The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese)

a.k.a. "The Douche of Debauchery Street"

From "The Great Ziegfeld" and "Citizen Kane" up to "Easy Rider" and "The People vs. Larry Flynt"; American cinema is definitely no stranger in tackling larger-than-life individuals taking on larger-than-life dreams and then subsequently disintegrating at the seams. It's a theme so common among American films that "The Wolf of Wall Street", the newest film by the great Martin Scorsese and was based on the novel of the same name by Jordan Belfort, seems awfully fresh and new yet so strangely familiar. After the great but very un-Scorsese-like "Hugo" (a film that felt like it was ghost-directed by Robert Zemeckis), fans will surely be delighted because, in many ways, this film once again showcases the Martin Scorsese we always knew, delirious and all, that has mysteriously went AWOL after 2006's "The Departed". 

Take note, though: "The Wolf of Wall Street" is not a colorful gangster film or even a cold period piece ala "Shutter Island". If Scorsese classics like "Goodfellas" and "Casino" were fly-on-the-wall looks at the hierarchical and systematic (not to mention bloody) operation of the Mafia, "The Wolf of Wall Street" is a chaotic depiction of the alternate lives stockbrokers lead once the Benjamins start to pile up more than they can handle. It is as dark in its comedy as it is disturbing in its debauchery, and though the film can be viewed mostly as a study of immorality and the evils of money, the film also has the trademark 'cautionary' feel that radiates from almost all of Scorsese's gangster features. Remember Harvey Keitel's quote from "Mean Streets"? "You don't make up for your sins in the church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home." This film forcefully begs to differ, for it suggests that you make up for them in luxury yachts and orgy rooms instead, while you snort the living hell out of everything that can be snorted.

Everything in the film, from the opening shot up until its sobering finale, screams 'Martin Scorsese' over and over again. But more specifically, it echoes "Casino" all too vividly, which makes the film nostalgic yet imbued with a 'been there, seen that' vibe, from the tracking shots to the strangely accommodating narration. Though on the up side, Scorsese himself should be more than commended for being able to handle a hard-hitting film with such smutty, hoop-de-doo imagery that perhaps only the combined forces of Sidney Lumet and Robert Altman in their heydays may dare to take on. And judging from its sprawling 3-hour running time, it is not too hard to infer that Martin Scorsese is, and I'm saying this with a devilish grin on my face, very much in love with the subject matter, which definitely validates some people's claims that the film glorifies excess. 

Well, perhaps it does, but it depends on who will see it. Frat boys, for instance, may go gaga about the more explicit scenes (add up their main man Jonah Hill's involvement) the same way how some '90s hip-hop artists have memorized by heart the lines from "Scarface" as if they are verses straight from the good book. The film is "Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas" all over again but without Hunter S. Thompson's aimless ramblings, and with a kind of resolution that will surely make you ponder if Gordon Gekko's "Greed is Good" speech in Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" has any truth behind it. The film is very familiar on what it really wants to be (a morality tale about money), but also occasionally sidesteps with one shock-inducing sequence after another, and I'm not even complaining. Though it can be said that the film may have one sex and drug-related scene too many, its explicitness never crossed the boundaries of necessity. Visually, the film surely has gone way overboard at times to the point of being exploitative, but, as redundant as this may sound, the film's pointlessness is the point, and Scorsese could not have pulled it off more confidently. 

The cast, which has made the hedonistic script effortlessly feel more comedic and its epic running time shorter than it actually is, is flat-out brilliant if a bit scenery-chewing at times. In addition to that, Leonardo DiCaprio also unleashes what may perhaps be his finest performance in years as Jordan Belfort, thanks in part to his great chemistry with Jonah Hill, and also to his peculiar energy. Matthew McConaughey also shines in a brief role as DiCaprio's mentor of sorts. I hope I'm not the only one to have noticed this, but damn he looks like an anorexic Patrick Bateman in this film.

"The Wolf of Wall Street", though stylish, flashy, and a tad too promiscuous for a mainstream film, is still a powerful feature that proves once more the fact that Scorsese is still far from losing his mojo. More than anything else, the film is obviously a stylistic replication of Scorsese's own film "Casino", but it nonetheless reverberates with a kind of sexual and moral audacity seen and felt more in brave art house features than in typical Oscar front-runners. After all is said and done, "The Wolf of Wall Street" is far from being one of Scorsese's very best, but it definitely sits atop the slew of films he has churned out in the last 10 years or so. This is definitely not the film you would want to watch if you're an idealistic businessman or an aspiring millionaire that wishes no one harm. Go watch Macaulay Culkin's "Richie Rich" instead.

FINAL RATING 

Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh)

"3 days of peace and music". This has been the phrase that has been most associated with the monumental music event that is "Woodstock". But this documentary film itself, aside from being able to highlight just that in an epic (it runs for a staggering 3 hours and 50 minutes) and almost hypnotic kind of way, is a definitive benchmark in documentary filmmaking.

Today, it can be particularly debated that what happened in "Woodstock" is but a niche manifestation of an obscure state of mind not representative of what America really was at the time. There's also some who may argue that the far out, violence-free miracle that has occurred at that vast dairy farm at Bethel, New York is merely a temporary illusion of transcendental happiness completely demystified by what happened at Altamont Speedway (see "Gimme Shelter") when the Rolling Stones held a free concert there less than four months later; a tragically sobering event (one homicide and 3 other deaths) that is commonly regarded as the "Anti-Woodstock".

But still, after more than 40 years since the figurative birth of this 'hippie' counterculture generation at this legendary music festival, "Woodstock" the documentary is truly potent and also often times genuinely powerful and moving in its truly flawless documentation of both a fragment of social history and a particular highlight not just of pot-induced rock and roll but the unparalleled sway of music in general.

Director Michael Wadleigh, supported in editing and directing by the likes of Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese (both were then-unknown), who painstakingly covered the whole festival with an unbounded passion and goal to cinematically present and capture "Woodstock" not simply as one of those rock concert documentaries that usually come and go but as a simulated experience of what it could have been to walk through mud and smoke some weed at the time, has pulled off the nearly impossible by way of how he has put this massive Aquarian assemblage into a cohesive cinematic whole without sacrificing the minute details of almost everything that has happened there. So, although "Woodstock" the documentary is a solidly realistic time capsule of a film that has finely preserved the era itself, it has also transformed, after all these years, into a timeless film that is as much a thing of envy for free willing, flower-minded folks today as much as it is a perfectly documented curiosity piece for present social scientists.

But aside from being limited into what it merely is (a documentary film), what this documentary can be specifically proud of aside from the very content itself is its utter display of great cinematography and skillful editing. Jumping back and forth between simple interview footages and complex multi-image coverage of every musical performances ranging from that of Richie Havens' to that of Janis Joplin's and Jimi Hendrix's (all spine-chillingly great performances, mind you) that seemingly converge in a trance-inducing visual feast, the film, as it progresses, slowly changes form from being your usual documentary feature into a full-fledged experience; from your usual cinematic collage into a kaleidoscopic wonderland.

As equally fascinating as the musical performances themselves are the slices of existence during the 3-day event that were finely captured by Wadleigh and company's ever-observant lenses with poignant subtlety, which is what makes it a documentary film that is on the league of its own. Just like the great "Gimme Shelter", "Woodstock" is also devoid of any post-production voice-overs or narrations that may simply render the whole film as thematically contrived and emotionally artificial. Instead, the film lets the whole event and all the people speak for themselves in a quasi-surrealistic presentation of images and music that has been masterfully put together to create a potent statement on its own with little to no spoken words.

Commonly branded as the definitive rock concert documentary, I think it's much more than that. For many people including myself, "Woodstock" is not just a simple music festival. Boundless in its audacity and rich in love, it is a cultural revolution that has thankfully found its place in the annals of socio-cultural history, much the same way as how this film has deservedly found where it truly belongs: in the shortlist of the most important documentary films ever made.

FINAL RATING

Hugo (Martin Scorsese)

Hugo Cabret.

Well, I can really say that 2011 has really been a great year for cinematic love poems. We have "The Artist", which pays tribute to the seminal greatness of silent films, and then we also have Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris", a film that has not only been an endearing piece about the eponymous city itself but also one that embraces the people behind great works of art and timeless literature. And finally, there's Martin Scorsese's "Hugo".

A film that centers on the beautiful power of imagination and the innocent wonder of early cinema, it is, overall, a piece of cinematic work that has truly breath fresh air into the boundless limits of storytelling and has also been a larger-than-life portrait/tribute to the great Georges Melies: a revolutionary director and the first true cinematic artist to whom we owe our wondrous film-watching lives and whose pioneering works have contributed to the advancement of cinema as a strong artistic medium.

Martin Scorsese, a man who I have been and will always consider as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time and a man who we all loved by way of his films that deal with violence, loneliness, criminal perversions and even thematic controversies (with his truly masterful "The Last Temptation of Christ"), directed "Hugo" with surprising humility and simplicity without any traces of recklessly self-imposed panache. Sure, there have been countless elements in the film which may come across as truly audacious (the most glaring example being the automaton), but come on, "Hugo", a film adaptation of "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" written by Brian Selznick, is in no way up for something grounded in reality here.

Combining magical realism with the ironically down-to-earth story of Mr. Melies himself, "Hugo" is a balanced film which, in a very good way, wallows on 'adventure' that isn't literal in the Jules Verne sense of the word but more about the journey of the mind and the heart towards a hidden treasure chest not filled with tangible gold and pearls but one that is located somewhere within the very passionate soul of a truly great man.

Armed with visual sensibilities that closely mirror Tim Burton's recent child-friendly films, Martin Scorsese, furthered by that comparison may, on an initial glance, look out of place and sync with what he's working on, which is an adventure film that appeals to both the adults and the younger ones alike; a truly far-fetched idea considering that he really hasn't worked with the latter demographic before.

But looking at how "Hugo" actually turned out as a whole, right there and then surfaces the fact that he is indeed an unbelievably flexible filmmaker whose greatness cannot just be contained within the crime genre. As I watch the film, the joy of making it is evidently abundant in "Hugo's" very atmosphere which when coupled with the transcendental-sounding musical score created by Howard Shore, is a feast both for the eyes, the ears and, as corny as this may sound, the heart.

The actors do not disappoint either, and although Asa Butterfield may have done a bit better as the titular character, he has been quite a joy to watch in his convincing chemistry with Chloe Grace Moretz in a very sweet and 'harmless' (Remember "Kick-Ass"?) performance. Along with the enjoyably bit parts played by the legendary Christopher Lee and Jude Law and the comic part played by Sacha Baron Cohen as the train station inspector, it was Ben Kingsley's performance (which I believe should have at least been nominated for an Academy Award) as Georges Melies that has served as the figurative coal that has constantly kept the film's narrative locomotion on the right track.

Martin Scorsese, aside from being repeatedly heralded as one of the best filmmakers ever, is also one of the most passionate and vocal lovers of cinema out there. And here in "Hugo", he has expressively created a near-perfect cinematic love letter to the very medium itself that was initially seen as nothing but a passing fad (a statement ironically given by the Lumiere Brothers themselves), but now generally regarded as one of the most powerful means of expression, if not the most. And it all started with a trip to an all-smiling moon courtesy of a man motivated by endless wonder and fueled by nothing but his own dreams.

FINAL RATING

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese)

The immortal mirror scene.

My film review/analysis of what may be the best film ever made:

With its main target being to portray the extremely acute post-Vietnam War angst and disillusionment, director Martin Scorsese focused his lenses and vision to a lone cab driver cruising through the filthy streets of New York that almost alludes to a contemporary 'hell', and subtly articulates about the ambiguous nature of insanity. And the result is, well, not just his masterpiece, but one of the finest films American cinema has to offer. It stars Robert De Niro in a heavily complex (and one of the screen's greatest) performance as Travis Bickle, exhibiting both his mastery of subtle acting and his ever-escalating intensity.

But his Travis Bickle is never just a character. He is a representation. A social mirror of how depression and loneliness exist in a subjugated psychological fragment of society where existence is just for the sake of it, and the meaning of the word 'interaction' a fading afterthought. There are those who do not want to meet any new people save for some of his/her few acquaintances. There are those who do not know people much but is striving to meet some. And then there is Travis.

One of the film's timeless aspects is its disturbing, angry, but ultimately sad narration by Bickle himself. Here's a man who transforms his solitude into an anger-laden vigilantism against the so-called 'filth' of the streets. Here's a man who has nothing but his own breathing body and his own deteriorating psychological health. But at least, here is a man who stood up. But to look at Travis Bickle as a flawed hero is far from what "Taxi Driver" is all about. To look at him as a man with a goal and and a concrete initiative is far from the film's nightmarish view of what Travis Bickle is and what he's in for.

If we'll go into a direct assumption that him saving a young prostitute is a heroic deed, then why haven't they just made "Taxi Driver" into a dramatically redemptive little action movie? The answer is this: the whole 'saving the prostitute' mission he had is, like his existence, just for the sake of it. Looking at Travis's motivational pattern, all of his actions root out from him being rejected by the beautiful campaign worker Betsy (played by Cybill Shepherd).

With him having nowhere to go from there, he went on for a plan to assassinate presidential candidate Charles Palantine, not just to horribly capture the imagination of countless people regarding the fact of how terribly 'far-out' a man can be to do such a thing (John Hinckley Jr. and Mark David Chapman already captured ours in real life) and also to take hold of Betsy's attention. This is where ambiguity regarding his actions really starts to go haywire.

Some would say that his plan to kill Palantine is a condemning act to blame the said candidate for not being able to clean up the city's filth. But take note of their scene inside Travis' cab earlier in the film. Their conversation, although a bit distant in nature, is an honest exchange between two men craving for change. See how Travis' eyes went from being patronizingly phony into deeply-set ones as he stated how he wants someone to just flush all the city's scum down the toilet.

In all fairness, Travis do want some change, but relating this sentiment with his act to kill Palantine for not being able to do so (to do something with the city, that is) is foolish. Just like a common psychologically disturbed fellow resulting from extreme social isolation, Travis dreams of 'grandeur'. He wants to be 'that' man that has purposely killed the presidential candidate, and the people will remember him for it. The same applies to his final ditch effort to save the young prostitute Iris (Jodie Foster in a performance that earned her an early Oscar nomination) from his manipulative pimp (played by the great Harvey Keitel).

Because he failed in his previous plan, and also maybe because he has thought that killing a high-profile political figure may put him into the psychotic row of the history pages, Travis decided to enter the territories of folk heroism and masqueraded himself as an obscure social crusader, albeit an extreme one. Take note of the film's tagline: "On every street in every city, there's a nobody who dreams of being a somebody." Travis Bickle may have achieved cult status as an ideal cinematic anti-hero, but I view him more as nothing but a confused and heavily disillusioned fellow who wants to prove something within himself and to everyone, even if it takes a casualty or two to do it. But although I do not see him as a hero, I see him as a truly sympathetic figure, and a truly saddening one at that.

Scorsese (along with Paul Schrader's masterful screenplay), with his ethereal but deeply unsettling depiction of 70's New York City, enhanced by Bernard Hermann's misleadingly seductive yet menacing musical score, symbolically pushes Travis Bickle into a lonesome spotlight in the middle of a show, only to subsequently find out that audiences are filing out of the venue even before he had the chance to step into the stage. "Taxi Driver" is the manifestation of how he may have hypothetically felt at that moment, and the result is a film of unequaled greatness. Please do watch this film, and let the brilliance of what 'true' cinema is all about pervade within your soul.

FINAL RATING

The Departed (Martin Scorsese)

Sullivan's travails.

Stripped off of all the cinematic gloss and melodrama of "Infernal Affairs", "The Departed" is much more raw and pulsating in its delivery compared to the said Hong Kong original, and also more entertaining in its step-by-step revelation and thrills. Headlined by an all-star cast, particularly by Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio (evidently showing how a Hollywood pretty boy before can convincingly pull off a hardened and at the same time conflicted character) and with the film itself fully enhanced with a much extensively realistic and sometimes spontaneously comic screenplay, it's a Best Picture Oscar well-deserved. And don't get me started about Martin Scorsese's best director win merely being an overdue honor for his legendary film career and not for his individual merit for this film. It sickens me, really.

"The Departed", above all, is the crowning jewel of his post-De Niro 'crime' film resume. Unlike "Infernal Affairs", which presents a deep articulation about choice, identity and destiny, "The Departed" ignored those flowery things and instead replaced them with sharp-edged machismo, rough visual texture and a hint of madness. This time, it's not much about the double lives of two moles pitted against each other and their subtle connection but more of an acute generalization of the violent nature of gangsterism itself.

And Jack Nicholson, as caricature-like as he can be, still displayed a thoroughly commanding and menacing presence as Frank Costello, whose knack for unpredictably pungent humor puts a slight comic antidote to refresh and balance the film's dark tone. An overly serious villain for a gravely-toned film is too much a chore to watch, so having someone like Mr. Nicholson to grace the screen with a conspicuously unique persona is, although I know how violently ragged "The Departed" can often times be, a thing akin to beauty.

But that does not mean that Nicholson owned and breathes fire and life unto the film. Damon and DiCaprio, the dual center of the film, didn't give in to Nicholson's larger-than-life screen occupancy. Matt Damon, with films such as "The Talented Mr. Ripley", "Good Will Hunting" and the more recent "The Informant!" as evidences to his stellar acting range, shows how he can be as increasingly heroic as Jason Bourne but can be equally despicable as a con man, scam artist, a nervous liar or as a man who runs a life of cyclic performance art. His Colin Sullivan, a mole planted by Nicholson's Costello in the police ranks, belongs fully to the last, but is a combination of all that were mentioned. That's how tricky and quite complex Damon's role really was.

Again, unlike "Infernal Affairs", who treated its Sullivan equivalent as a redemptive anti-hero, Scorsese (and screenwriter William Monahan) molded Colin Sullivan from pure lies, self-advantage and pure-bred 'pretty face' villainy and manipulation. Maybe it's just me, but I can't see one likable factor regarding Sullivan, except for the fact that him being constantly pushed around by more righteous bullies like Mark Wahlberg's Staff Sergeant Dignam (who would have thought that he's the same guy who played Dirk Diggler?) and, of course, Leonardo DiCaprio's Billy Costigan is surely a pitiful view. And after seeing the film for about four times, I believe that Damon's character is much harder to pull off than DiCaprio's, although both performed with equal energy and considerable dimension.

Some scenes were taken contextually verbatim from "Infernal Affairs", such as the wrongly-spelled word in the envelope and the pre-climactic final unraveling of the film's integral secret via the scene between Sullivan and Costigan inside the police headquarters. But what takes me in as to why "The Departed" is the better film overall, quality-wise, is the fact that everything seems to belong, and not a single thing felt forced.

Granted, the Hong Kong original is much more exquisite in its moody cinematography and perfect choice of seedy locations, but there's this pure spontaneity encapsulating "The Departed's" wholeness, enabling all its aspects, from its gallery of characters to the endlessly profane sputtering, to attain a specific level of believability.

Martin Scorsese, after creating opuses after opuses in his directorial heydays, seems to have been merely sitting tight and effortless while directing "The Departed". But that does not suggest any negative connotations. 'Sitting tight', meaning that he's been through so much cinematic gems (It's just not easy to choose just one 'best' film from his resume) that directing another masterpiece such as this one is, for him, not even a walk in the park, but like a leisurely sit in some prairie.

"Could you double-check the envelope?" Martin Scorsese uttered while finally taking hold of his first ever Oscar statuette. Don't worry, sir, that may just be a sole award, but with all the films that you've made that have waited and truly deserved that little golden man, the one that you've just received is much denser in its meaning.

And besides, you've transcended the AMPAS a long time ago, and a masterwork such as "The Departed" is just a mere reminder that you certainly still have 'it' and your burning artistry won't go out anytime soon, on this life or the next. It's (the film) also a clear-cut benchmark of how one must do a contemporary gangster neo-noir: with rough intensity, abundance of grit, and a penetrating moral undertone.

FINAL RATING

The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese)

two people consuming the fruits of forbidden love.

Film Review Archive (date seen: January 4, 2011)

Once again, Scorsese leads us through places almost bound with secrecy, wrapped in customs, littered with hidden scandals, and the people that inhabits them whose mastery of conversations, socialization, and even dining were too great in its artificiality that they almost looked like performance acts. No, it's not the Italian-flavored crimeland we're talking about here, but 19th century New York where high society dwells on everything material and excessive, where moral righteousness is not a code to follow but more of a trend to fashionably don.

At first, I had doubts if Scorsese's known visual compositions really belong to such a type of film set in an era of restraint and conservatism. But with his combination of attention to details and an inclined exploratory viewpoint of the social class' amoral gutters amidst its elegant vanity, he used a distinct style (at times, darkening everything on screen but a smooth-edged circle to contain the main subjects, or even letting a character face the camera and speak of a potentially saddening letter with great joy and eagerness) to really fit the film's grasp of irony. Those who accuse Daniel Day-Lewis as a scenery-chewing hack will be utterly disproved in his performance in this film, using the fine attitudes of an obligatory gentleman to depict the numbered movements of an 1870's society male while maintaining his attachment with controlled subtlety. With this type of acting approach, Day-Lewis has able to internalize and show on screen his character Newland Archer's episodic implosions about his clamor for freeing himself from the bondage of his class' norms about love.

Though "The Age of Innocence" had its moments of beautifying high society's excessive lifestyles, Martin Scorsese and Edith Wharton's novel (from which the film was adapted) have successfully portrayed an escapist love surrounded by eyes of the self-righteous ones, the impossibility of its fruition, and the beauty of its acceptance. Living the life of grandeur may be like lying in a bed of roses, but the occasional thorns sure do hurt.

FINAL RATING