“So I double dipped…why don’t you step up in front of this, you’re retiring soon anyway.” Even though it was mediocre acting, I still wanted to punch the dude for suggesting that.
Worst movie in the history of the universe.
jlx177 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Worst movie in the history of the universe. Thats going a bit far.
That actress (fiance of Shia) was extremely terrible. They should have had more Bud Fox too…
ASSet_MANagement Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Thats going a bit far. Agreed. Disregarding the acting quality (I blame Stone because the acting was terrible across the board), the crux of the movie was not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be. There were poignant aspects of WS2 are actually fairly good. Just like the original, this poignancy occurs DESPITE the misguided narrative that Oliver Stone tries to tell. Indeed his narrative in WS2 is awful, but here are two nuggets I liked: **spoilers below here** Winnie Gekko: - She is a massive hypocrite. She claims not to like wall street, bankers, and her father, but Jake is all of them wrapped into one. She pretends she’s one of the little people fighting the good fight, but she’s not. - She has an illegal trust fund that she’s promised to give back to Gekko (but didn’t) and vaguely promises to give it to charity eventually once Jake calls her on it. It’s incredibly negligent to just throw $100MM at something without doing your own DD. It’s easy to blog about political fairness and green energy if you have nine figures in the bank already. - She also lives in an amazing ($10MM+) apartment (or shares it with Jake, which he couldn’t possibly afford) and enjoys a cushy politically-correct, super-hipster lifestyle. Jake’s Mom is an excellent caricature of how the subprime crisis had greed at all levels of the socio-economic scale and was exacerbated by MILLIONS of people who genuinely knew little to no finance. I only wish they mentioned how much the gov’t and in particular FNM and FRE were largely responsible for the bubble in subprime assets. Also, there was that ridiculous scene at the fundraiser where all the women had ostentatious earrings. I got the impression Oliver Stone is secretly misogynistic and saying that women are at fault for the rat race and by extension, our economic woes. 
Well that’s three points, but you get the idea.
Yeah, that apartment, and Shia’s lifestyle is only affordable by maybe a dozen kids under 30. Those kids are usually working in HF’s and are superqwants, probably living in CT.
ASSet_MANagement Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Yeah, that apartment, and Shia’s lifestyle is only > affordable by maybe a dozen kids under 30. Those > kids are usually working in HF’s and are > superqwants, probably living in CT. I like how he had $1MM left over from a $1.45MM bonus. I laughed out loud from that one.
justin88 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ASSet_MANagement Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Yeah, that apartment, and Shia’s lifestyle is > only > > affordable by maybe a dozen kids under 30. > Those > > kids are usually working in HF’s and are > > superqwants, probably living in CT. > > I like how he had $1MM left over from a $1.45MM > bonus. I laughed out loud from that one. Ha - yeah - it’s like they gross’d it up… That was stupid.
justin88 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > ASSet_MANagement Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Yeah, that apartment, and Shia’s lifestyle is > only > > affordable by maybe a dozen kids under 30. > Those > > kids are usually working in HF’s and are > > superqwants, probably living in CT. > > I like how he had $1MM left over from a $1.45MM > bonus. I laughed out loud from that one. I love how they implied he dropped $450,000 on a ring. THEN HE DECIDED TO BRING IT TO THE CLUB??? WTF!!!
justin88 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > There were poignant aspects of WS2 are actually > fairly good. Just like the original, this > poignancy occurs DESPITE the misguided narrative > that Oliver Stone tries to tell. Indeed his > narrative in WS2 is awful, but here are two > nuggets I liked: > > **spoilers below here** > > Winnie Gekko: > - She is a massive hypocrite. She claims not to > like wall street, bankers, and her father, but > Jake is all of them wrapped into one. She > pretends she’s one of the little people fighting > the good fight, but she’s not. > - She has an illegal trust fund that she’s > promised to give back to Gekko (but didn’t) and > vaguely promises to give it to charity eventually > once Jake calls her on it. It’s incredibly > negligent to just throw $100MM at something > without doing your own DD. It’s easy to blog > about political fairness and green energy if you > have nine figures in the bank already. > - She also lives in an amazing ($10MM+) apartment > (or shares it with Jake, which he couldn’t > possibly afford) and enjoys a cushy > politically-correct, super-hipster lifestyle. > > Jake’s Mom is an excellent caricature of how the > subprime crisis had greed at all levels of the > socio-economic scale and was exacerbated by > MILLIONS of people who genuinely knew little to no > finance. I only wish they mentioned how much the > gov’t and in particular FNM and FRE were largely > responsible for the bubble in subprime assets. > > Also, there was that ridiculous scene at the > fundraiser where all the women had ostentatious > earrings. I got the impression Oliver Stone is > secretly misogynistic and saying that women are at > fault for the rat race and by extension, our > economic woes. Yes, I was thinking the same thing–Winnie is a total hypocrite, Jake’s mom was Stone’s veiled reference to the fault of the masses (and I liked how she eventually went back to nursing and seemed like she cared about her patients), and there was ZERO mention AT ALL of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, which is stunning to someone who worked at Freddie Mac in the fall of 2008. I couldn’t believe that their part was totally ignored. Overall, I enjoyed the movie for the entertainment value. It was a fun movie.
Spoiler I didn’t like the ending. It was way to happy! Three things I didn’t like: 1. Gordon should just be plain evil. What’s is this doting grandfather crap? 2. The Bretton James thing - Nobody went down to Camp Fed from the big iBanks. They either got handed big golden parachutes or are still working today. Furthermore, I think it places all the blame on one isolated guy when it was the entire f*cking company to blame, Hell, the entire industry. 3. There was a lot of terrible acting: Douglass and Transformers kid were all right (except when he cries). Everyone else sucks. The guy playing Hank Paulson royally sucked. “Do you realize what you guys have done? This is Socialism and I have fought it all my life!” One thing I did like: 1. The old guy jumping in front of the train. I wish that had happened more in real life. Then this “moral hazard” might not exist.
I’ll say it again. I liked the Ducati scene. I also like the cameo apperance of Bud Fox’s old school motorcycle. That was a neat little easter egg.
The plot had some holes and weak points, but the ending really got me. I didn’t find Gekko’s speech at the end very moving at all, and he didn’t say anything he hadn’t said before (and later reneged on). He gave her the $100m back - who cares, the daughter doesn’t care about money He said he wanted to be her father - he also said he wanted to give both of them a father earlier before screwing them over And finally, Shia was in the doghouse but magically Gekko’s speech fixes both relationships at the same time. WTF??
sundevl21 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > The plot had some holes and weak points, but the > ending really got me. I didn’t find Gekko’s > speech at the end very moving at all, and he > didn’t say anything he hadn’t said before (and > later reneged on). > > He gave her the $100m back - who cares, the > daughter doesn’t care about money > > He said he wanted to be her father - he also said > he wanted to give both of them a father earlier > before screwing them over > > And finally, Shia was in the doghouse but > magically Gekko’s speech fixes both relationships > at the same time. WTF?? Small difference, but he invested it in the energy company. It’s a happy medium compromise that also validates Jake. I actually think Gekko’s change of heart makes (some) sense. Look at all the horrible human beings (ahem Bill Gates) that, upon conquering the world, become philathropic in their old age out of boredom and concern for legacy.
^^ “Concern for legacy”. I like that…
“Greed is Good”
“You are the NINJA generation. No Income, No Job, No Assets. You got a lot to live for too.” The line is cool but what’s the exact parallel in Ninja and a distressed career generation? Ninja kills people and that too very smartly, current generation is victim with lot of burden in future, so is there any cool explanation except that it’s an acronym with one ‘n’ missed?
I need a history lesson - when LT Capital Management went under, did Lehman Brothers not participate in the bailout? And were Goldman/Others pissed about it? In my opinion, the sequel doesn’t touch the first one. Too many story lines.
bison_foilist Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I need a history lesson - when LT Capital > Management went under, did Lehman Brothers not > participate in the bailout? And were > Goldman/Others pissed about it? > > In my opinion, the sequel doesn’t touch the first > one. Too many story lines. No, it was Bear that failed to participate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-Term_Capital_Management Long-Term Capital Management did business with nearly everyone important on Wall Street. As LTCM teetered, Wall Street feared that Long-Term’s failure could cause a chain reaction in numerous markets, causing catastrophic losses throughout the financial system. After LTCM failed to raise more money on its own, it became clear it was running out of options. On September 23, Goldman Sachs, AIG, and Berkshire Hathaway offered then to buy out the fund’s partners for $250 million, to inject $3.75 billion and to operate LTCM within Goldman’s own trading division. The offer was stunningly low to LTCM’s partners because at the start of the year their firm had been worth $4.7 billion. Buffett gave Meriwether less than one hour to accept the deal; the time period lapsed before a deal could be worked out.[20] Seeing no options left the Federal Reserve Bank of New York organized a bailout of $3.625 billion by the major creditors to avoid a wider collapse in the financial markets.[21] The contributions from the various institutions were as follows:[22][23] $300 million: Bankers Trust, Barclays, Chase, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, J.P.Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Salomon Smith Barney, UBS $125 million: Société Générale $100 million: Lehman Brothers, Paribas Bear Stearns declined to participate. In return, the participating banks got a 90% share in the fund and a promise that a supervisory board would be established. LTCM’s partners received a 10% stake, still worth about $400 million, but this money was completely consumed by their debts. The partners once had $1.9 billion of their own money invested in LTCM, all of which was wiped out.[24] The fear was that there would be a chain reaction as the company liquidated its securities to cover its debt, leading to a drop in prices, which would force other companies to liquidate their own debt creating a vicious cycle.