The Wolf on Link Street
Monday, December 23, 2013 at 7:44PM Parade 10 movie locations worth visiting from Walter Mitty to Sideways to Harry Potter and more...
Cinephilia and Beyond has links to all 2013 screenplays available for download legally direct from studios
New Yorker the best movies of the year
Slant best posters of the year
Variety The Santa Barbara Film Festival is celebrating the Before trilogy with screenings. I love that trilogy but what ISN'T Santa Barbara celebrating? I swear they have some tribute to every single contender... they're like the NBR, carefully giving out enough awards to get EVERY studio to their annual dinner
The Onion "9 Photos Of Jennifer Lawrence That Will Make You Reassess The Scope Of The 1986 Vienna Convention On The Law Of Treaties Between States And International Organizations"
Deadline Brie Larson and Jessica Lange are joining lead Mark Wahlberg in the James Caan lead role in a remake of The Gambler (1974)
Vulture John Ridley on the toughest scene to write in 12 Years a Slave, the one with Alfre Woodard
Wolfy
Dealbook how do Jordan Belfort's victims feel about The Wolf of Wall Street?
In Contention counts down Leonardo DiCaprio's best performances. Wolf scores pretty high
The Wrap a Wolf of Wall Street Academy screening gone berserk. Scorsese gets a "shame on you" from a voter.
Awards Daily Sasha Stone also chimes in with a "this is why we can't have nice things" though I'm like "this is the last time anyone is going to call the movie 'nice'.
It's been the talk of twitter today but I love David Poland's truth-serving response most...
@Matthew_Lucas But I hate these hyped up stories about Academy screenings that are always f-ing Rashomon with slight dementia
— David Poland (@DavidPoland) December 23, 2013
An Oscar question
Here's a new spot for Dallas Buyers Club trumpeting its prize haul thus far. That awards loot is somehow more than what's sunk in if you know what I mean... but it's been a noisy season and Focus is relatively quiet. Is Dallas Buyers Club something we're underestimating outside the obvious places (Actor & Supporting Actor)
Reader Comments (11)
It's hard to be ageist when the movie central to the discussion is by a man in his seventies but goodness, can we have a statute of limitations of when AMPAS voters can still have their right to vote based on how inactive they are? Why was Holly Holiday allowed to vote when she hasn't worked since the 80s while people like Agnes Varda and Julie Delpy only recently got in as Academy members? I hate to think what her favorites are of the field. She probably hasn't seen 12 Years a Slave.
But anyway, I thought Faran Smith Nehme's take on The Wolf of Wall Street has been the one to really look into. She liked the film but felt despite the 3 hours of debauchery something essential was missing. Not the moralizing to get from the audience, which seems to be the criticism the film's defenders like to poke at, but the context of who is being stepped on in the film. The moment I heard the term 'the 1%' in the trailer, I knew there was something anachronistically off. Now it appears not entirely true or just outright ignored.
DBC is probably the Boys Don't Cry of the year. Lead and supporting and getting a lot of support in a one category. And while I am not comfortable with Boys Don't Cry as great cinema it definitely had more guts than DBC beyond physical transformation. The more I hear about Jared Leto talking about playing a trans character, I think back to the fact Hillary Swank never said anything that ridiculous, borderline offensive, or self-mythologizing.
Final word: Each passing year Sasha Stone gets increasingly more isolating as the most insane Oscar blogger and when there's a Jeff Wells, that says something. Her defense of her website's attacks of the Utah Film Critics Association were beyond the pale. Now she is making what appears to be Scorsese's Satyricon her example of why the Academy doesn't get it. I've read smart criticism on both sides of the movie. How a film is judged over each passing year is helped by that discussion.
I got "Yentl" for Christmas, and I'm dying to know: As the only actor to be nominated for both a Razzie and an Oscar for the same performance, of which nomination was Amy Irving more deserving?
CMG: I'm more offended by Sasha Stone's inability to construct a readable sentence than I am about her inability to consider any perspective that's different than her own, or the fact that her only mode is outrage. It's like taking the most incoherent comment troll, and giving them column space. Jeff Wells is just as offensive, but he does know how a sentence works.
Awards Daily is where I go when I'm having an uncommonly slow day at work, and I've already exhausted all my good blogs. And I leave feeling dirty.
You know what I think the issue is as far as Wold Of Wall Street Goes? What does it offer? Like what is that movie's reason for being? Because I have yet to hear someone offer a defense of the film as particularly great, exciting, new cinema. And if it's not that, then it's just another movie about another set of white boys behaving badly. I don't need to see that movie. I've seen that movie a thousand times, and frankly, unless there's something there cinematically that I'm just missing, it is offensive to me that a filmmaker as great as Martin Scorcese is justifying those lives with a three hour prestige party.
As far as Sasha goes, I refuse to justify her offensive prose with my clicks. There are so many great places on the internet--the Film Experience obviously included--that don't shame women for their bodies, that don't essentialize race and taste, that don't insult my intelligence. And frankly being harassed by Ryan Adams on Twitter after even the tamest of criticisms is more than enough of a reason to avoid the site. I don't need the drama.
Hey Nathaniel.
How do you feel about Wolf of Wall Street? Recently you're not a huge Scorsese, Leo, or Jonah Hill lover and this 'type' of movie generally isn't in your wheel-house but I'm interested in reading your thoughts.
I feel dbc is way underrated,i am thinkin' more and more of a J/Garner shock nom come January see Weaver in 2012 or Gyllenhall in 2009.
As soon as Brokeback Mountain lost best picture in 2006 (at the 2005 Oscars), my heart sank because it almost ensured that the first "gay-themed" film to win the top prize wouldn't be as landmark or singular as Brokeback. None of this is to say that I think Dallas Buyers' Club is:
A. Going to win Best Picture.
B. Even has a shot in hell to win Best Picture
C. Is a "bad" movie.
But I have absolutely been thinking for the past couple of weeks that it is being underestimated outside of actor and supporting actor. That SAG ensemble nod feels telling. I think its screenplay and the movie itself are maybe along for the ride. We'll see what happens. Is anyone from Dallas Buyers Club being honored at the Annual Santa Barbara Everyone Gets a Trophy Day Awards?
So, who is behind the bru-ha-ha over the Wolf screening? The studio pr dept trying to drum up interest for their film or the old members of the academy trying to drum up interest for themselves? In either case, I think someone is protesting too much.
Mike- I guess Wells is more transparent and upfront, which I guess is readable, with his insanity, consciously or not, in his writing than Sasha. Yes, her stuff is unreadable, especially in her now expected, predictable rage pieces and her atrocious reviews. I get that writing is actually harder than pans but good lord, her acting like she was an African-American Studies scholar with The Butler was painful. Also makes her worse is having clones like Ryan Adams, who just repeat/defend what she tweets/writes and yes, I can vouch for TB getting harassed by him on Twitter because I got pulled into it at one point for pointing out how insecure that seemed.
I always considered writing about the Hollywood industry, particularly during Oscar season but those two made it look like something mentally broke for both of them in the process. I'll just stick to unproduced screenplays, thank you very much.
I can't believe that someone who analyzes awards for a living is surprised that Academy voters don't like Wolf. Or I guess I can, because it's Sasha Stone, and she's continually letting her personal opinions inform her predictions. Has she taken Labor Day out of her predicted Best Picture line-up yet?
I am the biggest DBC champion but i do think it will sneak in a BP nod. Everyone seems to at least like it and it seems to be doing very good. but my biased eyes could be clouding other factors. Also with two big acting noms and contenders it is definitely part of the discussion. But it depends on how many films they decide to nominate.