JuicyLesson 173: More Bob for Suzie E. … Fear and Loathing … My Career Post Bialik … The Wolf of Wall Street: A Review …

A Summary of My Career Post Bialik
Also just to let you know, I left Bialik as the Christmas break was beginning in 2003/’04 and was lucky and good enough to land a job with the SWLSB (Sir Wilfrid Laurier School Board) which began right after break. After bouncing around that board until June 2004 – including a three-month stint replacing a teacher on sick leave at LTM High School – I took an adult ed. job teaching English for the Pearson Adult and Career Centre (PACC) in Lasalle under the auspices of the Lester B. Pearson School Board, a job which I thoroughly enjoyed.

After that I got a contract to teach at Laurier Senior back in Laval (SWLSB). This contract ended in January 2005, at which point I got a job at Phoenix Alternstive from which Scleroderma forced me to take retirement in November of 2008.

Drove into Ottawa Sunday to see a movie, “The Wolf of Wall Street”, which stars Leonardo Di Caprio and Jonah Hill (Money Ball, 21 Jump Street) and tells the story of Jordan Belfort played by Di Caprio and the lust-filled, greedy life he led until getting busted by the FBI for fraud, insider trading, the works.

Based on the true story of this Jordan Belfort guy (who wrote the book, by the way), the film runs around three hours but it’s a fast and enjoyable three hours. We see Jordan starting a brokerage firm with two other self-described “schmucks” including the character well-played by Jonah Hill and, over the course of the movie, developing this company into a going concern on Wall Street until he and the firm – both – get taken down by the FBI.

Di Caprio then plays the rat, wearing a wire and informing Hill that he is doing so while Hill, in turn, seeing the chance to avoid jail time for himself, informs on his “friend”, Belfort, the latter ending up spending thirty months in a minimum security prison somewhere in Upstate New York. (“You’re going to jail.”)

Having just finished the book I decided to see the film with Lee and Susan, so we went to Ottawa about an hour’s drive from Alexandria where we are staying and caught the afternoon showing.

I must say that the movie does not do the film justice; perhaps it was too ambitious a project to start with. Too much happens in the book for it all to be portrayed on the silver screen. I suggest that one enters the cinema with few if any expectations, especially in reference to the book. It may in fact be a good idea to see the movie prior to reading the book. In this way, it would be just about impossible to have any expectations about how the movie reflects what goes on in the book or vice-versa.

Too bad I didn’t know about that before I read the book. Although reading the book first does help in one important way – it helps the viewer sort out what is going on on-screen.

I am including the film’s trailer to finish off this JuicyLesson.

Peace.

Love you. Until tomorrow, then …