My favourite thing I’ve seen Jonah Hill do since Moneyball.

The quaaludes scene (I mean the quaaludes scene – the crawl from the hotel to the Lamborghini and beyond) is insane – and there’s no music, no camera tricks (in fact the conservative coverage makes it work), and mostly DiCaprio just giving an incredible physical performance.

It’s not a perfect film – it’s too long, and I’m not entirely sure all the most important, interesting or cohesive moments made the final cut (for example: the scene where DiCaprio’s Belfort makes an emotional speech about his female employee is odd, both because we’ve never met her in the two hours of movie before it, and because it’s unclear what purpose this moment serves in the depiction of his character).

I don’t see the criticisms that have been levelled at it (“Goodfellas on Wall St”, the film or Scorsese not taking a moral position on the main character or his story) as bad things. At all. Scorsese invented Goodfellas – he has every right to milk that style (and it’s not like he hasn’t made many more films in many other styles); and really, a moral position? Blah.

Further Viewing

Academy Conversations excerpts – come for the stars, stay for costume designer Sandy Powell (via Oscars):

Behind-the-scenes footage (via All The Right Movies):