Yesterday, it was announced that Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers signed a contract extension for 7 years, paying him a total of $215 million dollars. That's an average of $30.7 million dollars per year. Or based, on his career stats thus far, Kershaw will take home just under 9 thousand dollars a pitch. It doesn't even have to be a good one. Immediately, the thought crossed my mind to wake up my sleeping four-year old, head out back, and have him start throwing left-handed fastballs. But baseball's hard. You have to like, practice and stuff. I wish there was a way to make millions and millions of dollars a year doing something a lot less taxing. Something I could actually teach him...
...like spewing non-stop bullshit with the greatest of conviction, perhaps? Hey, wait a second.
I do that all the time.
The Wolf of Wall Street, despite being set over twenty years ago, seemingly tells the modern version of the American Dream. Or at least the one presented on bad TV. Generations ago, it was work hard, get married, buy a house, have some kids and retire. Now? It seems the dream has become more of get filthy-ass rich at all costs, whether or not you have any discernible talent, while giving a huge f--k about the immediate future.
That assessment, as admittedly shortsighted as it may be, also does a bit of a disservice to Wolf's real-life protagonist, Jordan Belfort. Played by the ageless Leonardo DiCaprio, Jordan is a talented individual, well, as much as an actual shark has talent, anyway (an extremely handsome shark, no less). From the moment he's taken under the wing of veteran stockbroker Mark Hanna (a hysterical Matthew McConaughey), Jordan absolutely refuses to let anything stop him or even slow him down. It's an amazing quality that makes him admirable, even if he's essentially a huge f--king scumbag. But if you can manage to sit through Martin Scorcese's latest film and not find yourself liking/rooting for Leo's Jordan, drop me an e-mail and I'll send you a dollar. No, scratch that. I'll buy you three shares of Delcath Systems Inc (DCTH). It's currently trading at 29 cents a share. But it's going to be huge. Trust me.
Heading to Wall Street as a wide-eyed twenty-two year old, Jordan quickly finds himself knee deep in the debauchery of stockbroking. Drinking, smoking, cursing, f--king, and heaps and heaps of cocaine fuel just about every move anyone makes. Like the market itself, Jordan's career is incredibly volatile, and he finds himself out of a job shortly after reaching a personal milestone, courtesy of Black Monday. But instead of becoming a stockboy at Nobody Beats the Wiz, Jordan decides to give the market another go. He heads to a local brokerage, where they deal primarily in penny stocks. Ten minutes later and two thousand dollars richer, Jordan is on his way. From there, he becomes damn near invincible.
Now, it didn't really surprise me that an industry built primarily on greed would also be so full of depravity, but the The Wolf of Wall Street depicts an entire world that is essentially a lawless, amoral orgy of drugs, sex and money. And I f--king loved every minute of it.
As a poor nobody, foolishly pounding away on his keyboard for free, I should probably be pissed that there exists a world where some guy can snort coke out of a hooker's ass while making more money that I'll see in twenty lifetimes. But in the extremely capable hands of DiCaprio and Scorcese, it's a f--king riot. And outside of the sleep before another awful shift at my low-paying, soul-crushing job, three hours have never flown by so fast.
What's not likely to fly by, are the Yays and Boos. You might want to skip these two if you haven't seen it. Then again, you might want to skip them if you have.
...like spewing non-stop bullshit with the greatest of conviction, perhaps? Hey, wait a second.
I do that all the time.
That assessment, as admittedly shortsighted as it may be, also does a bit of a disservice to Wolf's real-life protagonist, Jordan Belfort. Played by the ageless Leonardo DiCaprio, Jordan is a talented individual, well, as much as an actual shark has talent, anyway (an extremely handsome shark, no less). From the moment he's taken under the wing of veteran stockbroker Mark Hanna (a hysterical Matthew McConaughey), Jordan absolutely refuses to let anything stop him or even slow him down. It's an amazing quality that makes him admirable, even if he's essentially a huge f--king scumbag. But if you can manage to sit through Martin Scorcese's latest film and not find yourself liking/rooting for Leo's Jordan, drop me an e-mail and I'll send you a dollar. No, scratch that. I'll buy you three shares of Delcath Systems Inc (DCTH). It's currently trading at 29 cents a share. But it's going to be huge. Trust me.
Heading to Wall Street as a wide-eyed twenty-two year old, Jordan quickly finds himself knee deep in the debauchery of stockbroking. Drinking, smoking, cursing, f--king, and heaps and heaps of cocaine fuel just about every move anyone makes. Like the market itself, Jordan's career is incredibly volatile, and he finds himself out of a job shortly after reaching a personal milestone, courtesy of Black Monday. But instead of becoming a stockboy at Nobody Beats the Wiz, Jordan decides to give the market another go. He heads to a local brokerage, where they deal primarily in penny stocks. Ten minutes later and two thousand dollars richer, Jordan is on his way. From there, he becomes damn near invincible.
Now, it didn't really surprise me that an industry built primarily on greed would also be so full of depravity, but the The Wolf of Wall Street depicts an entire world that is essentially a lawless, amoral orgy of drugs, sex and money. And I f--king loved every minute of it.
As a poor nobody, foolishly pounding away on his keyboard for free, I should probably be pissed that there exists a world where some guy can snort coke out of a hooker's ass while making more money that I'll see in twenty lifetimes. But in the extremely capable hands of DiCaprio and Scorcese, it's a f--king riot. And outside of the sleep before another awful shift at my low-paying, soul-crushing job, three hours have never flown by so fast.
What's not likely to fly by, are the Yays and Boos. You might want to skip these two if you haven't seen it. Then again, you might want to skip them if you have.
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| If Popeye ever runs out of spinach, I'm highly recommending coke. |
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!
- Alright alright alright. Matthew McConaughey is in this for about ten minutes. Ten glorioius minutes. He boils down his secrets of success in stockbroking to two main things you must do, both excessively: cocaine and masturbation. Good news! I'm halfway to dominating Wall Street.
- And speaking of McConaughey, that primal chant shit rules. Give the man some bongos and lets crank this motherf--ker to 11.
- Dude, was that Spike Jonze? Hell yeah, it was.
- Jonah Hill is pretty awesome throughout, but I loved his opening scene more than anything. That lovable, first-cousin marrying, crack smoking sonuvabitch.
- The aimless bickering among friends was always hysterical. The Amish Buddhist conversation on of the many highlights. Though let's not forget acquiring a tranquilizer gun, you know, in case any midgets get unruly.
- Speaking of the Jordan's crew, not since This Is The End have I seen a movie where the fun literally jumped off the screen. These guys, while they had absolutely no reason not to, were clearly having the time of their lives.
- Jordan's script was brilliant. Made me want to buy some bad stock. Immediately.
- As I've said, the level of debauchery is off the charts, but it's presented with such sincerity you have to admire it. Jordan pays a woman 10 grand to shave her head in front of everyone, and she looks absolutely tormented the entire time. Jordan, perhaps sensing this, tells the fervent mob, that she's using the money for breast implants. Yep, apparently she's going to make her C's into double D's, so we can't feel bad, right? SCALP HER!
- Rob Reiner. The argument over the Amex bill was really funny, but his heart-to-heart with his son about prostitutes was the best. His reaction to bald from the eyebrows down is priceless.
- Jordan's continual mispronunciation of 'big' words was quietly fantastic.
- I wanna suck you off, Steve!
- The best serious scene in the movie? I'll call it Boats N' Hos with Coach Taylor. Translation: Watching Jordan try to dupe Federal Agent Chandler, who is infinitely savvier than he initially appears. It's so good, seeing Jordan finally get his balloon popped. Though his fun coupons were a pretty great, if kind of childish response.
- Holy shit. How great are the voice-over battles? We need more of that.
- I've never been tripping balls, but if I ever end up high as shit, I can only hope that Family Matters is on the nearest television.
- It kinda reminded me of Beerfest, which is a good thing, but I've always loved when we get to see the perception vs. the reality of someone completely intoxicated. I can roll. I can roll! And drive home safely, too.
- There's a point in a lot of movies like these (assuming there are others, anyway), where the main guy can finally own up, and finally come clean. When Jordan realizes this, in front of his minions, what he says and does is astoundingly awesome. These f--king guys. They have no quit in them. Ever.
- She'll still be dead by the time we get to London.
- Donnie's (Jonah Hill) reaction to the Benihana news is priceless. He's so disgusted, so mad, he'll never eat there again. I don't care who's birthday it is.
- I loved that lawyer guy attempting to get Jordan to snitch. He's so f--king confident, it's great. We could go in their with our dicks out and still win this case. He just doesn't look like a guy who would drop such a line...it's awesome.
- Yeahhhh.....I don't recall. (that whole bit was great)
- Yes, it's been entirely too long for me not to have mentioned the amount of nudity in this film. It's great, sure, but after all the things I had heard, I damn near expected a small box in the corner of the screen to feature a pair of bouncing breasts for the entire 180 minute runtime. What we get is still a Yay, but I think people are overselling it. Or, perhaps, I'm an insatiable boobhound.
- And finally, let me stand and cheer for the impossibly perfect duo of Martin Scorcese and Leonardo DiCaprio. If the world truly exists in balance, then somewhere two homely guys are being incessantly gang raped by wild dogs to off set the amount of fun Marty and Leo seem to be having. Hell, I applaud those guys, too. Yay for them.
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| For the two Roccos, this was likely one of the better workdays ever. |
Booooooooooo!
- Margot Robbie. Look, she's gorgeous. She rocks the Hell out of the Long Island accent, but in terms of the cast, she is clearly the weakest link. Not that I blame her...
- There's lots of talk about jerking off in this movie. If only it had stopped at discussion. Seeing Donnie beat it at the party was simply uncalled for. But, hey, you give the ladies what they want, right? Hill stroking his dong was tops on their list. I'm sure of it.
- The butler. This guy. Bad enough you steal 50 grand, possibly out Donnie and have a fairly epic all-guy orgy. But, you can't even surprise Jordan at dinner with your use of herbs and spices? C'mon, man. You should be ashamed.
- Jon Favreau and Jean Dujardin. Two handsome, lovable gents like this, simply deserve more screentime. Especially Dujardin. I mean, he gets to talk in this one!
- Fish Bowl Guy. Like Spider in Goodfellas, this young dude didn't deserve his fate.
- Throwing away your entire panty collection seems kind of wasteful. And uncalled for. I mean, Jordan seemed like a pretty good husband, no?
- On that note, holy shit was every guy in this movie more misogynistic than the previous. Sadly, I was still in most of their corners anyway, but damn, dudes. Hitting drugs then hitting women? Killing my good time, over here.
- Even though it was necessary to the ultimate bottoming out, that little girl looked legitimately scared in that car scene. Ugh.
- Okay, clearly I'm an idiot, but how'd they get the note Jordan slid to Donnie? What the f--k, man?
- And a big Boo for ol' Rugrat. What an asshole.
- And finally, the ending. Even though I liked the guy, all the shit he did and he goes to a prison that's nicer than my actual life? Ah, to be rich.
As Oscar season is in full swing, I'm happy that I've at least seen one of the heavily nominated flicks. Once the Oscars wrap up, it'll be baseball season and we can all see if any pitcher is worth nine thousand dollars every single time he tosses the ball to the catcher. I'm sure the pressure might eventually get to him, and impact his performance. After seeing The Wolf of Wall Street, I'm pretty sure I know two things that will help out: Never let anyone tell you no, and surround yourself with like loyal, like-minded friends.
And if that doesn't work? Snort some coke and beat your dick. With loyal, like-minded friends.