New Releases On Blu Ray & DVD: 3/25/14

Martin Scorsese's THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is definitely the biggest new release on Blu ray and DVD today. Sadly, the terrifically excessive story of New York stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), is only packaged with one Special Feature: a 17 minute featurette entitled “The Wolf Pack.” I understand not including the 2-part, 4-hour cut that was mentioned in many interviews as it was a rough version never intended to be the final vision, but some deleted scenes from it would've been nice. Read my review from last December.

As WOLF was one of Scorsese's funniest films, it's fitting that his 1982 comic commentary on fame, THE KING OF COMEDY, is also hitting Blu ray today in a 30th Anniversary Edition (just two years late!). The film, starring Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis, is one of my all-time favorites, so I'm glad to see that, unlike WOLF, is outfitted with such bonus material as nearly 40 minutes of Deleted and Extended Scenes, the 30 minute featurette “Tribeca Film Festival: A Conversation with Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis,” the 19 minute mini-doc “A Shot at the Top: The Making of THE KING OF COMEDY,” and original Theatrical Trailer.

Another great 2013 film, Paolo Sorrentino's THE GREAT BEAUTY, which won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film earlier this month, also releases today courtesy of the Criterion Collection. As with all Deluxe Criterion Editions, there is a plethora of Extras including a 13 minute video interview with star Toni Servillo, a 38 minute conversation with Italian film scholar Antonio Monda and Director Sorrentino, a 12 minute interview with screenwriter Umberto Contarello, 6 minutes of Deleted Scenes, the Trailer, and an illustrated booklet featuring an essay by critic Philip Lopate.

Criterion is also dropping two undeniable classics on the popular Blu ray format this week: Fred C. Newmeyer and Sam Taylor's 1925 Harold Lloyd comedy THE FRESHMAN, and Igmar Bergman's 1966 psychological drama PERSONA.

Also out today on Blu ray and DVD: Sini Anderson's documentary about “riot grrl” Kathleen Hanna, THE PUNK SINGER, Ken Scott's lame Vince Vaughn comedy DELIVERY MAN; Larry Fessenden's horror flick BENEATH, Joe Massot's 1968 curiosity WONDERWALL (featuring music by George Harrison), Abel Ferrara's 1981 thriller MS. 45, and Asghar Farhadi's fascinating follow-up to his excellent 2011 Oscar winner A SEPARATION, THE PAST (my review).

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Oscars 2014 Recap: Complete With Tweets!

I really enjoyed watching last night's broadcast of the 86th Academy Awards at the Rialto Theatre (pictured on the right) here in Raleigh. It was the first time showing the program for the 72 year old theater, and despite some lady cackling maybe a bit too much at host Ellen DeGeneres' schtick, it was a lot of fun to be in attendance.

I got my best Oscar predictions score ever, with only three wrong out of the 24 winners. I missed Best Documentary Feature which went to Morgan Neville's fine documentary about back-up singers, TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM, because I thought since a music-centered doc (SEARCHING FOR SUGARMAN) won last year, it wouldn't happen this time around. I had thought for sure Joshua Oppenheimer's powerful but hard to watch doc about Indonesian death-squad leaders,THE ACT OF KILLING, would get the gold. Oh, well. Can't win 'em all.

The others I got wrong were the Best Live Action Short (I guessed THAT WASN'T ME), and Best Costume Design, which went to THE GREAT GATSBY (I guessed AMERICAN HUSTLE, which won nothing).

I wasn't that disappointed that one of favorite films of 2013, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, didn't win anything because I didn't expect it to.

As for the rest of the show, here's some highlights from my live tweeting (follow @filmbabble) of the event last evening:

Ellen's monologue - not bad, about as risqué as she can get.

Best supporting actor: nailed it! Leto will next take on Jesus Christ Superstar.

Never caught up with what the hat means - Pharrell Williams-wise. 

2nd win for DALLAS BUYERS - setting it up for a major McConaughey moment.

Yes, MR. HUBLOT! It was the best animated short so I'm happy.

FROZEN - I picked it but still haven't seen it.

GRAVITY's first win for a tech award. There will be more.

Wow - HELIUM. Missed that. Oh well. 

Whoa - 20 FEET FROM STARDOM for best doc. Happy to be wrong here.

C'mon THE GREAT BEAUTY! Yes!

It's about time Tyler Perry got here.

Okay, U2 is U2-ing it up for a movie nobody has seen.

Biggest celebrity selfie ever?

I tell ya - every tech award goes to GRAVITY. 

Best shooter: GRAVITY again, of course. 

Whoopi will set us straight. 

Kelly Preston - still getting it done. @RealKevinBrewer * said that.

In memorial - decent picks n all - gotta end with PSH. 

John Travolta: "there will always be a place in my heart for really unrealistic hair"

Again GRAVITY. Yep. 

Damn, well maybe this bodes well for a 12 YEARS best pic win. 

Is this shaping up to be the most predictable oscars ever? Sure seems like it.

Seems like today everybody else is saying it was one of the most predictable Oscars ever, which it must have been if I got 21 out of 24 right! I was hoping for at least one big surprise, like, say, Jonah Hill or June Squibb winning, but it was a big breezy show that entertained me greatly. Definitely better than last year's Seth McFarlane mess.

* I recorded an episode of my friend Kevin Brewer's podcast, postmodcast, last week in which we discussed the legacy of the recently departed Harold Ramis, and chatted a bit about Oscar predictions. Please listen to it here.

I'll leave you now with my favorite moment from last night's big show:

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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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