Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps(2010)America ’s pursuit of prosperity took a dreadful dip during the bank collapses of 2008, causing a recession not seen in the land of opportunity since the beginnings of Franklyn Roosevelt’s presidency. Words like “bailout” and “foreclosure” are now prevalent in our lingo, and names like AIG and Bernie Madoff became synonymous with white collar villainy. Alas, Oliver Stone, whose recent creative efforts have plunged lower than Goldman/Sachs, found an opportune time to bring his infamous trade raider Gordon Gekko back to his slick hair, three-piece suit form.
Michael Douglas is back as Gekko in “Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps," and this time, the young and ambitious upstart is Shia LaBeouf as Jake Moore, taking over for the naïve but hungry Bud Fox played by Charlie Sheen in the first movie. Jake is a natural at the financial game, but has idealist goals that have him backing an alternative energy company in need of a major investment push. Jake is also dating the equally idealist Winnie (Carey Mulligan), who happens to be Gekko’s estranged daughter.
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Transformers II So I recently saw a Michael Bay snippet in Robot Chicken regarding a trailer for an upcoming movie called, “Michael Bay Explosions!” or for short, BAY ‘SPLOSIONS! Genius (as Seth Green and Robot Chicken always is) and right to the heart of the matter. Thus, that is my review. Go if you love BAY ‘SPLOSIONS and can’t get enough of non-stop BAY ‘SPLOSIONS coming at you left and right to the extent that it’s more of a suspension of disbelief that anyone on planet Earth survived all those explosions more than it is to believe in the existence of Autobots… |
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You all know director D.J Caruso for making Shia LaBeouf into a star with his Goosebumps-like re-imagination of Rear Window, Disturbia. It was a steady, simple and fast paced little thriller that didn't insult the intelligence of its audience(the duo would leave that for last year's absurd Eagle Eye). For Caruso it was a modest improvement to a string of films that were awful(Taking Lives) and forgettable(Two For The Money). It is upsetting to see a commercial director with flashes of greatness in each of these films to put out such mediocrity, but I still think that he has a great movie in him somehow. |
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About a month ago I refreshed my memory of Oliver Stone's Faustian tale of the Trading world, Wall Street, a true 80's benchmark. We had a young and potentially talented leading man in Charlie Sheen as Bud Fox, a young broker ready for an opportunity to be mentored by Gordon Gekko, played stylishly and devilishly by Michael Douglas. The film is very good, a morality play on white collar swindle and the blindsided blue collar industries it preyed on.
