Wall Street

I watched the original 1987 Oliver Stone movie just before going to see the sequel, Money Never Sleeps. Both are excellent movies, although the second cannot match the first for classic scenes like the sunrise on Long Island (remember Gekko on the beach with the brick-like mobile phone) or Gekko's speech at the shareholder meeting where he immortalised the phrase "Greed is good". Wall Street was the definitive movie of Eighties financial excess. I don't think Money Never Sleeps will be the definitive movie of the Global Financial Crises. That movie may yet come and is likely to be a dramatisation of a book such as Michael Lewis's The Big Short. Nonetheless, Money Never Sleeps is an entertaining and well made movie in its own right. Michael Douglas reprises the iconic character for which he won his well deserved Oscar and gives him greater depth. His daughter Winnie is played by the lovely and hugely talented Carey Mulligan. I can only hope we see much more of her. Shia LaBeouf is the equivalent of the Charlie Sheen character. I've yet to fully understand the excitement around Shia, but he does a very capable job here. Watch for Charlie Sheen's short cameo. In the film, Gekko explains the original market bubble, Tulip Mania, which occurred in Amsterdam around 1637 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_bubble) and there is lots of coy soap bubble imagery. What will the next bubble be? MNS seems to suggest it will be a green bubble, but I think that one may already be deflating.

The Seven Year Itch

This is the 1955 Billy Wilder comedy where Marilyn Monroe famously gets the breeze from the New York subway up her skirt. It's amusing, though seldom laugh-out-loud funny, and anyone expecting something on a par with Wilder's Some Like It Hot will be disappointed. This was originally a stage play so the action is more or less confined to a couple of rooms. Marilyn is of course delightful.