Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps *1/2

Director: Oliver Stone
Cast: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin, Carey Mulligan
Eli Wallach, Frank Langella, John Buffalo Mailer, Susan Sarandon

Regardless of how many times you may have seen Splendor in the Grass, the moment when Bud Stamper (Warren Beatty) learns about the Great Depression never fails to turn your heart upside down.
Such a moment was supposed to occur in the fractured Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, as it deals with recent economic disasters that have affected the world in unexpected ways. We expect it to come when we see Gordon Gekko (Douglas) being released from prison in late 2001 and we expect it to occur again when the movie jumps forward in time to the chaotic 2008.
However nothing really happens and we are left wondering exactly what was the point in making this film.
On the surface it's basically a remake of Wall Street. Gordon Gekko's time in jail nothing but a MacGuffin so that he can regain the prominence he had during his 80's peak.
He writes a book called Is Greed Good? and the masses flock to him like a messiah. Among the crowds is idealistic Jacob Moore (LaBeouf) a wide-eyed proprietary trader who admires Gekko and wishes to be like him. Essentially LaBeouf is playing Charlie Sheen.
Of course, this being the aughts and all, besides being one greedy little bastard he also has a thing for the environment and for his girlfriend Winnie (Mulligan), Gekko's estranged daughter who has gone all Elektra on him by becoming a leftist, money-hating, journalist.
To say that nothing much happens in this sequel would be an understatement given how most of the film consists of scenes where the young Jake and the old sharks (which besides Douglas include Brolin, Langella and a scene stealing Eli Wallach) discuss vengeance, power and money like characters straight out of Clash of the Titans.
Other than the awkwardness of the plot, we often wonder what drew Oliver Stone back to this themes. Throughout the movie his direction seems to be trying to find itself.
Part of him is so in love with Wall Street that he seems to think he invented the 80's. Winnie tells Jake "you're so Wall Street it makes me sick" referring to both the actual stock market and the movie which isn't as iconic as Stone wants to think.
Another part of him seems to feel proud about having predicted back in 1987 that the world's economy would just continue collapsing until we all approached doomsday; however, this part of him also feels guilty and like Jake tries to atone through innumerable mentions of what alternative energy can do for the planet.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps doesn't know whether to condemn or to glorify and its overlong running time makes us sit through what ultimately is an unnecessary debate.
The one thing that rarely fails is Douglas. Even if Stone tries hard to humanize him (Gekko says "I'm human" more than once) the actor tries his best to remind us that first and foremost Gordon Gekko was so effective because he wasn't human.
Precisely because of his larger-than-life greed it was that he became who he was and not for one minute should we expect him to be turned into a politically correct version of materialism.
This is best embodied in a pathetic end during which Stone once again puts Gekko in the wrong kind of spotlight and we're left wondering if he's making some sort of comment about how easily human beings give "bailouts" to those who have wronged us (which would've turned the film into a twisted, great satire) or if he's just turning Gordon into the Grinch.
It's safe to say that the idea of Gekko getting the last laugh is something 80's Stone would've made, what we end up with right now is a reminder that he doesn't make them like he used to.

The Ghost Writer ***1/2

Director: Roman Polanski
Cast: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Olivia Williams, Kim Cattrall
Timothy Hutton, Tom Wilkinson, James Belushi, Robert Pugh
Jon Bernthal, Eli Wallach

Few living directors can muster the same kind of public attention that Roman Polanski attracts. More than countless other filmmakers, his life has always been marked by scandal and tragedy, making it a "public right" of sorts to try and decipher his latest work by way of what the audience knows about him.
Upon the release of The Ghost Writer in early 2010, Polanski was once again facing extradition charges and literally finished working on the film in prison.
It should come as no surprise that after watching this marvelously exciting political thriller, you wonder, even for a second, if Polanski didn't plan all that was happening to him.
After all, this film is proof that few filmmakers have mastered the delicate art of suspense in the way Polanski can. Every twist, line and move in The Ghost Writer feels perfect. He's an apt sorcerer and sets a mood from the opening shot of the film in which we see a ferry unloading its cargo.
Only one car is left behind, it belongs to Mike McAra, who turns up a few days later, drowned on the shore in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
McAra was working as ghostwriter for Adam Lang (Brosnan), a former British Prime Minister, compiling his memoirs. His death forces the publishing company to find a replacement, they go with Ewan McGregor's nameless character (known as "the ghost" throughout the film), who currently has no familiar attachments and is practically a man without a past. This noir-ish detail sets the tone of what's to come.
The ghost is flown over to Massachusetts to work next to Lang who is staying there while the manuscript is completed. There the ghost meets the charismatic former PM (played by the debonair Brosnan), his unsatisfied wife Ruth (Williams) and his faithful assistant Amelia (the luscious Cattrall) who might be his mistress too.
On the day of the ghost's arrival, a former British minister accuses Lang of having ties with illegal extractions and torture of suspected terrorists. This puts the spotlight on them as the International Criminal Court begins investigating and the worldwide media becomes insane.
Immersing himself in the manuscript, the ghost begins to discover that perhaps Lang might not be as innocent as he seems and there might be something that could incriminate him in his book. So where should he go from that premise? Is he supposed to do the "right thing" and try to help authorities bring Lang to justice, should he help him clear his name, should he quit?
As the possible turns the story could take begin to rack up, so does the questioning that Polanski and co-writer Robert Harris (who also wrote the original novel) ignite.
The film at no moment tries to hide the fact that Lang is a version of Tony Blair and the events around him remind us of George W. Bush's administration, Cheri Blair's persona and Benazir Bhutto assassination among many other contemporary political events.
What differentiates The Ghost Writer from recent attempts of making political thrillers is that Polanski never forgets that a thriller must in fact thrill!
And everything in this movie seems to be conspiring against the ghost and his investigation. Most of the movie takes place in the midst of terrible weather but Polanski is too sly to have it represent the characters' darkness, in his movie the clouds terrify us because we never know what's behind them.
This is essentially why the film works in such unexpected ways; even if everything seems familiar and the plot isn't entirely groundbreaking, the mood more than makes up for it. There's a pervading sense of menace in every frame (and what frames does DP Pawel Edelman come up with!), in every cut, in Alexandre Desplat's mischievously macabre score and in the dialogues.
We are always waiting for something to happen and in this sense the film recalls some of Alfred Hitchcock's best work (think Rebecca by way of North by Northwest) but it also has a lot to say about art and history.
Particularly the way in which said art shapes history, for what is the ghost doing if not rewriting Lang's history? And what is Lang's issue if not his impossibility to be faithful to his own history?
But there is more than meets the eye and this is perhaps where preconceptions about Polanski enter the conversation.
As male driven as The Ghost Writer is, there is a sense that we're also being reminded of the women working behind the curtain. Watch how in several scenes, women are expertly framed in specific shots as if they are being puppet masters to the male actions closer to the camera.
Is Polanski winking at the conspiracy theories involving Barbara Bush and Hillary Clinton or is he paying homage to the way the women in his own life designed his own history?
What's true is that no other director could've made this movie and turn it into such a personal genre flick. Why? Because no other director could inspire the kind of debates he does. Stylistically this film is an upgrade of his own The Ninth Gate but thematically it approaches something darker in the vein of Chinatown. What would The Ghost Writer be without Polanski's own tragedies?
Ironically and perversely this movie reminds us that most of the time truth is more incredible than fiction.

While Watching "New York, I Love You"...

I was shocked to realize that Brett Ratner had directed my favorite segment in the omnibus film. Yes, Ratner of "Rush Hour" glory outdoes Akin, Marston, Attal, Nair (although I have to confess I don't really like her work), one of the Hughes and Natalie Portman.
His segment is the most refreshing bit in a movie filled with too many artsy pretensions and little cohesion.
Anton Yelchin and Olivia Thirlby are pitch perfect as an imperfect couple on prom night and their sweet, funny story is the only bit in the film that reminds us, as one character says, that New York City is "the capital of everything possible".
Other things of interest in the movie were...

Several plotlines are very interested in smoking as a social ritual.
I know that strangers do come up to you as if the nicotine drew them closer like a magnet but it was odd to see cigarettes made such an important point within a city that's slowly trying to eradicate them for good.

Eli Wallach is a living acting god. Too bad his segment wasn't all that (A surprise considering Cloris Leachman is his costar and Joshua Marston directs)

The cinematography in Shekhar Kapur's segment is gorgeous even if Anthony Minghella's screenplay doesn't have too much to say and is the less New York-ish of the tales.

Drea de Matteo is a phenomenal actress. Someone should give her a role that isn't a mobster or a Jersey girl. She pretty much devours Bradley Cooper in their bit together.

Christina Ricci should be in more movies...

I really don't see Bradley Cooper's appeal. Can somebody explain it to me?
Justin Bartha on the other side, very underrated.