Good point.

I'm confused why anyone would think that film is satire.

Ya there's a difference between showing the consequences of a persons actions to themselves and showing the consequences of a persons actions to others. One is a tale of caution and the other is a tale of immorality. This is what I mean when I describe wows as a cautionary tale. It's an amoral piece of film because it doesn't show the consequences to the victims leaving the viewer with the impression that these are still people to be looked up to, albeit with a little more caution.


I must be crazy because I agree with both those statements

But you can't really say wows is satire if everything that happened actually happened. The point is that it's factual, these guys REALLY did live these absurd lives.

Ah so it was a documentary. =)

If WoWS is a satire then so is Walk The Line, Amadeus, The Butler, and Lincoln.

Just because the subject lived a satirical life does not make the biography a satire.

Loved every second of WoWS.

Well, a lot of the critics' reviews that I've read refer to it as 'satire'. I just assumed they knew what they were talking about. My bad.

Here are the last three paragraphs from A.O. Scott's review in The New York Times where he addresses the same question:

Wholeheartedly agree. There are individual scenes that were funny enough to enjoy seeing a few times, but the movie is forgettable. Again, I compare it to Inside Llewyn Davis, about which my wife and I talked for an hour after seeing and are still talking about today. Nothing wrong with the movie Scorsese made, it was fun and funny and entertaining. Just seems like he's made this movie at least twice before.

Even if Scorsese said it's not a satire, the audience decides where it ends up genre wise. Ever watch a comedy and the director says it started out as a bold faced narrative but someone else told them the script was funny?

My wife caught a short film at a festival, I introduced her to the filmmaker and she told him she loved it because it was scary. He interrupted and told her he wasn't going for scary. Was she wrong?

My point is that sometimes an artist sets out to do something and doesn't get the reaction they were expecting. That's the way it goes. Can a film based on true events still be a satire? Absolutely.

After Earth

I think this is M Night Shyamalan first good movie since... since Unbreakable I guess. Although Will Smith did write the script. Kinda of funny that my last 2 movies are very similar in the sense that they both are survival movies, and the story revolves around only 2 characters (the other movie being Killing Season).

this wow discussion is getting good.

havent been here in ages! was gonna start posting more here but fantasy football took over doing a film dump of memorable films I've seen recently

Wolf of Wall Street - The nits criticizing the movie ITT for not portraying the victims = the OWS people? Leo knocked it out of the park IMO, probably his performance ever. I thought he's been playing the same dude over and over in recent years again but boy did he step out of his element for this one.

Saving Mr. Banks - I was bored by this movie, really, as bored as I could be for a Tom Hanks + Emma Thompson + Colin Farrell movie. Thought it tried waaaaay too hard and blatant award grabbing film. Hanks looks botox'ed out from all the closeups.

American Hustle - I dozed off a couple of times in this movie (watched it right after WoWS), but thought it was alrite over all. If there was one word to describe this movie, it'd be "dazzling". However, this is not necessarily a positive thing; it was all over the place and the dialogue was not smooth. The 'twist' was somewhat predictable, but still entertaining.

Frozen - Eerily similar to Tangled. I liked the music from Frozen better but have others said otherwise. Idina Menziel had an amazing song, although her voice is not your usual princess-y disneyesque. K-Bell, however, was spot on.

We are the Millers - I legit lol'ed a few times in the movie, but nothing too memorable. The funniest scene in the entire movie was in the end credit when they were in the bus.

Blue Velvet - This movie is creepy as F...I gotta watch it again because I don't understand it at all. I loved Muholland Drive but this was...different. I'll report back after 2nd viewing.

In Bruges - I went in with low expectation but this was awesome. Hilarious and great job by the three main actors. Did not know Farrell had this side to him.

"Fire Come Walk With Me"...
d.l.

Trancendent Man - genius inventor Ray Kurzweil talks technology advancements and predicts when humans will become integrated fully with technology and possibly become immortal. Other smart dudes in the field say Ray is correct with where we're heading, but probably too optimistic in his predicted timeline because of some weird fascination with bringing his dad back to life. Very interesting doc, surprisingly critical of Ray even while being an overall commercial for him and his transhumanist ideas. 7/10

Spring Breakers - I get the feeling that this is the type of disassociated detached cocaine fueled angst film that Brett Easton Ellis wishes he was writing. The female characters are generic eye candy, the partying is cranked up to 11, and the film takes place in some idealized nightmare reality that I'm not familiar with. But somehow it works. Korine's disjointed memory storytelling style could have been gimmicky with it's flashback/flashforward mashup montage but I felt it actually helped hold my attention. Franco is chewing the scenery but in a good way. I feel like I'm having to apologize for liking this movie. lol. 6/10

I think spring breakers would have been much better if the Mitchell Brothers were the producers.

Never apologize for something you enjoy, this goes for "guilty pleasures" too. =p

Spring Breakers was a contender for #1 of 2013 for me but after seeing Inside Llewyn Davis I'm not so sure and I still need to see Her.

I'm not sure Spring Breakers could be improved without making it a completely different film

XXX... I for one am tired of getting teased by hollywood.

My rank of top 5 best and worst of 2013,

Best
1) Stories We Tell
2) Gravity
3) Blue is the Warmest Colour
4) Before Midnight
5) The Act of Killing

Worst
1) Spring Breakers (by a huge margin)
2) the Great Gatsby
3) Pacific Rim
4) Jobs
5) the Secret Life of Walter Mitty

As a man who's been on a handful of spring break benders, I was nostalgic during the party scenes.

As a father of two girls, I'm scared ****less that they'll grow up having anything in common with these dumbass people.

um i mean what were you looking for a few scenes of his first wife crying alone in a room or talking to a shrink after he left her?
he did BEAT his 2nd wife and cheat on her constantly. but its also not like she was super innocent (not saying she deserved what she got but she was no angel) she hooked up with him knowing he was married, and was letting him do coke off her tits while his wife was waiting at home, so are we supposed to feel super bad for her when he decides to do coke off some other women's tits after they're married?

i mean i just don't get what you wanted as a counter-point.

the critiques just seem so absurd.
are the same ppl complaining about wows also complaining about the sopranos cuz ya know gandolfini was so damn charismatic?

its mind boggling.

and the statement that it didn't show any negative effects of misogyny are also ridic imo. i mean do people need things S-P-E-L-L-E-D out for them in the most obv way possible? not a single character in the film had a meaningful/real relationship with a women (actually his dad seemed to and he was the only character who never displayed any misogynistic characteristics) . if you don't think thats a bad thing well you prolly shouldn't be hoping for movies to teach you otherwise.

anyone that is the brain power to think a little bit about what the message is behind what they're seeing should be able to realize the movie isn't glamorizing that lifestyle.

and again its not marty's fault that the justice system in america is more concerned with putting casual drug users in jail then people who perpetrate massive financial crimes, but faulting him for not making his movie about the inequities of the justice system is absurd.
again he's not making his movie for people that are too stupid to think about all the ramifications and consequences that these characters have on society.
if you can't connect the dots and do some critical thinking on your own its not his job to educate you in the most non-subtle way possible.

/rant.

wait, which is it?

is the audience supposed to be so perceptive that there's no need to underscore how out of whack it is that this guy only ended up serving 22 months (which was never stated in the movie)? is that audience also supposed to know that third-strike drug laws force judges to hand down mandatory life sentences when many of them don't even want to?

ok, let's assume an audience that's already aware of those things, that doesn't need scorsese to connect the dots for them. then why does that audience instead need to be bludgeoned by 2-and-a-half hours of drugs and hookers? an audience that worldly and that sophisticated doesn't know that some ppl do lots of drugs and have sex with lots of hookers?

you're gonna have to make a better argument if you want me to continue.

obv hitting people over the head with his excessive lifestyle isn't the same as not having to give a detailed explanation of the inequities/failures in the justice system.

if you can't figure out that diff i dunno what to say.

It's a pretty bizarre argument expecting a movie to be a morality parable when it's not inteneded to be.

It's like me arguing that porn doesn't explore the complexities of human relationships fully enough.

It is what it is.

i've put forth my argument. i don't care for the choices scorsese made in directing this movie, and i think that the movie he made ended up being superficially entertaining without much to say. there was a more interesting movie in this material, with deeper observations about various segments of american society, but that's not what we got.