Wall Street 2 – Money Never Sleeps (Anatomy of a Trailer)

Back in 1987, Oliver Stone directed a little film called Wall Street.  The film starred Michael Douglas as the iconic movie villian, Gordon Gekko.

Wall Street illustrated, in graphic detail, how an individual’s lust for power, when coupled with insane amounts of money, can spread, like a cancer, tainting all those it touches. 

And yet, what people remember the most about the film, was not its underlying message, or a particular plot point, or even Daryl Hannah’s massive shoulder pads and big 80’s hair . . .

No.  What people tend to remember about Wall Street was a little speech that Douglas’s Gekko made early in the film — a speech that was appropriately entitled “Greed is Good.”

Corporate America lapped up this speech, boy!  (You KNOW those folks at AIG and Goldman Sachs were taking notes!)  In fact, CEOs and financial executives were so in love with Gordon Gecko and his words, that they simply stopped paying attention for the rest of the movie!  They forgot that “Good Greed” completely ruined Charlie Sheen’s character, Bud Fox, and that Gekko was carted off to jail at the end of the film.  And in the past couple of years, we have learned that Gekko was simply WRONG!  Greedily treating America as a “malfunctioning corporation” didn’t SAVE our economy, it destroyed it!

Despite it being 23-years old, I can’t think of a film more relevant to the current state of our nation than Wall Street.  So, of course, I was very interested to learn that Stone was helming a sequel to the film, set to hit theaters this fall.  You can watch the trailer for it here:

You know what?  I was a little skeptical at first, but color me impressed!  This looks pretty darn good!  Based solely on the trailer, Stone seems to have done a nice job balancing the sleek, polished “look and feel” of the original Wall Street, with the fast-paced, high voltage, aesthetic of modern times . . .

Not only is The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” a GREAT song to include in any trailer (Just TRY and listen without bobbing your head in time with the music.), it’s particularly appropriate for THIS one!  After all, if a little part of all of us wasn’t just a twinge enamored with the oily, and, quite possibly soulless, Gordon Gekko, this franchise wouldn’t be anywhere near as successful as it ultimately became.

:10 – I couldn’t help but smirk watching Gordon Gekko’s updated, post-jail break, version of the original “Greed is Good” speech.  Many would agree that since Gekko’s time, Greed HAS, in fact, become “legal.”  Just don’t ask this guy about it . . .

I wonder how this film will address (if it does at all) the current economic climate.  Has the recent economic recession even happened in Gekko’s world?

:24 – If I had to choose a favorite moment in the trailer, it would be the one where Gekko, having spent upwards of 20 years in prison, retrieves his personal belongings upon leaving the Big House.  His prized possession?

Zack Morris’s HUMONGOUS Saved by the Bell cell phone!

:50 – It looks like Bud Fox 2.0 will be played by none other than Shia Lebeouf, who you may remember from the Transformer films, or the latest Indiana Jones franchise installment, or Disturbia.  But, just in case, you aren’t familiar with him or his work, here’s a very nice picture of him shirtless . . .

 . . . and another one of him suggestively eating a banana . . .

(Hmmmm . . . wonder how his girlfriend feels about THAT one?)

The original Bud Fox, Charlie Sheen, seemed to be MIA during this trailer . . .

BAD BUD!

However, I have read that he will reprise his original role in the film during a brief cameo appearance . . .

:52 – Carey Mulligan, with her pixie face, and wise beyond her years demeanor  (must be because she is British), . . .

 . . . co-stars in the film, as the estanged daughter of Gekko, who just so happens to be the fiance of Lebeouf’s character.  In other words, she will likely play a smarter, less slutty version of Daryl Hannah’s character from the original film.  Oh, and her character is supposed to have, like, principles, or something . . .

The rest of the trailer proceeds more or less as what you would expect from a Wall Street sequel.  We watch as Lebeouf’s character confronts, and quickly becomes seduced by the charismatic Gekko and his upper-crust lifestyle, which, apparently, continued to thrive untarnished in his absence.  (At least we know they SOLD all of Madoff’s stuff!  So, hopefully, this won’t happen to him, if HE ever gets out.) 

The protagonist quickly becomes taken into the fold.  We witness the character’s eyes light up, as his handles a check in his name for $1.45 million.  And we just KNOW he’s a goner!  We then see evidence that his relationship with the young FEMALE Gekko . . .

 . . . will begin to crumble, as a result of his growing greed.  Throw in a little bit of Josh Brolin . . .

 . . . a dollop of Frank Langella . . .

 . . . some motorcycle stunts . . .

 . . . and a few great Gekko one liners (“Why don’t you start calling me Gordon?”) and that’s pretty much the trailer in a nutshell.

Wall Street 2 STEALS into theaters September 24, 2010.  Will YOU see it?

Luck Be an E-Trade Baby Tonight . . .

 

Back when I was in high school, my history teacher decided to conduct a little experiment with us.  We were studying the Stock Market Crash of 1929.  So, my teacher thought it would be fun to see how capable his 16-year old students were of handling a stock portfolio.  (Now that I think about it, he was probably just looking for free stock tips . . . )

We broke into teams of three, and were each given $100,000 (fake, of course).  Each team was then asked to “invest” the money in the stock market as we saw fit, using real time data about the stocks taken from various news outlets.  Now, my teammates and I knew precisely nada about the stockmarket.  And we figured that the assignment wasn’t going to be graded or anything.  So we just had fun with it — purchasing “stock” in companies that sold stuff we liked or products we used, like Coca Cola, Gap, Google, Apple, Mars Candy etc.

The “game” went on for a month, with students having the opportunity to “trade” lousy stocks for better ones at the end of each week.  At the end of the month, dollar amounts were tallied and teams were ranked.  I am proud to report that Buddah Investments (Yeah, that was actually the name we chose for our team.  Apparently, the creativity of a my teenage self knew no bounds.   Oh, and one of my teammates was kind of a pothead.) won FIRST PLACE, beating the tushies off those snooty investment bankers’ kids whose portfolios floundered almost universally near the bottom of the pile.

No wonder our economy is in the crapper . . .

When we came to collect our winnings (which, unfortunately, did not include the actual value of our fake portfolios, but, rather $5 gift cards to Barnes and Noble), our teacher, always a veritable ray of sunshine, said, “Don’t get too cocky.  When conducting this same experiment, a chimp, who threw darts at the business section of a newspaper to choose stocks, performed way better than you did (and, apparently, better than most stock market experts too).

At this time, we are pleased to introduce you to the next CFO of AIG . . .

So, why am I telling you all this?  Because the notion that stock market trading is less a matter of analytical skill, and more a matter of luck and chance, has become the basis for what are, in my opinion, some of the cleverest (not to mention most adorable) commercials on television today.  Of course, I’m talking about those awesome E-Trade Baby commercials that typically invade our television screens around Superbowl time each year.

In essence, these commercials have taken the basic premise of those old Geico commercials, which stated that becoming insured was “so easy, a caveman caveman could do it” . . .

 . . . and applied it to the stockmarket.

Trading is so easy, a baby could do it . . .

I also enjoy the E-Trade commercials, because they remind me of one of my favorite movies from back when I was just an itty bitty kiddie myself:

So, without further adieu, I give to you, an E-Trade Baby Commercial Montage I found on YouTube:

But if stocks aren’t your thing, fear not.  There is also this adorable video of the E-Trade Babies performing a tribute to Snoop Doggy Dog’s classic rap anthem, Gin and Juice.  Viewer discretion is advised . . .