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I am pretty sure since last summer, people have been hyping up Dallas Buyers Club. Basically, right after Mud came out, that is when people started to talk about the revitalization of Matthew McConaughey‘s career. After all, no one thought that in 2008 this RomCom asshole would ever really be a serious or dramatic actor.

But even Magic Mike had its strangely characteristic moments. This year is clearly McConaughey’s best. Besides Mud, he was also in The Wolf Of Wall Street, about to star in an HBO show True Detective, and of course nominated for Best Actor with his role here. Yet all I really knew ahead of time was that he lost some mad weight.

For comparison, let’s look at him chiseled up and erotic dancing!

Way back in the 1980s lived a man, Ron Woodroof (McConaughey), a man who liked to gamble and ride in rodeos. Then he was diagnosed with AIDS. AIDS? How can that be? He hates the gays, definitely isn’t one himself! Must be a mistake. Fuckin’ doctors.

Well, it wasn’t. Dr. Eve (Jennifer Garner) predicted he would have only 30 days to live. She put him in a trial, where half of the patients would receive ACT and the other half placebo, and he started to feel like shit. Cocaine that he started didn’t help either. Eventually, when he is almost dead, he finds himself at the hands of Dr. Vass (Griffin Dunne) in Mexico, who lost his license. He hooks Ron up with some better drugs than ACT, stuff that actually works, and wouldn’t you know it, three months later, he is still alive and kicking.

After being alive, he realizes that the hospitals suck, and that he could sell these drugs in America for sweet fat cash. You know, saving lives at the same time, but also that cash. The drugs he uses aren’t legal, just not FDA approved, so it is totally doable. With the help of his now transgendered woman fellow AIDS friend, Rayon (Jared Leto), because she has contacts, they set up the Dallas Buyers Club. You just pay for a monthly membership, and the drugs come free.

That’s some straight up U-S-Mother Fucking-A right there, I tell you what.

Denis O’Hare plays another doctor, trying to fuck over Ron for fucking over his tests, and Steve Zahn plays an old friend of Ron’s, pre-AIDS.

And now for a fun game where we play “Spot the Leto!”

Jared Leto hasn’t been in a movie since like, 2009. So he decides to go back into some acting and what do you know, he wins a shit ton of awards. And yet still, that is still not as surprising as McConaughey’s rise to dominance. Much like people are now saying it is weird to say that Jonah Hill is a two time Academy Award nominee, soon we might ignore the fact that McConaughey was in Failure To Launch.

But I talked about that enough.

Yeah, there is some incredible acting in this movie. And it is a fucking good story. True story, sure, but the story itself is a good one. The loopholes, the fights with the FDA, the drug smuggling, the SURVIVING. Ron survived for 7 years after they said he would die, thanks to his actions, which also helped saved the lives of many more people.

The fact that it was nominated for so many things shouldn’t be a surprise I guess. I liked it a lot, and I guess so did the rest of the world. Fantastic performances, did I mention that?

Let’s all take a moment to cry about the fact that we lost James Gandolfini this year.

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Are you feeling better? No, me neither.

It does suck. He played a similar character in most movies, but there was some talent there too. Even if he didn’t do anything else, he at least gave us The Sopranos, and that is all we can ask for.

So that is why I went to see Enough Said, his last major role/film release, before, you know. Let’s just get into it.

We will always remember him as a man who loved to eat.

Eva (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) is a massage therapist, and living a lonely life. She has a daughter, but that daughter is about to graduate high school and move off somewhere to college, and she her ex husband is now newly married while she hasn’t found anyone.

So Eva goes to a party, that her friends invite her to, where hey she can hopefully meet some new clients or a guy, even if none of them look attractive to her. At the party she meets two unique people. Marianne (Catherine Keener), a real life poet for money, who might need a masseuse. And Albert (James Gandolfini), a single man, works at a TV history museum, and live a quiet and simple life.

He asks her out on a date. Aww.

Eventually Eva realizes that her two new friends/lovers aren’t strangers, but ex husband and wife as well. All she can hear from Marianne is negative thoughts and attributes of Albert, which seem to be affecting her own relationship with him! Of course she also keeps this knowledge a secret, as she feels bad for Marianne not having any friends. Coupled that with her daughter leaving, she reaches out to the younger friend of her daughter to really bond with, quite awkwardly.

Also featuring Ben Falcone and Toni Collette as her friends.

What? He also loved movies I guess. That’s good. He used to be in them.

Damn it. His final starring role, and it is not the best movie of the year.

It is awkward sure, awkward enough to make a decent movie. But it follows a pretty obvious path, and there aren’t many surprises in store. The plot line with her daughter never really felt finished, but once it got to the weirdest point, it just stopped mattering I guess?

The acting was good from the three main leads, everyone was a basically normal human being, so it wasn’t too difficult. I guess it is worth noting that Gandolfini wasn’t a gangster, so he must have been acting here too right?

The story is a decent one, but it basically just stays there. Just a decent, okay movie, nothing special. I guess, I have said enough about this movie now. Har har har.

Without a doubt, Her was one of my most anticipated movies of 2013 to watch. That is why I was disappointed I had to wait until 2014 to see it! It is one of those rather annoying ideas by the guys trying to win Oscars. They release a movie on a limited run near the end of the year, then wide release in early January after it has built up steam.

Living in the middle of Iowa, where they have zero movie previews, you will always get the short end of the “limited release” stick.

Despite the wait, Spike Jonze has made some great movies in the past (Being John Malkovich/Adaptation), so I was hoping he could deliver on his first major release that he both wrote and directed.

Especially with a topic as serious as this one.

Her is set sometime in the distant future. In this world, human interaction is basically nonexistent. Everyone is attached to their computer devices that they carry around with them, more extreme than it is now. In fact, Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) works at a job where he writes hand written letters for people, because people really don’t know how to do that anymore. They’d rather leave their intimacy to strangers.

He is also going through a divorce with Catherine (Rooney Mara), but he is reluctant to sign the papers because he doesn’t want that part of his life to end.

Regardless, Theodore decides to upgrade his computer’s operating system, as it comes with a new artificial intelligence software that will adapt and learn over time. His new operating system, which gives herself the name Samantha (Scarlett Johansson), immediately makes his life more organized and better. In fact, he now has someone he can talk to who seems real. Yay, human-ish contact!

Then, Samantha and Theodore fall in love.

The only other main character is Amy (Amy Adams), his long time friend (who he once dated), who is also currently married (Matt Letscher). She provides an actual human constant experience to his life. Chris Pratt and Olivia Wilde also make appearances.

I bet overall, Theo is actually in love with himself.

The basic concepts of Her are not entirely unique. Futuristic society and very smart computers who have human personalities. See, even Disney had a made for TV movie, Smart House along the same lines. But rarely is love touched upon.

Phoenix, like we have come to expect, did phenomenal in this role. He was a dreamer, but alone, a lover, but afraid. The movie is mostly dialogue based, most of which is between Theodore and Samantha, leaving the camera on Phoenix for most of the film to react and talk. Since Samantha doesn’t have a face, the film just falls on his shoulders. Despite his crazy good performance, he will probably fall short of Best Actor Oscar thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

I thought the writing and dialogue in the movie felt incredibly realistic for what was going on. It was also quite beautiful. You could tell that the main character had a lot bottling up inside of him, so every time he started to talk with Samantha, he could let it all out and be real to himself. The love between him and the operating system was by far one of the more heart felt performances of the year.

Because the subject matters of Her are so serious, I can say that after one viewing I don’t think I was really able to understand and get everything I needed out of the movie. This is the type of film that might require multiple viewings, not because of plot twists or surprise endings, but to really capture and appreciate everything that happens subtly through facial expressions and dialogue.

Her is by far one of the more relevant films of 2013. I don’t even have to go into detail about how it relates to modern day life. I’d suggest watching with an open mind and an open heart.

Twin Films. Dopplegangers. Mirror Movies.

These are all terms to describe what happens when two movies about the same subject matter come out around the same time. Last year we had White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen, and surprisingly they both had their merits. Usually one of the movies is clearly better than the other, or they both are bad. This year is the battle of Hercules.

The Legend Of Hercules comes out 5-6 months before Hercules which has The Rock attached to it.

Unfortunately, after having now seen The Legend Of Hercules I can say that there is no way that these two movies fit the Mirror Movie formula. No, it fits an even darker and more sinister phenomenon. Whenever a big (usually CGI/Animated/Family) movie hits, there is usually a much lesser, straight to DVD version with a similar name (if not identical), that was rushed out to cash in on people buying the wrong version. I am talking Chop Kick Panda versus the real Kung Fu Panda stuff. You know, movies that the grandparents will accidentally buy.

The Legend Of Hercules feels like it should have been straight to DVD and never mentioned to anyone.

Yes, I would deprive you of those abs.

I know I never compare movies to the books they are based on, and really, what is Greek Mythology but really old books? But in order to understand the plot of this movie, you first need to cleanse your mind of everything you know about Hercules. Every little thing. The only thing about this movie that is like Hercules is the fact that he is a son of Zeus.

In this movie, King Amphitryon (Scott Adkins) has just conquered a new kingdom. He is a powerful and strong warrior, but also a huge jerkface. His wife, Queen Alcmene (Roxanne McKee) thought she could change his war like ways with marriage and with a son, but no, every day he wanted more and more power and she feels like she has helped create a monster. So she prays to Hera to help find a solution. Hera’s solution? She is totally going to let Zeus impregnate her, to make a second son, who will one day save the kingdom.

Wow. Thanks gods. Ask for a solution, get one in 20-30 years.

After a very special wind and rain storm, Hercules (Kellan Lutz) is born! However, Amphitryon has his doubts about the son’s origins, and makes sure to make his life a living hell, while also reiterating that his first born son, Iphicles (Liam Garrigan) is his real heir!

Many many (many) years later, Hercules is totally in love with the Princess of Crete, Hebe (Gaia Weiss) and she loves him back! So when Amphitryon declares that Iphicles (These names are the worst) is to wed her in four months to bring their kingdoms together, Hercules gets mad, and then gets sent off to fight a war and basically die. Hercules would rather not die, win the war, and return and take back the woman he loves, while also hurting his step-dad and half brother. Violence solves everything back then.

Also starring Liam McIntyre as some random commander Sotiris dude, and Rade Serbedzija as Chrion. Yes, Chiron is a human and not a centaur.

In this scene, Hercules is filled with bloodrush, and declares war on weather.

As you know already, The Legend Of Hercules has nothing to do with Hercules or his legends. Lutz is most well known as playing a brother of Edward Cullen in Twilight. Although not technically the same genre as Twilight, the two movies are actually similar. They take a story and turn it “darker” while changing everything about it and add in some romance. Basically, what they with Red Riding Hood. Fans of those films are what this movie was made for and no one else.

The CGI was gods awful (that’s a pun, due to the setting) and looks like stuff out of the 1990’s. I have my hunches that the entire movie was done in front of a green screen, even the scenes where the actors were swimming. I bet outside of the 7 tagged actors, everyone else was fake. The bad graphics made it so that I could never really connect to the movie. The film tried very hard to use as much 3D as possible but almost every time it was in a tacky way.

The acting is dreadful, but that is to be expected when your biggest star is Lutz.

The story was hard to follow at times, because every single scene was rushed in order to move the train-wreck forward.

The movie is rated PG-13, so the action scenes aren’t going to be as cool as they could be, making everything seem subdued.

It took the worst elements of 300, Troy, and Immortals (which itself was a bad movie and had Lutz as Poseidon) and crammed it into this CGI suck fest that will never be worth any price of admission.

If anything, the good news that this movie exists is that we already know one of the movies that will top the 2014 Worst Movies list. I hope this doesn’t mean bad things for Pompeii next month.

Lesbians!

Oh boy, did I start this one on the wrong note. I am supposed to be doing serious movie reviews and all. But all I can think about is lesbians, you know, what the movie Blue Is The Warmest Color is about. I guess.

Originally called Adele: Chapters 1 & 2, it was obviously put together to make one longer 3 hour movie, and is really just a coming of age story.

Heh. Heh. Coming of age. I get it.

Adele (Adèle Exarchopoulos) is your average French high schooler.

But after finally going on a date with a good looking boy, and giving herself up, she didn’t feel excited, she didn’t feel love, she felt absolutely nothing.

Maybe, boys aren’t her thing? That is when her life begins to change, where she sees the blue haired woman in the distance who captures her fancy. Adele would never consider herself a lesbian, but there is something about this blue haired woman that she can’t get enough of. Well, eventually Adele wanders away from her friends and goes into a lesbian bar, to check it out. She claims it was an accident, but when the blue haired girl actually talks to her and shows interest, she can’t resist.

Emma (Léa Seydoux) opens up Adele to a world she had never really imagined before, opening her up mentally and sexually. Adele will soon realize that even though she is happy, the rest of the world might not be 100% okay with her relationship, and “simple tasks” like telling her parents about it.

Blue Is The Warmest Color clocks in at 3 hours, roughly two 90 minute segments, basically the initial meet of the two, and then a few years into their relationship.

I am positive no drugs were taken during this film.

So, right off the bat, I can say this movie felt far too long. It goes over a lot of the detail in her life, her day to day activities, so we get a full picture of what its like to be Adele. Unfortunately, most of that isn’t why I watched the movie. I wanted to see the relationship start, unfold, and maybe even reach a conclusion. I don’t need to see her miserable at a job teaching kids for like, 20 or more minutes of the movie (maybe an exaggeration? It felt like the majority of the second half).

The acting was real and great sure. So was the story.

It is just all the extra fluff and shit that got to me. They could have easily cut an hour or so from this movie, and it would have made it an amazing experience for me personally. So I can say this is a good movie for sure, but not an amazing movie that everyone told me it would be. Shit’s long, yo.

Lone Survivor has the pleasure of being one of the lamer movie titles of 2013, while being based on one of the cooler military operation names ever.

Why is Lone Survivor a lame name? Because really, it gives it all away. Yes, it is a true story. Yes, that was the name of the book too. But still. Knowing it is about four Navy SEALS, and only one comes back is kind of upsetting. Especially from the advertising, only focusing on one member of the four, we already know who will survive.

Shit, even the beginning of the movie wants to make it clear to you. Only one of those people who survive. That person is Mark Wahlberg.

And to think Ben Foster actually liked his odds.

I tried to figure out why they would do that so blatantly. I guess, out of respect, they don’t want the movie to become some sort of guessing game. They want to actually respect the men who were involved in the operation gone wrong. By letting you know how it ends, and which character, you can respect the story too as you watch and learn about the other men who did lose their lives.

In 2005, four members of SEAL Team 10 were sent on an advance/scouting mission as part of a larger operation known as Operation Red Wings. (Thus, I like the name. Go Detroittt). Literally the name chosen because of the sports team. Sexy (minus the whole, everything going wrong part). The four marines assigned to the job were LT Michael P. Murphy (Taylor Kitsch), SO2 Matthew ‘Axe’ Axelson (Ben Foster), SO2 Danny Dietz (Emile Hirsch), and Navy Hospital Corpsman Second Class (I don’t know the short hand!) Marcus Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg).

Well, while they were on the mountains overlooking the bad guy camp, three goat herders came upon their area. Clearly Taliban supporters, they stumbled upon the American’s who were quickly left with a shitty situation. Well, civilians are never targets, so they can’t kill them and they can’t tie them up on the mountain and leave them there to die. Their only option is to let them go, even though they know they will just run down and give away their position.

Sucks to suck. Now they just have to try and survive until hopefully they can get picked up. Eric Bana plays the head of their actual SEAL Team, Alexander Ludwig as the newest recruit, and Jerry Ferrara (Turtle) as a communication dude.

Come on guys. We can’t ignore the 6th and 7th most important guys (assuming the bad guys aren’t on the list).

War. War never changes.

More or less that works for war movies too. I don’t think an actual serious war movie ever glorifies war, but they always respect it and its affect on the lives of everyone involved. Obviously, with a topic with so much death, there was no glorification here, but neither did it feature hero worship. Just respect of the people involved.

It is a shitty story, but a good one about never giving up, even in the face of extreme odds against you. It also can serve as a “falling down a mountain” simulator, because they do that a lot. Shit, surprised they could survive each fall given how graphic and awkward the movie made each tumble seen.

All four of our leads did an excellent job, didn’t really feel like any one person out shined any other. I am glad to see Taylor Kitsch growing up and doing a serious role like this. This is not Ben Foster’s first time playing a soldier, so he knows how it is done. Emile Hirsch still just looks like a really skinny Jack Black doppleganger.

Also, that speech thing in the trailer? About being a Navy Seal Diver? That was good. They need more chants like that in movies. Much emotional feels.

A pretty good movie. Go America. Maybe the best war movie since Tropic Thunder, but I don’t remember many war movies over the last few years.

Oh Paranormal Activity series, how you disappoint me.

Originally, Paranormal Activity 5 was supposed to come out in October, as the other films had all done the four years previously. The only news about it was that it would star Demi Lovato. But something changed. They weren’t going to continue to give us another film with no more answers and a lot more bullshit. No. We were getting a spinoff.

We were getting Paranormal Activities: The Marked Ones in January, and it has a Hispanic theme to it. Yay spin-offs. Hopefully this one doesn’t have too many scenes where if you blink you will miss the scares, which I found annoying from the first one.

Oh huh, apparently if you blink you might get more than you bargained in your eyes.

This part of the franchise also takes place in the majestic California, in the summer of 2012. Jesse (Andrew Jacobs) just graduated high school and he has his whole life ahead of him. So, perfect time to just continue to live with his grandmother (Renee Victor) in her small apartment complex and not worry about things like jobs. Fuck jobs. Especially when a relative gave him a handheld camera to use, and a gopro, so he can just dick around with his good friend Hector (Jorge Diaz).

Well, beneath their apartment also lies a weird old lady, Anna (Gloria Sandoval), who some claim is a witch. They do end up noticing some strange stuff coming out of her apartment, noises and people, including Oscar (Carlos Pratts), the valedictorian of his high school class. But when she mysteriously dies, from Oscar, that is when stuff gets weird.

First, Jesse wakes up with a weird bite mark on his arm. Next thing he knows, after getting mugged, he is able to throw the muggers far from his body without even trying. Hey. He has basically developed super powers. Anything he really tries to do, works for him. He can’t fall. He can skateboard well. He can do some telepathic shit. Even his (sister? cousin? Not sure?) Marisol (Gabrielle Walsh) is getting involved with the shenanigans.

Then you know. Shit starts getting creepy. Bad stuff happens. Paranormal Activity.

Do you see it? Do you see the paranormalness?

I’d say my biggest beef with this series is its overall lack of direction. Why are they being piss poor at explaining what is going on with the witches and the demons and the possessions? Because they don’t know, and have no game plan. They are just winging it as they go. That is the only explanation that they can make a prologue movie (#3) and not give any real answers, just more confusion, and make a movie about a different family (#4) that just adds more confusion and no coherency.

But…I think…I think more of it is making sense with this movie. Shocking I know. Yes, it does bring more elements. But it introduces one very cool concept to the series, which really shows itself off completely in the ending, which made it a tad bit more wicked in the grand scheme of all the things.

Yes, elements of the film are basically identical to the end of 3 and 4. Bunch of old white ladies mostly wearing black at night. But they changed it enough. They made characters who can fight back a bit, which was exciting to see. The two male leads had fantastic chemistry together, and made the earlier parts more amusing.

Although they definitely fit this spinoff into the main series pretty well with cameos, I think parts of it do contradict other elements of the series. They really don’t know who they want their main villains to be.

This film I wouldn’t classify as super scary overall, but it did have its moments.

Fuck it. I didn’t like really any movie in this series. But this one was okay. I am glad they did the spinoff, this is now my favorite Paranormal Activity. Which sucks, because if I want to buy it, I kind of have to go and get the other 4 or else I won’t have the complete set… Sad times.

Stop getting excited this instant. The Deep Blue Sea is a different movie than Deep Blue Sea. Note the The. This movie is not about sharks or shark attacks or smart sharks or Samuel L. Jackson.

No, but it does have something else you might enjoy. The potential for Loki jokes.

Some would argue that Loki in a bar is a type of shark…

Turns out this movie is actual a remake of a movie that came out in 1955, and when that came out, it was actually topical. Based on a play only a few years earlier.

The story takes place in the 1950s in England. Hester Collyer (Rachel Weisz) has found herself stuck between a rock and a hard place, (or, I guess, the British expression being the Devil and the deep blue sea. That expression is dumb). She is the younger wife of Sir William Collyer (Simon Russell Beale), a judge of the British High Courts. Very stable lifestyle, decently wealthy, but dreadfully boring.

Which is why she becomes infatuated with Freddie Page (Tom Hiddleston), formerly a member of the Royal Air Force during World War II. He is young, and impulsive, and full of sexual energy. That makes sense, of course Hester falls for him, and eventually gets discovered by her husband.

But after leaving her husband, it isn’t just puppies and rainbows. She may regret her choice to follow lust. What is better: stability or affection?

Or even reflection, if you are looking into a mirror.

Drama drama drama. This film comes at you with its hardcore stance about drama. There are no amusing moments in it, only dramatic. Of course overall it is a sort of Romance as well. Just don’t come in expecting a lighthearted tale.

The acting from the main two lovers is much better than I expected, only knowing Tom as Loki and a smaller role in War Horse. Who knew he could be such a hopeless romantic and also messed up individual? (Clearly it is all just a ruse, his trickster persona).

The only thing that really bothers me about the movie is that I do find it quite hard to really get in to. The story is a powerful one, probably more powerful though in the 1950s when it wasn’t as popular of a story subject as it is now. Because really, my biggest issue with this remake is that it doesn’t offer anything new. The entire plot line of the story I can kind of see coming a mile a way, I know how it will end, and I know what bad decisions the characters will make.

Knowing a train is going to wreck doesn’t mean you can stop it.But eh, the experience is I guess what matters for movies. The acting is good. The story is tragic. But to me there isn’t enough else going on for me to really enjoy it all.

Unfortunately, Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom ended up having extremely good timing. Less than a week after the movie was released theatrically (on a limited run), Nelson Mandela passed away. Even stranger is a much lesser known movie Winnie Mandela was released on DVD Tuesday, December 3, just two days before his death. A coincidence in that it was only trying to gain some success by releasing around the same time as the more famous movie.

Timing aside, this movie is actually based on Mandela’s autobiography, focusing on his youth and ending right after his 27 years of imprisonment, which came out in the mid 1990’s. I guess if you want anything about his life after that, you can just watch Invictus.

Idris Elba as young Mandela. Because young happens before oldness.

Some of you may already be aware of the struggles that Manela (Idris Elba) went through in his life before he became President of South Africa. Those people won’t really find this movie too informative.

For the rest of us western civilization based scholars, the movie is 2.5 hours of Mandela’s early life: his role as a lawyer, his relationship with his first wife, and later with Winnie (Naomie Harris), how he got into activism, his role in the apartheid bombings, and his imprisonment. After his imprisonment, we learned how he was able to eventually make conditions better for his friends, while also eventually working with the South African government to help end apartheid in a peaceful way, eventually being released and of course being elected as president.

That’s a rough outline of his life and probably grossly misrepresents most of his life, but hey, if it is based on an autobiography, what can you really do?

Idris Elba as old Mandela. He looks nothing like Idris Elba!

I’ll tell you what we can do. We can just assume it to be completely, 100% factually correct and just talk about the acting.

Idris Elba was amazing in this role. Hands down, no doubt about it, he carried the huge burden of Mandela on his shoulders and did it justice. No offense to Morgan Freeman or any of the other actors who have played Mandela, but Elba was easily my favorite of all of them. At the same time, Naomie Harris did an amazing job of Winnie. I can only compare her portrayal to Jennifer Hudson‘s in the “biography” of Winnie, but Harris showed Winnie in a positive light, as someone who went through her own struggles while Mandela was imprisoned, and someone who shouldn’t be hated by others for the divorce.

On top of that, because the film is about 2.5 hours, it is able to go into great and intricate details about their lives, and I can definitely say I learned a lot about his early life. One of the main goals of every biography should be to hopefully learn new and interesting details about someone’s life.

Overall, I really enjoyed Mandela: Long Walk To Freedom. Like any movie of this nature, I am more concerned with what they decided to leave out versus what they told us. I personally don’t understand the controversy over his life, because by the end, he clearly did more good in his life than most people could even think about. An interesting movie, more so if you don’t know a lot about the man.

Sometimes, the best publicity for a movie is a battle with the MPAA. Just ask Harvey Weinsten and the movie Bully. That is what (intentionally/unintentionally) happened with The Wolf Of Wall Street. It was supposed to come out on November 15, but after being given an NC-17 rating by the board, Martin Scorsese had to go back and cut some more material out of his three hour biopic of of one Jordan Belfort.

Which is why it was pushed back to Christmas (pushing back Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit to January 17. Same distributor, didn’t want to compete against itself). I couldn’t be happier that it got pushed back, either. Compared to last years Les Miserables and Django Unchained, this year’s releases needed a kick in the butt to be anywhere close as good.

A raunchy, naked woman filled hard kick in the butt.

Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), for all intents and purposes, was a self made man. His parents were accountants, and he wanted to go to Wall Street in the late 1980s to become a stock broker. He quickly got a job, became good buddies with the boss (Matthew McConaughey), and was taught all of the ins and outs of the business. Including the not so legal ins and outs.

Well, his first actual day as a stock broker, Black Monday happens, and the firm he works for quickly goes under. Back to being on the bottom, Belfort finds out about “penny stocks,” companies too little to be sold on the actual stock market, where the commission for a broker goes from 1% of the sale to 50% of the sale. If he can land some big fish on these worthless stocks, he could probably make fat cash quickly, with everyone none the wiser.

But that illegal activity is just the tip of the iceberg. Drugs. Money laundering. Drugs. Drugs. Prostitution. Tax fraud. Bribing officials. You name it, this guy did it. With the help of his very awkward buddy, Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill), there ain’t nothing they can’t accomplish, or at least nothing that can’t be bought.

The Wolf Of Wall Street has a huge cast of characters, most of them actually quite important and memorable. Rob Reiner plays his dad, an angry accountant, and Kyle Chandler the FBI agent trying to bring him down. Cristin Milioti plays his original wife, and Margot Robbie plays his new wife. Jon Bernthal plays a drug dealer, and Jon Favreau his lawyer. Finally, last but not least, P.J. Byrne, Kenneth Choi, Henry Zebrowski, Brian Sacca and Ethan Suplee play his original start up friends and workers who carry him to the top.

I don’t think I need to say anything for this one.

The Wolf Of Wall Street can best be summed up by three words: Unforgiving, Real, and Amazing.

I initially groaned at the three hour run time, and although it can be difficult to make it through if you drink a lot of fluids during the movie, the viewings at home when you can pause will be easy peasy. The three hours are full of so much tension and energy (while also constantly moving the story forward) that it all flies by in a jiffy. In the last twenty minutes or so, the extreme length became noticeable as the movie slowed down. But slowing down makes sense at that point in the movie, to fully understand that Belfort’s bubble had finally been burst.

The acting performances by everyone involved was incredible. DiCaprio, despite looking like himself, felt like a completely new man. Every time he got up on the microphone, I was in awe at the intensity and heartfelt that he showed. The second “chest bumping song” scene is unforgettable. On the other side, Hill didn’t look or sound like his normal self at all. Dare I say, he has actual acting talent?

The movie definitely earns its R rating, and it is pretty clear why originally it was given the NC-17. It was incredibly dark and funny, so much that I couldn’t tell if I really wanted to laugh or run and hide from the screen. It is a twisted version of the American Dream, a train wreck that somehow rampaged through the country side, and something that I could not take my eyes off.

Although I doubt it will be considered the best film of 2013, it can certainly be considered the most ambitious.