Based On A True Story, But Not Really

The opening of each episode of the new Netflix show, Inventing Anna, includes a disclaimer: “This whole story is completely true. Except for the parts we made up.” This is repeated throughout the 9-episode run of the show, embedded in the scenery (in newspaper headlines, Times Square mega screens, elevator doors, street signs, etc.) with slight variations like “Totally made up,” and “Total Bullshit.”

We’ve all seen the “Based on a True Story” disclaimer so many times that we might not notice it anymore. Maybe because we knew going in that it was inspired by events that happened, or because we know that with all the dramatized embellishments it probably isn’t very accurate anyway.

 

In 1996, Joel and Ethan Coen’s FARGO opened with this:

It was revealed later that the Coens made up material possibly from real accounts of kidnappings, murder, and a woodchipper. Joel told an MTV interviewer that, “If an audience believes that something’s based on a real event, it gives you permission to do things they might otherwise not accept.”

FARGO star William H. Macy told Vox’s Todd VanDerWerff, “I said to Ethan [Coen], ‘You can’t say it’s a true story if it wasn’t.” He said, ‘Why not? It’s just a crawl on the screen.’ I said, ‘Uh...”

FX’s Fargo, the series adaptation, continues using this motif in each episode.

Another example of another dissociation to the “Inspired by true events” disclaimer is the opening of David O. Russell’s 2013 crime comedy AMERICAN HUSTLE:

Many other movies and shows have used these style caveats, so maybe I’ll add to this in time. Maybe you can think up some too.

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New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 3/18/14

A few big new titles hit home video this week starting with: David O. Russell's AMERICAN HUSTLE, which although it won no Oscars, it certainly won most critics' hearts (it's at 93% on the Rotten Tomatometer). Russell's glitzy take on the '70s ABSCAM scandal starring Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, and Jennifer Lawrence is now available in 2-disc Blu ray and 1 disc DVD editions that contain as Special Features almost a half an hour of Deleted and Extended Scenes, and a 16 minute “Making of” mini-doc. Read my review: “David O. Russell's AMERICAN HUSTLE Pulls A Scorsese On ABSCAM” (12/20/13).

I still haven't seen FROZEN, but as it also drops today on Blu ray (2-discs) and DVD (single disc) I should really catch up with it. Kristen Bell, Josh Gad, and Adele Dezeem (sorry, Idina Menzel) star in Disney's ginormous animated smash that comes with a bunch of bonus material: a 7 minute featurette “D'Frosted: Disney's Journey from Hans Christian Andersen to FROZEN,” “The Making Of FROZEN” (3 min.), Deleted Scenes (7 min.), Music Videos (16 min.), and the Oscar nominated short GET A HORSE! (6 min.) starring Mickey Mouse.

A Disney project that I did see also releases this week: John Lee Hancock's SAVING MR. BANKS, out in both single disc Blu ray and DVD editions. Despite Tom Hanks charming performance as Walt Disney and Emma Thompson prickly portrayal of “Mary Poppins” author P.L. Travers, the film didn't work for me aas you can read in my review from last December. Special Features include a couple of featurettes (“From POPPINS to the Present,” and “Let's Go Fly A Kite”), and 7 minutes of Deleted Scenes.

Also out this week: a movie that barely anyone saw (not even sure if it came to my area), Justin Chadwick's biopic MANDELA: LONG WALK TO FREEDOM, starring Idris Elba; Peter Howitt's thriller REASONABLE DOUBT, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Dominic Cooper; Adrián García Bogliano's Spanish horror flick HERE COMES THE DEVIL, and Ping Wang's historical action epic KINGDOM OF CONQUERORS (DVD only).

On the older film front, the Criterion Collection is presenting two essential and extremely entertaining titles: Errol Morris' 1991 documentary about Stephen Hawking A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME, and Akira Kurosawa's 1958 epic adventure THE HIDDEN FORTRESS (huge influence on STAR WARS), for the first time on Blu ray.

TV series sets out this week: Beetlejuice (animated series): Seasons Two & Three , Devious Maids: Season 1, and Flashpoint: Final Season.

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Hey Kids! Funtime 2014 Oscar Picks!

It's that time of year again, time for me to post my predictions for the Oscars, which will air on ABC this Sunday night. I'm glad to see that the 86th Academy Awards Ceremony will be hosted by Ellen DeGeneres because she was very funny when she first helmed the show back in 2007.

I thought that last year's Oscar winners were one of the hardest rosters to predict in history, but I actually scored 18 out of 24 right. I seriously doubt I'll get as good or better this go around, but I'm still gonna give it the ole college try.

Oh yeah, I'll be live-tweeting the Oscars too: follow @filmbabble.

1. BEST PICTURE: 12 YEARS A SLAVE

I thought this was a shoo-in when I saw it last fall, but then AMERICAN HUSTLE started gaining major momentum as an awards season favorite. GRAVITY has a lot of pull too, but I'm sticking with Steve McQueen's powerful historical drama. It just seems to have Best Picture written all over it.

2. BEST DIRECTOR: Alfonso Cuarón for GRAVITY

3. BEST ACTOR: Matthew McConaughey for DALLAS BUYER'S CLUB

4. BEST ACTRESS: Cate Blanchett for BLUE JASMINE

5. BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Jared Leto for DALLAS BUYER'S CLUB

I almost want to pick a wild card - say, Jonah Hill for THE WOLF OF WALL STREET - because there's often a surprise in one of the Supporting categories, but I'm still going with Leto.

6. BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Lupita Nyong’o for 12 YEARS A SLAVE (Wild card: June Squibb for NEBRASKA)

And the rest:

7. PRODUCTION DESIGN: THE GREAT GATSBY

8. CINEMATOGRAPHY: GRAVITY

9. COSTUME DESIGN: AMERICAN HUSTLE

10. DOCUMENTARY FEATURE: THE ACT OF KILLING

11. DOCUMENTARY SHORT: THE LADY IN NUMBER 6

12. FILM EDITING: GRAVITY

13. MAKEUP: DALLAS BUYER'S CLUB

14. VISUAL EFFECTS: GRAVITY

15. ORIGINAL SCORE: GRAVITY

16. ORIGINAL SONG: “Let it Go” from FROZEN

17. ANIMATED SHORT: MR. HUBLOT

18. LIVE ACTION SHORT: THAT WASN'T ME

19. SOUND EDITING: GRAVITY

20. SOUND MIXING: GRAVITY

21. ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: HER

22. ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: 12 YEARS A SLAVE

23. ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: FROZEN

24. BEST FOREIGN FILM: THE GREAT BEAUTY

Okay, so as you can see - when I was in doubt on a technical award, I just went with GRAVITY.

As usual, stay tuned to see how many I get wrong.

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THE WOLF OF WALL STREET: The Film Babble Blog Review

Opening today at a multiplex near you:

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET
(Dir. Martin Scorsese, 2013)

While last year’s Oscar winning ARGO summoned the ‘70s in its opening moments by using the old bright red Warner Brothers logo, and the recent release of AMERICAN HUSTLE did the same by way of a vintage Columbia Studios logo, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, just goes with the current Paramount Pictures silver mountain design, proving upfront that it doesn’t need any help bringing the retro.

Martin Scorsese’s 23rd film, and fifth with Leonardo DiCaprio, nails the rampant excess of the ‘80s greed era with such a fearlessly funny, and raunchy as Hell glee that it makes Oliver Stone’s 1988 insider trading spectacle WALL STREET look like Sesame Street.

DiCaprio portrays Jordan Belfort, an ambitious Bronx-born stockbroker (or more accurately Stock swindler), who hit it rich in his ‘20s by founding the Long Island firm Stratton Oakmont. As our protagonist puts it in voice-over narration (and at times breaking the fourth wall asides to the audience): “The year I turned 26, I made 49 million dollars as the head of my own brokerage firm…which really pissed me off because it was three shy of a million a week.”

DiCaprio’s Belfort also tells us that he gambles “like a degenerate,” screws scores of hookers, has three different federal agencies looking to indict him, and, as if it’s the most important part of his personality, that he really loves drugs (a large mix of Quaaludes, Xanax, pot, and cocaine make up his daily regimen).

As DiCaprio’s partner in white collar crime and coke, Jonah Hill plays Donny Azoff (name changed to protect the guilty Danny Porush). Hill, with blindingly white capped teeth and funnier than he’s ever been, could be seen as the Joe Pesci to DiCaprio’s Ray Liotta if we were going to go down the GOODFELLAS goes to Wall Street route that many critics will no doubt take.

We witness DiCaprio’s corrupt character’s rise and fall by way of a furious pace provided by Scorsese’s longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker. It’s such an electrifying ride that it never drags or feels like it’s anywhere close to its actual length (it’s just under 3 hours at 179 minutes). In fact, I’m seriously hoping the Blu ray/DVD release features the four hour cut that’s been reported).

Everybody in the cast shines especially Matthew McConaughey in a short but sweet role as a mentor to DiCaprio who extols the virtues of jerking off, Kyle Chandler as a hard-nosed FBI agent looking to bust DiCaprio, Rob Reiner in an amusing performance as DiCaprio’s father who affects a fake British accent when speaking on the phone, THE ARTIST’s Jean Dujardin suavely playing a Swiss banker, The Walking Dead's Jon Bernthal as a tough guy cronie, and newcomer blonde bombshell Margot Robbie as DiCaprio’s former model wife.

Terence Winter’s Screenplay, based on Belfort’s book of the same name, is full of sharp dialogue (except when the characters are all coked up then it’s appropriately sloppy), plus obvious but inevitable references to Gordon Gekko, THE GODFATHER, and Thomas Wolfe’s 1987 novel “The Bonfire of the Vanities” (let's just forget the awful movie version) because Belfort, of course, considers himself a “Master of the Universe.”

The amped-up soundtrack is dead on as well with classic blues by the likes of John Lee Hooker, Howlin’ Wolf, and Elmore James rubbing up alongside Devo, Cypress Hill, and Sir Mix-A-lot (Scorsese restrained himself this time and included no Stones tracks), all under the supervision of another longtime Scorsese collaborator, The Band’s Robbie Robertson, who serves as executive music producer.

New to the Scorsese team is cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, ARGO) who captures in stunning tracking shots the swaggering sweep of its subject’s debauched lifestyle.

A stand-out sequence involving an DiCaprio, f-ed up beyond belief on a massive amount of Quaaludes having to crawl back to his car parked right outside at a country club reaches surreal heights of hilarity due in no small part to Prieto’s keen camera eye.

While I liked how David O’ Russell’s AMERICAN HUSTLE does a great job scamming folks into thinking they’re watching a Scorsese film, it’s so much more intoxicating to see the real thing.

At 71, Scorsese proves that he can still make master class cinema as THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is the director and DiCaprio’s finest film together, one that's much more deserving of a Best Picture Oscar than 2005’s THE DEPARTED, and I say that having really loved that movie.

Sure, WOLF covers similar ground to Scorsese's GOODFELLAS and CASINO in its wild depiction of money being the ultimate aphrodisiac, but its outlandish verve and gutsy-as-all-get-out attitude make it yet another major Marty masterpiece – a feast of a film that I can’t wait to go back to for a second helping.

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David O. Russell's AMERICAN HUSTLE Pulls A Scorsese On ABSCAM

AMERICAN HUSTLE (Dir. David O. Russell, 2013)

  
“Some of this actually happened...” a title tells us up front and then we're off into one of the impressive approximations of the intoxicating style of Martin Scorsese that I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of them.

David O. Russell's follow-up to his home runs THE FIGHTER and last year's SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK presents a darkly funny take on the ABSCAM sting of the late '70s and early '80s by way of a couple of con artist caricatures, portrayed by Christian Bale and Amy Adams, who are blackmailed into working for Bradley Cooper as an unhinged over-permed FBI agent.

Our intro to Bale as Irving Rosenfeld (loosely based on convicted con man Melvin Weinberg), takes us through how he applies what his girlfriend/partner-in-crime Adams calls “an elaborate comb-over,” gives us all we need to know about this small-time loan scammer.

Of course, Bale and Adams' documentary-style voice-overs aren't the only allusions to GOODFELLAS going on in all the set-ups, as dead-on Carter-era song choices (Steely Dan's “Dirty Work” serves as a perfect opening theme song), and grainy chaotic camerawork relishing all the garish wardrobes and decor of the surroundings, keeps a Scorsese-ian sweep going from start to finish.

There's also a good bit of Paul Thomas Anderson's BOOGIE NIGHTS embedded in the structure, but since that also had massive debts to Scorsese, I digress.

Cooper's Richard “Richie” DiMaso, who's based on FBI Agent Anthony Amoroso, Jr. can come off as much as a speeding spaz as the amped up movie around him at times, but look deeper and you'll see one of the most electric performances of the year.

More colorful caricatures (I call them that because everybody looks like they stepped out of the pages of Mad Magazine movie satires from the era depicted) crop up in the form of Jennifer Lawrence (Cooper's SILVER LININGS co-star) as Bale's bawdy wild card of a wife who may accidentally blow everyone's cover (Lawrence acts her ass off), Jeremy Renner as the idealistic mayor of Camden, New Jersey (with a very Joe Pesci-ish pompadour) who gets up in the scam, and comedian Louis C.K. as Cooper's uptight FBI supervisor.

A running bit about Cooper needling C.K. about both approving more money for the operation and guessing the moral of an aborted ice-fishing anecdote is a successful strand of silliness that kept me laughing alongside all the other in-your-face absurdity here.

Many will say its more rip-off than homage with such lame bon mots as “Scorsese-lite” to “Rhinestone Scorsese,” but I liken it to how people call a song that's in the vein of the Beatles but still has its own groove: “Beatle-esque.”

AMERICAN HUSTLE is definitely Scorsese-esque, but it has its own grooves going in its riffing on '70s cinema vibes. At one point when schooling Cooper on the art of the con, Bale asks “Who's the master: the painter or the forger?”

I'll still go with the painter, especially as we're on the verge of a major Marty release (THE WOLF OF WALL STREET opens on Christmas day) that more than tops this, but when it comes to what Russell and his crack cast are going for here, to quote Christopher Walken in a classic SNL sketch: “It's a Hell of a forgery.”

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