The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

4.9/5

Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street is a riveting, sensational film by a master storyteller. The movie follows a young trader named Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio) who quickly rises to the top by starting his own firm and using manipulative sales tactics to sell high-risk stocks with large profit margins. Along the way, he engages in reckless behavior (mostly drugs) and revels in excess (million dollar parties on his million dollar yacht) while being chased down by the SEC and FBI (Chandler).

Scorsese uses frenetic filmmaking to show us his vices in all their glorious detail, combining fast editing with long shots to tell exactly the story he wants to tell. And he fully embraces the idea of storytelling, reminding you who is narrating and what their motives are: whether through a Porsche changing from red to white mid-shot, "thought bubbles" between Belfort and his Swiss banker (Dujardin), or re-editing his stories in retrospect. Scorsese is so convincing, so compelling, that it's hard to think trading is not normally like this.

Here Scorsese is dealing in his own trade. Both Scorsese as a filmmaker and DiCaprio as Belfort sell their audience, bit by bit, on why their product is not only good, but necessary. They are able to create demand out of thin air. And that is why Scorsese is the best at what he does. Quite honestly, Scorsese can make a movie about anything and make it enthralling, engaging, and explosive. Here he does it again.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993846/

The Great Gatsby (2013)

3/5

Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby somehow manages to be both a tepid and titillating reinterpretation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic. In the most banal ways it seems to copy the book verbatim, with Tobey Maguire basically reading Fitzgerald's elegant prose in an unnecessary and belabored voice-over. At 2.5 hours runtime, the film's editing is incredibly mis-managed thanks to an overlong first half filled with pedestrian introductions and explanations reminiscent of lazy storytelling.

And yet something about the anachronistic music and Leonardo DiCaprio's enigmatic charisma manages to pull you in and excite you. It becomes filled with verve and vivacity. The acting by DiCaprio and Mulligan is particularly compelling. Their characters, and the magnetic attraction between the two, are the heart and soul of the film. But as good as they are, the rest of the cast fails to impress. And while Baz Luhrmann can do incredible things with music, he seems unable to direct the rest of the movie with equivalent panache.

Films made out of books must be adapted, not simply migrated to the silver screen. Luhrmann should have tried harder to pin down the spirit of the book--that je ne sais quoi that made generations consume it so voraciously--and communicate that same elusive vitality to the movie. Instead he has taken some of the words to the cinema, but has left the heart on the page.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343092/

Django Unchained (2012)

4/5

Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained is an unforgettable film. The plot, which follows the recently-freed slave Django (Foxx) and his bounty hunter partner Dr. Schultz (Waltz), propels itself forward at an almost unstoppable pace. It contains so much forward momentum from simplistic plot devices that, when a sharp turn near the end is revealed, it forces you to stop and catch your breath. The whole heartbeat of the movie skips. And you sit there re-evaluating what exactly it is that you just watched.

I initially left the movie filled with disgust and revulsion. I found it terrifying in every sense of the word: to witness the way that people act, how they treat other human beings, when they feel as if there are no consequences for their actions. Tarantino lays bare the darkest qualities of mankind, and does so in such an entertaining way that we become partners in the filth. How devious of him.

But the more I thought about it, the more compelling I found it. That primary emotional response of horror is intentional; DiCaprio performs a difficult role seemingly effortlessly. He is more charmingly evil than Waltz was in Tarantino's previous Inglourious Basterds, which I never would have thought possible before this movie. He is simply spellbinding.

But what is the point of the movie? Perhaps Tarantino is using his lens to reflect on modern society. Or perhaps it's just an exploitation film about a bygone era. Does there have to be a point? People said the same thing about Pulp Fiction. Is it superficial style or is there something hidden deeper within? I still don't know the answer, to both films. But I believe that, with any movie, you get out what you put in. And the more I think about Django Unchained, the more I am discovering, both about the film and about myself.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1853728/

Titanic (1997)

4.9/5

James Cameron's Titanic is an engrossing film, epic in scope yet focused on the individual players. It is a romance, certainly, but a classic one that will appeal even to non-romantics because it is a good story first and foremost. While there is nothing particularly original about the plot, it is a universal and timeless tale, well-told: doomed love attempting to escape the shackles of modern society; man's hubris resulting in their inevitable demise. Where it succeeds is in allowing the plot to go where the characters find themselves, instead of forcing the characters down the writer's pre-ordained path.

The technical achievements in the film are extraordinary for the time, and mesmerizing still. The cinematography and special effects are awe-inspiring, and the editing keeps the 3 hour movie surprisingly brisk and fast-paced. The acting, however, is where the movie really shines. Not only impressive for their ages, but impressive in their own right, DiCaprio and Winslet give heart-wrenching and breathtaking performances. I somehow forgot that they can make your heart skip with anticipation, with dread, with hope. You really care for the leads, and the stakes are raised that much higher when the big ship starts its slow descent.

The movie isn't perfect. It has a somewhat silly narrator structure wrapped around the perfectly self-sufficient story, and Bill Paxton's acting therein just left me cold. The script is also full of sailing cliches and movie tropes, from the captain sinking with the ship to the overly noble orchestra playing waltzes while the Titanic literally sinks inch by inch. Even if that stuff actually happened, that shouldn't have been the focus of the movie. Regardless, I finally appreciate why this movie holds such power to nearly everybody who watches it. It is a phenomenal achievement all around.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120338/

J. Edgar (2011)

4/5

Clint Eastwood's biopic of J. Edgar Hoover is a compelling portrait of a unique character in American history. The plot follows the controversial rise of J. Edgar Hoover (DiCaprio) to the director of the FBI--his anti-Communist crusades, criminal forensics, and government blackmail--and then analyzes how those same ideas eventually contributed to his public downfall. It tackles his personal relationships and his political ambition in equal parts, forming a tapestry of contradictions and dichotomies inherent in everybody but rarely projected onto the big screen with such clarity and precision. It chronicles his complex love for his mother (Dench), his secretary (Watts), and his number two man (Hammer) with tenderness and honesty instead of the gaudy spectacle and homophobic fantasies that seem to have incessantly plagued his reputation.

DiCaprio's understated performance is remarkable, providing depth and subtlety alongside rage and hidden feelings. He is able to generate empathy for a hard, rigid, oftentimes unlikeable man. His portrayal serves as the foundation for this phenomenal film. While the supporting cast throws in stellar performances, they quickly fall by the wayside in the grand scheme of things. Without DiCaprio in the lead, J. Edgar would still be a good movie, but it would be a forgettable movie as well.

The movie has its fair share of imperfections. Eastwood did not do enough to lift the screenplay out of its decidedly literary beginnings and translate it to the medium of film. There are often "profound" ramblings by Hoover--unrelated to the images on screen--that were arbitrarily lodged in anytime there wasn't dialogue. The timeline would flip between eras too eagerly, making it difficult to get a sure footing on the time and place of certain events. The cinematography was post-processed too much, giving it an inconsistently old-timey look that felt disingenuous. Minor side characters, like Robert Kennedy and Richard Nixon, were cast to mimic the famous political figures instead of to act as them. They focused on the accent instead of the words and the motivations behind the words. Despite these minor niggles, this is a terrific film and should not be missed.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1616195/

Inception (2010)

5/5

Christopher Nolan's Inception is a near-perfect film. It follows a thief named Cobb (DiCaprio) and his team of extractors (Gordon-Levitt, Hardy, Rao, Page) as they invade people's dreams and steal their secrets. They are hired to carry out a new kind of job called inception: implant an idea in someone else's head through their dreams. In order to do this and convince the dreamer that it is their own idea, they must go three levels deep--a dream within a dream within a dream. With each level removed from reality, time slows down exponentially, such that entire lives can be lived within mere seconds. Imagine the life you're living now; imagine dying 80 years after being born and then waking up to find yourself still young. And that is the idea from which this entire movie stems, from which it will no doubt be compared to the likes of The Matrix. But what Inception has over The Matrix is that we all dream, and we all know what it's like to wake up from a dream. We can imagine that what we're living in now is just a dream, and maybe--just maybe--we can wake up and get a second chance at life.

The cinematography in this film is crisp and direct. Except for the impressive and awe-inspiring gravity-defying action scenes in the hotel, it's merely adequate. It's not particularly cumbersome nor is it particularly artistic, but it gets the job done. The acting feels much the same. It is written well enough to make the characters distinct and separate, but they never feel like more than just archetypes. Even DiCaprio's character, by far the most complex and mature, feels like a rehashing of the tormented soul he played in Shutter Island. And Marion Cotillard, whose acting I fell in love with in Nine, plays a representation of an idea instead of a real human being. But these are the weakest aspects of the movie.

Inception's strengths are its storytelling, directing, and editing. The story, as I've described above, is what will win this movie its fans and its cult following. The plot, compelling as it is, exists solely to propel the idea that the world we think is real may just be a dream. And as Cobb warns us in the film, an idea is the most dangerous, insidious, persistent threat to our health and wellbeing that we can imagine. The story is combined with precise editing to create an airtight film that never lets you catch your breath or blink your eyes. It is nonstop intellectual and visceral action from beginning to end, with stunning efficiency and economy. And Nolan's directing puts this movie together into an unforgettable whole, with nary a missing piece or unseen error. This is a movie that was not thrown together in a day; it took years of planning and execution and is all the better for it. No, it's not a perfect movie and it may not be for everybody, but it's one of the most riveting, revolutionary movies I've seen come out of Hollywood in a long, long time. I suggest you watch it as soon as possible, before all the water cooler chatter about it ruins the film for you.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1375666/

Shutter Island (2010)

5/5

Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island is everything I didn't know I wanted. It is beautiful, uplifting, disturbing, sad, and compelling. It may not be what you expect the movie to be, but it is everything that a movie should be. The plot follows US Marshalls Teddy Daniels (DiCaprio) and Chuck Aule (Ruffalo) on Shutter Island, home to a prison for the criminally insane. A patient has gone missing, having apparently evaporated through the walls of her cell, and they are tasked with finding her. They are welcomed by unhelpful security guards and menacing psychiatrists (Kingsley, von Sydow). They dig deeper and deeper into the mysteries of the island--the fortified Ward C for the most dangerous patients, the solitary lighthouse surrounded by an electric fence--but the truth just barely eludes them at every turn.

The movie is not typical in any sense of the word. It bears some resemblance to noir in thematics and cinematics, but it uses blinding whites instead of pitch blacks. It shows us his traumatic past in fragmented visuals instead of linear storytelling. Its labyrinthine mysteries take on new dimensions in the physical, mental, and spiritual realms. The visuals are reminiscent of Kubrick's The Shining, but the traditional Hollywood horror aspect is muted to allow the unnerving psychological dysfunction to haunt us. It tugs us between pity and awe, hatred and sympathy, for the ill patients and their past acts. It asks us how we would treat them. And then it flips everything on its head and asks us all those same questions again.

This is a movie where the acting complicates the written characters in the best possible way. This is not a simple movie, and none of the personas within it are simple either. They are alive and breathing. And they hide secrets from the camera that we are never meant to know. The editing is equally complex: it takes flashbacks to a new level and it does so with simplicity and expert craft instead of gimmicks and CGI. This film shows a director, an actor, and an editor all at the top of their form. And I hope they just keep getting better and better.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1130884/

Revolutionary Road (2008)

5/5

Revolutionary Road is an expansive blue ocean. It appears beautiful from afar, but roiling underneath it is sorrow and anger erupting in ferocious waves. It touches all of us, pooling at the feet of some, submerging others. I am in the latter camp; I am a victim to this devastating film. I get jitters remembering everything that happened. My pulse quickens and my knees weaken. And I can't get that nightmare out of my head.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple that recently moved into a suburban house on Revolutionary Road in the 1950's. Their happiness is a facade for the hopeless emptiness they're experiencing. Frank works at a job he can't stand and comes home to a wife who can't stand being home. They hate each other. They remain together for the sake of their children, but realize it's worse for everyone to stay in that situation. Separation is not an option. What can they do to escape their self-imposed, once-desirable imprisonment?

The acting is impeccable, heart-felt, and full. It makes the pitch-perfect writing all the more unbearable. The music infiltrates your subconscious. The cinematography stays on the sideline, subtly affecting your perceptions and focus. The editing is tight; it plays with time fluidly but intuitively. And for all the movie's effectiveness, for all of Sam Mendes's brilliance, it hurts. This is not an enjoyable film. This is not entertainment. This is a condemnation of all we hold dear in America. This is a searing indictment of our success, our greed, and even our appearance. By the end, we simply want to stop listening, to ignore it and hope it disappears. What a sorry, tired answer that is. But it is our only chance.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0959337/

Blood Diamond (2006)

3/5

Blood Diamond starts out strong and ends strong, but the middle wobbled. Its focus was action, while the rest was drama. The story as a whole and the acting by all three main characters was quite good. As a result, several scenes stood out as very powerful ones. The action in the movie was the archetype of relentless tension. However, the directing, writing, editing, and music were all adequate, but nothing special.

I thought it tried too hard to be too many things, which made each thing seem less important than if the movie had just been about that. It talks about conflict diamonds, child soldiers, the general situation in Africa, reporting and smuggling as professions, and family--but none quite satisfactorily. The love story between DiCaprio and Connelly was so forced and unnecessary. The final 5-10 minutes of the movie felt like poor filmmaking to me, telling us nothing we didn't already know and weakening the impact and power of the piece.

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0450259/

The Departed (2006)

5/5

I just came back from seeing The Departed with Jed, Sameer, and Amar. This movie is phenomenal. It is a return to the genre the great master reinvented. I had ridiculously high expectations for this movie, and they were surpassed. It has the flash and fun of GoodFellas and Casino mixed in with the intensity and subtlety of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. This is the zenith of entertainment in art. This is why you watch movies.

First off, the characters are the most unique, off-the-wall screen presences I can remember. The acting is so absolutely amazing that they are actually able to pull this off. The colors, style, and subtlety pervaded every shot and scene that to list off each memorable part of the movie would be to describe every second of it. The script is consistently funny, the violence sudden and shocking, and the subtext omnipresent. Watch it if you want to enjoy a good time, or if you want to analyze it as cinematic art. Just watch it.

The introductory scenes were so bizarre; it looked like an abundance of b footage spliced together randomly. I feel like Scorsese didn't really have a vision for how he wanted the beginning to look. I might be wrong though. And after the first ten minutes, I was so absorbed in the movie that I couldn't generate any more fictitious reasons like the one above to not love the movie. In fact, why am I writing this review and not seeing it again?

IMDb link: http://imdb.com/title/tt0407887/