I love the movie “Wall Street”, it makes me feel like snorting coke in a SoHo loft, or at least putting on a Talking Heads CD. Sure, Martin gets a little preachy, but Charlie’s perfect as a punk-ass junior banksta. Greed is good, a banksta named after a lizard, so over the top!
What do people think of that new Wall Street movie? It looks awful and yet, I’m anxious to see it.
DonkeyKong
Does Stewart Copeland score this movie as well? Loved that “Equalizer” score he did for the original Wall Street.
Comrade Mary
Haven’t seen the new movie, but I loved the tiny bit in the commercial where Gecko picks up his belongings as he leaves prison, and a brick of a cell phone is among them.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@DonkeyKong:
The dude from the Police?
DonkeyKong
Stewart Copeland of the Police scored the original film.
cleek
Wall Street makes me hate the all-gray-with-accents color scheme the 80s loved.
(even though i dressed head-to-toe gray in middle school. like a unabomber. but without the sunglasses. and only 14.)
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Comrade Mary:
Yeah, kind of derivative of Blues Bros though.
MikeJ
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: Yes. Incredible soundtrack work. Has Coppola fucked up Rumblefish the way he did the Outsiders yet?
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@cleek:
I like how 80s the color scheme is.
Silver
It’s got Shia LaBeouf in it, right? How could you possibly go wrong?
Sure, they could have gone with Justin Bieber for the soundtrack, I guess…but don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good, I always say.
beltane
OT, but has anyone else here gotten a fundraising letter from Sharron Angle today? It would appear that she has the DKos list and is asking for money from the group of people least likely to support her in any shape or form. Is this some kind of a joke?
I will not be watching the new Wall Street movie. I’m waiting for that other Wall Street movie, the one where mobs of angry, working class Americans storm the CNBC studios and do leftist revolutionary stuff. Since Hollywood wouldn’t approve of the plot of this movie, I’ll just have to imagine it.
DonkeyKong
The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you’re not naive enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you buddy? It’s the free market. And you’re a part of it. You’ve got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I’ve still got a lot to teach you. -Gordon Gekko
The cloths, cars, music and skyline of the original are dated. But the ethos, like a cockroach after an atomic blast remains.
freelancer
It’s got Shia “w-w-w-w-w-wait, no no no no no, I I I I I I, bu- bu- bu- bu- but, go go go go go!” LeBouf as the new Charlie Sheen stand in, so I’m out.
The movie I had zero interest until I saw the trailer, and now is being compared to movies like Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Network, and All the President’s Men, and I’m now kind of stoked to see is Fincher’s The Social Network.
beltane
@cleek: The gray with pink and American Express green accents were vomit inducing even at the time. The ’80s are what turned me into a hippie.
mr. whipple
No, but if I see another banner ad for Portman here I might freaking puke.
JenJen
I plan to see it, only because I love the original so much, and find it to be one of those five or so films that really captured the 80’s for me.
Funny how I was so sure everyone had learned their lesson, huh?
jwb
I liked the trailer when I saw it in the theater. That said, I couldn’t really make out whether it was going to be a provocative film or a stupid one. Given the way Hollywood has been going this year, however, I’d bet on stupid.
beltane
@JenJen: They did learn their lesson. It’s just that the lesson happened to be that you could get away with anything, and that the price for bad behavior would always, always, be borne by the little people.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@jwb:
Such a fine line between provocative and stupid.
Bob In Pacifica
Loved “Wall Street” when it came out but tried to watch it in the last year and got very depressed and anxious.
I Netflixed “Ghost Writer” the other day. Gotta say, Polanski is a genius when it comes to the dark underbelly of the human spirit (if human spirits have underbellies).
If his “Chinatown” was a fictional version of the Southlands water wars and how every town is built on lies, then “Ghost Writer” points to how politics are done these days. I’d comment further but don’t want to ruin it for others. Ewan MacGregor is great. But after you see it ask yourselves what our recent Presidents were doing during their college days.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@Bob In Pacifica:
I saw some of Ghost Writer on a plane and I liked it a lot.
N M
I remember hearing Wallstreet Part Deux was shown at some film festival and people loved it, so maybe it will be good. I might actually pay money to see it (and make it a double feature day with Machete) for the memories.
Could also be Douglas’ last film, considering the cancer.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@JenJen:
Yeah, I agree, it is, for me, the ultimate 80s movie, along with Crimes and Misdemeanors and all the John Hughes stuff.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I remember liking Michael Douglas and hating everyone else in the movie. This one is Sheen-less, Darryl Hannah-less, and it has Susan Sarandon. But there’s that Leboeuf kid. Am I even older than I thought, or does he look like a kid playing a grown- up in a high school play?
Mark S.
@jwb:
That’s usually the safe bet. When I first saw ads for this movie, the first thing I thought of was Basic Instinct 2.
Just out of curiosity, is anyone looking forward to the wrapping up of Harry Potter? I’ve seen two of them, the first one and The Prisoner of Something, but I could never really get into them.
SBJules
@N M:
I went to college with Michael Douglas, but didn’t know him. I hope he has many more healthy years.
sherifffruitfly
You guys are dog freaks – should like this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOwLtahtmHg&feature=player_embedded
J.W. Hamner
The old Wall Street movie makes me feel like American Psycho was a fair and measured response to that ethos.
Kyle
@SBJules:
Gauchos!
Modulo Myself
Yeah, I agree, it is, for me, the ultimate 80s movie, along with Crimes and Misdemeanors and all the John Hughes stuff.
For a dark horse, go with Something Wild.
Sly
Haven’t seen the sequel.
Most of the people I know who love the original are actually all into Gordon Gecko and “Greed is Good” and that shit. And they work on Wall Street. They love a fictional character who went to jail for 20 years for insider trading. The guy was partly based on Dennis Levine and Ivan Boesky, for fuck’s sake. Same thing with Boiler Room. I have a friend who has Ben Affleck’s “I’m a fucking millionaire” speech memorized. Works at a brokerage; idolizes a character who ran a pump and dump scam.
Absolutely no sense of self-awareness, like militarists who love Full Metal Jacket or Paths of Glory.
suzanne
@Mark S.:
Uh, yeah. I enjoy those movies far more than any healthy adult should. And the books even more so. J. K. Rowling is such a liberal, and it shines through.
I’m torn about the new Wall Street, though. Love Michael Douglas, hate Shia LaBoof, or whatever the hell his name is. It’s getting good reviews, so maybe. The Social Network has a really boring premise, but its reviews have been fabulous, and I love David Fincher, so I might go check that one out this weekend.
RoryBellows
@beltane
I got the Sharon Angle letter as well. I figured someone was messing with me. I have no idea why I’d be on any list they would have. Although I do think the Steeler uniforms are satanic.
Corner Stone
@J.W. Hamner: Love both of them, and you’re probably dead right.
The scene in Wall Street where Gekko is walking the beach and calls Bud (obviously where the sequel got its name from), that was awesome.
No matter how scheming and hungry and deceitful Bud was, he was never going to beat Gekko for sheer animal energy.
Even when Gekko fucked over the English Lord investor on Endicott Steel (maybe?), and had to capitulate on price due to not having enough scratch to withstand an assault, he still won that contest through straight FU energy.
Just a great movie.
BGinCHI
Rewatched Paths of Glory last night, with Kirk Douglas (Dir. Stanley Kubrick). What a great, smart, still-relevant film.
They should show that at every Tea Party rally and neocon event and then we should burn Bill Kristol at the stake.
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: And to add, my absolute favorite scene in American Psycho, if I had to pick just one, would be where he has the chainsaw and the hooker is running down the staircase from him. And he’s naked, IIRC, and grimacing like a cannibal and holding the chainsaw over the railing edge and moving it in little circles as he times her escape. Then he lets it go and IIRC there’s a little sound she makes as the damn chainsaw hits her and takes her out.
It’s either that or when that one guy throws down his business card and it is absolute perfection and Psycho character does a 3 minute monologue on the awesome awesomeness of that freakin biz card.
Corner Stone
@Corner Stone: Or maybe when they all have lunch and it’s $500 and they all toss their credit card down like they *have* to pay for it because it’s so reasonable.
God that was a good movie. A lot like Fight Club in many ways.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Ebert says three stars, that’s as far as I read. I like to know as little as possible about a movie when I walk in, a hard state of ignorance to maintain when the ‘previews’ are ten minutes long and they pack in all the good parts as bait. That new movie with Helen Mirren and Malkovich that’s coming out, I get the feeling I’ve seen the best scenes.
Seems to me the Harry Potter movies have gotten weaker with each outing, the sixth was pretty awful. Those books would make a better TV series, but I suppose it would be too expensive.
BGinCHI
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Have you read Lev Grossman’s The Magicians?
HP for growed-ups. And I loved HP.
Cacti
@freelancer:
It does look like an interesting movie, but red flags about its “greatness” went up for me when I saw Justin Timberlake in the trailers.
morzer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I agree that the HP movies have generally been worse with each new outing, but that’s partly because the books got rapidly worse after the fourth tome. By the end, you got the sense that Rowling had abandoned any attempt at plot or good writing and was just recycling tired ideas and characters.
Dennis SGMM
@BGinCHI:
To my mind, a brilliant film. If you’ve not read Barbara Tuchman’s estimable The Guns of August then I suggest that you give it a try and then watch the film again. Tuchman’s careful, historian’s exposition of how, initially, the French General Staff’s belief that sang froid and esprit de corps would carry the day against anything that the Huns could work up put the film into the masterpiece category for me.
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@BGinCHI:
Yikes, knew that guy in college. Don’t mention him again.
morzer
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
Oddly enough, I knew him in grad school, and so I second your motion.
BGinCHI
@Dennis SGMM:
Actually I haven’t. Will do. Thanks.
BGinCHI
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: Well, shit.
And, et tu, Morzer?
The book is good even if the author ain’t. Intolerable jackass? Smarmy cunt? Too cool for skool?
Dish it.
BGinCHI
So undergrad at Harvard and grad school at Yale.
I’m a state school BA, MA, PhD, so I’m ready to think the worst.
Ok, not really. But yeah, kind of.
Still and all, The Magicians is first rate.
DougJ, speaking of Green Friday and all, have you (or anyone else here) read Bacigalupi’s The Windup Girl? Just amazing.
Oh, Ps motherfuckers. I went to grad school with Graham Faust. Suck it.
marcopolo
I thought about seeing the new Wall Street but but but it isn’t 3D…
Actually, I am kinda interested in seeing Casino Jack, the two Mesrine flicks, and the Black Swan w/ Natalie Portman. I think these are all out there but none of them are showing anywhere near me. Anyone have a chance to catch any of these?
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@BGinCHI:
Just full of himself in a typical Harvard way and likely a careerist sociopath, given that he writes for Time now. You know, he tried his hand at fiction rather than working for McKinsey et al. so I should probably cut him some slack.
marcopolo
@BGinCHI: It seems to me that cleek has a fairly definitive review of Windup Girl that I pretty much agreed with and unlike cleek I even read the last 20 pages.
The writer can string words and images together fairly well but the world he sets his plot in only makes sense if you can turn your brain off while reading and not worry about things like renewable energy technology.
BGinCHI
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.: The book is not the work of someone showing off or playing Mr. Clever and educated. It’s honestly good, and trust me I’m no pushover.
BTW, who IS the literary editor for BJ?
Oh, and do read The Windup Girl. You can thank me later.
morzer
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
Slimy as well, and not someone to be trusted with anything of importance. He was one of those pudgy people who really don’t look good in leather jackets, and who thought that networking mattered more than doing any actual work.
BGinCHI
@marcopolo:
To each his own. Maybe a rebut when I’m less sleepy and full of red wine.
Kristine
@Mark S.: Very much looking forward to Deathly Hallows. I like the movies better than the books. The stories seem tighter, at least imo. And I saw the movies before I read the books, so the visuals, the actors’ faces, are etched into my film brain
The Prisoner of Azkaban is one of my favorite movies, period. I was so happy at the thought of Harry having a real family. Feeling pain for the fictional kid. What can I say?
DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.
@morzer:
Harvard graduates are not a fashionable or an attractive (EDIT: or charming) group on the whole, yet they are oddly good at networking. It’s a strange world.
BGinCHI
@morzer:
OK, I’m holding the shit end of the stick here.
I like The Magicians and I’m sorry I mentioned the guy’s name.
You guys know that Ben Jonson killed an actor in a duel and Hemingway had some issues with minorities, women, and animals. Plus, he punched out Wallace Stevens.
Hate the playa, not the game.
Yutsano
@Kristine: Peeves. The lack of Peeves makes the only huge black mark in an otherwise great cinematic series. And Emma Watson was the best cast of the three main characters IMHO.
morzer
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
I agree that the average Harvard undergrad is an insecure, arrogant and frequently talentless little weasel. Some good people do get caught up in the PhD programs though.
marcopolo
Well since it is easy to knock other people’s picks, the last book I literally stayed up all night reading was Feed. I bought it on a lark as it involves blogging, politics & elections, and, yes, zombies but don’t let the glut of zombie knockoff books out there keep you from taking a chance with it. Here is a quickie review.
morzer
@BGinCHI:
Well, I am not saying his novel was bad. It may be perfectly good. After all, for all I know, JK Rowling spends her days watching snuff porn and ordering in small frightened animals for brutal sacrifice to Tim LaHaye’s God. It’s undeniable that many fine writers have been shits of the first water, while some generally good writers have written poorer work when trying to crusade for honorable causes (I rather fear John LeCarre is heading that way). I knew Grossman as a slimy presence best avoided, but his prose may be wonderful. If you enjoy it, I would hope you go on doing so, regardless of the embittered opinions of such luminaries as the Business and Economics Editor of Balloon Juice, or even my much less distinguished self.
BGinCHI
@marcopolo: You read Justin Cronin’s The Passage?
Now THAT has problems. Big ones. First part, amazing, long middle, absolute dogshit, end, not as bad but at least an improvement. For such a long book with such a HUGE advance (plus film rights at big bucks), you think someone would have fucking edited it. Hell, I would have done it quick for cheap.
Kristine
@Yutsano: I do like Emma Watson, but my favorite is a secondary character. Evanna Lynch, who plays Luna Lovegood.
I suspect Nargles are behind it.
Steeplejack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
He always looks like that. Even in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a loathsomely bad movie, where he played a kid, he came across as a younger kid trying to play a cool high school senior.
The new Wall Street movie got a surprisingly good review in the New York Times. Oliver Stone is incredibly erratic, but sometimes he scores, and this could be one of those times. I think I am going to make a slight effort to see this in the theater.
morzer
@Steeplejack:
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull really was a case of paying down cash and getting an horrendous clunker in return.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@morzer:
I felt that way about a couple of later LeCarré, and never even thought about reading A Constant Gardner, which seemed like a tract from the reviews I read, but I really liked A Most Wanted Man. I’m looking forward to the new one.
And I’m gonna give Grossman a try
BGinCHI
@morzer: Detente.
I’ll tell you who’s nice, and fucking birrilliant, is Margaret fucking Atwood. Also Richard Russo. Good people. When you have dinner with someone whose work you like you can tell pretty quickly whether they are stupid and faking it, and/or assholes, and/or both.
Also Clair Messud. I don’t love her books, but she’s a smart and very put-together lady.
I’m not saying we should judge literature by how “nice” and “accommodating” writers are (oh hell no), but you can get a sense of their brains and character if you want.
Also, too, Chuck Wagner may be a total dick, but his wine is off the charts.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: You know the only reason I watched the movies, amirite? Do I even NEED to say it? Severus Snape, bitchez.
morzer
@BGinCHI:
Had we disagreed enough to require detente? As far as I could see, two of us thought of Grossman as relatively loathsome in person, but passed no judgment on his book, while you liked the book and didn’t know the man.
BGinCHI
@asiangrrlMN:
I can’t believe Richard E. Grant never got a part in the HP movies.
Withnal and I?? Anyone??
Ps. Agree on Snape. And the whomping willow or whatever it was called. That’s how I picture Cole in real life.
Steeplejack
@morzer:
“J.K. Rowling Ends Harry Potter Series After Discovering Boys.”
marcopolo
@BGinCHI: Might I recommend getting some sleep as you seem to be having problems processing comments–The Passage is about vampires not zombies and no I have not read it and probably won’t. Once again the book I was recommending was called Feed (and don’t confuse it with the same titled dystopian novel that came out in 2002). As overdone as zombies are right now, in my eyes fiction about vampires is several magnitudes worse. That being said, I might consider Guillermo del Toro’s novel The Strain but only because I just saw him on the Colbert Report.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I was looking at John LeCarré’s website to try and remember which book it was I thought illustrated morzer’s point (I can’t remember which one it was. Maybe Tailor of Panama?), and I see that they’re making a new version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy? They’ve got their work cut out for them to measure up to Alec Guinness
ETA: ‘John le Carre has decreed that the big-screen version of his most famous novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, starring Gary Oldman and Colin Firth, will remain in the Cold War era and not be updated in any shape or form.’
Can’t see either one of those guys as George Smiley
BGinCHI
@morzer: I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to use the word “Detente.”
It’s not like I’m Wolf The Fuck Blitzer or something. I’m just trying to eek out a living as a reader and writer and I don’t get my hands on the mic very often.
Interesting to see whether you could read the book without having it ruined by the author knowledge. Foucault is fucked if you can, or can’t.
BGinCHI
@marcopolo: Umm, no, I got what you were saying. The idea that Feed, which I haven’t read, transcends all the shit zombie novels is why I thought of The Passage, which is supposed to be bigger than all the vampire shit, and that’s a lot of shit, out there.
So, it was just a suggestion, dude.
Maybe rub one out if you’re tense, but it’s too late for telling people to get some sleep.
morzer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I find it bizarre that anyone would think it needs remaking. The Guinness performance was superb.
On LeCarre’s decline – I thought Absolute Friends was trying a bit too hard to make its point. Our Game seemed rather contrived as well. I must admit I found A Most Wanted Man rather heavy-handed as well. Perhaps nothing matches the Quest for Karla trilogy, and nothing ever shall. LeCarre certainly seems to be making his endings more obvious and slap-in-the-faceish than he did in his glory days.
BGinCHI
I liked Le Carre’s A Murder of Quality. Kind of overlooked and short but solid.
The Guinness TTSS is outstanding. Agreed on that.
morzer
@BGinCHI:
Well, squire, that depends on yer Foucault, dunnit? I suppose that for me, having not encountered MF in the flesh, it’s harder to read him and feel his life having much impact on my view of what he has to say. Equally, I’ve never liked Kristeva as a writer or thinker, and so reports of her megalomania and selfishness don’t much affect me.
john
My favorite “Wall Street” movie is “Trading Places”.
Great actors, great story, happy ending–justice is achieved.
Looking good, Billy Ray! Billy Ray: Feeling good, Louis!
John
Steeplejack
@morzer:
God, that movie had “rent move” stamped all over it–for everyone involved. As in:
“Honey, why are you going to do this movie? The script sucks.”
“Baby, the beach house at Malibu isn’t going to pay for itself.”
Or Michael Caine’s great quote about Jaws: The Revenge: “I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific.”
Kristine
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: IIRC, Oldman will play Smiley.
I love Guinness’ interpretation, but Oldman is so good at submerging himself in roles that I believe he will do a good job.
BGinCHI
@morzer: Indeed. It’s just difficult to know how to keep the death of the author going while you’re trying to figure out whether knowing about someone affects their work. Dead is just easier, really.
Kristeva was at U Toronto for a semester while I was there and no one was harmed, but maybe she was just cold.
Now, you want some stories about Lacanians? Poets?
Oh, there was this one time……………..
fin
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
No. You did not need to tell us.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@john:
“Y’all are bookies” –“See, Mortimer? I told you he’d get it”
and that was in the quaint days of commodity trading, the credit default swap and other horrors had not yet been invented (IANM).
Best line in the movie “Fuck him!”
morzer
@Steeplejack:
Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull reminded me of the unkind summary review of a Sean Connery movie about a decade ago:
Grandpa Gets Lucky.
BGinCHI
@john:
So, just to wrap up tonight’s themes then I’m off to bed.
“And he was wearing my Harvard tie. Like, oh sure, HE went to Harvard!”
Steeplejack
@BGinCHI:
When did mike become mic? I know it’s a done deal and all. I just missed the memo.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
Who is the old guy who plays Snape anyway? Brett something or other?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kristine: Oh I’ll see it. The articles I glanced at after a google search all make it sound promising. I guess that means Colin Firth will be Bill Whatsits?
morzer
@BGinCHI:
I just work around it with “je est un autre”. It seems kinder, somehow.
morzer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Haydon?
asiangrrlMN
@BGinCHI: Oh, THAT guy! (Had to look him up on IMDB). Yes, he would have fit perfectly into the HP world. And, Cole as the Whomping Willow? How very apt. And, I would love love love to see Dame Mirren in a HP movie, but alas, it is not to be.
@Kristine: Oldman is really good at that. So is Ian Hart (Quirrell in HP world). I think Brits in general are, but that’s a whole different subject.
@Steeplejack: I knew YOU would get it, of all people.
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: Oh, no you DIDN’T! I am SO not talking to you! Except, to say, I say, “I’m a writer, bitchez. Deal.”
I cannot BELIEVE you dare blaspheme in such a manner!
I will now have to watch this video to wipe my mind of the foul image you have implanted in it (don’t click the link, Steepman).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@morzer: That’s it
@asiangrrlMN: The scene between Snape and Helena Bonham Carter was the best thing about the sixth movie. IMHO.
“We mustn’t…. TOUCH… what doesn’t belong to us… Bella”
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
Blaspheme? Me? Incidentally, I may have to break one of my fundamental NFL rules and root against the underdog this weekend. I just can’t bring myself to cheer for the Brett Favre Retirement Franchise against the Lions.
Steeplejack
@asiangrrlMN:
D’oh! I click the link.
Yutsano
@Kristine: I kid you not, I have a distant cousin (dual citizen the lucky duck!) who is EXACTLY like Luna Lovegood. So much so that she even embraces the comparison. It’s eerie to watch but fortunately she’s a total hoot. I really should get them all out to dinner one of these weekends.
@morzer: Prepare for your rusty pitchforking. With lemon juice. And no I’m not going to save you.
Steeplejack
@morzer:
Speaking of Favre, I had to laugh a little while ago when ESPN (on for background noise) started some featurette about the Vikings’ dismal start and asked breathlessly: “What’s wrong this year?”
Uh, he didn’t show up for training camp? And, oh, yeah, he’s like 60 years old.
asiangrrlMN
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes. I wrote a review for adults on the movie, and I specifically mentioned that scene. Blogwhore here. I re-read the entry, and what I didn’t mention is that I thought about a threesome while watching the spelling scene with Snape and Bellatrix.
@morzer: You suck. You have to rub it in that A) Favre is the quarterback of the Vikes; B) The Vikes are in the cellar looking up, tied with the hapless Lions.
P.S. I always root for the underdog, too, except in certain cases.
morzer
@Yutsano:
I fear no pitchforks. First, my heart is pure, second, my wings are like a sheet of steel, and fourth, the math is in my favor.
morzer
@Steeplejack:
It really is a bit like watching The Mummy Does NFL these days with Ol Man Dither. You keep expecting to see bits of him fall off after every play.
Yutsano
@morzer: Do you know why tigers are better hunters than lions? Rather than try to outrun their prey, they will attempt to outwit them. They can spring out of the shadows at a moment’s notice. And incidentally it is the Year of the Tiger by wifey’s traditional calendar. You have been warned.
marcopolo
@BGinCHI: Well then maybe I am the one that needs to get to bed which I will do soon. I would say, though, that I have been reading long enough that I lean towards jaded when I start any work of fiction. But I do enjoy well-wrought dystopian novels and fresh, though not transcendent as I don’t encounter much writing I would call that, takes on hackneyed topics. For example, Blindsight by Peter Watts has a smart and entertaining take on vampirism, though it is thrown out in the course of a novel that addresses a first-contact situation with originality. Moxyland, which just came out this spring, puts a nice dystopian spin on life in South Africa in the near future, and I would recommend it was well.
I am curious and perhaps will read your reply tomorrow but you mention Atwood as nice and brilliant–I read After The Flood this summer and found it a bit of a slog more than likely because I never managed to care about any of the folks in the book. I have liked some of her earlier books maybe up to The Robber’s Bride but nothing since then. Oryx and Crake was particularly offputting.
Just my two cents and good night.
asiangrrlMN
@Steeplejack: Yeah. Every time they talk about how out-of-synch the offense seems, I want to bring up that very point about training camp. But, he plays for the love of the game, damn it! And, he’s like a kid out there!
@Yutsano: Oh, I have decided that morzer deserves extra-special attention, so I’m moving beyond the rusty pitchfork for him.
@morzer: OK, that’s just funny.
morzer
@Yutsano:
*smiles* You have summed up my advantages brilliantly.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN:
And goddammit I know it’s so wrong that it can’t be right, but I’d STILL do him. Course I’d much rather go for Patrick Kerney who much hotter and also had the good sense to retire before he’s a fucking vegetable.
@morzer: Kitteh wars? I’ll get the camera and some peroxide. Things could get messy.
suzanne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Word. Helena Bonham Carter was perfectfor that role. I only wish she could have been even more slutty, but, yeah yeah, kids’ book, blahblah. I’ve never given a mouse fart for fanfiction, but I would love Rowling to write the Voldemort-Bellatrix-Snape three-way someday.
And “Bellatrix Lestrange” has to be one of the best villain names ever.
morzer
@Yutsano:
A kid staked out to attract the tiger, possibly?
No need for peroxide. I shall be merciful in victory. I may even not say the Deplorable Word.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: WHAT? WTF is wrong with you, man? Ugh ugh ugh. That is just wrong on so many levels.
And, I was born in the Year of the Boar–best year, evah. And, I’m an Aries. In other words–don’t fuck with me.
@morzer: Your advantages cannot survive my deviousness. I may be merciful if you say uncle right now.
@suzanne: Cut out Voldemort and throw me in there, and I’m all over that.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: I did preface that statement with a massive caveat did I not? It doesn’t make it any less true, but you should have seen what was coming just from the preceding words.
BTW I’m so disappointed in my work. I used a few polysyllabic words and was asked to speak English. Sigh. These r ur tax peoples folks.
Rat/Scorpio BTW. I think you knew that however.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
So you don’t know the Deplorable Word? Advantage me, I think.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: I know. But no caveats could prepare me for the horrible truth.
Work: Sigh. I know the feeling. And, I love polysyllabic words. I love the word polysyllabic.
@morzer: I was assuming it was the name that sends me into a rage every time you type it. And, I have advantages that you could only dream about.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
Hmmm, I don’t quite see the Empress Jadis uttering the word “Favre” to annihilate her world.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Aggregate. I used the word aggregate. I got stared at. I might as well have said it in Swahili. If I didn’t have professional decorum I would have face palmed.
JUBLEYS!!
morzer
@Yutsano:
The Jubleys seem rather nice and respectable…
http://www.facebook.com/people/Nurul-Zafirah-Jubley/563103130
Yutsano
@morzer: Wifey’s got herself TWO! Up front! Very very nice if I do say so meself.
I’d elaborate more but my alarm goes off in seven hours. Night y’all.
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: Oh, see, I only read the first book of that series. Favre is enough to send me into a black rage.
@Yutsano: Aggregate got you in trouble? Holy shit. I wonder what they would have done with chiaroscuro? Or ablutions? Or defenestration?
And, I had to look up jubleys. Yes. I haz them, and I use them to my advantage.
@Yutsano: Nice enough to make you a confused boy? ETA: Good night! Make sure to dumb down your vocab tomorrow.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
*chuckles* You forget that, as a happily married man, I am immune to alien jubleys of all varieties and qualities.
Kristine
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Bill Haydon? Ralph Fiennes is in the movie, as well–I see him more as Haydon, given the physical description. I’ve loved Firth since Another Country, but he’s gotten blocky as he’s aged and I can’t see him as Haydon.
But hey, I’ve been wrong before.
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: Right. Because we all know that no married man ever looks. Ever. I have other advantages as well.
morzer
@asiangrrlMN:
Of course, my dear, of course you do. Superb advantages, tremendous advantages.
asiangrrlMN
@morzer: Being condescending again, are we?
Anne Laurie
@DougJ is the business and economics editor for Balloon Juice.:
__
As I understand it, being “good at networking” is the most important single factor for winning the Harvard lottery, since all applicants — even most of the legacies! — are by definition academically gifted, ‘well rounded’, and in possession of excellent GPAs and many extracurriculars. Therefore, a talent for knowing how to gain access to the individual(s) best suited to help you meet your next goal, and for understanding what will be required to get that individual to assist you, is the ultimate sorting criteria. Selection pressure in action.
(It could be argued that legacies have the same advantage here that Hollywood offspring have in the performance arts — if your parents went to Harvard, they will naturally inculcate their own networking skills to give you that Gladwellian ten-thousand-hours-of-practice edge before you’re out of prep school. But just as many Hollywood stars do not have parents in the business, there will always be room at Harvard for especially gifted networkers from non-H backgrounds.)
BGinCHI
@marcopolo: Thanks for the suggestions. Will check these out.
I agree that Atwood’s earlier stuff is the best, and even her lit-crit. If you are ever lucky enough to spend an hour or two with her you’ll be amazed at how smart and nice and funny she is. Amazing storyteller and even a dark and dirty sense of humor.
In the CDN lit heavyweight championship, I’ll take early Ondaatje any day.
Juror #7
@beltane: I have been getting fairly regular mailings from her, as well as Dick Morris and two or three extreme wingnutty organizations. I can’t figure out why they’re wasting their money contacting me, or where on earth they would have gotten my name.
jake the snake
I definitely got a different vibe from the trailer. Sort of a smart-ass fratboy makes good fluff piece. I was surprised Fincher was involved. As big an a-hole as Zuckerburg seems to be, it just doesn’t seem dark enough to interest Fincher.
I have this problem with trailers, they almost always make we want to not see the movie.
Take “You Again”. I am convinced it will be mindbendingly stupid, but the cast makes me want to see it, despite the fact, that I know I have seen anything remotely resembling a funny line. If I had just heard that there was a movie about generations of frenemies with that cast, I would be much more likely to go see it.