsese didn't take liberties in complicating Wolf of Wall Street for the sake of appeasing the Academy. that being said, the linear trajectory of Belfort's story don't make it as intriguing as other glorious falls from grace.

I wonder how excruciating it was for Russell to achieve the gaudy, bland and convincingly chafing 70's effect in 'Hustle', apparently he's not the easiest director to work with?

Most smoking version of Jennifer Lawrence? Maybe so. And she cut bulletproof glass with her soul in this. Whoa. But:
Amy Adams? Christ's Cunt be praised! Can you bottle that sensual energy and sell it? I'll take a lakefull, thanks

[GUCCI CONDOMS]

Watched American Hustle last night. Found this comparison with WOWS on IMDB with which I agree completely (though I enjoyed American Hustle):

I seldom care about the morality of fiction, which no doubt helped making The Wolf of Wall Street my favourite movie of 2013. But I've gained a new perspective on the criticism this excellent movie received after recently watching American Hustle.

Comparing reviews at Rotten Tomatoes, one can see that the same critics who attack Scorsese's movie for being shallow, immoral, corrupt, pointless, praise Russell's movie for being dark and gritty, for being nuanced, for having deep characters. Several fawn over the poorly articulated romance between Irving and Sydney, convincing me that critics in the end just want to be hustled over cliches and traditional storytelling. It must upset them severely that Jordan Belfort never sees Naomi as much more than a trophy wife, where's the romance in that? That's so not Casablanca.

But what I find fascinating about The Wolf of Wall Street is how it proves, much to the consternation of critics, whose rigid views about art have metastasized over time, that life is actually a lot morally simpler, more morally predictable if you will, and shallower than we give it credit for. Jordan Belfort was an unrepentant man; he did lead a wicked life of sin without regret; he did have all-night orgies at his office. This is well-documented, even the FBI confirms it. He portrayed himself in adulating terms in his autobiography, of course. Jordan Belfort, alas, is not a complex literary character, he's a shallow but very real man who scammed people to support his vices.

What's interesting, to me anyway, about American Hustle, which is based on the career of a small-time conman called Mel Weinberg, is that, from what I can gather, the real-life morality was made a lot (when not less, but under disguise) more complex for the movie. In real life Weinberg, as we can see from a 60 Minutes interview, was a con-man who got busted by the FBI for "small-time investment scams" (words of The Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips) against ordinary people (whom we never see, an important point considering so many critics complain Scorsese's movie doesn't show the victims' side. No one complains about the victims of Weinberg; apparently scamming is alright if it's done on a small scale) and who was offered a deal of giving in 4 conmen in return for his freedom. Until then the movie is faithful to reality; it just ignores the damning bit that after turning him 4 conmen, Weinberg continued to work for the FBI. To Mike Wallace he confessed he did it just for money. In the movie, poor Rosenfeld (played a by a very likeable Christian Bale) is bullied into working for the FBI by a dangerous control freak of an agent called Richie (Bradley Cooper) who, in Rosenfeld's words, starts getting 'power drunk' on his ojectives of bringing down powerful people: congressmen, senators, etc. In fact, Rosenfeld, the voice of reason, is against this because, and this is a hilarious explanation, the country just came out of Watergate and Vietnam, and could do without more politicians dragged through the mud. In real life, Weinberg confessed to Wallace that he was ecstatic about showing the American people what a bunch of perverts their politicians were.

There are more bits here and there - Weinberg's morally upstanding wife, Marie, who reported he was taking bribes even during Abscam, and who killed herself after a campaign of smearing and intimidation, is turned into a bipolar ball-busting bitch of a wife who sics the mafia on poor Rosenfeld; the mayor of Camden, whom Weinberg admired for being corrupt to the core, is turned into an upstanding but gullible man who just wanted the best for his constituents; Rosenfeld is such a nice guy he cons the FBI to get Polito a reduced sentence, which of course never happened - but the main point is this: the true story of Abscam, morally speaking, was shallower than a puddle of piss: there was a bad man who was pinched for being a bad man; and while working for the FBI, he continued being a bad man, much to chagrin of those who believe in things like redemption and contrition (that bastard Belfort getting the last laugh, how dare he?!), and who even publicly gloats that he got immunity for his crimes. This, by the way, could have been a splendid movie, this could have been the complex, nuanced, movie that explored the "dark and dizzy heart of American ambition from a number of angles" (Tom Long, from The Detroit News) that American Hustle never was.

Because ultimately David O. Russell's movie is marred by 101 Hollywood Storytelling, with special emphasis given to the chapter on How To Make Make Likeable Characters. It's never needed updating since 1927. It involves stripping the character of all his real-life vices, giving him virtues he never had, and burdening him with nemeses he never had. In the end they concocted a loveable rogue who scammed a couple of people, but then got pinched, and that's punishment enough, and had to start working for an odious FBI agent (fascinating that the law enforcement agents are the bad guys here; compare that to Kyle Chandler's FBI agent in Wolf) who abuses him and is capable of feeding him to the mafia, because that's how big a prick this FBI agent is. So of course he deserves to be conned and humiliated in front of his superiors. It's so manipulative, the con is really on us.

The morality of The Wolf of Wall Street may be shallow, I concede it may be even celebrating the hedonism of Belfort a bit, but the morality of American Hustle is just warped, it's twisted, it's almost black and white. Criminals are overtly good, authorities are crazy and evil, and politicians, after a bit of historical whitewashing, are just foolish but good deep down. I admire Scorsese and DiCaprio for their courage: they played the life of Jordan Belfort as it was, they ripped out that chapter on likeable protagonists, and made a movie that takes no stand on his behaviour. For being true to life, Scorsese is accused of being shallow, or indulging in excesses, etc. Russell, confronted with the difficulty of making an unlikeable character a protagonist (the main problem that had been foiling adaptations of this movie since 1982), immersed himself in the lessons of the chapter and played it safe. For basically lying about the morality of a real life story, he's been praised for making a complex, multi-layered movie. Am I the only one who finds this weird? Isn't it strange that a a real-life story, in order to be considered deep, in order not to play to preconceptions (criminals don't have redeeming qualities, for instance - but perhaps sometimes they really don't) has to be massively fictionalized? And a movie that portrays a man as he was is lambasted for its honesty? Are we expecting more moral lessons than reality is prepared to give us? Has fiction habituated us to a complex moral world that perhaps is not how the real world works, the same way porn has habituated us to perfect women?

I must repeat this: I don't care about morality in fiction. But this has been an awards season especially sensitive to that topic, and the critics have come out in force handing out A's to Russell and C's to Scorsese on this precise matter, barely hiding their disgust at what they see as the glorification of Jordan Belfort. So this has become an interesting topic to me, I see a hypocritical paradox at the heart of it that I think only a few have noticed.

What do you think?

Did you write this or is it copied and pasted?

[wizeguy]

It's copied and pasted from some guy on IMDB board about American Hustle.

[alpha]

Amy Adams? Christ's Cunt be praised! Can you bottle that sensual energy and sell it? I'll take a lakefull, thanks

crazy she's almost 40.

[GUCCI CONDOMS]

It's copied and pasted from some guy on IMDB board about American Hustle.

word, that was really well thought out, thanks for sharing

[drizzle]

critiquing a borderline slapstick dramedy that makes no attempt to be a serious documentary drama for not being a serious documentary drama is a pretty bad look, critiquing a movie for the reactions it received from other critics is an even worse look.

very fitting to the general trend of talking about WOW where people continuously have trouble separating a movie from the real life events its based on and evaluating shit accordingly.

both movies have a lot of good shit going for them in their own ways and both are flawed in very different ways, comparing them is kinda specious to begin with.

[jamrage]

critiquing a borderline slapstick dramedy that makes no attempt to be a serious documentary drama for not being a serious documentary drama is a pretty bad look, critiquing a movie for the reactions it received from other critics is an even worse look.

very fitting to the general trend of talking about WOW where people continuously have trouble separating a movie from the real life events its based on and evaluating shit accordingly.

both movies have a lot of good shit going for them in their own ways and both are flawed in very different ways, comparing them is kinda specious to begin with.