Hmmm, on balance, I would

Have to say that The Wolf of Wall Street is not quite good.

There is a lot of really good stuff in it, but it is way too long (one-hundred and seventy-nine minutes), and it contains some insanely gratuitous nudity, and for stretches veers towards Mommie Dearest camp-lite.

It is, like American Hustle as well, what I call a Pop Film.  It is a collection of Set Pieces without a really solid coherent satisfying believable through-line.

Sometimes the scenes, the set pieces, can be so good that you do not really care, and you begin to appreciate the film more as a Revue Film.  Five Easy Pieces is like that for me.  And, oftentimes these Pop Films are righteously over the top and deliriously camp.  They tend to have lots of sex in them, too.  Or, at least a sexy sensibility.

"Leo, I got us some Lemmon ludes!"

Whatever.  The fact is that there are about ninety minutes that could be cut from this film.  If it had been perhaps even more helter skelter, and bewildering, and incomprehensible, but still contained all the great scenes that I loved (everything with Matthew McConaughey -- the film desperately cries out for more McConaughey -- and the sales meetings; the breaking the fourth wall stuff; the great scene on the boat with the FBI agent) then I dare say The Wolf of Wall Street might have become a personal cult fave.

Still, there is enough camp-lite and big time stars doing insanely dopey things that the film probably will become a decent sized home video cult classic for certain types of folks, and Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio devotees.

Just not me.

The Wife liked it more than I did.

























Ardent

After Hours

Opening scene of After Hours, the music is Bach's Air on a G string.

Surrender Dorothy!

I love when she asks him, "You've seen the movie, right?"

Is there anyone who has not seen The Wizard of Oz?

No Direction Home,

The Scorsese doc about Bob Dylan is frustrating to me.  I thought the interviews with Dylan himself were lucid and valuable but not enthralling or illuminating.  My favorite witness was Joan Baez, who upon much reflection now, wonders why she ever thought back then that Dylan should have been nicer to her.  Now, she knows what a difficult, moody, and complex person Dylan was (is.)  And that is one thing that many of witnesses keep repeating, that Dylan always only does whatever the fuck he wants to do.

Frankly, the whole Greenwich Village part of the film bored me.  And, after seeing all the abuse that even people like Pete Seeger (for crying out loud) hurled at Dylan after he went electric, it makes me hate folkies almost as much as jazz purists.  I can not stand reverence.  Truly nothing is sacred to me.  (Even the Beatles or Shakespeare or what have you.)  These kids screaming, "Judas," or "Traitor", or "Sell out" to Dylan infuriates me.  I do not know how he survived it.  Those kids obviously had waaaaay too much time on their hands, and some real screwed-up sense of proportion.

That is my favorite (by far) part of the film.  All the footage of Dylan and The Band slugging it out in Europe, playing those fantastic songs, and trying to slough off the stupid abuse.

(Side note:  There was a part of the film, illustrating what the Hit Parade looked like when Like A Rolling Stone broke.  No. 1 was Help!/The Beatles.  No. 2 was Like A Rolling Stone.  No. 3 was California Girls/The Beach Boys.  And No. 4 was It's the Same Old Song/The Four Tops.

Wow! Man, the boomers were so frickin' spoiled.  We will never see the likes again of the wealth and riches of the most popular music being so monstrously good.  Take that to the bank.)

(Side note two:  I had never thought Dylan particularly good looking or even a sexual object for females but in his benzedrine, pot-smoking Don't Look Back days, he was pretty damn hot.)

************

And then I saw a fantastic, touching, magical documentary that everyone should see.  That would be Theremin (which I had seen before but it had been a very long time.)

What a splendid, lovely photograph.  You see all the love & friendship.

The ending is just so wonderful and special.  And I am not going to spoil it for you.

The whole thing is worth it just to see Clara Rockmore play the theremin.  And the whole crushing, poignant story of her dear friend, inventor Lev Theremin is beautiful, too.

You can watch Theremin on Netflix.  Highly highly highly recommended.

Kisses,

AH