Peculiar Reviewer

There's this hot new drug called The Wolf of Wall Street , and Leonardo DiCaprio is going to take you there; give you what you need. Trust in him, and success it will proceed.  It's 1987, and Jordan Belfort has just landed a job as a stockbroker at a successful Wall Street firm. Belfort earns his broker's license, eager to begin his new career after being guided by his boss Matthew McConaughey , a tribal-humming money man whose 2 keys to success are: masturbating and cocaine on the daily. Then Black Monday hits, and the firm that promised a lucrative future for Belfort goes under. The wolf then becomes partners with his ambitious, equal-minded neighbor Donnie Azoff ( Jonah Hill ), to form their own boiler room of selling terrible stocks to those desiring easy money. Determined to take the successful duo down is FBI Agent Patrick Denham (Kyle Chandler), as his investigation into the company reveals stock market manipulation. Jordan Belfort talks to the camera because ...

Here I go again on my own, contemplating whether or not I want to write about another movie I had high hopes for this year. It actually pains me to say bad things when I wanted it to be so good. From the current 94% critic rating on the Tomatometer, I am of the 6%.  After being caught, successful con man Irving Rosenfeld ( Christian Bale ), and his British partner Sydney Prosser ( Amy Adams ), take a deal with FBI agent Richie DiMaso ( Bradley Cooper ) to bring down Jersey powerbrokers and mafia in American Hustle .   America's favorite genres, mobster and con artist movies, are combined to produce what is supposedly one of the best hustles in history (only some of it is based on a true story). Everybody loves a good take-down. Set in 1978, Hustle opens up with a nearly 5-minute intro of a balding Bale hooking up his comb-over at the Plaza Hotel. In fact, director David O. Russell ( Silver Linings Playbook , The Fighter ) gives many of the stellar cast members grand eth...

"All is lost here except for soul and body," explains sailor Robert Redford in the message-in-a-bottle he drops into the vast Indian Ocean. Set adrift on memory bliss, "our man" Redford is lost alone at sea after he finds his ship, the Virginia Jean, has collided with a shipping container and is filling up with water. Against all odds and perfect storms, our MacGyver sailor fights coming to terms with his maritime mortal future, going into survival mode during the endless summer gone wrong in All Is Lost .  Director J.C. Chandor ( Margin Call ) wastes no time and drops the viewer in the ocean from the beginning scene of All Is Lost . Redford's character doesn't need a character intro, flashback, or a Hollywood sob story to connect the audience with the sailor. We instantly root for him to survive because Redford plays it cool like Clint Eastwood - and calm like Marlon Brando. Redford is sharp and on-point, carrying the entire movie without a supporting...

In the future, when everyone is fabulous, Victors Katniss Everdeen ( Jennifer Lawrence ) and Peeta Mellark ( Josh Hutcherson ) must now travel throughout the country on their Victory Tour of surviving the 74th Hunger Games. In Catching Fire , Panem President Snow ( Donald Sutherland ) has ordered the District 12 tributes to convince the people that the love exhibited between them is real, and not just a front to survive the previous Games. Katniss and Peeta are forced to read from cards that District 12 escort Effie Trinket ( Elizabeth Banks ) writes for them, unable to speak their own thoughts without the threat of backlash from The Capitol. Katniss suffers with flashbacks from Hunger Games, as her and Gale ( Liam Hemsworth ) wait for the hovering doom to return. The opening scenes of director Francis Lawrence's The Hunger Games: Catching Fire are cut too fast. Where Gary Ross' vision in The Hunger Games was to take his time with these scenes, building the suspense and e...