The Media Room

Margin Call (2011)     Watching the Movie: If you like watching people stare blankly into space; swearing, and going back and forth between long winded speeches and extended periods of absolute silence; then this is totally your movie. You will also enjoy it if you have a vested interest in economics; finance, or complex mathematical problem solving. Lastly; if you like seeing people smoke. This movie is for you. Screening the Film: Loyalty; to the institution and to the stakeholder. Employment expectations and terms; particularly with how they can be exploited. Crisis management. Information Asymmetries and how they affect informed decision making. Leadership; particularly in the area of decision making and doing the right thing for those led. Quantifying impacts and social responsibility of firms entrusted with massive amounts of resources. Synergy and teamwork. Gratitude vs entitlement; especially as showing gratitude as a result of entitlement. Best Dialogue: "So you think...

  The RunUp to SkyFall: Goldfinger (1964)   Author's Note In 2012; I set out to watch all the official "Everything or Nothing" (EON) studios James Bond films in preparation for what was the 23rd film in the series; Skyfall (2012). For the sake of  brevity; these are being posted here as originally written, though my opinion in some cases may have changed. I've been tinkering with screening them again under different circumstances. However, as of right now, these are my official thoughts on all the James Bond series.   Due to the repeated themes and messaging that appears in series films; especially ones spanning five decades at the time; I chose to use a "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" format. I also ranked all the pressing "lists" that Bond fans tend to on occasion. The Numbers: Bond: Connery (3 of 6)  M: Bernard Lee (3 of 11)  Q: Desmond Llewelyn (2 of 17)   Moneypenny: Lois Maxwell (3 of 14) Director: Guy Hamilton (1 of 4)...

The Big Lebowski (1998)   Whatever I write after this, I fully own that I do not do the greatness of this movie/film anything even close to resembling justice; but I'm certainly going to try. . . Watching the Movie:  Look up "Character focused comedy" in the dictionary and you'll see this film. Lots of stories are about the characters and how they react to the events around them; but in this instance, the characters ARE the story (as the Cohen brothers have done "a kidnapping plot gets screwed up" a handful of times and a handful of different ways; and the characters make all the difference. As much as anything, I can boil the movie down to the simplest terms by pointing out that several people who LOVE this movie (like I do) absolutely abhor the far more critically acclaimed and beloved Cohen Brothers flick "Fargo" (1996) and vice-versa Screening the film:  Friendship, loyalty, betrayal. Social responsibilities, confrontation vs avoidance, law enf...

  The Adjustment Bureau (2011) Watching the Movie:  Definitely a different movie going experience. 15 minutes in you think you're watching a political science seminar that should have George Clooney in it somewhere; but it's far from that. The story moves along quickly enough that you're entertained; and Damon/Blunt do a decent enough acting job to make you actually be bothered to care about what happens to them throughout, still at the end of the day, it's still very much a science-fiction love story that has just enough Roger Sterling in it to be pretty awesome. Screening the Film:  Man vs Self, Man vs. Society, Man vs GOD, destiny vs free will, The Corporation and hierarchy structures, data flow and information asymmetry. Chaos theory, and like almost all things involving the work of Philip K Dick, perception vs. reality. Best Dialogue:  "We actually tried Free Will before. After taking you from hunting and gathering to the height of the Roman Empire we stepped ...