The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Forget “Great Gatsby” comparisons. Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” is the greatest black comedy satire since “Natural Born Killers.” Trade phones for guns, gold watches for scalps. This crazy F.U. gem is being crucified as overlong and obnoxious, a pointless drug- and sex-smeared stain of debauchery focusing on Wall Street brokers who strikes it rich fleecing common Americans on shit investments. People, that is the point. Scorsese playfully crashes and flames his epic movie as often as real-life Wall Street scum bag Jordan Belfort (a never more alive Leonardo DiCarpio) crashes and flames yachts and cars, snorts coke, screws whores, and rallies his team to make more money. I cheered. This is America. Scorsese, writer Terence Winter, and DiCaprio are daring us to hate this movie. Our hate is misplaced. They are revealing the strings of the soulless puppet masters who run our banks, buy our congressmen, and control our 401K futures. More so: Our nation’s wealth and the whole stock market is the ultimate con we all buy into. Again and again. Refocus your anger. Best character: Jonah Hill -- gold! -- as a fat Alfred E. Neuman geek who drives Belfort’s scam. Mad men. A

GoodFellas (1990) and Heat (1995)

Watching Robert De Niro burn his unparalleled talents in shit such as “Little Fockers” or “Righteous Kill,” it’s unbelievable that just 20 years ago he had two of the best films in his storied career and of the decade under his belt. “GoodFellas” – directed by Martin Scorsese – and “Heat” – directed by Michael Mann – are crime genre classics, eternally re-watchable and endlessly fascinating. The man is a monster in both films, of cinematic talent, and of men’s character. 

“GoodFellas” opens with this line, spoken by Ray Liotta as Henry Hill, a Bronx-born hood who was mobbed up by age 14: “Ever since I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.” Wow. This is Hill’s story, from rise to vast rule to ketchup and egg noodles in the Midwest. De Niro is his mid-level mob boss. Joe Pesci costars in an infamously profane and violent performance so shocking, it’s bewildering to know the man he plays was far more dangerous. The film is flawless, so amazing good and detailed (the food alone!), it’s a thrill to behold for a 15^th viewing. My words do not do it justice. 

In “Heat,” De Niro is a master criminal of a high-end gang (Val Kilmer and Tom Sizemore co-headline his crew) being chased by an obsessive detective (Al Pacino, also scraping bottom in “Righteous” and “88 Minutes”) in Los Angeles. We also follow the cop’s home life as Mann’s three-hour epic film spreads far and wide, almost too wide – an icky serial killer plot thread goes nowhere. The actions scenes are you-are-there-real and spectacular, including a long finale outside the Los Angeles airport that boomed in a theater.

De Niro is the star of both, the ballast holding each film together, keeping the madness, violence, crazy details, and other actors (Pacino goes “PACINO” a few times) cemented and whole, but let it be known these worlds are the creation of, respectively, Scorsese and Mann, both in unmatched top form. Know this: “GoodFellas” was based on a true story, but “Heat” inspired a criminal duo to pull off a daring bank robbery that eerily mimicked the mid-section scene here.

GoodFellas: A+ Heat: A

Hugo (2011)

Leave it to Martin Scorsese to not just set a new high bar for children’s films, but all 3D movies. “Hugo” is a – superlative! -- masterpiece, a tale of an orphan boy (Asa Butterfield) in love with machines, cinema and stories, living in a Parisian train station as a clock master. Thid 3D gem glows with a boundless joy of movies and books beloved by Scorsese, making his best film in years, and his brightest, most wide-eyed adventure in ... forever. Hugo – this will upset Fox viewers – is poor, and steals food and drink to survive. (Call Newt!) That thievery puts him at odds with a short-fused toy shop owner named Georges Melies, who you well know if you know cinema. The plot kicks into glorious gear when Georges (Ben Kingsley) confiscates a notepad from Hugo, not knowing it once belonged to the boy’s dead father (Jude Law). I will say nothing more of the plot, watch and enjoy. Everything in “Hugo” – from the scenery and special effects to the actors and words -- is for proudly childish dreamers of all ages, all the ones who ever held a film camera or took pen to paper and thought, “What world can I create today?” Amazing from start to finish. A

Gangs of New York (2002)

I’ve re-watched “Gangs of New York” several times recently, and still come to the same conclusion I felt in 2002: It’s a powder keg film at its opening with Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson swinging axes and blades as 1840s rival gang leaders in New York’s Five Points, the sector of race, religion and pride ran over. Bill “The Butcher” Cutting – that’s Day Lewis – stands unbowed as Neeson’s Priest falls dead. I was slack-jawed then and now at the onscreen carnage. Yet, the film’s remainder never balances or even gels, making for a fascinating disappointment from director Martin Scorsese. The story dissolves in an odd (and literal) telegraphed narration as the Priest’s grown son (Leonardo DiCaprio) seeks vengeance against Cutting. A climatic riot/gang fight/naval attack is so spastic, we require text to pinpoint what’s going on. Too much. Not enough. It’s a tremendous telling of democratic America’s terrible, blood-soaked birth that Tea Party folks refuse to believe. (They actually think this nation began with freedom for all and biblical values, and want to go back.) It’s just not a satisfying film, feeling sliced even at 160 minutes. Day-Lewis is volcano, spewing a violent code of “honor” shocking in its depravity. DiCaprio wilts in his presence. B-

Shutter Island (2010)

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD. Proceed carefully.

Before "Shutter Island" began, an Old Spice commercial played on screen. It had some stud mocking average guys, telling women in the audience, "Look at me. Now look at your man. Look back at me. Now look back at your man." The gist of the commercial: Guy on screen is cool, suave and built. Flabby guy in the seat (that'd be me) next to the lady (Jenn!) is not. But, if I used Old Spice I could be like that.

Why am I talking about this goofy commercial in a film review? Hold on.

"Shutter Island" has been sold as the shocker film of 2010, a mind-twisting masterpiece from Martin Scorsese, starring his Gen X muse, Leonardo DiCaprio. The ads proclaim, "Did you guess the ending?" Umm, yeah, I did. Right away, actually. Then I had 2 hours 15 minutes to kill in my theater seat. And I wasn’t happy about it.

See, DiCaprio plays Teddy, a U.S. marshal who looks like he just stumbled off the red-eye flight from L.A. to Boston, having slept wrapped in a laundry sack in the luggage berth. His tie looks like a wet, dead goose around his neck, and his hat is crap. He looks homeless. As the 1954-set film opens, Teddy is on a ferry and meets his out-of-the-blue new partner, Chuck (Mark Ruffalo). The men are on their way to Shutter Island, a water-locked New England asylum for the criminally insane, to investigate the apparent escape of a child murderess. The men briefly discuss the case. Then Chuck calls Teddy "boss." Boss. And I knew the whole film. In three minutes.

Why? (OK, I'm getting to my Old Spice point now.)

Ladies, gents, Look at Ruffalo. Look at DiCaprio. Look back at Ruffalo. Now look back at DiCaprio. Now look at me. In what reality would Ruffalo ever call DiCaprio "boss"? Other than by sarcasm or to make DiCaprio think he's the "boss." See, Ruffalo's Chuck is cool, suave and built, with a tie so sharp it could slice bread. Ruffalo's Chuck is older, dapper, shines wisdom and could own Leo's Teddy. Teddy is not Chuck’s boss. Not by a mile. And Chuck would never call Teddy such.

A lot of critics and movie fans love "Shutter" because it's directed by SCORSESE and stars DICAPRIO, that is, the greatest living American film director and the best American actor of Generation X. Not me. This film, all moods and rain and pounding, dread-filled music, is a disappointment. Even with the Hitchcock themes and Euro-horror nods and rogues gallery of former movie villains and serial killers as red-herring co-stars (Ben Kingsley, Max Von Sydow, Jackie Earle Haley, John Carroll Lynch and Ted Levine among them) the movie fails to provide goose bumps.

As I said, Teddy and Chuck are out to find a deranged female patient who mysteriously vanished from her high-security cell. The men attempt to solve the how, where and why, as the creepy nice higher-ups who run the rock island (Von Sydow and Kingsley) do everything they can to hinder the case. Meanwhile, touchy, twitchy Teddy is having nightmares about his dead wife (Michele Williams) and his WWII Army days when he helped liberate a Nazi death camp. Not ironically, Teddy knows two things: His dead wife's killer is on the island and the goons running the place are doing brain experiments, because they’re Nazis. Or Commies. (I can’t recall). Teddy knows people know things, and he wants to save the day and be the hero. The boss. See?

Scorsese is a brilliant director, and he places scenes in dark, dank, cave-like cells with panache, and the nightmare sequences have this crazy feel that’s just left of a Dali painting come to life. The full cast is marvelous, with awesome people like Levine ("The Silence of the Lambs") showing up to steal the film.

So it's not all bad. This all would be mostly passable, even with me knowing the big shocker secret.

But "Shutter" also is a cumbersome, heavy-handed ride filled with loooong scenes of people talking about this guy they met who knows this other guy who knows a secret. At one point, Kingsley goes all Glenn Beck-drooling mad and whips out a freakin' diagram (!) for Teddy (that is, us) explaining names. At that point, I didn’t care. And I don't care if Internet bloggers point out a last-minute, blink-and-you-miss-it shocker. So there. (I imagine reading the Dennis Lehane novel that inspired this film is infinitely more interesting, or so I hope.)

If this were an M. Night Shyamalan film with Bruce Willis, I'd be OK. My expectations would be lower. But Scorsese, he of "Goodfellas" and "Cape Fear," and DiCaprio, with Scorsese's "Gangs of New York" and "Aviator" behind him? Sorry. "Shutter" is a massive letdown. Not even Old Spice can make this flabby bird into a stud. (See how I wrapped around to that left-field beginning?) C

Gomorrah (2009)

“Gomorrah” breaks the mold of gangster films. It takes what we know from the glimmer and cool factor of mob classics such as “The Godfather” and splatters seemingly real-life blood and guts in our face. The Italian-language drama feels so authentic, so you-are-there journalistic, it’s startling to re-read the “Martin Scorsese presents” title card on a second viewing. Directed by Matteo Garrone and based on a expose book that earned its author death threats, “Gomorrah” is a multi-arch/character epic focusing on the bagmen, peripheral workers, wannabes, mothers, and children living and dying under the thumb of a new mafia. The rules of old are gone. The Godfather has left the building. The one true mob boss we meet is bed-ridden and unaware that his time is over. It’s every man for himself. Stand outs include two gun-crazy youths (Marco Macor and Ciro Petrone) addicted to violence and the banter of DePalma’s “Scarface,” but fully unaware of true consequences, and a tailor (Salvatore Cantalupo) who crosses racial boundaries. The violence is startling and whiplash fast, and the story written so large and complex, it takes at least two viewings to fully encompass. An amazing work of art. A

Righteous Kill (2008) and King of Comedy (1982)

"Righteous Kill" was supposed to give true film fans the Al Pacino/ Robert De Niro reunion they've been itching for since the Michael Mann-directed 1995 classic "Heat." Sadly this thriller is a crap dud from director Jon Avnet (who made crap dud "88 Minutes," also with Pacino) and has all the heat of a bad "Scooby Doo" episode mixed with old tired cliches about old tired cops that stank when "Hill Street Blues" was on the air.

The plot: Veteran NYC cops Turk (De Niro) and Rooster (Pacino) are on the hunt for a serial killer who's offing the city's most notorious scumbags. (Like cops would care.) Blame falls on seething fireball Turk, but ... did he do it? The answer is so brain dead simple, I kept hoping I was wrong. I wasn't.

De Niro looks like he has a kidney stone. Pacino at least keeps his "hoo-ha" acting on low broil. For awhile. Carla Gugino ("Karen Cisco") plays a forensics cop with a rape fetish who's bonking Turk. Her character, transplanted from a bad Sharon Stone film, is the most interesting mug on screen, even if she is a sick male fantasy.

A few bits of sharp dialogue in the script written by Russell Gewirtz help, but not much. The climax is as obvious, noisy and silly as the ending of "Heat" was stylish, understated and epic. The days when Pacino and De Niro were exciting are gone. They just need to quit. D-

But, De Niro is a god -- a delusional, pathetic, mamma's boy god -- in the brilliant "The King of Comedy," a 1982 pitch-black dark comedy jewel from director Martin Scorsese. De Niro literally morphs his body and larger-than-life essence to play the dweebish Rupert Pupkin, a wannabe comedian who plays to an audience of cardboard cut outs and wall art in the basement of his mother's house. Pure sick joy this film is.

Pupkin longs to be on a Johnny Carson-like show hosted by Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), the God to Rupert's Job. Kicking out a rabid "fan" from Jerry's limo, Rupert inserts himself into the life of his idol and seeks advice on how to win fame and glory. The kicker: Jerry is a lonely prick who cares for no one but himself, and when he blows off Rupert, our anti-hero is too dense to notice.

Instead, Rupert marches on, in love with Jerry and fame. The obsession turns nasty when Pupkin recruits his friend, the rabid fan (Sandra Bernhardt), from the limo, to help kidnap Jerry. The film is madly funny and nails the psyche of a deranged man who believes the world owes him and needs him.

Whole scenes, quite possibly the entire finale, take place inside Rupert's twisted sewer pipe mind, where he is loved and adored. De Niro gives a fully fleshed out performance, one that he would later piss away in the god-awful "The Fan." Pupkin is certainly all that I have described, but he's not to be hated. He is our deranged hero.

It's Lewis' acid blood Langford who's the true villain here. Lewis is a great actor. And what a great film to get us to root for a perv sicko. This is a sick mind screw of a film, worthy of a dozen viewings. A