Money Never Sleeps

Oh Sally Sparrow, I love you so.

I went to the movies on Saturday with every intention of seeing the new Ben Affleck flick "The Town." Much to my surprise the two seven o'clock showings were sold out, despite this being its second week in theaters. (That may have something to do with my trying to see the movie in Boston, where the only thing we love more in life than sports is movies that make our citizens look like hardened gangsters.) Rather than wait around an hour for the next showing, I took a quick look at what else was playing and decided to check out Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

The previews had looked promising enough, at least as promising as any twenty year old sequel featuring Shia Labeouf can look. Michael Douglas was back as Gordon Gecko, with Oliver Stone directing, though the script was not by him. It plays largely like a remake of the first movie, with Shia standing for Charlie Sheen, Josh Brolin in the corporate raider role, and the mortgage crisis taking the place of insider training. This part of the story is fairly paint by numbers, but it was mostly redeemed by the other aspects of the story. Its basically a fictionalized version of the collapse of Lehman Bros, and the bursting of the housing bubble. The scenes that take place in the Fed board room are fascinating and feel like something out the Godfather. They even feature the fantastic Eli Wallach, who played a mafia Don in the otherwise forgettable Godfather Part III. It's reminiscent of Stone's other heightened history films like "W." "JFK" and "Nixon", and I gladly could have watched a whole film based around these scenes.

The other factor the film has going for it is Michael Douglas as Gecko. He's spent eight of the last twenty years locked up for his crimes, and the remaining years remaking himself into an author and cable news guest staple. After Shia looses his mentor at the beginning of the film he seeks Gecko out, ostensibly to reunite him with his estranged daughter, but what Shia really wants is someone to Sherpa him through the underworld of Wall Street. The film tries to play coy with Gecko's real motivations, I won't spoil what it is, but you shouldn't be surprised. I will say a last second "twist" feels tacked on, as if the producers were afraid to commit to the logical ending to story. Which is really too bad, as the scene that preceded, Gecko, alone in his office, staring at the gift Shia had given him would have been a powerful end for the character.

Overall, I'd rate the movie a B-. It's a sequel that no one was clamoring for, but its not the disaster it could have been.

Endings Part 2

If nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do.

Well, this blog fell off the face of the earth much quicker than I thought. I had planned out these posts to coincide with the end of the TV season, now hear we are three months later, and everything is staring up again. Ah well, I write better in the autumn anyway. Rather than do a full write up of my favorite finales like I planned, I'll just do a quick rundown of the ones that have made a lasting impression on me.

First up is "Not Fade Away" from Angel. Named for the Buddy Holly song (or depending on your perspective, the Grateful Dead song), it was originally conceived of as regular season finale, until word came down that a sixth season was not going to happen. The whole fifth season was a bit of an amazing disaster, as studio meddling had forced the producers to abandon the serial storytelling that had become the series hallmark, as well as having Buffy refuge Spike join the cast. Even though it was wildly inconsistent, when the show worked, it was producing some of the best stories of the whole series. The core principle of Angel was that the so called evils of the world can never be defeated, all we can do is continue to fight against them until the day we die. So its only fitting that the last image we see of the Angel gang is them preparing to face the wrath and hordes of hell, where they all almost certainly met their death. A stupid sacrifice? Maybe, but they fought the good fight.

The bones is your's DAD!

"Fall Out," the finale of cult 1960s series The Prisoner, is another matter entirely. Like most British TV, it was conceived of as a limited series. In fact the original order of seven episodes was extended to twenty six, before being cut back down to seventeen. By the time of the finale the battle between prisoner No. 6 and his captors had grown increasingly more symbolic, and the the spy nature of the series became completely superfluous. No. 6 became a symbol of the individual vs conformity, the spy genre provided a convenient outlet to tell these types of stories, but once these were set up, it was essentially discarded. "Fall Out" is full of what can only be called mind-fuckery. It is scene after scene of baffling symbolism, actors who may or may not be reprising characters from earlier in the series, and the most sinister use of "All You Need is Love" I've ever seen. In the end No. 6 is seemingly allowed to leave, after first confronting the man who has imprisoned him for so long SPOILER FOR A FORTY YEAR OLD SERIES: it's himself.

This ending proved highly controversial to say the least. Poll Prisoner fanatics, and you're likely to find the same jaded opinion that currently is making its way through Lost fandom, that it was a cop out and a let down. Me though, I sat stunned and laughing like a fool through the whole thing. Its beautifully crazy, just like the rest of the series, and I love it for it.