Some people are of the opinion that the Oscars is just a pageantry of self -congratulatory narcissists back slapping one another. Whatever you think, it makes January and February a brilliant time to be at the movies. One of the contenders for best picture is The Wolf of Wall Street, in which Martin Scorsese directs the story of New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort played by Leonardo DiCaprio, who spends a lot of time on a boat which sinks. Sound familiar?
Scorsese accomplishes what he sets out to achieve, which is to boast the amount of F words in a movie (506). This is a movie that has gone down better with cinema-goers than with critics. There is a reason for that. The average cinema-goer likes a story of someone that can beat the numbers & stick it to the man. Critics like to engage with characters and have empathy for their plight. In this feature, there is no possible way to endear yourself to Jordan Belfort. He is a merciless, misogynist drug addict who lives an excessive and affluent lifestyle. But let's not focus on the positives.
Personally, I don't like stories of stock brokers reveling in life's winner's circle when we live in an economy that has had its guts ripped out by people like Belfort. I don't like hearing about stockbrokers giving DiCaprio and McConaughey standing ovations in cinemas during soliloquies about ripping money from the working guy to pay for cocaine binges. I would rather have a 20 second montage of every morally bankrupt banker saying sorry for gambling all our money on the red and it landing on black. That said, if you feel that no film is complete without a plane orgy scene, this is one for you.
A shoe-in for film of the year is 12 Years A Slave.
Chiwetel Ejiofor starts as Solomon Northup, the New York state citizen that got drunk and woke up imprisoned and forced to work on a plantation in New Orleans in the 1800s.
In contrast to The Wolf of Wall Street, you have endless compassion for the protagonist in this feature. You champion his every move and care about his transmigration from a free man to a tortured soul. Also, if you saw The Passion of the Christ, and thought that there was no way that you could top the scene of someone being shredded with a stick whip, think again. Seeing Micheal Fassbender punish his "property" is probably the most harrowing thing I've seen since he walked around his flat naked for the first ten minutes of Shame.
Guest post for The Rakish Gent by Mr Peter Brooker. Peter runs an independent fashion store in Cambridge and writes for numerous publications including Menswear Style and Fashion Fox. Find out more about him at Traffic Clothing and follow on Twitter.
Images and videos courtesy of Paramount Pictures and Fox/ Film 4.
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