Lived It

Main: Leo DiCaprio vs. Jonah Hill — who’s your dream BFF?

Episode Summary

This week’s movie ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ inspires Alexei and Gen to hash out whether they’re team Leo or team Jonah. Also, the Martin Scorsese cookbook, the McConnaissance, and stanning Margot Robbie. All in this episode with Alexei Toliopoulos and Gen Fricker.

Episode Notes

Episode Transcription

Gen Fricker: When Titanic came out, I had a poster of him on my wall.

Alexei Toliopou...: Wow.

Gen Fricker: Again, I probably would have been 10, and his bangs, the centre part. Oh, dreamy.

Alexei Toliopou...: And how they kind of get like frostier towards the tip.

Gen Fricker: Yeah. Very frosty once he's in the bloody water, am I right?

Alexei Toliopou...: Exactly. Yes, they do turn to icicles, and tragically we lost Leo. We lost Leo in Titanic.

Hello, I'm Alexei Toliopoulos.

Gen Fricker: And I'm Gen Fricker.

Alexei Toliopou...: Welcome to the Big Film Buffet.

Gen Fricker: It's a podcast for pop culture fans and people looking for what to watch recommendations.

Alexei Toliopou...: Today on our main course, we are serving up a recommendation on a film that has just landed on Netflix that we think you should to spend your weekend with.

Gen Fricker: And of all the films out on Netflix this weekend, we reckon you should spend some time with the Wolf of Wall Street.

Recording: My fucking warriors will not hang up the phone until their client either buys or fucking die.

Alexei Toliopou...: Gen, we're in the podcast. We're talking Wolf of Wall Street and I am ready to finally discuss one of the icons of cinema, Martin Scorsese, the director of this film.

Gen Fricker: One of your personal heroes, right?

Alexei Toliopou...: Personal hero. I live my life by the Martin Scorsese cookbook, which is his mother's cookbook, the Scorsese family tome. He's one of my idols. He directed my favourite movies, Goodfellas, Casino, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore.

Gen Fricker: Gangs of New York.

Alexei Toliopou...: Gangs of New York, The Last Temptation of Christ. I could go on, and, yes, I will go on.

Gen Fricker: Shutter Island [crosstalk].

Alexei Toliopou...: Shutter Island. The Aviator. I love him so much. I love his movies. And this is one that I've only seen once before when it first came out.

Gen Fricker: I'm so surprised by that.

Alexei Toliopou...: Yeah. I don't know why I think there's something with this movie where I didn't quite get it the first time. I didn't quite connect with the first time, but let me tell you this. It was a pure joy to step into the hallowed halls of Wall Street and howl like the wolf with this movie.

Gen Fricker: Oh my God.

Alexei Toliopou...: But you're a big fan of this one. You love a ride.

Gen Fricker: I love this film. Yeah. I really connected it from the get-go. The first time I saw it, it was in like 2014. I was in New York.

Alexei Toliopou...: Oh, my God. The home of Wall Street itself.

Gen Fricker: The home of Scorsese, baby. I was on the Upper East Side and I went to a matinee screening of 90 seconds straight. It was-

Alexei Toliopou...: A stone's throw away from Wall Street.

Gen Fricker: You know, in New York you got your [Upper East Side]. No, but I saw it at a matinee screening and it was me and just a bunch of old Jewish ladies. And it was really cute because-

Alexei Toliopou...: They were going to see Fran Good Fellas cameoing as a judge.

Gen Fricker: I honestly think so. So they were walking out and I just remember their review of it was, "I really liked it, but why did they have to be so much swearing?" That's all I remember. And I was like, it's perfect. So yeah, it's a lot of swearing in this movie.

Alexei Toliopou...: Famously, I think this movie still holds the record for most F bombs dropped in a movie.

Gen Fricker: For real?

Alexei Toliopou...: I think that might be true.

Gen Fricker: No freaking way.

Alexei Toliopou...: Freaking hell. I think it's true. And also it beat out Scorsese's Casino as previous records as previous record holder.

Gen Fricker: Ah, is that how you sort your favourite Scorsese films? By the number of F bombs?

Alexei Toliopou...: Yeah, the amount of F bombs. So this might be number one now. This might be at the top. I saw this movie when it first came out on a date with the one that got away. So maybe that's why I haven't revisited, not the best date movie, not the worst date movie, perhaps 50 shades of grey from our previous episode would have done better, but who knows?

So what is The Wolf of Wall Street for those that are uninitiated?

Gen Fricker: So The Wolf of Wall street is a nickname for a man called Jordan Belfort. This film is based on his story, partially fictionalised and yeah, he becomes an insanely wealthy, right?

Alexei Toliopou...: Yeah, very quickly. It's also a collaboration between Martin Scorsese and his modern day muse Leonardo DiCaprio. They've worked on the Aviator, Gangs of New York, this movie, Shutter Island. And I would say it's kind of like their peak so far of where they've been going because it builds up. But also I believe for me, it builds on like a great history of Martin Scorsese cinema, which is so much in that rise and fall of an American person. Like this movie begins with someone with a dream to like get rich. And it is about that world drawing them in, that is glamorised, but then also becomes quite sickening or grotesque.

I think that's why I maybe didn't feel connected to this movie the first time was because I think that's so well done in movies like GoodFellas, where he glamorises the world of the gangster or Casino where he glamorises this gangster's idea of Las Vegas and you're drawn to it. But then he takes that away from you by going like, "Yeah, it is crime. It's awful."

And I think this movie has this grey area that I didn't quite comprehend at first, or maybe like the general public where they were saying like this movie glamorises this world. Because I find this movie grotesque from the start. And I think that this is a really grotesque world. It's a movie, all about grotesque behaviour. It's a grotesque menagerie of disgustingness, this movie, which I can see people being drawn to and being like, "Wow, they're having a fun time. They're partying, they're doing drugs." But I think that it captures this idea of the celebratory nature of that stuff and the siren's call of this world. And then you really see that undoing when you have that rise, you got to have that fall. And Jordan Belfort's fall is laced with a lot of Quaaludes and broken glass.

Gen Fricker: And the cocaine.

Alexei Toliopou...: And the cocaine everywhere.

Gen Fricker: I mean, you're the Scorsese expert.

Alexei Toliopou...: I'm a nuts. I'm a nut for the guy.

Gen Fricker: What is the fandom for Scorsese?

Alexei Toliopou...: We're called The Martin Scorsese Little Italians.

Gen Fricker: Italiana. Would you say most of his films are usually about a man in search the American dream, trying to better himself, make himself rich and usually follows their rapid decline.

Alexei Toliopou...: Yeah I would say that that would be an apt way to do it, is the idea of the American dream, the corruption of it, and also the ideas of guilt and sin. Because he's a Catholic guy, he almost became a priest if he went down another path in life. And so I think that there's so much of that idea of sin being exciting and sin being punishing. And I think The Wolf of Wall Street is about that. And I think it is an indictment on capitalism rather than like a celebration of the excess that capitalism can give you.

Gen Fricker: Yeah for sure. I think it'd be really reductive to be like, "It's just about a party boy." Like it's so much more than that.

Alexei Toliopou...: Exactly.

Gen Fricker: I will say though, are like multimillion dollar yachts, very fun to look at people doing insanely illegal things very cinematic? Of course. And like that is why Scorsese is so good because he can peek through these stories. I mean, this is a quite dark and true story that has affected a lot of people in real life. And he's managed to make it into proper Capitol [season].

Alexei Toliopou...: Absolutely. And I think if you haven't seen this movie before, I'm going to give you some great reasons of why to watch it. You're seeing Jonah Hill beloved comedic actor from Superbad, that's what he's known for, shift his entire career post-Moneyball into that realm of prestige cinema working with like the biggest directors in Hollywood, going from comedy, going to drama. And I think it is one of those great shift performances where he uses all the things that make him funny to make him also be laughed at, to play the buffoon in this rip ride through hell, where you're seeing him like be goofy, be goofed around, look insane with big teeth. I think it's a magnificent performance by him.

Also, this is one of the movies that I will give credit to winning Matthew McConaughey that Oscar.

Gen Fricker: Yes!

Alexei Toliopou...: He won for Dallas Buyers Club. But this hits right in that McConaissance, which is when he's shifting his career as well. He's going from stuff like rom coms, How to Lose a Guy in 10 days. And all of those weird little rom coms that kind of fell away, like The Wedding Planner, and shifting his career back into the trajectory of like prestige cinema, big directors, dramatic films.

Gen Fricker: Yeah. It was this, as you're saying Dallas Buyers Club and-

Alexei Toliopou...: Lincoln Lawyer, True Detective.

Gen Fricker: True Detective, that's right. He has that grizzled like thin, pained man look from True Detective.

Alexei Toliopou...: He must be doing it all at the same time. And I think this plays off his persona of that carefree, [guru-ess] guy, and you've got that scene with him going, "Mm-hmm, uh-huh." And I think that captured the world's love of Matthew McConaughey again, like going, "What? Who is this guy?" Knowing that tidbit that he improvised that on set because that's his way of getting into character and finding the groove.

Gen Fricker: Another standout performance is obviously Margot Robbie as a Jordan Belfort's second wife. Watching it was the first time I'd really seen her in anything.

Alexei Toliopou...: Yeah. I'd never seen her. I don't think I'd ever heard of her before. It's a magnetic performance, completely powerful. I love how in control she is and how much agency her character has. I don't think I'd seen anything like it I don't know, maybe ever. Maybe in Scorsese's cannon, Sharon Stone in Casino, the aforementioned, that is of that similar ilk. But I think the way that Margot Robbie plays it to always have the upper hand of Leonardo DiCaprio, it just works so magnificently.

Gen Fricker: Yeah, it'd be so easy to reduce that character to just like, oh, she's just the hot bimbo wife. But the depth that she brings to it and you can see that she really is in love, that she's magnetic and so sexy. And weaponizes that without reducing this character to a caricature.

Alexei Toliopou...: And in a really new way, there's a tidbit on this movie that's always stuck with me. In the first time she seduces the Jordan Belfort character in the script she was meant to be in lingerie, opening those doors, but she decided that's not how her character would do it. She's going to be completely naked apart from stockings. And I think that speaks so much to that character to just completely understand how to turn this guy on. It's not subtlety. You have to go big.

Gen Fricker: Yeah, and that's Jordan Belfort's whole motivation. It's like he is all or nothing.

Alexei Toliopou...: Yeah. He's greeting [Konitz] and for lack of a better word, greed is cool. I also think that team up of the Leo and Jonah, their chemistry together works so great. It feels like it's built on that real friendship where they're egging each other on. There's one scene in the film where Leonardo DiCaprio is teasing Jonah Hill hearing that he's heard a rumour that he's married to his first cousin, and you just have Jonah Hill going on, basically a rift improvised thing justifying it. And it just felt so built on like real friendship. I love it so much.

Gen Fricker: Yeah. And then of course has gifted us with the real life Leo and Jonah friendship, which, I mean, it's so memeable. Just the photos of them at the beach together and getting coffee in New York. I'm like, "Oh God bless."

Alexei Toliopou...: Where Leonardo DiCaprio is running up to pretending to be a fan. Love that freaking comic image.

Gen Fricker: If we had to break them up though, which one would you be friends with?

Alexei Toliopou...: In the divorce?

Gen Fricker: Yeah

Alexei Toliopou...: The friend divorce? I'm going to take Jonah. I have to. Jonah is my boy. I feel like I looked like him my whole life. I'm a curly head, chubby guy. I love his [stall] we have so much in common Jonah and I, we have so much in common.

Gen Fricker: Are all your friends just people who look like you though? That's a crazy-

Alexei Toliopou...: Well, you've seen my friends so... I think we have similar interests. He loves Adidas. I love Adidas. I even bought his collaboration with Adidas. I bought nearly a full line. I bought most of the different items that you could put together. Because I want to live that Jonah Hill lifestyle. And I think he was so imperative for me finding my voice as a young man, as a person who want to get into comedy and want to make movies, Superbad for me wanting to get into making stuff and wanting to be funny and be professionally funny. And I mean, I owe him so much of my life. So I guess I've got to take him.

Gen Fricker: That's beautiful!

Alexei Toliopou...: I think we'd have a fun time hanging out, all his movies about hanging out. I want to hang out with him like that.

Gen Fricker: And I feel if you were to ever make a movie, it'd be an A24 type of situation, you know? You just scream A24 hangout film.

Alexei Toliopou...: Yeah. Well I am a 24 year old, so of course I would. And you have to take Leo. Is that what your choice anyway?

Gen Fricker: Well, likewise. Yeah. Leo and I have beautiful, we both date models-

Alexei Toliopou...: Your modelesque lifestyle. I can see you on a yacht.

Gen Fricker: I don't know, he's very fascinating to me. I used to be obsessed with him. When Titanic came out, I had a poster of him on my wall. Again, I probably would be 10, and his bangs, the centre apart. Oh, dreamy!

Alexei Toliopou...: And how they get frostier towards the tip.

Gen Fricker: Very frosty once he's in the bloody water, am I right?

Alexei Toliopou...: Exactly. Yes. They do turn to icicles and tragically, we lost Leo. We lost Leo in Titanic. Jack sank to the bottom.

Gen Fricker: Yeah. But he was my first big celebrity crush. I had photos of him on my walls and-

Alexei Toliopou...: You were wearing those Claire Danes fairy wings from Romeo and Juliet.

Gen Fricker: Exactly, oh my God! Yes. I read his unauthorised biography.

Alexei Toliopou...: Really?

Gen Fricker: Yeah. It was definitely one of those ones my parents got for me for $5 from one of those basement bookstores type of thing. You know where the paper, it feels like he had rubbed the ink off it.

Alexei Toliopou...: It's printed on by a stamp.

Gen Fricker: Yeah exactly! So I, yeah...I feel like I know him.

Alexei Toliopou...: I can see you also saving the world with Leo.

Gen Fricker: Oh, like environmental?

Alexei Toliopou...: Environmental stuff.

Gen Fricker: Let's put it out there. Let's be-

Alexei Toliopou...: Sorry Greta Thunberg. Gen's the new one in town. The new climate warrior, the new climate warrior is Gen Fricker.

Gen Fricker: That's me. Rather than taking one each, what if they were both your friends? Like a team of friends? And then what would their role be? You know how in a friendship group there's the one that's always there. There's the fun one who sends you memes and stuff. You know what I mean? Which one is which to you, do you think?

Alexei Toliopou...: Think? Okay. Who would be the better friend? I would say Jonah Hill. He seems loyal. The guy seems loyal. He's got a close knit group of friends. I hope I'm part of it. And I think that he would be very sweet and kind, he would be the Mr. [DNM] if you will. But I think Leo, he would be aloof, but when he's around, you would know it.

Gen Fricker: What do you mean?

Alexei Toliopou...: He's a Scorpio classically. Leonardo DiScorpio if you will.

Gen Fricker: I'm just going to double check he's a Scorpio. I'm fairly certain I remember that from his unauthorised biography. He's a Scorpio. Yeah. I was really upset because Scorpio's shouldn't date.

Alexei Toliopou...: Wow. So you already know his personality is a Scorpio. So you can't be with him in that way, but can you be friends of a Scorpio?

Gen Fricker: Of course.

Alexei Toliopou...: What are the characteristics of a Scorpio?

Gen Fricker: Aloof. Mysterious. Loyal

Alexei Toliopou...: He's extremely mysterious. He would be loyal. Yes. He's worked with Scorsese five times. That's loyalty.

Gen Fricker: Mercurial and very passionate. But you have to work for it, like a cat.

Alexei Toliopou...: Like a cat? Okay. I'm thinking now what is Jonah Hill's star sign.

Gen Fricker: He's a Sagittarius.

Alexei Toliopou...: Okay. He's a Sagittarius. Sagittarius Scorpio. What is their connection though?

Gen Fricker: Look I have not befriended many Sagittarius' in my life. Not by choice. They've just not come into my orbit. Speaking as a Scorpio. I just looked up Sagittarius Scorpio friendship compatibility. A relationship between a Scorpio and a Sagittarius is one that is much better allowed to develop over time rather than being rushed into which, I guess, if you're working on a film is good. Because a Scorsese film that's going to shoot for like-

Alexei Toliopou...: For half a year probably. All you've got is time.

Gen Fricker: Plenty of time. Here you go, both Scorpio and Sagittarius want to explore and experience things in life. They could have a lot of adventures together. We know that they love to go to the coffee shop together, go to the beach together.

Alexei Toliopou...: The greatest adventure known to man, to the Starbucks. Here's another thing, Jonah Hill. Why I'm team Jonah forever. He wanted that shift in his career. He worked completely to scale, basically working for the lowest that you could work for this movie just because he wanted to work with Leo and Scorsese so bad. To me, that's a real go getter. That's some go getter attitude that I would love to employ one day when I'm also a millionaire already.

Gen Fricker: He does seem like a great guy. His sister seems great. Beanie Feldstein

Alexei Toliopou...: I love Beanie Feldstein from Booksmart, from Ladybird. Love her.

Gen Fricker: Seems like a great family.

Alexei Toliopou...: Great family, get me in there. I want to get in. I want to be their long lost twin and imposter in their family.

Gen Fricker: I feel like someone's going to use this podcast as evidence one day against us. They were creepy from the get-go.

Let's talk about some of the other people in this film, because there are a lot of cameos that if you aren't expecting it, you're like, "Ah, that's crazy." Like I didn't realise Fran Lebowitz was in this movie until I watched Pretend It's a City.

Alexei Toliopou...: Yeah, which is another Scorsese joint on Netflix as well. She's like a cultural critic really? There's a few more cameos. I didn't notice Sharon Jones from Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings, one of my favourite musicians of all time, she's the wedding singer in this movie.

Gen Fricker: Oh I didn't know that either.

Alexei Toliopou...: Yeah. I didn't see it till this time and go, "Holy shit, I know that voice. I know that person."

Gen Fricker: Yeah. And my favourite is Spike Jonze as this like downtrodden accountant. He's just so good at playing chinless, middle-class people.

Alexei Toliopou...: And he's a beloved director, but when he pops up acting in stuff like Three Kings, the movie of Ice Cube, but also that music video-

Gen Fricker: Fatboy Slim, Praise You. When he plays the leader of the dances, there's something so wet about him. Clammy handshake energy.

Alexei Toliopou...: Absolutely. I love him. I love him in this movie, but there's just like so many great faces in this film.

I think one thing that this movie also does really well is kind of like that explainer on how capitalism even works to a layman like me that doesn't understand it, speaking to it in a very cinematic way.

Gen Fricker: I think it is so cinematic because it's Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort explaining to camera in character, what he's doing and why. So something like that would normally be like an economic [sector]. Which is not interesting. Boring, sorry, kids.

Alexei Toliopou...: That's why I don't already understand it.

Gen Fricker: Exactly! But because you're getting explained to, by this iconic kind of Leo character now and the canon of his work and because you're aware of his motivations and stuff, you're like, "Oh, well that seems fine." Like you're going along with it. He's an unreliable narrator, but he's so charming that you go with it.

Alexei Toliopou...: And I think it really sparked like those films that came just after, like the Big Short, we've got explanations of really complex things and really matter of fact.

Gen Fricker: Subprime mortgage crisis baby.

Alexei Toliopou...: In very matter of fact ways directly to you. And then of course Laundromat as well, the Steven Soderbergh film with Meryl Streep, I think that's this new type of cinema that is explanations on crisis's we're still dealing with. It is in that lineage of Scorsese movies and moves inspired by Martin Scorsese, which are in that vein of a GoodFellas movie. Now GoodFellas is a classic gangster film from 1990. You've got the true story of Henry Hill, a mobster who went into witness protection. And that whole film is this narrated film where he, from his perspective narrates his world that he's in. And I think it's a hugely influential because it's got a whole new style of editing, which is very music video, smash, cutty editing, very fast paced by Scorsese's long time editing collaborator, Thelma Schoonmaker, who's edited all his movies basically, including Wolf of Wall Street.

And then it's also got these very pop mixed tape soundtracks where they've got music from the period, anachronistic music, Rolling Stones, that kind of stuff, where you've got a big pop heavy soundtrack full of hits and B sides, which kind of bring you into this world.

And I think The Wolf of Wall Street is the best version since GoodFellas. There's a lot of imitators that many of them have become classics. Like I love Boogie Nights, that's on Netflix right now as well. That is a masterpiece as well. And it follows that same genre path created by it. And as does another Margot Robbie movie, which I think is fantastic. I, Tonya. It follows that same world of narrated, bringing you in with someone's point of view and then making you feel so invigorated by this pop soundtrack. And I think the way that Scorsese's been able to do it is at makes you feel this glamorised world. It makes you excited to find this world. And then when you have that hangover or that crash feeling, it feels so powerful because even you, who is a normal person, living a normal life, get duped into the fantasy of this world.

Gen Fricker: Yeah, you start feeling for these villains. I, Tonya, Tonya Harding is a villain. Jordan Belfort is a villain and hurt people. And again, one of the controversies is that people did feel like it was glamorising this lifestyle, was glamorising this person who has hurt people, but that is why it's so great to have these films because you can sit in that discomfort and you can put your moral radar, just turn it off for a bit, couple hours. You'd be a good person again when you walk out of the cinema.

Alexei Toliopou...: Exactly. You're living through their eyes and the eyes are the window to the soul.

Gen Fricker: And the soul-

Alexei Toliopou...: Is the window into arts, which is cinema.

Gen Fricker: And art is everything.

Alexei Toliopou...: It's a reflection

Gen Fricker: Of yourself and yourself is just the energy of the universe concentrated.

Alexei Toliopou...: And that is what Matthew McConaughey teaches us in those opening scenes of this movie. The modern day masterpiece, The Wolf of Wall Street, from Martin Scorsese Leonardo DiCaprio is on Netflix this weekend and we suggest you give it a good old watch. And if you like listening to this episode of the Big Film Buffet subscribe to us on Apple podcasts and follow us wherever you get your podcasts from and give us a rate and a review, if you could.

Gen Fricker: This episode was hosted by Alexei Toliopoulos and me, Gen Fricker.

Alexei Toliopou...: Produced by Michael Sun and Anu Hasbold.

Gen Fricker: Edited by Geoffrey O'Connor.

Alexei Toliopou...: And executive produced by Tony Broderick and Melanie Mahony.