Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Were John Hughes still alive, and had he figured out how to make movies starring grownups (stop cultivating the delusion that “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” was a good film), he would have made a movie like “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” (2016). Tina Fey stars as a frustrated journalist who tries her hand as a war correspondent. Afghani hijinks ensue. And people get blown up. And there’s a love interest. And the music comes in at all the right times. And it so patiently, deliberately tells its story, you remember what it was like back when comedies actually had plots. Thanks Tina.

 

The Wolf of Wall Street

I get the fact that Martin Scorsese needs to move on from the Mafia to a new generation of criminals, which explains “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013). I’m just not sure what I was supposed to get out of this movie. It’s voyeuristic fun watching the decadent rise and unsurprising fall of pump-and-dump stock millionaire Jordan Belfort, as played by Leonardo DiCaprio. At several points, however, we’re fed the notion that Belfort was somehow helping everyone else while he was helping himself. That’s just typical self-serving sales bullshit, but not surprising. A salesman’s first priority is to sell himself.