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UW Film Club Podcast #62 – The Wolf of Wall Street

“Let me tell you something. There’s no nobility in podcasting.”

Happy New Year, Huskies! We hope you had a relaxing winter break and are ready to kick things back in gear this quarter. But despite the stress and dread that comes along with the start of winter quarter, also comes the start of awards season! Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, though earning 5 nominations, was completely shut out of the Golden Globes. Whether that means a shut out from the Oscars remains to be seen, but in the meantime, we’ve decided to talk about another one of Scorsese’s recent gems – The Wolf of Wall Street! In this podcast, we discuss the film’s genius structure, debate whether or not it endorses the actions of Jordan Belfort, and Jim gives his hot takes on Scorsese and (in an unrelated note) the best Star Wars film. Let me give you some legal advice: listen to the 62nd episode of the UW Film Club Podcast now!

On this episode: Jim Saunders and Nick Sandoval

You can find us on Facebook at /UWFilmClub, and on Twitter and Instagram @FilmClubUW. Make sure to rate, comment, and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify, and Google Play, and tune in every Monday for a new episode of the UW Film Club Podcast!

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Review: Your Five-Year-Old Will Love ‘Bumblebee’

For the last eleven years, the Transformer franchise has been under the helm of action director Michael Bay. The 2007 original was a fun time to be had, but since then, we’ve received four sequels with each subsequent entry seemingly getting worse and worse. But now, Travis Knight is taking a stab at the franchise’s first spin-off: Bumblebee. Of Kubo and the Two Strings fame, Knight is making his first live-action film debut with a franchise that has long needed new blood in the mix to reinvigorate itself. The result is a film that is the best since the original, but also not the most impressive standalone film, resulting in a baseline coming-of-age tale that just so happens to feature everyone’s favorite transforming cars.

Set in 1987 before the other films in the series, Bumblebee tracks Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) as she navigates high school in the wake of losing her dad. While the rest of her family has moved on, she still lingers on what use to be. On her eighteenth birthday, she finds a beaten-up Volkswagen Beatle, who, as you know, ends up being our titular Autobot, Bumblebee (a.k.a. “Bee”). Upon discovery, the two form an unlikely friendship, but it is threatened when Decepticons come to Earth in search of Bee.

Genre-wise, the film is a coming-of-age film akin to what you would find in the 80s. It’s got the look, the character archetypes, and of course, the 80s music soundtrack to make the film feel like a grandchild of the John Hughes era — even making the iconic ending pose from The Breakfast Club a point of cultural connection for Bee. Charlie’s whole character has sprinkles of Andie from Pretty in Pink as her outcast status in high school makes her find solace in a friendship with Bee, and there are loads of callbacks, name drops, and easter eggs to find hidden away in the film to give hints of nostalgia if you’re into that. The film is inspired by the 80s and it’s not afraid to show it.

Narratively, if you’ve seen Iron Giant, you’ve seen this film. Distilling the plot to its essence will result in the same movie, and while that doesn’t necessarily make the film bad in its own right, it’s how the film tries to reiterate itself where it falls short. In my viewing, I couldn’t find the ‘it’ factor where the film diverges from its inspiration. For the most part, it plays it safe, hitting the plot points the film needs to in order for the dramatic narrative function, but it never goes beyond that.

Central to the film is the relationship between Charlie and Bumblebee. Their bond is like that of Hogarth and the Iron Giant in the sense that they are opposed at first, but come to understand one another as the story progresses. It is the heart of the film, but again, it only facilitates minimal thematic function and never goes the extra mile to stake its claim. The whole experience is almost passive. You engage with a few moments and perk up when the action unfolds, but for the most part, you’re left on autopilot. It runs the gamut, it checks all the boxes, but it doesn’t quite go that extra mile.

It’s a shame because Travis Knight presented some promise for the series. Post Kubo, there was hope that a new director in the mix could rejuvenate the long stale franchise, but in the end, we only got something that was passable. It’s much, much better than the middle entries and leagues better than last year’s The Last Knight, but with respect to movies as a whole, it’s just alright.

Bumblebee is a film that your five-year-old will love. It’ll teach them how a narrative works, what it means to be a friend, and they’ll get to see some explosions along the way. But if you’re looking for something deeper, you’ll come up short.

Score: 2.75/5

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Review: ‘Overlord’ Doesn’t Quite Satisfy B-Movie Horror Cravings

Overlord is the newest film from powerhouse producer J.J. Abrams (Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Lost, etc.), producer Lindsey Weber, and relatively unknown director Julius Avery, the man behind multiple short films as well as the feature-length Son of a Gun from 2014. From the first viewing of the Overlord theatrical trailer, one can observe the film’s lofty attempts to dip its toes into multiple genres; it is at once a gritty war drama, an action movie, and a B-rate horror comedy in the same vein as Evil Dead. For this reason, there seems to be an evident confusion online as to what exactly Overlord is; there was even a video posted onto IGN’s website entitled “WTF is Overlord?” with director Avery attempting to clear this confusion. While much respect goes out to the filmmakers for their attempt to make a fun, original, genre-bending flick, the confusion surrounding Overlord seems justified; it’s a messy, tonally inconsistent film that seems unsure of itself and what it wants to be as a whole.

The plot of Overlord surrounds American paratroopers on the eve of D-Day with a mission to destroy a German radio tower placed atop a French church. On route to their drop zone, their plane is shot down right in an admittedly exhilarating opening scene. It’s graphic, terrifying, and claustrophobic, almost akin to the Omaha Beach scene from Saving Private Ryan. Avery shows off his directorial prowess here by delivering a tense and well-crafted opening with smart cinematography and rattling sound design. Unfortunately, the rest of the film never quite matches this level of quality. It makes me confident that with a better, more consistent script, Avery would be an excellent director for a war drama.

The subsequent adventure follows five survivors: Corporal Ford (Wyatt Russell),  Boyce (Joven Adepo), Tibbet (John Magaro), Chase (Iain De Caestecker) and Dawson (Jacob Anderson). Though Dawson is unexpectedly killed by a landmine almost immediately upon landing, the rest of the survivors attempt to carry out the mission. They then stumble upon a French woman named Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier), who agrees to shelter them in her home next to the church. It’s here where we get a first glance at the more horrific aspects of the film through Chloe’s aunt, whose face, in a very poorly constructed jump scare, is revealed to be disfigured due to Nazi experiments taking place within the church. The war elements here are still at play, but the horror elements continue to be teased, especially with the introduction of Nazi officer Doctor Wafner (Pilou Asbæk) as the film’s antagonist.

Later on, Boyce, in an effort to make it to the scheduled rendezvous point, discovers an underground lab beneath the church and goes face-to-face with the undead (literal Nazi zombies). It’s at this point where any semblance of a war drama is completely thrown out the window; it feels like a completely different movie. What could have been a bold stylistic endeavor here instead reveals itself to be a poorly directed and unfocused mess. There is one scene in particular that is indicative of the entire film as a whole and which highlights both its ultimate strengths and weaknesses. In the scene, Chase is injected with the Nazi’s secret serum, and the tone shifts from horrific to comedic to back to horrific within a matter of seconds. There are shining moments of genuine terror hidden within the film, particularly with the ‘body horror’ elements, but they are unfortunately too few and far between. Even those who are looking for a fun ‘gorefest’ won’t be fully satisfied due to the film’s genre-bending ambitions, which are more of a detriment to the experience as a whole. Maybe if this film was a full-on war drama or horror movie it would make the experience more compelling and watchable. I wouldn’t recommend seeing this film in theaters; it doesn’t do enough to satisfy as a gestalt, but certain individual elements may encourage general audiences to check it out for themselves after its theatrical run.

Score: 2.5/5

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Review: Mission: Impossible – Fallout Delivers Across the Board

Action. Emotion. Stakes. Three elements that are at the core of Mission: Impossible – Fallout,  a remarkably well-crafted, intricate, and sublime action film that puts itself at the top of the modern blockbuster heap. In the driver seats are Tom Cruise and writer-director Christopher McQuarrie who deliver on the long awaited promise of the franchise and shatter the barrier that has limited past installments to create a truly marvelous film. This being the only film in the franchise where the director hasn’t been swapped out, McQuarrie is able to continue the momentum set out in Rogue Nation and move it above and beyond expectations.  Top to bottom, Fallout is a blitz on the senses that delivers across the board and will leave you in utter amazement.

Fallout picks up where Rogue Nation left off. With the Syndicate dismantled, a subsect of their followers called the Apostles is on the rise led by Solomon Lane (Sean Harris) and a mystery man named John Lark. Looking to create unity through suffering, the terrorist group seeks out plutonium cores to create three nuclear bombs. After failing to secure the cores, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), his IMF crew, and a cavalier CIA agent August Walker (Henry Cavil) must go on a globe trotting adventure to stop the Apostles and prevent nuclear destruction.

Never forced and never out of place, the film operates like a well tuned symphony of action and reprieve, pausing only enough for you to take a breather and then resuming organically to create a constantly balanced ebb and flow across six set pieces. It’s a chaotic rush against time to prevent nuclear destruction and the pace of the film moves quickly, elegantly, and without a single hitch. Narratively, the story  is complex, but easily understood if you hone in (though having seen Mission Impossible 3 through 5 really helps in understanding off hand comments, relations, and characters), and even though it fits the bill for your cliche action movie plot — that being a terrorist trying to detonate a bomb — the film’s injection of Hunt’s morality helps elevate the stakes.

And stakes are what make this installment so immaculate. From the opening moments you know what is at risk, what our characters stand for, and what they stand to lose, perfectly establishing the looming threat that envelops the entire film and making every action scene matter. Unlike the Marvel goop that is churned out, action is meaningful and carries a significance; Hunt is not just fighting for the sake of inserting action into the film, he’s fighting to save the world, those around him, and uphold his standard of morality. 

Whereas past installments had one or two sequences that really flexed their might, this one has six, all of which have their own perks and highlights. An early on HALO jump only lasts about a minute and a half, but exudes so much technical mastery and cinematic tension, you might feel like it lasts for twice that. A sequence in a Paris night club has a hefty bathroom brawl that’ll make you feel every punch and kick thanks to superb editing and sound design. A motorcycle chase that has a firm grasp on delivering high octane speed while maintaining the clarity of it all. And a helicopter finale that leverages time constraints and parallel editing to generate a white knuckle experience. constantly moving forward and never doddling, every set piece is well realized and every set piece has something to gain or lose that matters to our characters and plot.

Hunt himself is a notable step up from past iterations. In the past, we’ve always seen Hunt as the spy who was one step ahead of everyone and someone who had a moral compass, and in this one, it is really emphasizes those traits through intelligent twists and meaningful moments of morality. Throughout you get the sense that Hunt isn’t just blindly pulling the trigger, but rather, cautiously calculating the value of life, seen not only through his pursuit to save millions from terrorism, but also through his camaraderie with teammates Luther (Ving Rhames), Benji (Simon Pegg), and Isla (Rebecca Fergusson). It’s multidimensional, meaningful, and naturally impacts the narrative at hand.

Cruise deserves special accolades for the sheer extremities he’s going through on screen. When we talk about actors going the distance for their performance, no one is coming close to the ‘method’ he is achieving. A long purveyor of doing his own stunts, Cruise is literally doing multiple death defying stunts all on his own. When you see him jump out of a plane at 25,000 feet, he’s doing that. When you see him jump a 20 foot gap between buildings and BREAK HIS ANKLE, he’s doing that. When you see him fly a helicopter into a cork screw nose dive all by himself, he’s doing that. It’s really a baffling notion to think about, and if anything, it only adds to the jaw dropping ‘WOW’ factor of the film.

Tonally, the film is spot on. The franchise has a history of being a fun action spy romp, and this film continues that legacy, but this time with a greater sense of urgency, seriousness, and conviction. This film is fun in all the right ways, knowing when to crack a well timed joke and knowing when to hold in order to maintain the tension at hand and continue the suspense. Aesthetically, the film is also a standout. The score carries an ominous and fast-paced tone that is conveyed with high tempo stings and momentous drums. When listening to past installments, the music is banal, orchestral passivity, but Fallout’s score makes active engagements to heighten what’s on screen; it’s a score where you can really feel when action takes place. Visually, the film looks much better than past installments. In the last two , you’ve had a very clean, bright images that made better for a network TV show, but here you have various color grades. Everything is a little darker, a little more contrasty, and a little more cinematic. The culmination is a film that looks and sounds as every bit impressive as the action taking place on screen.

Not only is this film the clear front runner in the series by a wide margin, but the film is down right marvelous. It’s stupendous. A bonafide achievement in the action genre. From the continual ante of set pieces to the injection of meaningful stakes to its effective theme on the value of life, Fallout fires on all cylinders. Cruise, McQuarrie, and the rest of the crew have made something that is truly an edge of the seat blockbuster for the ages. The consensus in the Twittersphere is that Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the best action film since Mad Max: Fury Road, and after seeing it, it’s hard to disagree.

Score: 5/5