Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (Oliver Stone, 2010)

[flyonthewall2983]

Fox pushes the release 5 months.

[domino harvey]

There's a vote of something less than confidence

[flyonthewall2983]

Maybe, but the article suggests it could be a push to make it Oscar bait. It'd be more obvious if they dumped it in August but who knows. I was a little surprised when I saw that it was coming out so soon since it was looking like it was going to be released next year originally.

[flyonthewall2983]

It's PG-13 which is a little disappointing frankly, but hopefully it's an edgy one. The bigger news is obviously what Michael talked about on Letterman last night. Here's the video.

[John Cope]

Just wanted to recommend the DVD, but especially Stone's commentary track. His commentaries are always great, often maybe the best part of the experience. This one is particularly rich and comprehensive though. It made a great deal of difference in my assesment of the film itself.

I have a friend who really loved this picture but I, initially at least, couldn't share his enthusiasm. I wasn't struck by it viscerally. It seemed relatively safe and slick and more or less what you might expect from this scenario. But the commentary opened my eyes to what my friend was responding to because Stone basically expands on things touched on in the discussion between us. And this, in turn, made me aware of a couple of persistent points.


First, Stone's filmmaking has evolved (some, obviously, would say devolved) over the years but where it's at now and where it's been lately seems to please few. Listening to him talk about his aesthetic choices made their application more clear and persuasive. The early Stone is about unrestrained force, visceral assault. There's power in that regardless of whether it's always directed capably. But I think the most recent stuff--these last three pictures in particular--have shown us a Stone not so much in decline but in refinement. It's not that his work or his technique is necessarily more subtle (it's hard to make that claim) but it is more difficult now to isolate its strengths. And I think that's because he's buried the powerful gestures of his past within a familiar, non-threatening facade. Maybe he had to do this after Alexander. Maybe he felt it was the only place left to go. And he may be right.

His observations are more precise and carefully applied, more studied. This is not always self-evident in the contrast between something like Nixon and World Trade Center. Still, it's present in the way that the surface is allowed to be less representative of his driving concerns; it doesn't express itself as overtly, in other words. Other facets are emphasized that seem more conventional or commonplace (like the stock melodramatic tropes in WTC), distracting our attention from the multiple ways in which his underlying themes are articulated. But he provides justification for this as well. As he says in the commentary to this film, the look and feel had to be different here, a more knotty plot had to be employed because the idea of novelty that gave the first film its force--the novelty of having that kind of money--is no longer novel. It's become a more mundane reality and therefore the look and feel of the film should accomodate that (I especially appreciated the fact, for instance, that Stone uses lighting throughout to match the kind of computer screens his brokers and stock traders are constantly positioned before). This minimizing of forceful elements is not, once again, to diminish their prominence but rather to redirect their flow, divert them into multiple tributaries of effect rather than just one central pulse or wave bearing down upon us.

There are other accomplishments. The awareness that inflects the satire in both this and W. is far more nuanced than is currently acknowledged. The caricature aspects of the latter film are, I would argue, misleading intentionally. But where Stone excels is, as with Michael Mann, in the construction of grand modern myths. And here, as with Mann as well, he has deviated from his earlier path, gone deeper. Now the myths play out covertly as forces that inform the texts rather than the more simplified pictorial illustrations of his previous work. But it's great to see him recognizing the ways in which those ideas still remain; persisting right before us, circulating through our whole life expereince. The seriousness with which he takes this kind of informing content puts contemporary superhero films to shame. They could learn much from his reflections.

[flyonthewall2983]

In what will likely be another desperate grab at relevance, Stone will subvert the potential for decent observation and deconstruction by attempting to be timely. And if that horrid synopsis is to be believed, he has gone and given Wall Street a happy ending and made a likable villain a hero. I hate to pass judgment on a film that doesn't even exist yet, but this just feels too obvious to be worthwhile (not that Wall Street was anything close to a masterpiece, but it obviously came from a different place than this film).

Basically spot-on, but John does bring up some valid points about it's merit. As an admirer of the predecessor, it's a shame nobody could come up with a more direct sequel. Charlie Sheen's cameo is quite crass to watch, considering the things that have transpired with him in the 10 months since the film has come out.

Scorsese did this kind of thing way better when he did The Color Of Money, even though the film it followed wasn't directed by him.