jbacks3

I'd like to nominate Backfire as having the most overbearing, obnoxious musical score in the history of motion pictures. Every scene features ominous music to the point of distraction (1947's Angel & the Badman stands on a plateau just below Backfire... but sounds like Wayne & Co. simply recycled a serial soundtrack to save money). Backfire's music undermines every scene, creating the nauseating feeling that every frame is bursting with suspense... essentially validating Ivan Triesault's (as the director Von Ellstein) complaint (paraphrased) in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) that every scene cannot be climactic. This is a textbook example of how less is more in film noir.

I've always regarded Seth Rogen as a potheaded version of Adam Sandler. In a perfect world, both of these guys wouldn't find work in Hollywood beyond bagging groceries at Ralph's on Van Nuys Blvd. Sandler is responsible for drek like Little Nicky and Jack & Jill, whereas Rogen should be held criminally responsible for The Green Hornet. And it was only out of equal parts boredom and trepidation that I saw Neighbors today. It's crude, predictable and takes wild stabs at shock value for laughs. Some of them work (I'm a tough crowd and there were 3 laugh out loud gags)... but whether you like Neighbors or not will depend on your tolerance for dick jokes, recreational drug use and lactation. This is not a kid's movie. Neighbors looks like Citizen Kane compared to The Green Hornet. I'll be generous and call this a 6, only because it exceeded my low expectations.

Wow, WoWS is getting critically mauled on these user reviews! But indulge my 2-cents: What works: The level of acting is terrific. I'm not a Jonah Hill fan and I'll give his chops (rumor has it he was paid a paltry $60K in what's purported to be a $100 million production--- if true, he was robbed). His Donnie Azoff (aka in real life as Danny Porus) is a difficult character, having no redeeming qualities to draw from. DiCaprio also manages to pull off a convincing Jordan Belfort and as he possesses a face that has refuses to age, we see Belfort as a hungry 23-year old through about 1998. DiCaprio has a firm grip on the guy, and there's one outlandish scene involving a fistful of Quaaludes that kick in at an inopportune moment. Watching Leo chemically melt on a pay phone and throw his body like a mangled Slinky is the one best scene in the film. What doesn't work: The script is pointless. There's no moral center, not a single redeeming character to empathize with. The inevitable outcome happens with no great surprises, no clever plot twists, nothing. These people are all scumbags. A lot has been said about the nudity. I'm no prude and find it sadly amusing that we Americans don't bat an eye at catastrophic body counts in mindless action movies but howl at skin. But okay, WoWS has an unusually high amount of nudity, sex, raunch and Marty seems perfectly willing to give us what he wants. And I will agree that it should probably have been more correctly released as an NC-17 (the fact that this received a R at all makes me question the rating board itself). Another criticism: I've grown tired of the Scorsese narration. It worked in Goodfellas and Casino but without a tighter script, listing to a voice over pieced out over 3 hours weighs the film down. Although I enjoyed it more than most people here, it would've been greatly improved by whittling 25 minutes off a better script.