{"id":120,"date":"2014-03-16T14:05:09","date_gmt":"2014-03-16T14:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.wordpress.com\/?p=120"},"modified":"2021-03-04T21:52:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T21:52:00","slug":"the-priest-of-wall-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/?p=120","title":{"rendered":"The priest of Wall Street"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Leon-Morin-Priest\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Leon Morin, Priest<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(1961)<\/p>\n

A communist rabble-rouser (Emmanuelle Riva) goes to confession to pick a fight with a priest (Jean-Paul Belmondo); they develop a friendship and meet regularly to discuss issues of faith.<\/p>\n

Like the philosophical movies of\u00a0Carl Th. Dreyer<\/a>\u00a0or Louis Malle’s\u00a0My Dinner with Andre<\/em> (1981), this film by Jean-Pierre Melville is basically a two-hour discussion of the nature of God and faith.<\/p>\n

I really liked it, but I love philosophical movies which prod self-discovery.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"WallStreet2013poster\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Wolf of Wall Street<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2013)<\/p>\n

Jordan Belfort<\/a>\u00a0(Leonardo DiCapprio), a minor player on Wall Street, forms his own firm, Stratton Oakmont, with friend Donnie Azoff (Jonah Hill).\u00a0 Their new firm is an elaborate scam and highly profitable. They take advantage of their new wealth\u00a0in a lifestyle of privileged debauchery. Eventually, the FBI investigates and imprisons them.<\/p>\n

Leo’s performance comes across as Frank Abagnale\u00a0from Catch Me if You Can <\/em>(2002), if Abagnale\u00a0had been exposed to cocaine at a young age.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0thought I’d be annoyed by Hill’s Donnie Azoff, but I found his character pretty convincing.<\/p>\n

Matthew McConaughey continues his miracle year (winning an Oscar for Dallas Buyers Club<\/em> and\u00a0starring in HBO’s True Detective<\/em>)\u00a0as chest-thumping Wall Street trader, Mark Hanna.<\/p>\n

Goodfellas <\/em>(1990)\u00a0was Scorsese’s spiritual sequel to The Godfather <\/em>(1972); this raunchy, drug-filled movie is his spiritual\u00a0successor to Wall Street <\/em>(1987) and exposes\u00a0the ugly side capitalism, but it’s impact is mitigated by the ending.<\/p>\n

Belfort goes to prison, but it’s minimum security, and after his release, he immediately begins teaching others how to do what he did. There’s no epiphany, he remains unapologetic, and the movie portrays him\u00a0as a hero.\u00a0\u00a0Only once is he seen in a truly unflattering light, during his attempt to kidnap his daughter, Skylar. In this five-minute\u00a0scene, he looks every bit the villain he is: \u00a0he punches his wife, screams obscenities,\u00a0and desperately looks for drugs like\u00a0a pathetic junkie.\u00a0\u00a0However, when the scene ends, he’s back in hero mode.<\/p>\n

The movie would have been better served if Belfort had been more loathsome like Pesci’s\u00a0Tommy DeVito<\/a>, but perhaps Scorsese is trying to make us uncomfortably aware we’re rooting for the villain because capitalism has made us all morally corrupt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Leon Morin, Priest\u00a0(1961) A communist rabble-rouser (Emmanuelle Riva) goes to confession to pick a fight with a priest (Jean-Paul Belmondo); they develop a friendship and meet regularly to discuss issues of faith. Like the philosophical movies of\u00a0Carl Th. Dreyer\u00a0or Louis Malle’s\u00a0My Dinner with Andre (1981), this film by Jean-Pierre Melville is basically a two-hour… Continue reading The priest of Wall Street<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[123,263,285,295,400,436,470,472,512,686,759],"class_list":["post-120","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-progress","tag-biographical-films","tag-emmanuelle-riva","tag-foreign-films","tag-french-films","tag-jean-pierre-melville","tag-jonah-hill","tag-leon-morin","tag-leonardo-dicaprio","tag-martin-scorsese","tag-rogert-eberts-great-movies","tag-stock-trading","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=120"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11728,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120\/revisions\/11728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tenkmovies.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}