Sunday, January 19, 2014

The Wolf of Wall Street


In a follow up to my previous post about the Golden Globes winners and nominees, the SAG Awards have taken place and the much anticipated Academy Awards have since released their nominations for this year!

The Wolf of Wall Street received no recognition form the Screen Actor’s Guild awards, but that’s OK because the film, which I just happened to watch this past weekend, received the recognition it deserved scoring several nominations from the Academy.

In addition to being nominated for Best Picture of the year, actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Jonah Hill are both nominated for their roles in the film and Director, Martin Scorsese also received a nom. My fingers are crossed for the wins of this deserving film, talented actors and amazing director!

Just in the first 5 minutes alone of watching The Wolf of Wall Street, you know that you are in store for a wild ride the next 3 hours. Not made for the easily offended, the film is not short of any nudity and drug use. The wild ride tells the story of a young man’s first experience on the job as a Wall Street broker learning the secrets of successful from a very coked up emaciated Matthew McConaughey. Leo’s character soon quits his Wall Street job and has his sites on building his own firm from the amount of insider knowledge he learned working for McConaughey’s character.

Rounding up some of his closest buds to work for him, Leo manages to team up the very funny Jonah Hill (who put on a hysterical Oscar worthy performance) and to my surprise, the lesser known actor/ comedian Henry Zebrowski-- who I just worked with on set for VH1’s Best Week Ever ! The team of “nobody’s” that were round up to make the start of Leo’s new business venture was a tight knit group of skeezy men trained to essentially talk poor people into giving them their money.

As the movie unfolds and the company steadily builds a ridiculous amount of success, the fast rise and slow fall of Leo’s newly built empire begins to crumble. Two hours in, the film has yet to lose any steam and the wild ride continues for another hour. As a viewer its like watching a train wreck about to happen—you can’t take your eyes away!

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Monday, January 13, 2014

The Kick off to Award Season


Last night the Golden Globes kicked off Award Season and recognized the best of TV and film. Hosted by the hilarious female duo, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, the best of the best were awarded last night.

Like all major award shows there’s always some snubs expected, Such as Leonardo DiCaprio in almost any award show. But luckily one of the esteemed organizations finally gave Leonardo the praise and recognition many felt he’s deserved for past years. He won the best actor award for his amazing performance in the highly acclaimed film, The Wolf of Wall Street…. Now if only he can get the same recognition from the Academy Awards! Another exciting win was from the host of the show, Amy Poehler for her role in Parks and Recreation. Perhaps one of the least impressive wins was from another SNL alum, Andy Samberg.  Up against some major names on the TV screen, Samberg took home the award for Best Actor in the less than amazing comedic show Brooklyn 99.  It seems even he felt a bit undeserving, which showed through in his acceptance speech.

Typically, the top nominated films at award shows such as these are ones that fell under the radar or have not even been released yet. One film in particular, Blue Jasmine, which was directed by Woody Allen--the night’s lifetime achievement award recipient-- has yet to be released but it’s leading lady, Cate Blanchett took home the prize for best actress. Usually I’m one of the millions who are in wonder about this award winning performance that has yet to be seen, but thanks to a Jetblue flight home to Orlando I was able to watch the movie.  At the time I thought I was watching an older film but now feel I have bragging rights to finally being apart of a small percentage who can actually vouch for her award winning performance.

Of course, the Academy Awards reign as the queen of the awards circuit for film and it will be interesting to see which films and actors will be nominated. The golden Globes can be viewed as a precursor to the Oscars, but the reality is the winners are chosen from a total of 90 voters for the Golden Globes and over 6,000 registered voters for the Academy Awards! The nominees for the Oscars will be announced this week, January 16th.