Top 5 Favorite Movies

Rating: 10/10 (13 March 2020)

The Wolf of Wall Street, was directed & produced by my favorite director in Martin Scorsese, who's directed popular titles like Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, The Departed, Shutter Island, and more! Scorsese did it again! By taking authentic source material, while slightly deviating it from the truth, for enjoyable film making purposes, he created this masterpiece, inspired by Jordan Belfort's real story, and his autobiographies. With Scorsese having a background with Leonardo DiCaprio, and having an excellent reputation directing crime/drama's, this movie was assuring to be great. Terrance Winter & Martin Scorsese did a phenomenal job telling this narrative. The screenplay by Terrance Winter was super creative & conniving, and I feel it didn't get enough credit. The script was so vulgar, yet very witty, while still being ridiculously funny. The story has so many memorable scenes, well known across the world. The US alone did over 110 million dollars at the box office, and the other 160+ million coming from other regions (392 million in total). Not only was this the best paced out, 3 hour film I've seen, but probably one of the greatest paced movies I've seen, in general. I was so intrigued from minute one, all the way to minute 180, I even sat through the whole ending credits. Maybe because I have a high interest in money, but the first act was one of the greatest openings acts I've seen, that actually holds up, and is not just an attention grabber. Even though Martin Scorsese & Terrace Winter flipped some of the names, and some being made up, due to secrecy reasons, this A-list cast had such inspiring charisma, and displayed all the real actions, tremendously. After watching countless videos on the true story, and what the real Jordan Belfort (who was also on set for the production) thought; all of these seemed to be fantasy's, were almost all true, and pretty accurate. According to Belfort, Scorsese & Winter dumbed things down. I have seen A LOT of movies, and a few Dicaprio movies, but this was, hands down the best acting I've seen across a cast, but giving tremendous credit to Leonardo DiCaprio, who got snubbed for an Oscar for his performance. His anti-hero swagger, with such an engrossing personality, brought an abundance of charm, wit, and tons of comedy, to this movie. Dan Porush, named Donnie Azoff in the movie, played by Jonah Hill, is Jordan's second in command. Jonah Hill put on a FANTASTIC performance; definitely my favorite performance of his. I also thought Jonah Hill was snubbed for an Oscar, by Jared Leto of all people. Jonah Hill embodied Dan Porush to a T, down to his wife, his ambitions attitude, and everything else. Only narrative nitpick I have; the way Donnie & Jordan meet in the movie, and their outcome was tweaked. Jordan's love life was also nailed to a T, other than the name changes. Cristin Milioti did a great job for her small part in this 3 hour movie, but THE ABSOLUTE, DROP DEAD GORGEOUS, TALENTED, Margot Robbie was the main squeeze to Jordan. Her character development in the third act compliments the tone it was going for. The way Scorsese displays their relationship was pretty accurate, almost all the way down the line. As far as the strattonites go, in Alton "The Otter" Cufflberg (Henry Zebrowski), Cherter Ming (Kenneth Choi), Robbie "Pinehead" Fineburg (Brian Sacca), Brad Bodnick (Jon Bernthal) & Nicky "Rugrat" Koskoff (P.J Byne), they had the most chaotic roles out of everyone, on the side of Leo. Every character knew their role, and played it to perfection. I loved Rob Reiner in this film, even though he wasn't that important. His crazy dad attitude was displayed more than clear, and was a great addition. Matthew McConaughey had another small, but important role in Jordan Belfort's come up. After doing further research, McConaughey had a lot more of an impact than his screen time allowed. One of my lowkey favorite additions to this movie, was Bo Dietl, playing Belfort's PI. Bo Dietl was the actual PI of the real Jordan Belfort. His character was just another small, but necessary addition, with such an effortless performance, due to Dietl playing himself. The cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto, was shot beautifully, with a lot of great takes, but the visual effects were hit and miss. I appreciate the tone they were trying to set, placing the effects nicely, and not overusing them, but I don't know if it had to do with the large sum of people on the crew, or what, but the visual effects weren't the greatest, and had room for improvement. The editing by probably one of the most credible editors in the game, in Thelma Shoonmaker, who edited Casino, Shutter Island, Goodfellas & The Departed, had a tough task at hand. This movie was 3 hours long, so I can only imagine how many deleted scenes there were, and what the run-time would've actually been, without so many cuts, and mashes. Shoonmaker did make some scenes a little obvious that they were two scenes mashed together, or shot at different times, but it's hard to fault someone with that much on their plate, with that much of a hefty resumé. In conclusion, as you can tell, I had a lot to say about this movie, but that's only because it's one of my favorite movies of all time. I really wish I could give it the 10, but because of some tweaked scenes, and some choppy edits, I have it as a solid 9. Anything less than a 7, is absolutely disrespectful.