Shia LeBeouf and the Moment We've All Been Waiting For

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology




It's been a long time coming, but September 21st is almost here. I would already have my ticket, but I'm pretty sure I'm the only person alive who is excited enough to plan ahead of time.

My begrudging respect for Olivier Stone may prove only 20-something years in the making.

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Greed never left. Also, it's legal. But is it still good?

by Jillian Butler, Ampersandology

If anyone is still wondering why I'm making such a fuss about Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps -- a fuss that is is, I'll clarify, two parts irony  and one part rampant enthusiasm, with just a sprinkle of schadenfreude --this piece in Vanity Fair by Michael Lewis will brighten all the dark corners. 


An excerpt: 

What [Oliver Stone] wanted to do, it appeared, was to prosecute the values underpinning American capitalism. He cast Michael Douglas as a diabolical money manager named Gordon Gekko, and Charlie Sheen as a young stockbroker named Bud Fox, who, seduced by this devil, abandons his ideals, betrays his family, and is destroyed.

As social documentary, even as art, the original Wall Street was a great success. It did well at the box office, won Michael Douglas an Oscar for best actor, and remains one of the very few financial movies ever made in which financiers see anything like a realistic version of themselves.

As a vehicle for social change, however, the movie was a catastrophe. It did not show Wall Street in its best light, yet Wall Street was, by far, the movie’s most enthusiastic audience. It has endured not because it hit its intended target but because it missed: people who work on Wall Street still love it. And not just any Wall Street people but precisely those who might have either taken Stone’s morality tale to heart or been offended by it. To wit, not long before hedge-fund manager Seth Tobias was found dead in his Florida swimming pool, with an unlucky mixture of cocaine, Ambien, and alcohol in his bloodstream, he gave an interview for Wall Street’s DVD bonus reel, in which he said, “I remember when I saw the movie in 1987. I recall saying, That’s what I want to be. I want to start out as Bud Fox and end up as Gordon Gekko.”

Read Greed Never Left at Vanity Fair.

Loves it. 

Trailer: Wall Street 2

by Jillian Leigh, Ampersandology


IT IS FINALLY HERE. The trailer has arrived, and by GOD, it is splendid.





Oh, I have waited for this day for too long: the trailer for Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps has answered a number of enduring and BURNING questions for me:

Will Gordon Gekko coin a new catchphrase to rival the former glory of "Greed is good?" ANSWER! Yes, and it is even bitchier: "Someone reminded me I once said that greed is good. It seems now it's legal." SLAP, haters!

Will they make fun of the fact that jokes about the 80s are never far from our lips? Oh, who could resist another jab at the mobile telebricks and quaint velocipedes of yesterday? I know that I've been known to take a shot or two.

Will Shia further his career of playing cocky, motorcyclin', kind of annoying but in a vaguely charming way brat slash misunderstood wise aleck, pushed unknowingly into extraordinary circumstances by powers far greater than his compact, but well-muscled body? Yes. 

Wall Street 2 is Ever Closer

by Jillian Leigh, Ampersandology


Okay, this one is going to be quick. Michael Douglas, aka 1/2 of the star-resembling enigma that is my father, aka Mr. Zeta Jones, aka GORDON EFFING GECKO, is the poster boy of AARP magazine this month. I found the full article online. The interview was likely done in anticipation of the Citizen Kane of our time, Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, which, let's face it, is a hot topic around these parts! ("...for some reason," she finishes sadly). 


I am so excited to read this I didn't even check what AARP stands for or anything! I'm sure I probably know, but my excitement cancelled out everything in my short-term memory except the thought of Gordon Gecko's new 2010 catchphrase ("Greed was shortsighted"?). Therefore, let's all work on the assumption that AARP stands for Anon, A Rad Person Magazine. See, my version is two layers, working in beautiful tandem: the 'anon' part makes it classy, and the 'rad' part takes it down low. Not unlike Michael Douglas, my friends. Hey, I just said what everybody was thinking. 

Oliver Stone is going to reinvent the concept of film.

by Jillian Leigh, Ampersandology

Word on the street is that Wall Street 2 hits the pavement of New York to begin filming this very day, and the signs are aligning for Oliver Stone to decimate everything you thought you knew about Wall Street, the recession, unnecessary but well-timed sequels and Michael Douglas' hairline, not to mention the abstract concept of film.

The film has collected quite the enviable cast--for the record, Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Carey Mulligan, Frank Langella, Josh Brolin, and Susan Sarandon have all signed on, somewhat inexplicably (Javiar? Javiar, where did you go?). But more importantly, it has gained the crucial element of any truly successful sequel: the subtitle. This monolith of cinema is now known as Wall Street 2 COLON! Money Never Sleeps. Ominous! And now, with forboding subtitle securely in place, Wall Street 2 is well on the way to becoming a blight---er, beacon on the resumes of all involved.

According to this spoiler-city report from The Playlist (what lucky eyes to have read the actual script!!), this new sequel is poised not only on the edge of my hopes and dreams, but also promises to deliver the kind of preachy, sensationalist spin on the recession that only Oliver Stone can give us, even if we didn't know we needed it, and quite frankly, think we'd be happier without it. Kind of like the clap.

And the script apparently doesn't disappoint (I didn't read the above entry too closely; I want to be surprised on opening day, like a virginal bride on her wedding night). As Andrew Hart report, we'll see lots of Shia being a cocky brat, the 'ripped from the headlines' non-shock that Stone so loves, and, best of all, "plenty of I-told-you-so monologues" from the man himself, Gordon "Don't Muss the Upholstery, I Just Had it Sleezed" Gekko. So. Many. Flavors of outstanding!

But dear readers, I withheld the MOST CRUCIAL PIECE OF INFORMATION. I only did this to protect you, because it nearly blew my mind. So I suggest you stop reading now if you want to remain pure of heart for this orgy of cinematic rebirth, because while this is the best news in the world, I can only guess the power of my reaction, had I waited.

Yes, Virginia. Charlie Sheen WILL be reprising his role as Bud Fox. Eh, who cares that it's a small cameo? What does size have to do with anything? After all, the Ewoks killed Darth Vader (...right? That's how that went down, right? I'm sorry, I was so upset after they digitally imposed Hayden Christensen's face on Anakin that I struck most of Return of the Jedi from my memory). You can't keep Bud Fox down forever, you oppressive law men! Because money never sleeps, you fools. Money never sleeps. Oh my God, I just got it. Wall Street greed has something to do with the recession. Oliver Stone, you canny wizard man. You know us better than we know ourselves.

Big news for people who love small news.

Javier Bardem has been cast as a "villainous, stock-shorting hedge-fund manager" in the much-anticipated (by me anyway) sequel to Wall Street. Great news, hedge-fund managers: there's so many of you villainous, stock-shorting troublemakers out there that no one will think for a second it's based on you! Oh, you little scamps. We just can't take you anywhere (mostly due to your private jets being grounded)!

Also, I have more plot details, and juicy set gossip secrets!!! From NY Mag:

...the film is set in the months preceding the October 2008 collapse of the
world's economic system. Gordon Gekko has just been released from Shady Acres
federal prison, where he had spent the last twenty-plus years paying his debt to
society for his greedy ways. Shia LaBeouf plays an ambitious young Wall Street
trader in the Charlie Sheen mold, only this time around, his character isn't as
keen to impress Gekko as Bud Fox was in the original. Rather, the device that
brings the two protagonists together is the fact that LaBeouf is engaged to
Gekko's estranged daughter (that role isn't cast yet, but we think it would be
hilarious if they landed on Megan Fox). You see, Gekko has grown a heart during
his time in prison, but when nobody listens to his cautionary words to his Wall
Street cronies that the "end is coming," he becomes "obsessed with trying to
repair his ruptured relationship with his daughter."

I say OUTSTANDING. This has the exact right amount of implausible coincidence that I've come to expect. Suggestion! Leighton Meester for the daughter. Bam. What's next? Barbar: James Gandolfini. Bam. John Wilkes Booth? Jason Schwartzman. BAM. Perfection. I could do this all day. (ask me about my Breakfast Club remake!)

Okay. In the interest of full disclosure, when I first read the story I was too excited, and (incorrectly) assumed that Javier would be replacing Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko. My first thought was of confusion: 'That's ridiculous!' I said to myself, 'Who replaces a perfectly good steak with another exotically named, strongly accented steak?' Then I got mad. Like, really really mad. Who in their right mind fires Michael Douglas, a national treasure and practically Hollywood royalty? This would ruin the whole movie! I was ready to jump ship on my whole-hearted endorsement of this remake, and officially withdraw support.

I want you all to understand: I was actually upset at this development. I was getting ready to write a strongly-worded letter. About Wall Street 2. Think about that.

Yeah. I already know.

Anyway! My fears were unfounded and now Javier will once again dance the confusing line between 'exotic sexpot' and 'Mr. McCreepy.' And, once more, I will be forced to find him undeniably attractive but also kind of repellent,* turning my movie-going experience into yet another heady mix of confusion, lust and shame. Damn it, Javier: every time we do this, EVERY TIME!


*See also: Morgan, Dexter; Draper, Don.

Full story at Vulture/NY Mag: Wall Street 2 Goes Limp

Greed is ALIVE AGAIN!

In a truly stunning turn of events, Oliver Stone is in talks to make a sequel to his 1987 ode to high finance greed, Wall Street (the origin, you'll recall, of Gordon Gecko's famous mantra "Greed is good."). Details are still sketchy, but this is the most excited I've been about an abstract concept in a long time. 

Let's face it: Stone has lost a lot of what little appeal he had in the first place. He really made his name taking already sensational headlines and simply adding more exclamation points: his projects are marked by the oversaturation of his subjects with sensationalism, migraine-inducing editing and loud noises until people started paying attention. So his decision to revisit what really made him relevant in the first place (Wall Street, and timely digression on the nature of the cynical, fast money designs of the 1980s) is not only a stroke of genius, but also a deliciously ripe hot mess waiting to happen. 

Because Wall Street has always seemed like one of those films whose influence is greater than its actual audience, as Gecko's strong advocacy of greed (and wish-fulfilling lawful prosecution as the credits close) came to represent the money-hungry, moral-lite version of the 1980s so rampant in pop culture. Three years after its release, its mantra was central to a 1990 Newsweek cover story that asked the counter to Gecko's assessment: "Is Greed Dead?" Most recently, Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly proclaimed that the film was an eerie foreshadow, as watched today it "reveals something now which it couldn't back then: that the Gordon Gekkos of the world weren't just getting rich -- they were creating an alternate reality that was going to crash down on all of us."

So, this remake/sequel idea is clearly outstanding, for several reasons (helpfully outlined below): 

Item 1: The timing is perfect-almost too perfect. Given that the germ of this recession was born in the self-centered and image-obsessed 1980s, History will look back on these days with an oddly comforting stance. It pretty much proof that history repeats itself, with a a built-in cross reference. The original has the delicious, tawdry feel of a morality tale that got caught up in its own vices,  and this sequel could potentially give many bruised consumers the cathartic growl they need. 

Item 2: It's being called a sequel, but everyone knows it will be more like an updated remake. Or at least it should be, if they're smart. Which instead of lame and unimaginative, is instead of AMAZING IN EVERY WAY. Think of it: what other somewhat forgotten 1980s movie is so ripe for a second life? (If you said Willow, you leave this blog. Leave it right now). So if they could only manage to keep the same themes, power struggles and stock characters, superficially updated to accommodate the recession, this will be brilliant. There is no way that film could fail. 

Item 3: I saved the best part for last but: not only is MICHAEL DOUGLAS returning as Gordon Gecko, but do you know who will reportedly take the role of the naive but quick to tarnish young financier? SHIA LEBEOUF! Yes, everyone, Shia LeBeouf once again proves himself the only working young actor by snagging this plum role. Originally filled by charmingly wooden Charlie Sheen, this role will give Shia the chance to use that smarmy baby-face to sarcastically fight the Man (AND MAYBE MORE?!?). 

It's unfortunate Shia doesn't have a father who is conveniently also an actor, thus sealing the onscreen father/son relationship with the rich layers that only quality stunt casting can accomplish. The father/son dynamic, with Martin Sheen acting as the ignored voice of reason to son Charlie, was actually one of the strongest parts of the original, with Gecko's counter influence acting like an incubus on the natural bonds of the American family unit. Or something! 

Early reports are promising--with writers on the project maintaining that the recently-released Gecko will appear to have reformed but ACTUAL QUOTE! "A leopard doesn't change its spots." That, random writer on the project, is a true thing.   

The possibilities are literally endless. If this turns out to come to nothing, I'll be very disappointed. I feel like this project is the last chance Olivier Stone to give his 1987 self an eternal high five.