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

Silkwood (1983)

True story “Silkwood,” directed by Mike Nichols and co-written by Nora Ephron, effortlessly plays like a captured documentary of Karen Silkwood, a lowly 28-year-old worker at a plutonium plant who died in an unexplained car crash after she started investigating safety violations at her thankless job. During her ordeal, Silkwood (Meryl Streep) found herself on the end of repeated, unlikely exposures that even reached her own home, shared with a boyfriend (Kurt Russell) and best friend (Cher), the latter a lonely gay woman. Nichols makes no saints, our three protagonists are all coworkers and flawed people. Karen strays. Russell’s boozer alpha male is loyal to the company, and so on. Money and family struggles, and the damning judgment of the unrealized American Dream are harsh. I first saw “Silkwood” at age 12 and was blown away by Nichols’ unforgiving realism of humiliating decom showers, and Streep’s stunning near naked performance. Political punches? Big money corporate corruption is bare knuckle, but so is the depiction of a union that seems far too hungry for media attention. Streep’s singing of “Amazing Grace” is the most pained and therefore perfect version I have ever heard. A

Double Indemnity (1944)

“Double Indemnity” is the film noir classic before there was such a genre. It forced extramarital sex and murder onto 1940s America, a place not used to seeing its own sin displayed onscreen. It’s a miracle the film ever got made. (Confused? If you tune in Fox News or vote Republican, then you know all about ignoring sin and fact. Please, go away.) I digress. This classic follows a greedy salesman (Fred MacMurray) out to dump unneeded car insurance on a rich prick, but instead gets sucked in by the man’s amoral wife (Barbara Stanwyck, has there been a deadlier/cooler actress?) who sees opportunity: Off hubby, get fucked on the side, and get rich. I will not spill plot, or the inevitable (government-forced) ending, but marvel at every beautiful cruel act. Billy Wilder made this gem, and he knows gems, and this may be his best. The lead actors kill as immoral shits you want to see die, but truly fantasize about. Best asset: Regular Hollywood tough guy Edward G. Robinson as the hero and book nerd! Dig his angry geek tirade against low-IQ insurance dweebs, and witness acting at its greatest. One of the true Hollywood greats, a must watch. A+

Rollerball (1975)

In 2018 super-corporations rule the world in a soulless oligopoly as every need is served by nameless businesses. Government and freedom of choice is dead. Citizen-consumers are told to do their part and buy, buy, and obey, making the corporations even wealthier. It’s the dream world of the modern Koch Brothers, Consumers United, and right-wing GOP greed. I digress, but that’s the world behind 1975’s “Rollerball,” a futuristic nightmare flick that focuses on a roller rink blood sport that’s like basketball on wheels, with spikes, motor bikes, and death. James Caan is Jonathan, the Michael Jordon of the sport, a long-time veteran at the top of the game. Until the Corporate Gods tell him to stop. Why? No man can rise against the Corporate Elite. Damn, this is a fine premise. It’s predictions are crazy eerie. The film itself, directed by Norman Jewison? A dud. Caan -– who can deny his screen power? -– appears bored, the pace glacial, and the cheapo imagery amateurish. Oh, there’s a fantastic bit that foresees the rise of the ’Net and the fall of books, but like the Koch Brothers warning, it belongs in a better movie. C+

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)

It’s been ages since I saw Oliver Stone’s “Wall Street.” The 1987 classic is a blur to me, but Michael Douglas’ portrayal of Gordon Gekko – the hedonistic shark who swum in evil – remains in memory. Who knew a whole generation of real Wall Street tycoons would take Gekko as God, and bring about economic turmoil that nearly crippled our nation? With Stone’s return to Gekko’s world, I thought the man would burn furiously as he tackles the 2008 economic crash. No. Forget the trading floor, this is a dead slaughterhouse of missed opportunities, ham-fisted symbolism, and an outrageously happy climax that betrays every point that comes before it, and every principle held by those who distrust unguarded capitalism. We focus on hothead stockbroker Jake (Shia LaBeouf), whose girlfriend (Carey Mulligan) is the daughter of Gekko, himself eight years out of prison. Gekko sees our hero as an “in” to his daughter; Jake sees Gekko as an “in” to ambition. This triangle raises questions it can’t answer, including, “Why would a left-wing reporter who hates Wall Street live with a stock broker cub shark?” Pathetically, Stone no longer cares if “greed is good” or not as he races to a ludicrous ending. D

There Will Be Blood (2007)

"There Will be Blood" is the film of the decade. It is nothing less than the story of America’s darkest side of its greatest gifts to the world: Capitalism and religious freedom. Unfettered, unchecked and in the hands of the corrupt, they can bring about unlimited evil. Blood – and oil – flowing uncontrolled.

“Blood” is based on a book by Upton Sinclair, but plays more like the greatest John Steinbeck epic not written by John Steinbeck. The master of this darkest of dark West of Eden tales, though, is Paul Thomas Anderson ("Magnolia" and “Boogie Nights”). Whatever he gives us next, this is his greatest film.

For the first 20-odd minutes we see only Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, etching out, chunk by chunk, dynamite blast by dynamite blast, silver from a California mine. He is obsessed. Muttering to himself. He wants that silver, and not an ill-timed explosion and shattered leg will stop him. The silver, though, is a means to an end: Oil. Nothing can stop this man, who can’t abide other people, nor stand for others to succeed. No amount of power or money can quench his thirst. Plainview will suck California dry if he so desires. Not even his young adopted son, who he uses as a friendly face marketing tool, is spared.

Planview’s match, his warped mirror image, is the young preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano) who spreads a fanatical form of Christianity, with him as God for all intent and purposes, like an evil oil slick. Plainview hates religion for it detracts from his worker’s loyalty to him, and likewise Sunday hates Plainview. For quite the same reason. On their own level: How can you suck up unlimited money if you’re worshipping God, and how can you worship God if you’re busy sucking unlimited money? The Nine Inch Nails lyric “Bow down before the one you serves” comes to mind.

Much of the film focuses on these men ripping each other apart, and – at the climax -- out-performing each other in a scene that crashes and burns beautifully. For each man knows the other is an actor, of sorts, and nothing else matters except the performance. It is amazing to watch. Equally amazing are the scenes in which, despite himself, Plainview shows kindness toward others and love toward his adopted son. The displays are brief. The man buries these acts deep below his black-liquid soul. Likewise, Sunday shows massive violence, attacking his earthly father, and hissing out the words, “God does not forgive stupidity.” He ticks with this violence. These men destroy all those around them. Without a care.

The punch in the mouth: “There Will be Blood” is not a warning tale. It is a condemnation against a nation that often sees itself as not just blessed by God and the best in the world, not to be questioned, but the only country worthy of being blessed by God. The movie is only more timely now, today, as I drive in South Carolina and see billboards that proclaim “America Bless God” (He doesn’t need our blessing, folks, He’s God), and politicians and right-wing TV and radio pinheads who declare Christianity the only religion protected by the Constitution, that immigrants are vile, that businesses should remain unregulated and allowed to reign free, and others that America never apologizes. That America is right, always and forever.

Our greed for money, power and oil and our own religious fanaticism – with us out godding God, and damning those who disagree as evil and against us and Him – will lead to destruction. As with Plainview and Sunday. But there’s hope too: See the kindness and openness of the grown son.

Anderson’s world is flawless, and his clean landscapes of California rough brush beautiful. The score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood is its own character, never more so when an oil rig explodes, the son loses his hearing, and Plainview watches his oil and his soul burn up. Day-Lewis is so crazy, seething brilliant, it’s beyond comprehension. Dana the actor survives this nuclear blast, a miracle, for sure.

For an extra helping of look-into-your-soul darkness, the Coen’s dark thriller “No Country for Old Men” is a helluva companion piece. By itself, or paired, though, Anderson has created the epic of our times. Unshakable. Unforgettable. A new classic forever. A+