It’s too bad the “Boiler Room” sucked, because this trailer tells the economic story of the last however many years in 70 seconds better than anything else I’ve seen, and the Biggie quote is right on the money as far as capturing the zeitgeist. (The Ben Affleck as Alec Baldwin scene is truly unforgivable, though.)
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Bondo
Blasphemy, Boiler Room was great.
sgwhiteinfla
I loved Boiler Room and I am not afraid to admit it. The Affleck scene in the board room where all of the new recruits are there and he tells the guy who already has his securities license to get the fuck out is a classic. Nia Long being in it is of course a plus. Hell even Vin Diesel did a descent job of acting for a change. Thats my story and I am sticking to it.
DougJ
You didn’t think it was a bit derivative of Alec Baldwin’s cameo in “Glengarrry Glen Ross”?
You know, I’m probably wrong to say the movie sucked. But it was a bit of a letdown after the strong opening.
sgwhiteinfla
I would say yes and no. The fact that they both were going off is the thing they have in common but other than that none of the rhetoric or even the tone matches up. Alec Baldwin was all about humiliating and deriding the workers as much as was humanly possible because as he said he thought Mitchell and Murray would have been doing him a favor if they fired all of their asses. Ben Affleck was actually trying to inspire his room full of neophytes and sell them a dream which he effectively did. Now I should say both Affleck and Baldwin focused on luxury items as a measure of success so there is another commonality but I don’t think you could really say that scene with Affleck was a wholesale derivative of the scene with Baldwin or even close.
I wouldn’t say it was a masterpiece by any means but it definitely didn’t suck in my opinion.
John Cole
Boiler Room was a fun movie. It wasn’t a great movie, by any stretch, but it wasn’t Biodome.
sapper
I like to think of it as an homage.
DougJ
Yeah, you’re right about that. But Ben Affleck doesn’t have the chops to pull it off. It’s like Jessica Simpson covering Aretha Franklin.
sgwhiteinfla
I would say its more of an inverse of the Glenngary scene.
For those who have no idea what we are talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8JkSEvyFhM
I think if you aren’t comparing it to the Baldwin scene which more people than you think have never seen then you appreciate it a little more.
Zuzu's Petals
@DougJ:
Ouch.
Samuel
Part of the reason why Boiler Room sucked so bad was because of the timing of its release, early 2000. By that time, the stock market mania had already saturated our culture to the point that it was relatively passe. If I’m not mistaken there was one or two "dramas" based on Wall Street on television also–and Jim Cramer was regarded as intelligent. One could say that the creation of entertainment like Boiler Room meant the collective market jumping the proverbial shark. And sure enough, the market began its descent not too much later.
That, and aside from the scene in the boardroom with the prospective brokers, Ben Affleck sucked. And so did Vin Diesel…terrible. And not for nothing, but the scene of the main guys in Vin Diesel’s house (?) watching and reciting lines from "Wall Street" would be regarded on the real Street as, well…stupid. Way out of touch of reality….
sgwhiteinfla
Well lets think about this for a moment. The whole point of the movie was that Affleck, Vin Diesel et all were all hacks. So its almost like criticising them for coming off like hacks is actually praising them for playing the hell out of their roles. Affleck really wasn’t supposed to be a character like Baldwin. Baldwin’s character really was a bad muthafucker. Affleck’s character was supposed to be a slick ass con man playing the role of bad muthafucker. And it would be just like a bunch of hacks to believe that memorizinng lines to the movie wall street was the way to prosperity as a stock broker. Remember the scenes where the people from reputable firms kept making fun of them at the bar? If they actually came off as professionals that would kind of run contra to the story line wouldn’t it?
TenguPhule
That movie NEVER EXISTED.
We will speak no more of it.
bago
Worked on that one did you?
Steeplejack
@sgwhiteinfla:
With you word for word.
robertdsc
I liked it, warts and all.
Terri
Mo’ money, mo’problems
Biggie was the shit