The Wolf of Wall Street Movie Review by Ari Dassa

 

By Ari Dassa

Maybe it’s New York that woke Scorsese up.

The Wolf of Wall Street brings him back to his beloved city, the first time he’s set a film there since Gangs of New York in ’02. It’s his best work since then, and great to see him firing on all cylinders as a director.

The Wolf of Wall Street has the sense of urgency that’s been missing in his recent films. It’s darkly comic, sick, vile, excessive and dares you to like the people it presents. The audience is encouraged to laugh at the crazy antics on display even though what they’re doing isn’t actually funny. Everyone is intensely dislikable and Scorsese doesn’t shy away from it. It’s his nerviest film in a long time, and a striking reminder that Scorsese made his name with provocative, edgy filmmaking that pushed limits and pushed buttons. Martin Scorsese can fascinate and demand your attention while showing you something repellent or ludicrous.

As with some of his gangster films, The Wolf of Wall Street is filled with information and loaded with storytelling – sometimes stories within stories, or situations that seem to end one way only to be corrected a few moments later to biting comedic effect.

Leonardo DiCaprio hasn’t been this off-the-wall since the 3rd act of The Beach, taking every sequence here to its coked-out extreme. It’s not really a nuanced performance (everything is out of control), but it’s something to see and he jumps into each scene fearlessly. Airplane orgies, comical quaalude overdoses, fevered offices speeches, the Candle In The Ass scene…..Leo’s on fire in this film.

Scorsese has certainly done more complex character pieces in the past, but The Wolf of Wall Street is still a vicious, brilliant return to form.

 THE WOLF OF WALL STREET stars Leonardo DiCaprio , Jonah Hill , Margot Robbie , Matthew McConaughey , Jon Favreau , Kyle Chandler , Rob Reiner , Jean Dujardin , Pj Byrne , Kenneth Choi. The film is directed by Martin Scorsese.

Ari Dassa is an independent filmmaker who has written and directed several short films and a documentary. He was the founder of a film review website called ‘The Aspect Ratio‘, active between 2006 – 2011.

Interstellar – Official Movie Trailer 2014

 

The trailer for arguably one of the most anticipated films of 2014 has just been released.

Interstellar is the latest film from writer and director Christopher Nolan of The Dark Knight movies fame. The film is reportedly a star-studded science fiction action /drama focusing on the use of a wormhole for space travel.

The trailer doesn’t reveal much in terms of story. It just gives us a flavor of the tone of the film. Obviously, this is just the beginning of the marketing campaign for the film considering that the movie is scheduled for release almost a year from now. But we shouldn’t expect to find out much more considering the secrecy which usually accompanies his projects.

What we can expect is something probably pretty great.

Interstellar stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Wes Bentley, Bill Irwin, Mackenzie Foy, Topher Grace and David Gyasi. The film is directed by Christopher Nolan and is written by Jonathan and Christopher Nolan. Interstellar is scheduled for release November 7, 2014.

Official Synopsis:

Intersteller chronicles the adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

 

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Trailer Reaction

 

Is more better?

That’s a question that’s going to come up a lot for comic book movie fans in the immediate future. With the success of The Avengers movie studios seem intent on overloading their superhero films with more iconic characters. The upcoming X-Men Days of Future Past, and the high profile Batman vs. Superman features multiple heroes, not to mention The Avengers 2. Not wanting to miss out on the trend is the second installment of The Amazing Spider-Man. The first film was an under-rated character piece focusing on the formative years of Peter Parker. It appears, judging by this latest trailer, that the time for character building is now over for this franchise. This franchise seems to be now in full blown spectacle and villain overload mode with no less than 3 villains facing off against the title character. We have seen this kind of approach play out before with disastrous results. Notably with Batman & Robin and most recently with Iron Man 2. The Dark Knight Rises,however, featured several nemesis for Batman and it was able to pull off a some what bloated, but satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.

 

The argument for more villains is, obviously, it gives more spectacle and scope to the film. The argument against is that valuable character work gets lost in trying to cram so many elements into the story. I, for one, would prefer the action to be supported by a tight and strong plot and fleshed out characters.

 

Is it possible to present this many characters without cheating on giving the film a well rounded story?

 

We’ll have to wait and see if this all translates to a good movie. But there is some justification for some concern.

 

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 stars Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Jamie Foxx, Dane DeHaan, Paul Giamatti, Chris Cooper and Sally Field. The film is directed by Marc Webb. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is scheduled for release May 2, 2014.

  

Official Synopsis:

We’ve always known that Spider-Man’s most important battle has been within himself: the struggle between the ordinary obligations of Peter Parker and the extraordinary responsibilities of Spider-Man. But in The Amazing Spider-Man 2™, Peter Parker finds that a greater conflict lies ahead.

It’s great to be Spider-Man (Andrew Garfield). For Peter Parker, there’s no feeling quite like swinging between skyscrapers, embracing being the hero, and spending time with Gwen (Emma Stone). But being Spider-Man comes at a price: only Spider-Man can protect his fellow New Yorkers from the formidable villains that threaten the city. With the emergence of Electro (Jamie Foxx), Peter must confront a foe far more powerful than he. And as his old friend, Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan), returns, Peter comes to realize that all of his enemies have one thing in common: OsCorp.