Posted on January 28, 2013 at 3:40 pm
The new “House of Cards” series on Netflix starring Kevin Spacey is a remake of the brilliant original series from the BBC about a diabolical and ruthlessly ambitious politician. Both are worth watching.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULwUzF1q5w4
Posted on June 16, 2012 at 8:00 am
Many thanks to my wonderful friend Brandon Fibbs for sharing this heartwarming short film.
Posted on October 20, 2011 at 6:50 pm
A| Lowest Recommended Age: | High School |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated R for language |
| Profanity: | Constant profanity and bad language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking, smoking |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Tense confrontations, job loss, betrayal |
| Diversity Issues: | None |
| Date Released to Theaters: | October 21, 2011 |
| Date Released to DVD: | May 1, 2011 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B005FITIGO |
Investors can make bets by promising to buy stock at a higher or lower price than the current day’s valuation. If all goes well, they never actually have to buy the stock. They can keep buying and selling the bets with borrowed money without ever having to buy the underlying securities. But if it does not go well, the investor gets what is known as a margin call and has to come up with the cash.
The financial meltdown of 2008 was like a margin call for America, and we will be paying off that debt for a long time. This movie, as tightly wound as a thriller, takes us through a fictionalized version of the night when it all tipped over from going well to not going well at an enormous Wall Street company, and it was time to pay the piper and a lot of others as well.
“You guys ever been through this before?” asks Will (Paul Bettany), as some serious looking people in suits start tapping people on the shoulder and saying, “I’m afraid we have to speak with you” to the people in cubicles “Best to ignore it, keep your head down, go back to work. Don’t watch.”
“The majority of this floor is being let go today,” says the serious woman in a suit. She speaks of “certain precautions that may seem punitive.” She glances down at the paperwork when she speaks of “your — 19 — years” with the (never-named) company. And then we see people carrying cardboard boxes of belongings out the front door of a shiny skyscraper, their eyes blinking in the unaccustomed sunlight.
This is nothing new, as Will’s comment informs us. It is a routine, if brutal pruning of the staff. This is a cutthroat business and periodically some throats get cut. And periodically Will has to speak to those left behind: “These were good people and they were good at their jobs, but you are better. We will not think of them again.” Back to work watching all those screens with all those numbers.
But one of the departed has left something behind. There is evident irony in the name of the division that has been gutted. It is the Risk Management group. And the 19-year veteran who has been shown the door has been working on a new analysis of the firm’s position. He turns his thumb drive over to the young colleague who has been kept on, Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto), a literal rocket scientist with “a PhD in propulsion,” who plugs a few holes in the formula that reveal that the firm is in their terms, “projected losses are greater than the current value of the company.” In other words, on the verge of collapse. That is when it gets interesting. Sullivan has proven that there are going to be some devastating losses. The question is who will pay for them.
The rest of the long night will be devoted to answering that question. It is like a long game of musical chairs, except that these people get to decide when to stop the music so they can get to the chairs before everyone else.
The guy at the top is John Tuld (Jeremy Irons). Given a choice between reputation and money, he has no hesitation in choosing money. He tells the head of sales, Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey) to sell the ticking time bomb securities by assuring their clients that they are solid investments, even though Rogers points out that no one will ever trust them again. “You’re selling something you know has no value.” “We’re selling to willing buyers at fair market value so that we can survive.”
Rogers is not the only one who raises concerns, moral and financial. But writer-director J.C. Chandor lets us see when and how each of them topple, and what makes them topple, which turns out to be money. Dale repeatedly says there is nothing that can get him to go back inside the building and yet there he is, back in the building. Rogers says he will not sell these risky securities to clients because “you don’t sell anything to anybody unless they’ll come back to you for more.” But he does.
This could just as easily be set in the scuzzy world of the real-estate salesmen of “Glengarry Glen Ross” or the “leave the gun, take the cannoli” world of “The Godfather.” Chandor keeps enough of the real story to keep things vivid and meaningful but does not get mired in jargon. Crisp performances by everyone keep things taut until a surprising detour at the end. For the first time we leave the world of glass and concrete for an intensely personal moment of loss and grief. “Our talents have been used for the greater good,” one character says, reminding us that the very selection process that takes people who are capable of more tangible contributions are unable to resist the big money that pays them a many-times multiple for financial engineering over mechanical engineering. And reminding us, too, that if we let people who care only about money make the decisions they will make decisions that are only about money for them.
Posted on July 7, 2011 at 6:05 pm
Three old friends who work for deranged, abusive bosses decide that the only solution is a “Strangers on a Train”-style murder swap in a lightweight comedy sustained by recession-era resentment fantasies, some attention to plot structure, and a bunch of top comic performers enjoying themselves so much it is impossible not to join them. As confirmed by the outtakes over the closing credits, even the stars were shocked into laughter by some of the more outrageous moments in the film. This is what “Bad Teacher” wanted to be, cheerfully offensive with some forward propulsion. It’s a wish fulfillment story with the vicarious pleasure of revenge and of seeing other people get into a lot of trouble for taking the risks we are much too careful to attempt.
You can see that Jennifer Aniston, looking like an inhumanly idealized CGI version of herself, is so happy to be out of those cloying rom-coms that she has a total blast as a predatory and sexually voracious dentist who only gets more excited by humiliating her assistant (Charlie Day as Dale). Even her dentist music plays “Crazy.” Colin Farrell, unrecognizable as a paunchy cokehead with a hangover, clearly enjoys playing a nunchucking nutball whose primary influence on home decoration appears to Uday Hussein. And Kevin Spacey, who pretty much owns the bad boss role brings it once again as a paranoid, manipulative bully.
No wonder Kurt (Jason Sudeikis), Nick (Jason Bateman), and Dale feel trapped. None of them can find another job. Horrible bosses don’t hesitate to threaten bad references and the job market is awful. A high school classmate who was once a successful financier at Lehman Brothers is now reduced to, well, let’s just say he has his hand out. So, being the dim-witted play by the rules guys that they are, with their only knowledge of crime coming from Dale’s intensive study of the “Law & Order” franchise, they try to find an assassin to knock off the horrible bosses, reasoning that “We don’t clean our apartments or cut our hair,” so why should they do their own killing? They look for help first on the internet (and wonder whether they should have a cheese plate to offer the hired killer) and then try some random guy because he is black and has a scary nickname and lot of tattoos and therefore must be a badass (Jamie Foxx, very funny as Jones).
Unlike “Bad Teacher,” this film recognizes that the outrageous and shocking behavior works only if there is a solidly structured plot to keep things moving. It is as funny to see how some of the elements from the first half come back in the second as it is to see Aniston’s sexual predator, spraying Day’s crotch with the hose from the spit sink and singing out, “Shabbat Shalom!” at what is revealed. Bateman’s impeccably dry delivery is perfectly balanced with Sukeikis’ guy-next door (if the guy next door was constantly looking for short-term female companionship) cheer, and a nice restorative after the awful “Hall Pass.” Julie Bowen (“Modern Family”), Lindsay Sloane, and Ioan Gruffudd make the most of brief appearances and good spirits about bad activities keeps things brisk and lively. It is most likely to be remembered in the future as a relic of (we hope) a low point in the American economy than anyone’s notion of a classic, but fans of raunchy comedy will find something to enjoy.
(more…)
Posted on March 23, 2010 at 8:00 am
“More of this is true than you would believe,” “The Men Who Stare at Goats” cheekily informs us as it opens. And while its tone is high satire, even farce, the story it tells is not hard to believe at all. Military officials are portrayed as credulous, ineffectual, and petty. But they are also portrayed as candid, open-minded, and forthright. Much of what goes on in the military’s 20-plus-year exploration of what we used to call the “human potential movement” seems outlandish, but those were outlandish times. And one aspect rings especially true. According to this film, based on the non-fiction book by debunking Welsh journalist Jon Ronson, the real reason the US and the USSR entered into these “new age” programs was that each was convinced the other was doing it. So much for the efficacy of “remote viewing.”
That would be the power to see something mentally that could not be seen visually, either because it was too far away or on the other side of a wall. This division, led by Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), whose long, gray braid hangs down over his fatigues, experiments with all categories of extra-sensory perception including telekinesis (the ability to affect objects without touching them), clairvoyance (the ability to read minds), and precognition (the ability to predict the future).
Jeff Bridges, as a Viet Nam vet who explores the new age fads of the 1970’s, one hot tub at a time, conveys slightly seedy optimism in the early days of the program and shows us the consequences of too much mind-bending at the end. Kevin Spacey is the ambitious psychiatrist who guides the program as it mutates from exploring what our troops can do to exploring how what we have learned can take away from the humanity of the enemy troops we capture. George Clooney centers the film as the most gifted of the program’s subjects, a man who seeks some way to integrate his abilities and experiences to find some meaning in the effort. But Ewan McGregor never convinces us that he is a dumped husband, a reporter, or an American. The reference to Jedi warriors just reminds us of his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the “Star Wars” movies and makes his appearance seem like an in-joke.
The light-heartedness of the movie’s tone goes from pratfall humor to a wrenching depiction of the consequences of foolishness. It is smart enough not to be entirely dismissive of the idea that some or all people may have some uncharted capabilities we should try to understand and focus. But it is clear that none of that will do much good against a gun and that the efforts to pursue it may lead to extensive personal and organizational trauma. The main character is unhappy that his scoop is almost entirely ignored when it is published. The media picks up only on the side detail that Barney music was used to break the spirits of prisoners. The pernicious influence of that song appears to have been the only usable information produced by the program; something that any parent of a toddler could have conveyed with great enthusiasm. If this movie directs more attention to Ronson’s findings, that will be gratifying to him, but to us it should also be an important lesson about how one factor in allowing large organizations get out of control is that no one is paying attention.
