365 films challenge: 6/365
Margin Call (2011)
unexpectedly impressive cast; Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci… oh and that guy who played Dan on Gossip Girl (i know his name, i’m just pretending to be above watching teen dramas, which i am unfortunately not. Penn Badgley). i guess i like movies to do with corporate greed, and because i have managed to exist in this world, particularly those to do with the 2008 financial crisis. i consider them to be mainly excuses to be radically left-wing for awhile, until i decide to be hungry and go buy some capitalist burgers. just kidding, i don’t eat burgers. i meant overpriced salads with mandarins and cheese.
coming back to the movie, though, i did like it. everyone was preachy and hypocritical and a bit of an asshole, but that might’ve been the whole point. there was this minor (but pretty glaring) emphasis on the salaries of Wall Street executives, which i can understand, but after all the media coverage these past few years, you start getting a little suspicious of whether there are any better ways to expand on inequality issues than just shouting out big numbers. either way, it was a dated, throwaway kind of script that got you angry enough about the state of things to be worth watching.
“there are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat.”
