Dear Martin Scorsese,
If your three-hour movie has to rely on two hours fifty-nine minutes of voiceovers to explain characters' every feeling and motivation -- even switching back and forth between both players in a scene -- then your screenplay and actors really aren't doing their jobs.
Also, your three-hour movie about excess is nine hours too long.
But it was fun to see (finally! your first?) a gay major character who is no more cliched or flawed than anyone else in the film. Jonah Hill finds some fresh life in his role of the closeted, pastel-draped second-in-command, unlike your star Leonardo DiCaprio who relies on his usual tics amped up to frantic 1990s mania. Also, despite Salon's complaint, I had no problem with your openly gay butler who hosts an all-male orgy in the penthouse which the owners interrupt. And I loved the gay broker who offered a workplace bet ha! ha! of performing a sexual favor on Leo and then said, not laughing anymore, "I hope that happens."
As ever, your minor characters triumph. Joanna Lumley as the English auntie! Fran Lebowitz
Still looking forward to your next, adapting Shûsaku Endô's novel Silence with Andrew Garfield and Ken Watanabe.
And you know how *I* feel about 3 hour movies that are 9 hours long.
Posted by: Steve N | January 10, 2014 at 11:08 AM