Posts tagged Dan Bittner
“The Wolf of Wall Street” an Exercise in Excessive Excess
Jan 13th
“Exercise in Excessive Excess”
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
The Wolf of Wall Street was directed by Martin Scorsese and stars Leonardo DiCaprio based on a 2007 memoir of the same name written by Jordan Belfort.
DiCaprio plays Belfort himself.
Right at the beginning of the movie Jordan says, “I always wanted to be rich,” and we see him at the start of his career as a licensed stockbroker for a big firm on Wall Street.
Matthew McConaughey plays his mentor at the firm, and he tells Jordan, “The name of the game is to move the money from your clients’ pockets into your pocket.”
Unfortunately, Jordan’s first day as a broker was October 19, 1987, the biggest plummet of the stock market since the 1929 crash, and Jordan was out of a job before he even got started.
Jordan believes that Wall Street swallowed him up, but he finds a job with a tiny firm that sells penny stocks and is surprised to learn that he receives a 50% commission on his sales whereas his previous job would have paid him only 1%.
So, Jordan is selling garbage to garbagemen, as he puts it, and he begins making money hand over fist, so much so that one day in a restaurant he attracts the attention of Donnie Azoff, played by Jonah Hill, and Donnie tells Jordan that if Jordan can prove how much money he is making, Donnie will quit his job right there over the phone and come work for Jordan.
Donnie does, they start their own company with some misfit salesmen, and Jordan teaches them how to sell penny stocks to rich people.
The firm becomes highly successful from practices that are not always entirely legal, Jordan meets and marries a beautiful woman named Naomi, and drugs, wild parties, prostitutes, and naked women become a large part of everyone’s lives in and away from the firm.
And, of course, they attract the attention of the FBI, which starts investigating Jordan, Donnie, and their brokerage firm.
So, the merry band of brokers go through the intricate and illegal process of moving their money into Swiss bank accounts, but of course everything doesn’t go according to plan.
Nothing ever does in the movies, does it?
The Wolf of Wall Street might be too rough for many people’s taste and is just an exercise in excessive excess.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
The Wolf of Wall Street – Movie Trailer
Jan 1st
Martin Scorsese directs the story of New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort. From the American dream to corporate greed, Belfort goes from penny stocks and righteousness to IPOs and a life of corruption in the late 80s. Excess success and affluence in his early twenties as founder of the brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont warranted Belfort the title “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
“Law Abiding Citizen” Disappointing Ending
Oct 22nd
Disappointing Ending
“Hotshots” looks at a movie!
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is a thriller with a theme about revenge, it has good execution, fine special effects, but a lousy ending that doesn’t satisfy what has gone before it as much as it seems to be tacked on just to please the sensibilities of certain audiences.
However, knowing Hollywood, don’t be surprised if the inevitable DVD of the film comes out with the obligatory “alternate ending” which should have been the one released into theaters in the first place.
Gerard Butler plays Clyde Shelton, an engineer whose wife and daughter are brutally murdered by two men who burst into their home one evening.
However, after the two men are caught and put on trial, Nick Rice, the prosecuting attorney played by Jamie Foxx, makes a deal with one of the killers and spares his life in exchange for the man’s testimony against his partner in order to improve Rice’s conviction rate, which is an astounding 96 percent.
Shelton is extremely disappointed that the second killer, Darby, is going to live, and he doesn’t feel any better when Rice tells him, “Some justice is better than no justice at all.”
Then it is 10 years later, the convicted killer is about to be executed, and we get a not-so-clever cross-cutting scene between the execution and a cello recital by Rice’s young daughter.
The execution doesn’t go as planned, it is definitely not painless, and the authorities figure out that Shelton was responsible.
Shelton makes clear that he is determined to kill everyone who was involved in the trial of the killers, and he gets revenge on Darby in more ways than one.
However, Shelton lets himself get caught, is tried and sent to prison, but the killings still continue even though Shelton is behind bars.
In fact, after a surprising turn of events in prison, Shelton is put into solitary confinement, and the killings still continue, each one more elaborate than the previous one.
Shelton plays with the authorities. They know that he did it, but he is locked up, and they can’t stop him.
However, the ending is a big letdown. Shelton is clearly an anti-hero in this story, but the ending makes you feel as if political correctness prevailed in spite of everything that goes before it.
LAW ABIDING CITIZEN is better than its disappointing ending.
I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”
