Nathaniel5678

The key word here is prototype. Frank Capra began to perfect the screwball comedy here, but clearly didn’t perfect it until *It Happened One Night*. Funny at times, but also kind of just meanders along. It was interesting to see some recurring themes in an earlier work of his, mainly the conflict between social classes. You can definitely see in this why Jean Harlow was such a big star during her prime. Although, my personal favorite Capra leading lady is Jean Arthur. Overall, this was fairly unremarkable. He has much better works focusing on the same themes and much better screwball, but I’d say that it’s still worth a watch for fans of Capra.

Note: I watched this on broadcast tv, which means that every single f- and s-word was muted, and all the nudity was covered by floating black boxes…definitely one of the funniest edited for tv experiences I’ve had. I guess I should’ve known from the comparisons of this movie to *Goodfellas, *a movie that I found to be just fine when I watched it, that I may not see this as a late career Scorsese masterpiece. All of the scenes of depravity just didn’t work for me. Clearly this guy was terrible and the movie would not have been accurate had it shied away from any of the explicit content, but at the same time, I find it surprising that so many people found this to be extremely entertaining. The script is definitely funny at parts, but I was really just disgusted during the constant party scenes and the way Margot Robbie was objectified. I just don’t like movies about bad people doing incredibly bad things without heavy repercussions I guess. Leonardo DiCaprio and Margot Robbie definitely give incredible performances here, and I really like the first half an hour or so where Belfort is learning the trades of finance. His first penny stock selling scene and the lunch scene with Matthew McConaughey are both great. The third act with all of the FBI stuff was great too, but I simply could not get behind all the debauchery shown here. I didn’t find it entertaining, just over-the-top in a non-enjoyable way. I’m glad I finally got around to watching this, but from the reviews, I expected something much better. I much prefer Scorsese’s late career contemplative work like *Killers of the Flower Moon* to this over-the-top tale of excess and wealth, interesting though it may be.

**Boxd Buddies Challenge Category #21: Vampire films ** What a solid debut! It’s always fun to see debuts from famous director where you can see so many penchants of their craft from the get go. Here we have Del Toro’s amazing practical effects work, interesting world building (even if it’s on a smaller scale), really cool set design, and great characters that you truly care about. It looks like a lot of people like Ron Perlman’s unhinged performance here, but I thought it was slightly campy in an otherwise more serious feeling film. All of the vampire stuff was super interesting. This is definitely something I plan to rewatch, maybe around Halloween. I love that so many boutique labels are releasing Del Toro’s movies because he is truly an auteur that should be celebrated.