xavierpop's posterous http://xavierpop.posterous.com Most recent posts at xavierpop's posterous posterous.com Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:41:58 -0800 @MovieJay Reviews Margin Call http://xavierpop.posterous.com/moviejay-reviews-margin-call-27711 http://xavierpop.posterous.com/moviejay-reviews-margin-call-27711

Fresh off of last year's Oscar-winning doc Inside Job as well as the Washington lobbyist-scandal flick Casino Jack comes Margin Call, the most impressive fiction film to date about the 2008 Wall Street collapse that kicked off what we now know to be 'The Great Recession'.

Three years later, would you say you're any clearer about what a 'credit default swap' is? How about 'derivatives'? Inside Job did a great service in how it visualized these things for us and to the best of my ability, I will communicate it here. What essentially happened to cause the financial meltdown of September 2008 was this: Powerful corporate interests with the help of their lobbying muscle in Washington eviscerated the rules and regulations that had held since the Great Depression preventing speculators on Wall St. from gambling away the nation's treasure as well as the savings of millions of people on things that held no value. Take away the regulations and once again they bet on thin air, propping up value to mostly mortgage-backed securities. The resulting action is that it sent regular folks to buy up stocks and use their homes as leverage in the marketplace only to be left holding a bag filled with hot, steaming poop after the speculators had bet against the fact that we weren't actually holding anything.

One of the important things to know about Margin Call is that the characters in the film know exactly how this works while the rest of us don't, which only adds to the fascination of watching them all fall to pieces in their own specific ways as word climbs up the corporate hierarchy of their huge banking institution (very loosely based upon the first big collapse of a too-big-to-fail outfit in 2008, Lehman Brothers) about how the bubble is about a week past-due from bursting.

As Margin Call opens, the good times on Wall St. appear to be coming to an end as the unnamed firm in the film is in the process of laying off 80% of it's employees. One of them is a senior risk analyst named Eric, played by Stanley Tucci, who on his way out the door hands a USB flash drive to one of his staff containing the last big project he was working on, warning them to "be careful". He's lead to an office where two hired hands play out exactly how the narrative of his firing and compensation package will work out and we feel the dread along with the Tucci character of a life that appears to be figuratively dumped in the recycle bin like an old computer file is.

From that point in the film, the gathering storm of what is to come moves up the executive ladder of the firm beginning with Peter and Seth, two of Eric's former employees. As they work out the rest of Eric's equations, they are left with the reality that the potential stock losses at the firm will be greater than the value of the firm itself as the market is trembling on the verge of collapse. They contact their supervisor Will (Paul Bettany), who immediately brings in his boss, Sam (Kevin Spacey) for an all-night emergency session at the firm that eventually leads to a helicopter swooping in in the middle of the night with the firm's CEO, John Tuld (a small tip of the hat no doubt to Lehman CEO Richard Fuld) played by the astute Jeremy Irons. When he repeats the line "Speak to me in plain English", at first we think it's for comic effect until it dawns on us that he only understands the ownership part of his relationship to the firm and not what it is they actually do.

What he does (and what was enacted in many huge financial institutions in the fall of 2008) is to make a "margin call", meaning, to dump all of the stock that was made worthless by them in shady deals where they benefited from gambling against their own shareholders, reaping massive profits. The large cast, which also includes Demi Moore and Simon Baker (The Wire), do a fantastic job of making all this confounding business sound interesting and urgent.

Cinematographer Frank G. De Marco, whose previous credits include the interior drama Rabbit Hole and the dramedy Delirious, once again does quietly impressive work here in the way he's able to capture antiseptic, enclosed spaces, this time turning that cold office building of the firm into a dark, indifferent, sinister character that casts a pall on the film. The characters are framed in wonderfully intimate moments of soul-searching in front of bright computer screens, bathroom mirrors and worrisome reflections in office tower windows.

Margin Call depicts the last night on Wall Street before bad times were ushered in, but what it's really about are characters who are ultimately more loyal to their corporations than to a greater good. Writer-director J.C. Chandor does an excellent job of showing his characters, allowing us to sympathize with them despite the fact of their misdeeds. In between the cold, efficient dialogue are many close-ups that quietly study their faces, watching them fall inside with the knowledge that their livelihoods are being rendered meaningless and that they're each doing their part in making it so.

This is one of the most important movies of the year.

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Mon, 21 Nov 2011 13:41:33 -0800 @MovieJay Reviews Margin Call http://xavierpop.posterous.com/moviejay-reviews-margin-call http://xavierpop.posterous.com/moviejay-reviews-margin-call

Fresh off of last year's Oscar-winning doc Inside Job as well as the Washington lobbyist-scandal flick Casino Jack comes Margin Call, the most impressive fiction film to date about the 2008 Wall Street collapse that kicked off what we now know to be 'The Great Recession'.

Three years later, would you say you're any clearer about what a 'credit default swap' is? How about 'derivatives'? Inside Job did a great service in how it visualized these things for us and to the best of my ability, I will communicate it here. What essentially happened to cause the financial meltdown of September 2008 was this: Powerful corporate interests with the help of their lobbying muscle in Washington eviscerated the rules and regulations that had held since the Great Depression preventing speculators on Wall St. from gambling away the nation's treasure as well as the savings of millions of people on things that held no value. Take away the regulations and once again they bet on thin air, propping up value to mostly mortgage-backed securities. The resulting action is that it sent regular folks to buy up stocks and use their homes as leverage in the marketplace only to be left holding a bag filled with hot, steaming poop after the speculators had bet against the fact that we weren't actually holding anything.

One of the important things to know about Margin Call is that the characters in the film know exactly how this works while the rest of us don't, which only adds to the fascination of watching them all fall to pieces in their own specific ways as word climbs up the corporate hierarchy of their huge banking institution (very loosely based upon the first big collapse of a too-big-to-fail outfit in 2008, Lehman Brothers) about how the bubble is about a week past-due from bursting.

As Margin Call opens, the good times on Wall St. appear to be coming to an end as the unnamed firm in the film is in the process of laying off 80% of it's employees. One of them is a senior risk analyst named Eric, played by Stanley Tucci, who on his way out the door hands a USB flash drive to one of his staff containing the last big project he was working on, warning them to "be careful". He's lead to an office where two hired hands play out exactly how the narrative of his firing and compensation package will work out and we feel the dread along with the Tucci character of a life that appears to be figuratively dumped in the recycle bin like an old computer file is.

From that point in the film, the gathering storm of what is to come moves up the executive ladder of the firm beginning with Peter and Seth, two of Eric's former employees. As they work out the rest of Eric's equations, they are left with the reality that the potential stock losses at the firm will be greater than the value of the firm itself as the market is trembling on the verge of collapse. They contact their supervisor Will (Paul Bettany), who immediately brings in his boss, Sam (Kevin Spacey) for an all-night emergency session at the firm that eventually leads to a helicopter swooping in in the middle of the night with the firm's CEO, John Tuld (a small tip of the hat no doubt to Lehman CEO Richard Fuld) played by the astute Jeremy Irons. When he repeats the line "Speak to me in plain English", at first we think it's for comic effect until it dawns on us that he only understands the ownership part of his relationship to the firm and not what it is they actually do.

What he does (and what was enacted in many huge financial institutions in the fall of 2008) is to make a "margin call", meaning, to dump all of the stock that was made worthless by them in shady deals where they benefited from gambling against their own shareholders, reaping massive profits. The large cast, which also includes Demi Moore and Simon Baker (The Wire), do a fantastic job of making all this confounding business sound interesting and urgent.

Cinematographer Frank G. De Marco, whose previous credits include the interior drama Rabbit Hole and the dramedy Delirious, once again does quietly impressive work here in the way he's able to capture antiseptic, enclosed spaces, this time turning that cold office building of the firm into a dark, indifferent, sinister character that casts a pall on the film. The characters are framed in wonderfully intimate moments of soul-searching in front of bright computer screens, bathroom mirrors and worrisome reflections in office tower windows.

Margin Call depicts the last night on Wall Street before bad times were ushered in, but what it's really about are characters who are ultimately more loyal to their corporations than to a greater good. Writer-director J.C. Chandor does an excellent job of showing his characters, allowing us to sympathize with them despite the fact of their misdeeds. In between the cold, efficient dialogue are many close-ups that quietly study their faces, watching them fall inside with the knowledge that their livelihoods are being rendered meaningless and that they're each doing their part in making it so.

This is one of the most important movies of the year.

Permalink | Leave a comment  »

]]>
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