Monday, April 23, 2007

Movie review: Glengarry Glen Ross

One might think I would have already seen a top 100 movie that includes my name twice in the title, but I hadn't. I decided it was time, and after watching a couple episodes of Carnivale, I threw it in last night. The first great bit of acting was Baldwin. I had previously credited Ben Affleck with one excellent bit of acting, but it is clearly modeled afterBaldwin's excellent profanity-laced tirade. Some might know what scene I am refering to - yeah, Boiler Room, when he gives the motivational speech and then gets the disgusted look on his face, throwing a set of keys onto the table: "Money can't buy happiness? Look at the fucking smile on my face. Ear to ear, baby. You wanna hear details? I drive a Ferrari 355 cabriolet. I have a ridiculous house on the South Fork. . . " Lemmon, Arkin, and Ed Harris all find out they won't have jobs soon if they don't start selling fast. Everyone is antsy. . . around this time I fell asleep. I drifted into a dream where I was on the side of a hill with some woman around my age, maybe a little younger. She was telling me to sit, and she would be back in a minute. She came back with two machine guns, gave me one, and started to tell me we only had one chance, and if we failed the revolution would die. I argued that it was a dumb idea, and there was no way it would work. She started to get irritated, threw em the gun and said, "Listen, let's go now." I started whining a little, demanding she come back, but I followed her anyways. We were walking down a path for a few minutes - mountains on both sides, no one in sight. Then she said, "ok, here's the plan, we sneak around this corner and start firing. There was a shed that we started walking along, with our back against it - jack bauer style. All of a sudden I looked up and there were about 50 people with guns pointed at us, black cloth over their mouths. I slowly looked at her, and she looked at me. Her facial muscles started to twitch in terror, but I was unsympathetic. "Fuck you! You fucking idiot! I told you how stupid you were, and you didn't listen! You fucking bitch!" "Oh like this is my fault?! What?" "Yes, yes it is. I can't believe how fucking dumb you are, and now we're both going to die you dumb bitch!" "Oh what the fuck ever. You didn't have to follow me. It's just as much your fault as mine! So fuck off!" "Oh, did I suggest we make the revolution live on with two people and two guns?!" "Then we die for what we believe in!" "Right, but I don't fucking want to die. I told you that!" "Fuck you!" "Fuck you!"
Then I wake up and Al Pacino is going off on Kevin Spacey, right after he told Spacey's client Lingk that the check had gone through to the bank:

Lingk exits.  Pause.

ROMA
(to Williamson)
You stupid fucking cunt. You,
Williamson...I'm talking to you,
shithead...You just cost me six
thousand dollars.
(pause)
Six thousand dollars. And one
Cadillac. That's right. What are
you going to do about it? What are
you goin to do about it, asshole.
You fucking shit. Where did you
learn your trade. You stupid
fucking cunt. You idiot. Whoever
told you you could work with men?

BAYLEN
Could I...

ROMA
I'm going to have your job, shithead.
I'm going downtown and talk to
Mitch and Murrray, and I'm going to
Lemkin. I don't care whose nephew
you are, who you know, whose dick
you're sucking on. You're going
out, I swear to you, you're going...

Then I turned the movie off and went back to sleep. This time the heated exchanged in dreamland happened between the two guys I work with (who are good friends) One was threatening to fire the other and kept challenging him to a fight. I was the mediator this time, and I kept saying, "You guys aren't serious? What is going on? Take it easy guys! Is this a joke?" I was in the elevator waiting for both of them when this courier girl walked on. She lit up a cigarette, and I got really scared. "Can you please put that out? My boss is going to be here in a second and he's gonna flip out if he sees you smoking in the elevator. . . " "No. Fuck him!" she yelled. "Please, come on, please. . . " I started to crumple right there, and then I woke up. At around noon the next day I resumed the movie, and it was excellent. I think I am going to leave sportscenter on tonight when I go to bed. . .

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Good words.

11:39 PM  

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