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CalvinJarrett's Replies
Lou Mannheim (Hal Holbrook) was on screen for the perfect amount of time. His dialogue, while brief, said all that needed to be said. The point was that no matter how concise or verbose he was, the younger guys (like Bud) were too greedy and lazy to heed his advice/warnings. They didn't just want to make a quick buck; they wanted to make a quick million bucks. Mannheim's philosophy ran counter to that because he was urging proper research into the fundamentals of a company and investing in that stock for the long haul. Not dumping it in hours or minutes when the ticker increased by a few points (i.e., day trading).
As for people looking up to Gordon Gekko and missing the cautionary thrust of the whole movie, I agree that that indeed happened. I think there was some research into the idea that a whole generation of brokers entered the business because they were so mesmerized by the movie Wall Street and Gordon Gekko and Bud Foxx's lifestyles. I have always thought that this was inevitable. Had there been a scene at the end where we see a convicted Gekko entering his jail cell in prison uniform and a pained look on his face (which Michael Douglas would certainly have been able to pull off) and a similar shot of Bud Foxx entering his cell (though for a shorter sentence), that might have eliminated the allure of the business and these characters.
As it happened, the only clue we get is when Foxx's mom and dad are driving him to the courthouse where he will testify against Gekko is when Foxx says to his father, "Aww come on, Dad, I'm going to jail." Predicting it is a lot less effective than showing it. And though it is implied that Gekko will go to jail (and confirmed decades later in the sequel 'Money Never Sleeps'), we never see the result of that trial and (as stated earlier) Gekko go to jail.
I love, love, love this simple line - spoken off camera! I use this line (and try to say it just like the actor in Goodfellas) all the time with my son. Anytime he orders something at a restaurant or asks me to cook him something that sounds a little more sophisticated than a kid his age might like, I say, "Oh, an aristocrat!"
The movie is considered good because it does an excellent job of showing that, ultimately, crime does not pay. The music, the clothes, the cars, the women, the food, the brotherhood in the first half of the film makes the mob life look so exciting and comfortable. You start to believe Henry's self-delusional narration, that everyday working stiffs were dead and why wouldn't anyone want to be part of this elite club.
Then comes Brooklyn 1970 and the Billy Batts murder. That, whether Henry realized it or not at the time, was the beginning of the end. From that point on its double-crossing, killing your best friends, excessive drug use, prison time, ratting on your friends to avoid prison or getting whacked, and living the rest of your life like the 'dead' working stiffs Henry ridiculed at the beginning of the movie.
And that it was at least based on a real story makes it especially effective.
Excellent score too. Great songs played at perfect moments.
I think the owner had a pretty good idea what he was getting into, but the Tommy situation had become untenable. Tommy was racking up thousands of dollars in unpaid bills and smashing bottles over his head. He may have thought he was 'going out of the frying pan and into the fire,' but when you're in that frying pan, man, you want out so badly you hope you're wrong and that the alternative is not as awful as you fear. Turned out he delayed the inevitable and lost his livelihood. But had he not made the deal with Paulie, Tommy, left unchecked, may have caused him to lose his life.
The 'Fancy Jailhouse' scene - bar none! Liotta's narration was awesome about how jail wasn't the same for wise guys, but then the imagery and lines (as well as the soft music) really hammer it home. They're cooking steaks. They have an ice chest full of live lobsters. Red and white wine. Various cheeses. They're eating so well, Paulie says, "Vinnie, you gotta go on a diet. Next week sandwiches." I always got a kick out of that because: A.) I always felt Paulie was projecting because he didn't seem to be holding back on the rich food and booze; and B.) If they made sandwiches out of all of those decadent meats and cheeses, those sandwiches would make them just as fat. It was just a lot of fun. Somehow they made jail seem pleasurable. Never before or since (at least to my knowledge) has jail been portrayed that way in film.
He was traveling in a remote part of Africa in the mid-70's. (I think 1976.) He came in contact with an insect perhaps no other human had ever encountered. This is what I have always heard to be the source of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. I have never heard - until now - that this was some hoax or conspiracy theory. The tse tse fly in question was not some household bug common to Europe, North America, etc. It was rare. Indeed, it probably never made it out of Africa. But it transmitted a disease (that may or may not have affected it), HIV/AIDS, to a human when it inserted its proboscis into patient zero's skin. This was the first 'dirty needle,' of the AIDS crisis.
Sorry to have offended you, Otter. Don't worry - I could never have committed that sin. I wasn't born until 3-4 months after that segment was shot.
I think I was about 26 or 27. I am pretty certain it was a Netflix rental (back when Netflix would actually mail you DVD's). Anyhow, I got the unrated one and thought 'how could I have waited so long to watch this - I remember hearing about this in the '80's'.
I wouldn't say that about the Imperial Bordello scene that Bob Guccione shot after principal filming wrapped (in early 1977). I would have loved to have been one of the male extras in that orgy.
The market speaks in both taverns and television. If enough people feel the way you do, Boricanator, the bar will close or the series will end. For the sake of Black Mirror, I hope there are a few other fans like me who are more forgiving to the producers/writers. Hopefully, there will be a market for Black Mirror for many years to come.
Thanks, Devilman. I think I know what documentary you're talking about. Was it 'The Making of Caligula,' which was included as an extra on the unrated DVD? If not, if you could let me know the title and where it can be found, I'd at least like to watch that. Thank you.
I can't help but think that it's there. If anyone would have it, it would be Penthouse, right? In terms of legal issues, I wonder if that's really the case. After all they were able to include the double blow job, and plenty of the Penthouse Pets having unstimulated sex in the DVD and Blu-Rays. It doesn't seem as though there is any type of injunction or liability threat to releasing footage from the Guccione footage taken in early 1977. I think Anneka di Lorenzo attempted to sue over that footage in the early '80's, but she was unsuccessful. (Sadly, she died in an auto accident maybe 15 years ago or so.)
I wonder how much of the 90+ hours of footage Negovan unearthed was of the Imperial Bordello. I understand people's beef with its inclusion in the film. And perhaps it should not be included in this version, but if more footage exists than the 7 minutes or so we see in the film, I, for one, would pay to see it. I like it from a purely porn perspective, as I'm sure many other connoisseurs do. I think there would be a high demand for it, and if it exists, it should be made available at least as a separate video.
No, really none of them deserved to die. But that’s a separate topic. I was curious about that specific character’s backstory.
I agree with you April-151-CT. This amounted to lazy writing. I could understand one, loyal sous chef or two equally deranged employees, but for that entire kitchen staff to go along with that plan (including their own deaths by fire) there should have been some background. I think the writer wanted to illustrate just how magnetic, influential Chef Julian was, but without some establishing scenes, I too found it incredulous that both the front and back of the house would go along with such brutality.
Exactly! It's one thing to contemplate suicide because of the ennui of it all and your perceived worthlessness, but why kill yourself in the most brutal, painful means possible?
I don't think I will ever agree that putting up no fight justifies someone's murder, no less via immolation. What I took from that scene was the notion of 'learned helplessness.' Perhaps they stood the best chance of overcoming Chef and his brainwashed staff at that point, but you have to bear in mind all of their thwarted efforts to escape up to that point. Humans (and animals) suffer from learned helplessness when their repeated attempts to solve a problem are defeated to the extent that when a workable solution presents itself they feel all too powerless to seize it. One of the patrons repeatedly threw and slammed a chair against the plate glass window; he didn't even scratch the glass. All of the males were given a chance to escape (with a 45 second head-start); each one of them was apprehended by the staff and returned to the restaurant. Reasoning/negotiating with Chef's equally deranged female assistant proved fruitless. When Margot/Erin radio'ed for help from the mainland, the dude from the Coast Guard proved to be a staffmember of the restaurant. I'm sure there are even more examples, but they all add up to the sense of learned helplessness the survivors up to that point must have felt by the time of the dessert course.
This! Absolutely my take.
That's a good point. Like maybe if they paid the bill, they were paying for their ability to live through the evening. I think the fact that they paid up so willingly suggests that. However, they also could have surmised that they ween't really paying at all. When their credit card statements came next month, they weren't going to be around to pay any part of them.
Maybe they thought that would appeal to his ego and spare their lives. When Margo/Erin appealed to his ego by encouraging him to cook a dish she knew he'd be able to master and complimenting him on it, she was set free. Just my two cents.
So you're assuming that because Julian was such a psychopath, his mother must be to blame? If his soliloque is to be believed, it sounds like his mother was very much a victim of alcoholism. Her husband (Julian's father) was a drunk who abused her. She too formed a dependence on alcohol - which is all too common a pattern in situations like that. Did she deserve to die because she made tacos for dinner on Tuesday without exception. If that's the case, we're all headed to the gallows, aren't we?