still think the definitive wall st movie hasn't been made yet and that margin call came closer than this
i rescreened 'margin call' a couple of days ago before seeing 'wolf of wall street' and i kinda agree - 'margin call' felt a lot more true to 'what its like to work in finance now', it had a lot of subtle details that i appreciated: the way characters would shift btw using first name and surnames to address other characters, 'how much do you think x makes', the mentalist guy telling demi moore's character 'i'm not sure i do know that' &c &c. not sure all those details added up though in the big picture, i liked margin call a lot but its not a 'good movie' in the same way 'wolf of wall street' is? ego vs id or w/e
anyway i thought this was entertaining but hard to have any thoughts about, really. music was rad though
― chopper back (Lamp), Monday, 30 December 2013 19:12 (ten years ago) link
^ Yeah the part at the beginning with the dwarves, I was like, there's no way Wall St is like this now and then I realized it was a period piece, then I thought I'm glad somebody made a movie about Liar's Poker
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 19:14 (ten years ago) link
Movie about today's wall street is a bunch of quants sitting in a room staring intently at Black Scholes models on three widescreen monitors
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 19:16 (ten years ago) link
Like I was thinking that man, Marty is maybe finally senile, it doesn't work like this anymore
Then I realized it was 1987, and then there was a shot of the strip mall and it was so beautiful
Loved all the period detials in this, those floppy double breasted suits and Bill Blass abstract geometric ties
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 19:21 (ten years ago) link
they still drop 20 gs at dinner tho
― lag∞n, Monday, 30 December 2013 19:22 (ten years ago) link
Oh sorry just reading the thread through now and raelizing those points have been covered up thread
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 19:23 (ten years ago) link
margin call was a cool movie, fwiw i dont really mean i needed lots of financial exposition or w/e just that the wolf of ws just didnt feel like it really existed anywhere there was not much revealing detail of any sort character wise or environment or w/eit was just kinda spinning around in this wacky ass limbo, which admittedly was hilarious and fun but something about it just felt like it wouldve been more engaging w a lil more irl or something
first person to say that was the whole point i disagree and furthermore i dont like you
― lag∞n, Sunday, December 29, 2013 9:34 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark
Haha not gonna say that was the whole point but it's a nice sleight of hand to name it The Wolf of Wall Street where the Wall Street part is more like, idk, the hardwood upon which the real performers are tap dancing
The movie's also pretty explicit about setting up these boiler room guys as not having a street number on the proper white shoe Wall Street, they keep on trying to barge onto the scene with the GS and Lehmans but never quite get there
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 19:26 (ten years ago) link
The other part where I thought Marty lost it was when he kept on playing all these Me First & The Gimme Gimme & that cottage industry of pop punk covers of all the songs he would have used if he hadn't already used them all before
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 19:28 (ten years ago) link
i've actually developed a soft spot for marty having lil clue or curiosity about music post-1981 or so beyond shit that reminds him of the clash maybe, when 'everlong' came in i actually chuckled. can actually imagine him cornering jonah hill and playing the lemonheads' 'mrs robinson' and going 'now do you know who originally had a hit w/ this?', not realizing jonah's too young to likely even know who the fuck the lemonheads were.
― balls, Monday, 30 December 2013 19:46 (ten years ago) link
'heres to you, mrs. robinson'
― chopper back (Lamp), Monday, 30 December 2013 19:50 (ten years ago) link
I always had a soft spot too for Marty's use of "what's the frequency kenneth" and "these are days" as key music cues in bringing out the dead.
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Monday, 30 December 2013 19:54 (ten years ago) link
Could've been worse; he could have used Ned's Atomic Dustbin and Brad.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 30 December 2013 19:57 (ten years ago) link
Haha I forgot about the Everlong part. That was great xp
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 19:59 (ten years ago) link
About concerns of glamorization, that's a valid point of criticism for sure but narratively it's just being inside the head of that guy from high school who tried to sell you weed that was really oregano, as he tells his life story at your 20th reunion
Like the part in the beginning about the Ferrari being white, not red
Of course he did the most drugs had the biggest yacht had the biggest ragers
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 20:03 (ten years ago) link
can't believe no one's
http://i.imgur.com/vc3zv6Z.jpg
― I'm going to need to spend some time alone possibly outdoors (rip van wanko), Monday, 30 December 2013 20:19 (ten years ago) link
Scorsese's not in love with Belfort's wealth but he's sure in love with dramatizing it.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 30 December 2013 20:23 (ten years ago) link
i wonder if buscemi gets some kind of weird residual from that equalizer episode now
― napgenius (goole), Monday, 30 December 2013 20:56 (ten years ago) link
i thought there were mad quants in the 90's??
― flopson, Monday, 30 December 2013 22:50 (ten years ago) link
this movie kinda made me want to go into finance
― flopson, Monday, 30 December 2013 22:52 (ten years ago) link
well thats the thing they were quants but still very angry
― lag∞n, Monday, 30 December 2013 22:52 (ten years ago) link
-_-
― flopson, Monday, 30 December 2013 22:53 (ten years ago) link
black scholes was created in the 70's, prob used widely throughout 80's and 90's
― flopson, Monday, 30 December 2013 22:54 (ten years ago) link
Yeah I think the 90s saw the rise of the quant, corresponding with the rise of increasingly sophisticated and powerful computers
But it was the era leading up to the crash where quants really began to shine
This is all based on only reading about Wall Street via Michael Lewis
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 22:56 (ten years ago) link
I think Black Sholes was theorized in the 70s but not really put into practice until the 90s
flopson have you ever read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Genius_Failed:_The_Rise_and_Fall_of_Long-Term_Capital_Management
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 22:57 (ten years ago) link
i haven't! only thing i've read on this topic is justin fox myth of the rational market but it's told more from the academic side of things, super good though
― flopson, Monday, 30 December 2013 23:06 (ten years ago) link
You should, it's about Myron Scholes putting Black Scholes into practice and it worked splendidly until it didn't
― 乒乓, Monday, 30 December 2013 23:07 (ten years ago) link
i had to read 'when genius failed' for an undergraduate course in derivatives, its p good
haha i felt the same thing but after watching 'margin call'. i think the difference btw then/now isnt about quants but like traders vs. brokers, how deregulation/securitization made it easier/more profitable for firms to trade on their accounts rather than for clients &c i mean clients are still basically getting fucked (lol two and twenty) but thats not really where the smart money is now ime
― chopper back (Lamp), Monday, 30 December 2013 23:48 (ten years ago) link
― 乒乓, Monday, December 30, 2013 2:26 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark
yeah i mean stratton oakmont never left long island. they were headquartered in lake success when they finally went under
― Hungry4Ass, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 01:39 (ten years ago) link
乒乓 how did u feel about chester ming, felt to me like it was somehow progressive (for hwood) that him being a scumbag from long island was his primary trait
― Hungry4Ass, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 01:52 (ten years ago) link
Yeah Chester Ming was alright by me
Felt that the movie drops the plot threads of all of the original crew ex Leo, Jonah, and Bernthal by the end but that's to be expected in a 3 hour movie
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 01:56 (ten years ago) link
I liked that scene on the plane where jordan is horrified that he used the "n" word during his drug induced freakout
― christmas candy bar (al leong), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 01:56 (ten years ago) link
Walking around NYC you hear tons of azn dudes with thick Brooklyn and Queens accents, it's fun
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 01:58 (ten years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/tJVoFTR.png
Man I was ready to clown Leo for wearing lifts when he gets his mugshot taken
But I guess he really is 6 feet
Somehow he's a 6' irl guy who seems like he's 5'7 on screen
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 02:02 (ten years ago) link
A small point, I suppose, but was anybody bothered by the cerebral palsy joke? I winced as I watched the film, then later on thought how one of the great things about Taxi Driver is that Schrader and Scorsese didn't censor themselves, so maybe the same thing was at work here. I don't think so, though. The racial bile in Taxi Driver is brutal, as is the way Harvey Keitel talks about Jodie Foster. But, for lack of a better word, all those words feel real. I don't question whether they should be there. They are, and they should be.
De Caprio's cerebral palsy line really does feel like the worst sort of cheap to me. I mean, they fit the character, but I think the intent is to get you to laugh along with him. I don't usually dwell on things like that. The tone of this film just loses me altogether.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 03:06 (ten years ago) link
My thoughts during that scene was a mental compare/contrast with how Apatow would have done it. I didn't mind the tone of this movie at all. The guy is so selfish, and shortsighted and, more than some other moral comeuppance flicks, more or less gets away with it, too, with relatively minor (for his corrupt, diseased perspective) collateral damage. Unlike, say, Scorsese's mob movies, where people get blown/chopped/shot up. He gets away with it all, and yet, he still loses, because he is a sleaze. And yet, the shot with Coach on the train pretty much underlines it: Leo "loses," but the good guy is still stuck riding the train.
xpost One of DiCaprio's secret weapons is his heft. He's apparently a pretty big, hulking dude. He was the wrong actor for "Gangs of New York," but the right size. His stature fit his menace in "Django," for sure.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 03:35 (ten years ago) link
― clemenza, Monday, December 30, 2013 10:06 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark
i mean its consistent with "dots not feathers" and the rest of his vapid asides... you notice that the whole movie is blanketed in his cool guy with tude explaining things 2 u voiceover and yet you never actualyl laugh at the things he says, doesnt seem accidental
― Hungry4Ass, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 04:34 (ten years ago) link
I thought it crossed a line into mean-spiritedness, even for that character...or on Scorsese's part. But, like I say, the movie lost me well before that, so I'm seizing on something I probably wouldn't be if it hadn't. (Sort of like how John Simon seized on the line about selling pencils outside of Bloomingdale's in his Manhattan review.)
― clemenza, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 04:51 (ten years ago) link
I've been racking my brain - what was the term for stockbrokers in the '80s, "Lords of" or "Princes of" something or something like that? It's completely slipped out of my brain.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 05:33 (ten years ago) link
http://images.fanpop.com/images/image_uploads/Masters-of-the-Universe-he-man-604211_1024_768.jpg
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 05:36 (ten years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/VuvUMKu.jpg
right, damn how did I forget
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 05:38 (ten years ago) link
skeletors iirc
― set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 05:59 (ten years ago) link
that was just tom wolfe and ppl copying tom wolfe
― balls, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 09:56 (ten years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/UZRv88N.gif
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 13:05 (ten years ago) link
I thought it crossed a line into mean-spiritedness, even for that character
The character was nothing but mean-spirited
― 乒乓, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 13:06 (ten years ago) link
ha i love that guy to his right whos just around the whole movie yelling getting amped on speeches
― lag∞n, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 13:34 (ten years ago) link
And yet, as pointed out above, he's appalled by himself when told by Hill he used a racial epitaph during a drug binge--there does seem to be a line of sorts. And if not that, then the mean-spiritedness is Scorsese's.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 14:15 (ten years ago) link
I kept expecting the "and he wasn't even black" punchline to that scene.
― Kiarostami bag (milo z), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 15:16 (ten years ago) link
Forgot what thread was which, but I posted on the Hustle thread: regarding Jordan's asshole behavior, I thought he and his crew, a la party frats, exemplified the axiom that the only people who think assholes are awesome are other assholes. This film was a closed ecosystem of nothing but assholes. Pretty much the only time in the film you get a perspective from anyone but one of the central assholes, iirc, is perhaps a sum total of 30 seconds or so from the perspective of the FBI guy.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 31 December 2013 18:14 (ten years ago) link
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/investors-story-left-out-of-wall-st-wolf-movie/
― Strangers look on with a discernible, barely contained ‘wow’. (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, 31 December 2013 19:17 (ten years ago) link