The Wolf of Wall Street

I like Leonardo DicCaprio movies. Yeah, that's right. I said it. I hope that Leonardo DiCaprio stopped being the cool thing to hate after 1997, but I know there are still some die hards who can never forgive the man for becoming a multimillion dollar bankable superstar by starring in Titanic. I admit, Titanic is popular movie to hate even today. I will even make jokes about it from time to time, too. 

But I will acknowledge that Titanic was a good and competently made movie for what it was. Great? Not really. Great visuals (including seeing Kate Winslet naked) and a sound cast made the film fairly strong, but the hokey love story and long running time really got on everyone's nerves. Admit it, you were probably glad when people started dying because it meant the end was in sight. 

Still, I sat through Gettsyburg which is four and a half hours long. Granted Gettysburg is a lot better than Titanic, but my point is that film length doesn't mean shit. It's story quality, folks. If the story is good then a movie could be five or six hours long and it won't mean fuck all to me. Honestly, people these days are just soft when it comes to the lengths of films. 

Anyway, let me change the subject (sort of) to a pet peeve of mine that actually concerns The Wolf on Wall Street before I get on with things. 

The Wolf on Wall Street isn't a long film. Stop saying that it is one. Including the credits it's one minute shy of three hours. Excluding the credits the movie is only about two hours and fifty minutes. That makes it a "medium long" film to me. 

Here's my metric:

• Two hours or less is a short movie.
• Between two and two and a half hours is about average. 
• Two and half hours to three hours is medium long length movie. 
• Three hours to four hours is a long ass movie. 
• Anything over four hours is a test of will. 

Now a movie may seem long because of lack of action or story development, but I don't like hearing complaints about that, either. Unless we're just talking about a terrible movies like Plan 9 from Outer Space or Gigli because those movies feel like they last for days. 

As long as the rest of the film delivers I can take movies being slow in parts.

Now that I've set the record straight on that let's talk about how awesome this movie is. 

This movie didn't feel slow to me at all and it also felt like a typical Martin Scorsese movie without being what I'd typically expect from Scorsese. It had the voiceover work that we all remember from Goodfellas and Casino, but this time the voiceover work often broke the fourth wall. Joe Pesci wasn't there to get whacked, either. I've never really thought of Martin Scorsese as a comedic filmmaker, but he really laid it down here and everyone else ran with it. 

This movie was funny. I'm talking South Park meets Goodfellas. I laughed harder watching this movie than any other movie I've seen in the past two years. Funniest part of the whole damn movie was when Leonardo DiCaprio was crawling on the floor in the "cerebral palsy" phase while on those rare quaaludes. God, I about died laughing. 

Dicaprio really is a fantastic actor, but I love his movies with Scorsese (although I haven't seen Shutter Island yet) the most. They're my favorite director-actor pairing next to Scorsese-De Niro (and I don't think anything will ever top that one). 

There's a lot of nudity and drug use and cussing in this movie. I'm pretty sure this movie holds the record for most F-bombs in a non-documentary film, too. 

However, that shouldn't be a big deal. One of the movie's opening scenes is one of Leonardo DiCaprio snorting cocaine out of a hooker's ass. There's also a midget-throwing contest and a scene later on in the movie where they actually break down the art of throwing midgets. If those opening moments offend your senses then stop watching the movie because it won't get any cleaner. Continuing on with the movie when you know you will hate it and bitching about it later on the internet gets on my nerves more than anything. 

I really liked Matthew McConaughey in this. To be fair, he had a blink and you'll miss it type of role, but I thought he had some of the funniest dialog. When he and Leonardo DiCaprio sat down in that expensive restaurant and he asked DiCaprio how much he jerked off I think I truly began to appreciate this movie for the fine art it is. Masterful, really. 

I thought it was pretty cool to see that guy from The Walking Dead, too. I can't think of his name for the life of me, but you'll know him when you see him. I thought the scene where he and Jonah Hill stood out on the middle of the street was pretty funny, too. 

I've heard folks talk about how unlikeable the characters were and how you couldn't really cheer any of them on, but I didn't see that as much of an issue, either. Like Jake LaMotta was anymore likeable? Or Ace Rothstein? Jesus Christ. Well, Jesus was pretty nice and likeable. So there's one. 

I think I've said about all I've wanted to say about this movie. One of these days I'd like to read the book by Jordan Belfort and actually do some research on the true events, but I'll save that for later. 

P.S. - Perhaps the best thing about this movie was that it came out in theaters on Christmas. That says it all, really.