The Year of Magical Thinking

I cannot finish reading this.

It appeared, with its gorgeous blue-green spine with simple black, serif type on my shelf one day my friend cleaned her apartment in summer. We drank much vinho verde in those days, and she liked to show the world her control over it by swapping the placement of shelves and tables, choosing meticulously where each should interact with another. She designed her own feng shui, and this day on the porch in the sunshine and our thin dresses, she pulled open a scrolled drawer full of books. She bade me take all of them, and they have been sitting now on my shelves for 6 months.

On a night of uncharacteristic insomnia, this spine looked like the best possible thing to make the hours worth something.

It scared the shit out of me. 

Wolf of Wall Street

Remember when Titanic came out, and we all took a collective breath to make it through 3 entire hours. When we exhaled it was with amazement we'd survived. Three hours -- really? Not since the audacity of  Zulus and Ben Hurs have we sat through things like that. And for Ben Hur and Gone with the Wind, we actually had civilized intermissions.

I don't think if Wolf had had an intermission I wouldn't just duck into the nearest theatre playing Catching Fire instead of returning.

There are
only so many ways you can glorify something without it becoming actually boring. Even if it is colorful, well-soundtracked, equal parts short and long shots, brilliant acting, titties, drugs, hot cars... I mean There are some seriously brilliant scenes here. The tag team dwarf launching scenes, for example, introduce how over the top and immoral the lifestyle framed in the movie is. Then, flashback to see how the narrator (interesting Annie Hall style amalgam of voice over narrations add fun texture throughout) started. Much like Tim Robbins' character in the Hudsucker Proxy. So sweet, so innocent, so full of vim for the world.  a couple half hearted fall-to-sin scenes later, we have the board of this fun/deplorable company going through the contracts of hiring the dwarves.

The scenes are well linked. The back and forth of the story telling follows an intuitive meandering this close to the beginning. Unfortunately, the writing loses its way about halfway through and the narration falls out right around where act two should start to seriously grip you, and twist your heart strings.

Instead you get a lack luster quilt of cliche bullet points of how "boring" life is without drugs and endless hookers. Fair enough, but the fascination with the loods lifestyle is so overpowering that maybe the writers, directors, producers didn't want to give it up any more than the character. The reluctance to leave the flying pharmacy of fun over plays the same jokes so much that they over-lap in a succession that would be mind numbing if the ending had seemed as sincere as the funland. Unfortunately, that effect is not pulled off, and somewhere around the end of hour two (beginning of act 2) you look around the theatre and are amazed you are still here, and the story has barely begun.

Ie. it becomes dull. There is no third act to reward the audience for its time spent. There is no sympathy for the Wolf as he sips alcohol free beer, or almost dies on his yacht, or get arrested, or looks sad in teaching people to be salesmen. Either the story has failed to elicit this from me, or I want this guy to persevere in his wolfy ways.

Seriously, his problem solving, and ingenuity early in the film led me to believe he could have defeated the FBI and gone out in a blaze of Dillinger-esque glory if only he had stuck to it. But, no, he wimps out and betrays himself and best friend in a whiny hole of inept self-pity.

Ug.

Watch at home, cheaply on Netflix with lots of tasty beer and a couple friends.