"4 stars"
I don't care what anyone else says. This movie was the best of the year. Hands down. Sure, I walked in the theater having somewhat of high hopes. After all, it was made by one of the geniuses in film history. If you have been following my posts, I think you know how fond of Marty Scorsese I have become over the past year. I was pretty sure that I will get the worth of my ticket when I walked out of the theater. But let me tell you this. I gained a lot more. What an out-of-this-world-experience it was! Boy oh boy!
I think I can compare this to American Hustle for both being made based on true stories and both having similar story lines. But the difference between the two, for me the viewer, was that in AH's case, I couldn't wait to get out of the theater. I was constantly checking my watch and was bored and if it wasn't for the twist at the end, I would've been really pissed! Granted, it had great acting, 'cause David O. Russel knows how to get it out of the actors. Of course, no one can compete with Woody Allen in that regard but still...his Silver Linings Playbook was one of the best movies I got to watch last year. But this one was meh. And again, if it wasn't for Jennifer Lawrence and Christian Bale's acting, it wouldn't have been considered as one of the best of the year. I still don't know why Bradley Cooper got nominated. He was just "OK".
Back to the point. When I walked in the theater, having seen AH before WWS, and having the mindset of "if I got bored watching a two hour movie...imagine how it would be like for a 3-hour-long one". But I enjoyed every second of it. I devoured it with my soul. I didn't even realize how the time passed. It was one of Marty's best for sure. I recently heard that it became his highest grossing movie. And it was very well deserved. But what surprised me the most about this movie was Leo DiCaprio's performance. He has come a long way since his "pretty boy" time and he has become a great actor (thanks to Marty in great part). But this one...he out-ranked himself! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Although he had become a good actor, but he always had some kind of an "uptightness" in his acting! It was like he held something back. But in Wolf of Wall Street, you can see him having let go of everything. Nothing was held back (the scene where he drags himself to get to his car...astonishing). And for the first time I actually enjoyed his performance. He probably needed a Jonah Hill to bring out the unrestrained actor in him. (btw if you haven't watched their act together on SNL when Jonah was hosting, watch it right now! It was hilarious).
I was having a hard time deciding who should win this year for best acting, McConaughey or Leo...and I decided to go with Leo. They both fall almost in the same boat of having been associated as "pretty boys of Hollywood", but if I had to choose one for "one performance" it would be Leo's. Also, he's been nominated many times before and I guess it's his "turn" as Pacino put it once about his own win. Otherwise, if they were awarding achievement for a year, it would've been be McConaughey, for sure. I need to dedicate a whole other post to him and True Detective.
This year's Golden Globes was the best I've seen so far. Basically because everyone I wanted to, won! It used to be people who I rooted for, and people who I knew would win. But I'm so glad that this year, people I was rooting for, were the best ones as well! The only disappointment for me (I think you can guess it by now) was American Hustle winning best comedy movie of the year over Wolf of Wall Street.
I hope the Academy, in all their wisdom, won't make the same mistake as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.
I will leave my Oscars predictions (or hopes actually!) for next week, when we're closer to the ceremony.
So, the take home lesson, kids, here is to go watch Wolf of Wall Street. If you have watched it already watch it again. I have always had a short temper and my nerves are growing weaker by the hour, making me leave the vicinity of where outrageous conversations are taking place. Like for today, I was at a baby shower, and there was this girl telling my friend how she didn't like WWS and she suggested us go watch Safe Haven instead because it was extraordinary! I have respect for your decisions. If you're not into movies as deep as nerds like me and you only watch movies to have fun or shed a few tears over a romantic movie, that's your choice in life and that is absolutely fine. A whole part of industry is dedicated to you guys. But if you're not going to appreciate movies as an art form, please do us a favor and don't watch these movies so that we wouldn't have to listen to your unappreciative comments. GAH! I hope you haven't had to deal with these kinds of people. Or at least your tolerance rate is higher than mine.
By the way, do people over at the Golden Globes production have the worst cut for nominee pieces or what?! I am talking about these short videos they show when announcing the nominees, and God are they bad! Compare it to the SAG awards, when they introduce the nominees you can guess who is going to win based on that short segment. But in GG's case, these videos don't make sense at all. They don't even show what needs to be shown about the nominees for best picture so people can get an idea of what the movie is about. I find it ridiculous. For such a celebrated award show, they need to up their quality a bit.
In a completely different note, how on earth did Sandra Bullock got nominated for best acting for Gravity?! I don't know if you've read my post about that movie, but I didn't find her performance even remotely outstanding.
Speaking of Gravity, how funny was Tina Fey's joke about George Clooney and how Gravity shows he would rather float away in space and die than spend another second with a woman his own age. I was laughing my ass off.
I can go on and on from one paragraph to a whole other one like this for days and stretch out this post longer than it ever should've been. I promise this will be my last statement here. But I learned recently that this is actually a trait of day-dreamers. I'm an avid day-dreamer. My sister used to call me crazy because I would gaze into space and start laughing because of the conversation that was going on in my head. But I've heard that we, day-dreamers, are good at solving problems. Probably because of spending too much time in our heads going from one thing to another. Anywho, everything just points out my awesomeness! Hehe. How lucky are you for knowing me. Oh, stop it. No, you're awesome. No you...okay yeah it's just me.
