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Giving you something to read on the toilet since 2009.

"The mistake lies in seeing debate and discussion as secondary to the recovery of meaning. Rather, we should see them as primary: art and literature do not exist to be understood or appreciated, but to be discussed and argued over, to function as a focus for social dialogue. The discourse of literary or art criticism is not to recover meaning, but to create and contest it. Our primal scene should not be the solitary figure in the dark of the cinema but the group of friends arguing afterwards in the pub."
-Don Fowler (1996) "Even Better Than The Real Thing"

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Wall Street - KDJ


Oliver Stone movies are kind of all over the place. From Natural Born Killers to The Doors to Larry Flynt to the original Wall Street and now to this one -- covering lots of ground and lots of issues later, I think this is one of the best. I think everyone that reads the news, especially during the beginning phases of the recession, wondered about the moment when the dudes that decided everything acutally had to decide something. I heard Oliver interviewed and he wanted to stay away from this sort of scene as much as possible. He didn't want to directly portray subprime, crappy loans on a huge scale. He wanted to the fall-out to be more character driven, individual, able-to-relate-to, or whatever. But gosh, when I hear the number 700 billion I am always in complete amazement thinking about the dudes that first uttered the words, we need 700 billion dollars - we these millionaire investment bankers - need 700 billion dollars. Cause, man, and I think this is why the plot of this movie moves so well, is that there is some serious Greek drama going on. There is so much under the table, so much behind the curtain of both a bailout and a movie about a bailout of this magnitude. We, the viewer are forced to piece it together for ourselves and just as this can be difficult in real life, so to has Stone captured the difficultly of seeing how things play out when there isn't one to blame or one to save us or one to explain it all for us. I thought this movie was great. The first one was monumental and has become seasoned, the second comes along in stride with the help of some slicker technology and flashy directing - much like market shares; the value is hard to pinpoint without a rumor or a vilifying story, only this time, Sheen appears un-wizened.

3 comments:

  1. one of the best? really? platoon, born on the 4th of july, JFK, nixon... wall street 2 is rather annoying and not just cause labeouf cant act for shit. the only thing that impressed me was brolin's performance. then again that comes as no surprise. also i wouldnt call the people vs larry flint a stone picture, rather a milos forman. have you seen machete?

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  2. I appreciate platoon and 4th of july but part of me finds them so hard to watch that I end up not enjoying them. I am trying to hone my reasons for supporting a movie - why is it good? Is it good cause it was really well made or is it good cause I simply liked it (on a lowly superficial level)? I have not seen machete. That student pass in London elevated my movie watching but paying 10 to 12 bucks for a movie here in the U.S. is not as justified when I work for 8 dollars/hr.

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  3. haha! i know what you mean. its the same here in bonn. but ive found a indie cinema that charges 5€ which is ok. also they have special offer days at the cineplexes. only problem is most films are dubbed in german. laaaaame

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