None of that is what Scorsese does, ever. He presents the life as seductive and (yes, of course) fun which it is and this is exactly what draws people into it - see: Goodfellas, Casino, The Color of Money, The Departed, Mean Streets. Nothing in WOWS is a departure from his career. He's not interested in celebrating or condemning these lifestyles but presenting them from the POV of the protagonist and a reflection of American culture. Scorsese didn't popularize the gangster picture, he didn't create the anti-hero, but he mastered it. OF COURSE there is an appealing aspect to it all. We love the bad guys. Ain't nothing new here. When I said if you want moralizing go watch TV I wasn't being flippant. Mad Men is, of course, pure dreck.

Inside Llewyn Davis - WOW! Now that is a ****ing movie. Oscar Isaac's best performance to date. The guy is an absolute powerhouse. This film kinda snuck up on me. It's a film (in my opinion) that may hit a little harder if you've ever struggled in life. In my early 20s I had no ambition and lived paycheck to paycheck so the struggle in this film hit pretty close to home. That's not to say Llewyn Davis had no ambition, he's very much a guy who craves success as an artist and makes attempts to break out of his funk.

The film is so effective because of everyone involved in the film. To borrow a term from Jason Reitman, there are so many "stealth bomber" performances in this film. Robin Bartlett has a micro role but man does she stealth her way in and annihilate you with her performance.

The music is outstanding! All of it sounds so familiar I'm still unsure if all of it was original. Regardless there is a scene involving Isaac, Justin Timberlake and Adam Driver that is movie magic.

God damn I love this movie.

Minor spoilery comment below. Don't read if you haven't seen it LDO

Just saw Inside Llewyn Davis. Made me realize, even more, what I didn't like about WOWS. Scorsese really has nothing to say. As someone else posted here, he's not glorifying or criticizing these people, he's giving us pure entertainment And that's fine. But it pales beside a deeply layered and meaningful picture like Llewyn Davis.

couldn't have said it better myself. WOWS is pretty damn entertaining but it's not nearly as layered as other films we've seen this year. I'd say Spring Breakers has more layers especially since both are about The American Dream. Speaking of, time to start that "2013 in Film" thread. brb!

how on earth are you going to compare WoWS to inside llewyn davis?

they're not even remotely similar in scope or motivation.
don't understand why people can't just enjoy different movies without feeling compelled to rank them vs each other.

you know art isn't zero sum right? there can be plenty of great movies.

easy, one has a lot of depth the other not so much. That's where the comparison ends. Go hug someone.

Scorcese does stylise it alot more than it has to be..if you consider the use of music in Goodfellas vs the use of music in The Wire. Goodfellas uses all of these musical cues that supplement the characterisation of the actors and add this stylish element to it. Consider the scene near the end of the movie where Jump into the Fire Henry Nillson is played.....Henry Hill is clearly strung out and pushing the edge of limits...he is literally about to be caught.
In comparison - you never see the overlayed music supplementing or prompting emotions when dealing the Wire drug scenes.

Scorcese clearly exploits and glamourises this corner of pop culture's fascination with violence/drug culture.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QghwNqlCRE

Link to full song - to prompt your memory its a good track.

Actually would be a good draft category: Movie Soundtracks.

When if ever is Inside Llywen Davis opening 'wide'? If it doesn't come out in a theater here I will be very rustled. They always play Best Picture nominees for a bit so hopefully the Academy can help me out here. I cannot stand it when I miss something I really want to see on the big screen but so often out of my control. Really need to move, heh.

That's true but he's also from the school of visceral/experiential movie making. The more you remove it from that experience you are starting to miss the point entirely.

What point, exactly, am I supposed to be missing?

Sometimes I think I'm the only one who ever thinks a movie is neither the greatest thing ever or the worst.

Along those lines, I saw Downfall on netflix tonight.

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I'm seeing Lawrence of Arabia tomorrow night. You guys have really built up my expectations.

Scorsese has never really had much depth beyond his bravura filmmaking and story-telling. And sometimes that's enough.

I wasn't talking about you Digger. Fascination with violence is hardly contained to a "corner" of popular culture, I'm quite confident it predates history itself - very much a primal thing. What's the difference between exploiting and exploring? Scorsese is doing both of course. But all of that is more about his other work.

I think what makes WOLF his best work is that he explores all the themes present in his earlier work within the context of comedy. It's a comedic work above all else, apparently some people did not get the joke?

This is not meant as an argument or a put down - but you are actually missing the point I am making.

The Wire attempts to go for realism in its depiction of the world.

Scorcese, if he tries or not, does not. It is stylised violence: which is to say, he layers acts of violence with other cultural objects such as music, clothing, mood which remove the reality of the situation. By the promiximity, immersion of the imagined act and these other cultural artefacts he changes the meaning of the violence and its impact upon the audience.
Scorcese is not really interested in exploring the violence as it is - he wants to make comments about elements of the culture, definitely, but I do not think it is through realism and ultimately, in my judgement, it does not really have depth of insight.

Which is not to say that it is not brillant cinema, it is, but on an interpretative level his film's are thin and problematic.

I haven't had a chance to see wows yet so take this with a grain of salt.

From the criticisms I've read of wows it seems to me like wows plays as a male sexual power fantasy. The females in the film are nothing more than caricatures used to ingratiate the male audience with the Wall Street life style.

In goodfellas and casino the females are fully fleshed out characters whose story's take on significant screen time as the audience learns about how they deal with the excesses of their male counterparts. We come to empathize with those who pay the price of the excess at the same time as we enjoy the fantasy played out by those living the excess. It seems to me like wows is all excess and no empathy.

To say that Scorsese is neither promoting or criticizing but merely cataloging an aspect of American culture is untrue if he is ignoring the real negative consequences of those affected by the life style of Jordan Belfort. It seems like there are some scenes that highlight the costs of Belforts excessive lifestyle but the impression I get is that it's highlighting the minor costs paid by those who gained the most from the excessive lifestyle. It's a cautionary tale not an indictment of the lifestyle.

For those that have seen the movie, how much of this is true? Hopefully I will see the film soon and can better comment but I think those that criticize the movie on grounds of mysogyny have a legitimate case.

enough said, philomena and drinking buddies are all films i've enjoyed recently.

this is my main misgiving with regards to wows, the lack of empathy. first, there's no empathy towards belfort's financial victims: not only do we never see any of them onscreen, but the overall ethos is essentially canada bill jones's old saying, "it's immoral to let a sucker keep his money."

and there's certainly no empathy towards women, who are basically all bimbos, gold diggers, and/or whores, usually in various stages of nudity and sexual activity. belfort and his crew are never called out by a single character in the movie for their degrading treatment of women, and we never see any negative effects of that treatment. there are women that work at the firm, but they either actively participate in the male sexual fantasies (the one who gets double-teamed and also blows every guy in the office, once in a glass elevator in view by all) or they just passively accept the openly demeaning behavior around them.

belfort upgrades from his first wife to a much hotter one; she cries and yells for about 30 secs and is never seen or heard from again. his second wife is an airheaded trophy who decides to divorce him when he's finally facing prison time. she abandons him at his time of greatest need; importantly, it is only at this point that belfort hits her, after her true, gold-digging colors are revealed.


look, my initial reaction to the movie was, "man, what a blast!"--i wasn't complaining about the nudity or misogyny or whatever. i'm a guy and i like looking at naked women. but even while i was being entertained by the movie, there was a nagging thought in the back of my mind: what if i were a woman? would i feel the same way watching this thru a woman's eyes? maybe i still would, but maybe i wouldn't--maybe i'd see it somewhat differently. a female friend of mine once told me how she sometimes has to shut off part of her brain in order to enjoy certain movies that casually depict misogyny; i thought to myself, "she's def gonna have to flip that switch for this one."

ultimately, is wows misogynistic? i don't know, but if someone thinks that it is, i can see where they're coming from. i'm certainly not willing to dismiss them as being stupid or ******ed for having different sensibilities than my own, framed thru different experiences than my own. a little empathy will go a long way.

Some movies I've seen lately

Elysium-5/10-Kind of cheesy fell asleep half way through standard Hollywood Cheesy Script

Shotgun Stories-9/10-Raw movie with a great soundtrack. Always liked Michael Shannon and he's pretty good in this one.

Silver Linings-7/10-Pretty decent, Jennifer Lawrence is hot as *** and thought the script was well done especially the banter between cooper and pacino etc.

Man of Steel-3/10-Brutal, except for the start which was pretty good. Could have been much better.

Secret Life Of Walter Mitty-8.5/10- Have no clue how this got 47% on RT and really really liked it. Great soundtrack and visually bomb and also liked the story.

Bravo... it's a wonderful film beautifully framed and shot. the only issue I have from a cinema graphic perspective is that the texture of the B/W is horrible. It's full of artifacts and grain... not even really old B/W suffers from this nearly as bad. But that does not distract from the fact that this is visually a great movie with first class acting and story telling.

I'm kind of scared to go see this movie after all the crap I have been hearing.

I've been burned by the box office far to often to just willy nilly my way into every new movie that comes out of the machine, even though I was on of the first to try and get some momentum behind this movie here on 2+2.

good to hear some positive comments

that is an interesting comment, and one that seems to apply to most of his work lately.

I think Hugo has some depth. Otherwise, yeah, it's mostly superficial at this end of his catalogue.

Cronenbergs: A Dangerous Method... an interesting movie that I am sure many here have not had a chance to see since it's only grossed less than 6 million dollars since release.

definitely not one of Davids better or more successful endeavors, but I felt the acting was good and straightforward story was at least historically interesting.

I think the David Cronenberg of old would have had a LOT MORE psychological fun with the sexual aspects of a doctor/patient relationship, but this movie seemed fairly tame sexually... Perhaps out of respect for the characters being portrayed.