O Unlucky Moviegoer!

Rating: 1/10 (10 January 2014)

"...is sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash. If it is not the worst film I have ever seen, that makes it all the more shameful: People with talent allowed themselves to participate in this travesty. Disgusted and unspeakably depressed, I walked out of the film..." That's Roger Ebert on "Caligula", a man who rarely walked out of films. Put together by the publisher/pornographer Bob Guccione, the graphic and elaborate orgies in "Caligula" featured A-list talent: Malcolm McDowell, Peter O'Toole, John Gielgud, and Helen Mirren. One difference separating these two cinematic debaucheries - upon release everyone connected with the film disavowed it, and Gore Vidal, after seeing it, sued to have his name taken off it. (He wrote the original screenplay.) It seems everyone connected with "The Wolf of Wall Street" is standing proudly by it. Many better critiques of capitalism have been made about selling out. Just a few: "The Devil's Advocate", "Glengarry Glen Ross", "The Boiler Room", "The Social Network', "Wall Street", "Trading Places", "Risky Business" and "Blow". And then there's the incomparable "O Lucky Man!" by Lindsay Anderson, another allegory about the pitfalls of capitalism. And oddly enough, it stars the star of "Caligula", Malcolm McDowell. And Helen Mirren too. Inspired by "Candide", McDowell's character, Mick Travis, experiences a moral revelation at the end. (As does Kevin Lomax in "The Devil's Advocate".) Jordan Belfort? No revelations of any sort, moral or otherwise. And no revelations for the audience as well. As Ebert wrote of "Caligula", shameful.