'Margin Call' as Inefficient Propaganda

Here is a very negative take on Margin Call, the new “thriller” (it’s not really) about a boutique Wall Street firm that suddenly finds out that it’s been engaged in garbitrage (did I just make that up??? Google says “not really”) and its VOLATILITY METRICS ARE THROUGH THE ROOF and OMG SELL SELL SELL THIS CRUD TO DEUTSCHE! Which is kind of hilarious. I love that there’s a movie with a plot based on analysts and graphs. Also Demi Moore gives her best performance ever, and of course I’m including her star turn in Charlie’s Angels. Also MARY MCDONNELL is in it, deliciously briefly, and I’d watch dog food commercials if she starred in them. So while describing the film-going experience as spending “107 valuable minutes of your life hate-watching poorly-scripted/directed banker-propaganda that tries to make you believe that, despite their obvious flaws and all, deep down those Wall Street bankers are complex human beings, just like you and me” is technically correct, it’s also technically correct that people on Wall Street are complex human beings, just like you and me! And actually the film is pretty clear that, in speed-selling off a heap of dung to get out first, the fictional film and its fictional brokers and risk management folks are just being the biggest jerks imaginable — not tortured heroes, but pretty much Grade A Assholes. But yeah, it’s kinda silly. And also: just so phenomenally functionally untrue, though I appreciated their detailed approach to financial math. I did spend about a third of the film trying to make up some puns about Quinto and quants. (I spent another third gazing upon Zachary Quinto’s randy eyebrows.) Anyway, while it’s a problematic movie politically, and fascinating/unbelievable, is it more problematic than The Skin I Live In and it’s vast rapeyness? Whatever, this is all moot now, the new Harold and Kumar is out, and that’s a flick we can all get behind. (Seriously, best franchise ever.) (via)