I went to see the new Gekko film, "Wall Street", and did not like it. First of all, it was too fast for me, I had difficulty catching what was going on. I did not like the unending, impressionistic, meaningless, visual phantasies of Manhattan and Wall Street. The persona of the young investment banker specialized in Green Energy - an idealist - is absurd. The road show pitching a fusion project to the Chinese is ridiculous. Chinese are polite and patient, a Chinese will never stand up at the beginning of a meeting. The giving of the presents was right but unceremonial, too fast. .jpg)
Best I liked Eli Wallach as the elder investor at the Fed meeting. He is a very good actor (and being an old Jew myself, I show him also as he probably sees himself: young and sexy.)
16 comments:
When's the last time Eli Wallach was young and sexy?
He was famously Ugly already in 1966.
I look into the mirror and see a blond waterpolo champ, the King of the Playa Brava beach. What do you think Eli Wallach sees in the mirror?
El hombre, como el oso,
cuanto mas feo, mas hermoso.
He was ugly but sexy.
"There are two kinds of people in the world, those with loaded guns and those who dig." Well, I drunk too much Shiraz wine.
I've noticed a weakness on plot in a lot of the recent movies. The weakest was George Clooney's recent movie The American, which sucked badly.
What's wrong with old and sexy?
Anon.
Nothing wrong at all.
With enough $, you are sexy at any age.
Unfortunately, Sexy and Sex are not the same thing.
Wallach is 94 - at that age it's a miracle to be alive. To be alive and working still is a double miracle. I know a few people who are over 90 but for the most part they have major health problems and I don't know any that still work. To be sexy at 94 is asking too much. I don't think I've ever seen anyone who was 94 that was the least bit sexy, which is as nature intended it.
I think someone as intelligent as Wallach knows exactly what he sees in the mirror today (from his one working eye) and doesn't fool himself that he is still young and sexy. However, my mother at 90+ always said that even though she was physically a wreck, on the inside she always felt like "herself" - the same person she had always been from the time she could first remember (under the rule of Emperor Franz-Joseph) . Our bodies keep changing but we remain the same person.
K
94 years old! In the film, he is walking, participating in meetings, looking alert and smart. His opinions were the most intelligent in that stupid film.
I haven't seen the movie yet, but in popular culture the Chinese are now assuming the role that the Japanese played in the '80s of being the all purpose omnipotent bogeymen who are about to take over everything (this used to be the Jew's designate melodramatic role). Around the time that the Japanese were at their peak I had some dealings with them and was distinctly unimpressed - instead of the movie star bad guys, the guys I was dealing with were more like the earlier stereotype where Jerry Lewis used to play Japanese guys with buck teeth who couldn't say their "r" and "l"s. Shortly after that the Japanese economy crashed and burned and no one teaches their children Japanese anymore. I'm hoping this is not prophetic because I just spent a lot of $ for my son to learn Chinese. Oh, well, worst case he will always be able to order in a Chinese restaurant.
K
Learning another language is always an advantage. Japan is still an important, large and advanced country, if the Chinese keep provoking them, they may take over Manchuria once more. China is large but it is not an aggressive, dominating people as the Japanese. I think that sooner or later China will be ruled once more by foreigners. Maybe Americans.
The Chinese are acutely (I would say overly)aware of the period when they were weak and had to give in to foreign domination and are very determined never never to repeat this (just as the Jews are determined not to allow a repeat of the situation where they had no power to prevent the Holocaust). Of course, these things are not always in our control but I would be shocked if China came under American - I think at the rate we are going vice versa is more likely (though not very likely either).
K
Britons (or their descendents)...
"never,never,never shall be slaves".
Anon.
America is changing, may be decaying, it is very visible. But it can walk into Beijing just as easily as it did to Bagdad.
I don't think so. Beijing has nuclear weapons. The US does not have enough troops to occupy a country of 1.5 billion people, all of whom would hate us. The Chinese "man on the street" is even more patriotic and nationalistic than the government .
K
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