tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post3549653913185662443..comments2024-03-05T21:05:36.848-05:00Comments on CommentaramaFilms: Film Friday: Wall Street (1987)AndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-88723735741068986132013-03-29T19:59:34.177-04:002013-03-29T19:59:34.177-04:00PikeBishop, One of the real ironies of this film i...PikeBishop, One of the real ironies of this film is that it backfired on Stone. He wanted it to be an anthem to attack Reaganism and it ended up glorifying the Reagan years because Stone set too many mixed messages in this.AndrewPricehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-70241914772320988222013-03-25T19:05:15.611-04:002013-03-25T19:05:15.611-04:00Despite Stone's polemics, the script is remark...Despite Stone's polemics, the script is remarkably balanced and Gekko does get to make a few valid points:<br /><br />His address at the stock holders meeting: These 23 "vice presidents" with their six figure salaries together don't own 5% of our company's stock. Hunting retreats and steak lunches. What the hell do these guys do?<br /><br />Management bloat was a problem.<br /><br />To me the big plot hole that doesn't get resolved. Didn't Lawrence Wildman also violate a few laws with his fake take over bid? That seems to get brushed over as we "get" Gekko.PikeBishophttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05761380937971970762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-83515243578508774852010-12-10T09:22:54.418-05:002010-12-10T09:22:54.418-05:00Good review. I never really thought about the fil...Good review. I never really thought about the film from that particular angle. Wall Street is one of my favorite Conservative films. Others include The Devil's Advocate, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Rock, Airforce One, (anything with John Wayne) and Independence Day.ArmChairGeneralhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08198920658123610173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-91821067710804659632010-12-10T10:07:18.572-05:002010-12-10T10:07:18.572-05:00ACG, I think Oliver Stone would be turning over in...ACG, I think Oliver Stone would be turning over in his pre-grave if he heard you say that! LOL! Out of curiosity, what makes you see this as a conservative film?AndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-39542729242520872652010-12-10T10:33:04.031-05:002010-12-10T10:33:04.031-05:00ACG - The Devil's Advocate is one of my favori...ACG - <i>The Devil's Advocate</i> is one of my favorite films! No offense to Andrew or LawHawk, but this is my favorite piece of dialogue in a movie (a universal truth!)not GWTW related:<br><br><b>Kevin Lomax:</b> <i>Why the law? Cut the shit, Dad! Why the lawyers? Why the law?</i><br><br><b>John Milton:</b> <i>Because the law, my boy, puts us into E-VER-Y-TH-ING. It's the ultimate backstage pass. It's the new priesthood, baby. Did you know there are more students in law school than lawyers walking the Earth??</i>BevfromNYChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14953050916932306270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-23540514160796626102010-12-10T10:38:24.025-05:002010-12-10T10:38:24.025-05:00Interesting Andrew - What I got out of Wall Street...Interesting Andrew - What I got out of <i>Wall Street</i> was that crime ultimately doesn't pay and "greed" isn't good, but earning lots of money ain't bad! I liked that Bud still had to go to prison, even though he did his best to redeem himself by helping the feds bring Gecko down.<br><br>Has anyone seen <i>Wall Street 2</i>?BevfromNYChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14953050916932306270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-90449026959977545892010-12-10T10:42:19.278-05:002010-12-10T10:42:19.278-05:00Bev, I enjoy The Devil's Advocate, though I th...Bev, I enjoy <i>The Devil's Advocate</i>, though I think Pacino plays it a little over the top toward the end. And I agree with you that is a good line, especially because it's so true. Lawyers are everywhere and get involved in everything. If you wanted to control an entire nation, control the lawyers because they have a hand in everything.... and from both sides!AndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-17825917298294287402010-12-10T10:50:09.718-05:002010-12-10T10:50:09.718-05:00Bev, I think you draw the exact message that Stone...Bev, I think you draw the exact message that Stone wasn't expecting. I think he was expecting that people would come away thinking, "wow those finance guys are worthless vultures, picking over corporations like they were dead, just to satisfy their own greed.... they need to be stopped!"<br><br>But the message viewers apparently actually come away with is similar to what you've said: "wow, that would be a great way to live. . . it's too bad Gekko went 'too far' but as long as you didn't go that far, that would be a great way to live. . . where do I sign up?"<br><br>And this movie did spawn (or strangely coincide) with a mass surge in the number of people going into finance, something the left whines about now -- that our best and brightest go into finance rather than engineering. I like to think that this is the greatest irony of Stone's efforts. :-)<br><br>(I have not seen <i>Wall Street II</i>, largely because I can't stand Shia Labeouf, but also because Stone just doesn't seem to be able to make good movies anymore, so I usually wait to see them on HBO.)AndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-9930093063994760692010-12-10T12:01:47.891-05:002010-12-10T12:01:47.891-05:00Interesting article! I like your reviews because y...Interesting article! I like your reviews because you always find angles I didn't consider. I never thought about the effect of Wildman's character on the message, but it really does give you an easy out between being Gekko or not being involved at all. Well done!Ednoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-36479802955855045632010-12-10T12:05:59.410-05:002010-12-10T12:05:59.410-05:00Thanks Ed, I'm glad you enjoy them. I like wr...Thanks Ed, I'm glad you enjoy them. I like writing these too.<br><br>I think Wildman is almost critical to causing the "misinterpretation" that Stone runs into, because he does give the audience a third choice -- be Gekko, only redeem yourself at some point. That's like the point Bev makes about "get rich, but don't be greedy."<br><br>It also makes the world of finance more exciting, because it turns what would normally be a rather boring process of bidding and negotiation into a sort of game, which actually makes finance sound kind of fun.... if that's possible.AndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-10434170602813751712010-12-10T12:52:28.238-05:002010-12-10T12:52:28.238-05:00Good film. I saw it for the first time only a few ...Good film. I saw it for the first time only a few years ago - entertaining but nothing I need to watch again anytime soon. One thought: would Gordon Gekko be as popular if Stone had cast a different actor?<br><br>This film also plays a part in one of the most hilarious movie inside jokes. In the second Hot Shots! film (which they would never make today for other reasons), Charlie Sheen and Co. are on a boat heading down a river. You hear his thoughts as he writes in his journal, which parodies Platoon. Then you cut to Martin Sheen on another boat and you hear his thoughts (Apocalypse Now). The two boats pass each other and both Sheens stand up and shout, "I loved you in Wall Street!" :-)ScottDShttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15660889617173576835noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-6758737276348423862010-12-10T13:20:06.052-05:002010-12-10T13:20:06.052-05:00Scott, I thought about that scene from Hot Shots w...Scott, I thought about that scene from <i>Hot Shots</i> when I wrote this article. That was hilarious! :-)<br><br>I'm wondering if your reaction to the movie as not something you need to see again is perhaps because <i>Wall Street</i> was a creature of its time? When I watched it in the 1980s, it was truly dazzling. The awesome views of NYC, the cool privileged things he had and did, the cool "high tech" gadgets like the computers, the mini-television, and the cell phone.... all stuff that only a few people had, and few had seen. Today, those things look quaint as everyone has computers and cell phones, and everyone has seen things like private jets, exclusive clubs and photogenic NYC views on television. So maybe, today you just don't get how cool the images in the film really were at the time?<br><br>Also, I do think the nation was in a very different mood in 1987 than it has been the past few years, and this film really captured the sense of high-flying that was taking place in the 1980s. So maybe that element is missing for later viewers as well?<br><br>(As an aside, I often wonder about your generation and <i>Star Wars</i>, if you can really comprehend how totally that film grabbed the nation. It was literally all that anyone talked about for a few months.)<br><br>In terms of swapping out Michael Douglas, I think there is something to that. Douglas has the perfect combination of extreme-likability and total as~hole to play the part. If they had stuck in someone who was either more sinister or more likable, I'm not sure it would have worked.<br><br>Take Hal Holbrook for example, give him the character of Gekko instead of Lou Mannheim and I don't think people would have liked him as much. Or even a more popular actor like Harrison Ford would have been a real change in the film. Douglas truly was perfect.AndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-40069825395410314962010-12-10T13:53:40.291-05:002010-12-10T13:53:40.291-05:00"Out of curiosity, what makes you see this as..."Out of curiosity, what makes you see this as a conservative film?"<br><br>I think because it does exactly the opposite as what it intended. It makes people WANT to be corporate business types.ArmChairGeneralhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08198920658123610173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-42503824489540822842010-12-10T13:53:40.290-05:002010-12-10T13:53:40.290-05:00Bev, I like this line. I think that this line is ...Bev, I like this line. I think that this line is the one that really annoys the elite.<br><br>Lomax: "Free will... ain't it a b***"ArmChairGeneralhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08198920658123610173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-52930991915757710112010-12-10T13:53:40.289-05:002010-12-10T13:53:40.289-05:00Interesting review, I didn't get that out of t...Interesting review, I didn't get that out of the movie. I felt it was a sucker punch for me. <br><br>One thing stands out. The characters made fettuccine from scratch with a noodle machine. A yuppie/New York thing to do.<br><br>Another movie which I feel is closer to what happened during the 90's was "Other People's Money". Danny Devito played a Wall Street tycoon which preyed upon older, weaker companies. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfL7STmWZ1c" rel="nofollow">Danny's speech</a> says it all. During this film, they consciously designed Danny as the devil, when in fact he was the redeemer and Gregory Peck was the villan. It actually ends up putting a good face on corporate raiders.Joel Farnhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15856960977033430002noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-39954831255845938622010-12-10T13:57:35.117-05:002010-12-10T13:57:35.117-05:00ACG, Good point! LOL! It really must kill Stone t...ACG, Good point! LOL! It really must kill Stone that people see this movie as an advertisement for going into finance! I hear he's running around claiming his point of view in the film was proven correct by Enron. Even putting aside the fact that Enron was accounting fraud and had nothing to do with Wall Street, and that Enron was a big Democratic donor, that fact that he's still trying to "prove" his film strikes me as just plain sad.<br><br><br>As for "free will," you bet that angers the left. They want happy conformity. . . . never gonna happen!AndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-9652500596371227522010-12-10T14:02:00.893-05:002010-12-10T14:02:00.893-05:00Andrew: I was counsel for a small investment bank...Andrew: I was counsel for a small investment banking firm in Encino in the year <i>Wall Street</i> came out. The partners were trained at Drexel, Burnham Lambert under the tutelage of the man that the character Gordon Gekko was partially modeled after. Ivan Boesky gave a speech at my alma mater (UC Berkeley) the year before that gave the producers the Gekko line "greed is good." I gotta tell ya, much of the evil portrayed by Douglas wasn't pure fiction. But successful capitalism is not really based on greed. It's based on enlightened self-interest. The profit-motive is not evil so long as its purpose is not intentionally to harm someone else. A successful capitalist who plays by the rules benefits everyone.<br><br>So when I saw the movie, I was busy trying not to yell at the screen about the phony portrayal of the poor hardworking, innocent union members and the beneficent leadership. You wanna see greed? Join a union. Part of the reason Stone's message got out, the wrong way, is many of the viewers have been stuck in unions that rewarded sloth and punished success.LawHawkRFDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17800255923675295515noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-65965753040151601772010-12-10T14:06:47.732-05:002010-12-10T14:06:47.732-05:00Joel, What kind of sucker punch? You mean that it...Joel, What kind of sucker punch? You mean that it was a set up to make Gekko and his type bad guys?<br><br>In terms of the pasta, yeah, <i>Wall Street</i> was very yuppie. I think the idea was that good old blue collar Bud Fox had entered a corrupt world of yuppies and rich people and it corrupted him. Unfortunately for Stone, too many people kind of liked the world Fox moved into. . . and soon we were flooded with yuppies (though I don't credit this film with causing that plague).<br><br><i>Other People's Money</i> was a good film too, though it didn't have the impact <i>Wall Street</i> did. I have spent many hours in economic/law classes learning about corporate raiders and I can tell you that the view given in <i>Wall Street</i> is 100% wrong. The real bad guys in the corporate raiding scenarios are typically the bloated management teams who do nothing but build fiefs, absorb salary and protect themselves with golden parachutes and poison pills.<br><br>Another film that I really liked that touched upon this was <i>Barbarians At the Gate</i>. It was leftward biased, but it was a fun film and a good deal more accurate about how the corporate culture compares to the raiders.AndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-21166804964682339232010-12-10T14:14:03.204-05:002010-12-10T14:14:03.204-05:00Lawhawk, I couldn't agree more. It bothered m...Lawhawk, I couldn't agree more. It bothered me for years that so many on the right embraced the "greedy is good" line because that's not accurate. Greedy implies an irrational desire to get more than you truly want or need -- kind of like a sickness that implies a willingness to do wrong to satisfy some craving to hoard.<br><br>Capitalism works on enlightened self-interest, not greed. Greed does not account for working with others, self-interest does. Greed does not account for making rational decisions about costs v. benefits, self-interest does. Greed implies a sort of mania, self-interest does not. I wish that more people on the right had drawn that distinction rather than taking he short hand approach and saying, "yeah, if you see greed as self-interest, then greed is good."<br><br>I also agree about the unions. In my dealings with unions, their leadership has almost always been corrupt, misguided and highly self-interested. It's rare that they were more interested in their membership. But Stone wasn't going to slander the unions, especially as unions were dying in 1987 (and still are today).AndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-58676487352015226752010-12-10T14:29:57.370-05:002010-12-10T14:29:57.370-05:00Andrew, then the unions have the longest death sce...Andrew, then the unions have the longest death scene in all of Hollywood.ArmChairGeneralhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08198920658123610173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-59139011892932394932010-12-10T14:34:03.445-05:002010-12-10T14:34:03.445-05:00My youngest son graduated from the Hill School in ...My youngest son graduated from the Hill School in Pottstown, Pa. One of their most notorious (and controversial) graduates was Oliver Stone. Of all his films, I liked (in no particular order) On Any Given Sunday, Platoon, JFK, and Wall Street.<br><br>I think Stone may have started out as more of a standard issue anti-Vietnam war Democrat. I believe as he has gotten older and richer, he has not only become more immune to criticism, but by being part of Hollywood, he has drifted much further left as well as coming largely unhinged.<br><br>While not truly doubting your assessment of his motives in making Wall Street, I might tend to be ever slightly more charitable to the younger Stone. Wall Street is pure capitalism. In no other way can an economy raise so much venture capital so quickly. That said, like Bush, I am pro-business but not always pro Wall Street. So much pressure is placed on C.E.O.'s and boards to manage to the short term stock price rather than thwe long term good of the company. That is the trade-off. Wall Street is all the best and worst tendedncies of capitalism writ large.<br><br>One could argue the film was not a wholesale condemnation of Wall Street per se, but rather a cautionary tale. Money brings power which can corrupt if your head is not scewed on straight. As I continue to write this quasi-impassioned defense of "Ollie," I am starting to laugh out loud at myself. Sorry, he is essentially just another asshole. I'll stop writing now.Tennessee Jedhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10604275115906776992noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-65904135210399283442010-12-10T14:37:14.329-05:002010-12-10T14:37:14.329-05:00ACG, They do. Year after year, they get fewer and...ACG, They do. Year after year, they get fewer and fewer -- only 12.3% of US employees belong to a union now, and half of those are government employees. And that's despite laws that encourage unionization, like the Davis Bacon Act.<br><br>If the trend keeps going the way it's going in the US, unions will be all but extinct outside of the government within the next 50 years. (Europe is different.)AndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-14463678489698799832010-12-10T14:45:49.854-05:002010-12-10T14:45:49.854-05:00I used to work for Food Lion, a grocery store here...I used to work for Food Lion, a grocery store here in the South as a stock boy. They were actually fairly decent to work for and their one rule was NEVER talk about unions. I had worked there for about a year and we had a distributon center in Greencove. Greencove is a small town about an hour and a half from where I worked in the rural community of Keystone Heights, Fl. One day they just closed it and moved all the distribution to the stores from Jacksonville. Later I found out that some manager of the warehouse had started a petition at the distribution center to unionize. I though it was a very smart move on the part of the Food Lion owners.ArmChairGeneralhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08198920658123610173noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-16355321794746358582010-12-10T14:54:13.747-05:002010-12-10T14:54:13.747-05:00Jed, LOL! That was funny!In terms of capitalism v...Jed, LOL! That was funny!<br><br>In terms of capitalism v. Wall Street, I agree with you that the two are not synonymous. I think Wall Street's interests are not aligned with actual stockholders -- but then neither are most management teams' interests either. I would honestly like to see a re-write of the rules to (1) make it harder to stop takeovers or dump management, but (2) make it less profitable for investment firms to play these games, and (3) eliminate the special insider advantages that the large players on Wall Street get. I am particularly troubled by microtrades, which are nothing more than gaming the system and serve no purpose other than enriching investment banks, and by the blatant dishonesty and conflicts of interest in the Wall Street community that give them a huge advantage over average investors.<br><br>So don't think that I'm giving Wall Street a clean bill of health, I am definitely not. I just reject Stone's criticism, which is completely ignorant of economics and is based on politics rather than reality.<br><br>You may be right that Stone's problem is that he's gotten corrupted by becoming rich and powerful. There is no doubt that his earlier films were better than his later films, and I don't know if he just lost his touch or if he started playing by different rules? Ironically, I actually get the feeling that his films are becoming less political -- or at least less sharp. Consider, for example his 9/11 movie <i>World Trade Center</i> or his Bush film <i>W</i> -- both were just dull. It's like he either had no point or was afraid to make it. He was much better at spinning conspiracies as he did earlier in his career.<br><br>In calling this possibly his finest film, I was debating about <i>Platoon</i>, which may be better. Hard to tell.AndrewPricehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11312364467936820986noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7059293386881623259.post-69079291576682300362010-12-10T14:59:21.302-05:002010-12-10T14:59:21.302-05:00Andrew,Greed is good. It is enlightened self-inter...Andrew,<br><br>Greed is good. It is enlightened self-interest. Milton Friedman said it best on Donohue. This was back when Donohue had people on his show who disagreed.<br><br>Capitalism takes the greed factor and turns it into a productive force. Socialism utilizes the greed factor of the non-productive to suck out the marrow of the productive. Also Socialism has the temerity to call the productive greedy when they protest the theft of the fruits of their labor. Stone ripped this apart. I felt sucker-punched.Joel Farnhamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15856960977033430002noreply@blogger.com