Leonardo DiCaprio Shows Off His Dance Moves in The Wolf of Wall Street

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The Top 10 Films of 2013 (Redux)

10) Fruitvale Station
Directed By: Ryan Coogler
Starring: Michael B. Jordan, Melonie Diaz, & Octavia Spencer
STARS: 3 out of 4

Brief Description: This film takes an unflinching look at the last day Oscar Grant (Jordan) lives before his brutal murder on New Year's Eve in 2008. Analogous to Zero Dark Thirty, the third act is spectacular and makes the film.

9) Frozen
Directed By: Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee
Starring: Kristen Bell, Idina Menzel, & Josh Gad
STARS: 3.5 out of 4

Brief Description: Frozen is Disney's adaptation of The Snow Queen, with some excellent songs. If this film was made in the 90's around the same time as The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast, Frozen would be an instant classic right along with them.

10 "Quick" Reactions to the 2014 Academy Award Winners

1) Gravity was the big winner at last night's Academy Awards. It walked away with the most awards- seven, including: Best Director (Alfonso Cuarson). The vast majority of the Oscars are technical awards; it's why The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and Titanic were able to walk away with a bajillion awards. Therefore, it should be no surprise that the biggest technical achievement of the year took home so many Golden Statutes. As a good friend of mine stated for his Oscar pool, "when it doubt, just pick Gravity" It also won Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Film Editing, and Best Score.

2) 12 Years A Slave won Best Picture (thus giving director Steve McQueen and Brad Pitt Oscar wins). The film won 2 other awards including Best Adapted Screenplay (John Ridley) and Best Supporting Actress (Lupita Nyong'o) I don't have an inherent problem with the latter two, but I strongly disliked the movie 12 Years A Slave as a whole. Just from a film making perspective, it was just "eh". If you didn't fall asleep in the middle of the film and constantly look at your phone, then you're lying. If it was truly between Gravity and 12 Years A Slave, it's Gravity for the win for me.

2014 Oscar Preview: Best Picture

NOMINEES:
- 12 Years A Slave
- American Hustle
- Captain Phillips
- Dallas Buyers Club
- Gravity
- Her
- Nebraska
- Philomena
- The Wolf of Wall Street

SHOULD BE HERE: The Place Beyond The Pines

This was a decently small film that was released in April of 2013 by an Indie director. Granted, the names attached like Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, and Eva Mendez gave it some credibility to the outside world, but still, I get why it wasn't nominated. Being "good" doesn't cut it- you have to be able to promote and network as well. Despite that, The Place Beyond The Pines was excellent. In this year of mediocre films, The Place Beyond The Pines was one of the best of them. I don't want to give anything more away about the plot of the film, because it's best knowing as little as possible about it going in. I was initially off put by the 140 minute run time, but I promise you, it's worth it.

Now, out of the films that at least had somewhat of a chance to be nominated but was not, Friuitvale Station was the best of them.

Top 10 Films Of 2013

In October 2010, I was sitting in a movie theater with my then girlfriend (now wife) watching David Fincher's newest movie. It was called The Social Network. After the movie ended and after I picked my jaw up off of the floor, I turned to her and said, "Holy Shit, that was great. I don't know which movie was better, this or Inception!" Inception had come out a few months earlier, and was just groundbreaking and breath taking. In my mind, at that time, I couldn't decide which awesome movie was more awesome.

2010 had two Holy Shit movies. A "Holy Shit movie" is a movie that is just so damn good that the only words that come out of your mouth after you see it are "holy shit." Obviously those movies were The Social Network and Inception. The reason I bring this up, is because we haven't had a Holy Shit movie in over 3 years since The Social Network. 2011 had "Drive", which is really the only movie that could even be considered a Holy Shit movie since 2010. However, Drive was really good, and maybe even great, but it wasn't Holy Shit good. Need further proof? Cracked recently named Drive the most overrated movie to come out in recent years, my old site Game of Inches didn't even consider it for its list of the 25 Best Films of the Past 25 Years (it was eligible), and it only received 1 (minor) Oscar nomination (Best Sound Editing) at the 2012 Academy Awards. Now you can make very easy arguments against all 3 of those instances; however, the problem is that Holy Shit movies don't even get that kind of bad publicity. You haven't heard a single complaint about Inception or The Social Network for the past 3 years. They're both still almost universally revered.

Trailer Recap: The Wolf Of Wall Street

SONG CHOICE: Kanye West's "Black Skinhead"

Django Unchained had "The Payback" by James Brown. Six months later, Baz Luhrmann tops that by using Jay-Z's section of "No Church In The Wild". A few months later we get Yeezus' himself and his new song "Black Skinhead". Nothing like having Kanye West to hype up your trailer.

The song works perfectly. The tone sets the movie up for an over the top, slightly comically "Goodfellas". The choppiness of the songs works perfectly with the choppiness of the trailer. Plus, nothing like Matthew McConaughey and DiCaprio beating their chests to send the mood off right.

EXPLANATION OF THE PLOT: Horrible

I have absolutely no idea what this movie is about. But do I care? Absolutely not. I get that Leo loves to throw things, and that's pretty much it. I guess DiCaprio is Henry Hill and Jay Gatsby rolled into one. And that's fine by me.

EXCITEMENT LEVEL: Through the roof

DiCaprio + Scorsese + rap music = solid gold.

Even with Shutter Island and The Aviator fresh in my mind, I still wholeheartedly believe that Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio can do no wrong. I have no idea what The Wolf of Wall Street is actually about, but the Kanye song plus this title card:

And this title card:

Mean's I'm all in. 

Are you excited to see The Wolf Of Wall Street?

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