Last weekend, I saw Wall Street 2 - Money Never Sleeps. Most of you know me to give succinct, twitter reviews of the movies I watch; but this one had to have a blog post.
So -- I can't remember the last time I left a movie -- and I actually felt giddy! I mean, I felt like those elders in the 'Kick The Can' episode of The Twilight Zone; who were transformed into freeze-tagging kids at the end (Of course, I'm way past my freeze-tagging prime, but I felt like I was right back in my high school and college heydays -- when everybody was carefree, curious, cute and occasionally stoned).
Are you wondering what is making me wax so corny? It's Oliver Stone's absolutely masterful mashup of cinema anecdotes within this one film.
- Right off the bat, Stone shows Eli Wallach, playing an ugly, greedy financier -- and amuses us with Shia LeBeauf's ringtone (derived from the film, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, where Eli Wallach defined the greedy, ugly charlatan).
- Next thing you know, Stone has us replete with references to the movie, Tron; from whizzing around in a tilt-a-whirl ride of simple animations (reminiscent of Flynn's fall into the Tron videogame) to the Brolin-LeBeauf bike race through a maze of open road.
- In the meantime, Stone has Gordon Gekko taking us back to Raiders of the Lost Ark with his lecture-hall-illoquy (I was just waiting for one of the students to close her eyelids in front of Gekko and expose the "I love you" written on them)... right before he takes us to Devil's Advocate and the scene on the train with Keanu Reeves... um, I mean, Shia LeBeauf....
- When Charlie Sheen makes his pock-marked cameo, I almost thought Ally Sheedy, Emilio Estevez and the rest of the brat pack were going to enter the dining room and sing 'Happy Birthday' to Molly Ringwald!
As for performances, Langella and Brolin are the KINGS (IMHO, Brolin was cheated out of an Oscar nod for "W"). Their penetrating performances in this film have Supporting Actor Oscar nods written all over them.
And what else is there to say about Michael Douglas -- other than we hope he goes into remission and graces us with his presence for many years to come. No other actor in our contemporary times has elevated the concept of greed-as-self-preservation to the level of sophistication and reflection as we have seen through his embodiment of Gordon Gekko.
This leads me to my last dance with film references:
- By the time the movie was at its redemptive end, I was hit with a lightning bolt... or should I say, a Jedi lightsaber. Somehow, I realized that the Wall Street saga was really written by George Lucas; and that the story of Gordon Gekko was really the story of Anakin Skywalker.
