The Wolf of Wallstreet

SF: This reminded me of a mix between Blow and GoodFellas. On the whole I rather enjoyed the film, the plot was intriguing, the acting from DiCaprio superb and the direction was fine but not Scorcese's best. For the most part you could tell where this was going and it isn't breaking new ground but has enough pull to hold your interest for the most part. However the last hour drags somewhat and for me this could of done with being about 45 min shorter.  7/10

50 Eggs: Two words: Margot. Robbie. SF will be rolling her eyes that she is the first thing I mention in this review, but seriously, Margot. Robbie. On a less important subject, this is a great film with a fantastic 'rise and fall' story. The fall part takes a bit too long to get to but otherwise I cant fault this. 8.5/10

DonkeyB: n/a

Overall: 7.75/10

The Great Gatsby

SF: As a novel The Great Gatsby really is a masterpiece. I've seen a few different takes on it over the years so my opinion is going to be very tainted. My first impression was that visually this fulfills everything a Baz Lurhman film alludes too. There are plenty of points that I thought really captured the mood of a particular scene. But for all its glitz and glamour the subtle character driven core is sadly lacking. This is a mere silloete of a superior work. The more I think about it the more I find missing. Suffice to say DiCaprio and McGuire do fantastic jobs, no doubt in another interpretation I would have loved this entirely. However to me The Great Gatsbty was more than we are shown in this pale, overly long offering. 3.5/10

50 Eggs: Good things: the soundtrack is inventive and clever, the visual style is interesting (several shots looked like paintings) and Carrey Mulligan manages not to stink up the screen for once...in fact I'll begrudgingly admit that she is pretty good in this. Bad things: the story is on the dull side. I accidentally took a micronap and my foot spasmed into the back of the chair in-front of me. 5/10

DonkeyB: Ech. I should start by saying that I love the book. It has a pretty good case for being the greatest novel ever written, it is certainly one of the best five I have read. I have seen the 1974 Robert Redford film version. I have an audiobook version with Tim Robbins reading..... Last year SF and I attended a London staging of Gatz the Elevator Repair Service's staging [reading] of the complete unabridged text over 8 hours! I like it... alot. That being said the plot is really not all that important- it's a basic melodrama which wouldn't be out of place in your average soap opera- it serves the same function as the plot in Shakespeare or an opera, its only there to hang the art on. In that respect it is not really filmable.

I deliberately didn't read or listen to reviews before I went to see it, here is a rare occurrence where I felt like I had the required skills to judge the merits of the film and it wasn't just hubris on my part.

Parts of the film look fantastic (literally), however the green screening is a bit shonkey; from about halfway through the actors all looked cut out and stuck on the out of focus background, which is exactly what they were. The film itself is frustrating: the overall impression you get is that no matter how much Luhrmann loves the book- he didn't get it. The parts of the film which deals with the parties are pretty well done, but its pretty clear Baz thinks these are what his film should be about! Mr Z's soundtrack I hear has been contraversial but it really shouldn't be, I thought it worked well.

PLOT SPOILER not sure how to discuss this without giving away part of the plot (which isn't important remember so carry on reading), it appears that Baz thinks the Great Gatsby is a morality tale in which the upstart, nouveau riche, millionaire bootlegger gets his comeuppance for all the wild parties he threw and drags everyone he encounters down with him. Whereas the book is subtle and haunting and sad, the film is loud, over the top and simple. It is quite frustrating because I think DiCaprio genuinely understands Gatsby the character, but also what the book is about. I just don't think Baz does. It is not terrible it just isn't The Great Gatsby. 5/10


Overall: 4.5/10

Django Uncahined

SF: I liked some westerns, others I find boring, protracted and painful. This managed to be both. We track the course of Django's rise from slavery to bounty hunter and his quest to rescue his wife. On paper this should work rather well. It has been done many time before and tends to yield good results. The problem is that the character I was really interested in wasn't Django at all but Dr King Schultz (Christopher Waltz). If the film had just been about him, it would have been great. The first 90 mins are a fairly enjoyable mentor - padawan type film. Great pace, excellent character development and mildly humorous at points. I honestly thought I liked it as much as True Grit. Then we get to the quest and this is when my stomach turned, maybe it was suppose to - the Mandingo fight was one of the most horrific scenes in of any Tarantino movie. From there on out the whole thing was just dull. Violence for the sake of it was to be expected but nothing really held my attention, not even the scene where you see EVERYTHING of one Jamie Foxx. The last 25 mins were particularly dull and I just want to go home. 6/10

50 Eggs: I'm not the biggest Tarantino fan but I enjoyed his earlier stuff. Unfortunately this is more like his latter stuff, i.e Deathproof. There are some engaging scenes, and as usual the dialogue is great, but mostly this is just an overblown, over-long rescue movie. I don't have a problem with that, but I do have a problem with the film strutting around , thinking its clever when it isn't. 6/10

DonkeyB: I have no original thoughts on this film. It is unoriginal, its supposed to be (I think). It is far too long. There is a bizarrely misguided directorial cameo. If the defence of the numerous uses of "nigger", is that this is how people spoke back then, why is all of the other dialogue proto-typical Tarantino (highly entertaining this time) verbo-babble? Christolph Waltz gives a performance several levels more entertaining than that in the vastly over-rated Inglorious Basterds.

The film is in two parts; the first part- the mock western is very, very, entertaining, the second part- the exploitation revenge action film with long and dull scenes of Leonardo DiCaprio chewing scenery (and watching his dogs chew his slaves alive for entertainment), is unnecessary and unwelcome. I know the 'heightened' violence is supposed to be entertaining (I never find it such), but actually I find myself wanting to take Mr Tarantino to a gun range and have him film real life things getting shot with real guns (if he insists in extreme close-ups and ultra-slow-motion). If the purpose of the second part of this film isn't to glorify and fetishize violence then I don't know what it was for. I was very, very bored by it, and quite annoyed.

So can I review the films separately? First half 8.5/10 Second half 2/10 = 5.25

This review was brought to you by the punctuation mark "-"

Overall: 5.75/10

Inception

SF: Christopher Nolan - a man with true vision. Everything is superb The cast (how Leonardo DiCaprio doesn't have an Oscar yet is insane) are all at their best. The concepts, the effects, all superb. Emotive and awe-inspiring. 10/10

50 Eggs: This is what cinema is all about. Great action, stunning SFX, imagination and a complex but coherent plot. Wow. The best films always seem to come out of nowhere. 10/10

DonkeyB: Yeah, it is that good. As near to perfect as you can get. If I don't give this film ten what conceivably would I give a ten to? I watched it twice in 24 hours at one point. 10/10

Overall - 10/10