QuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist9991. How do any of the characters grow and change from the experience? In particular - the protagonsit(presumablby the quant).Within 36 hours? Life in New York is fast but not that fast.QuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist9992. What are the stakes - i.e. what do the protagonists have to lose, because Spacey, Quinto (it's interesting how nobody here actually remembers the characters names) so they lose their jobs? They don't seem very concerned with saving their jobs.What more would you expect them to do? If you work nights on a projects, this generally means you want to save your job.QuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist9993. Does the movie provide any real insight into the crisis for the lay person (I would say it's a crap business strategy making movies whose target audience are finance workers).Explaining how CDO^2 and Gaussian copula caused the crisis in a feature film? That would be a challenge. If you succeed, your next movie would be about algebraic geometry.

QuoteOriginally posted by: GamalQuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist9991. How do any of the characters grow and change from the experience? In particular - the protagonsit(presumablby the quant).Within 36 hours? Life in New York is fast but not that fast.QuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist9992. What are the stakes - i.e. what do the protagonists have to lose, because Spacey, Quinto (it's interesting how nobody here actually remembers the characters names) so they lose their jobs? They don't seem very concerned with saving their jobs.What more would you expect them to do? If you work nights on a projects, this generally means you want to save your job.QuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist9993. Does the movie provide any real insight into the crisis for the lay person (I would say it's a crap business strategy making movies whose target audience are finance workers).Explaining how CDO^2 and Gaussian copula caused the crisis in a feature film? That would be a challenge. If you succeed, your next movie would be about algebraic geometry.First of all in an epiphany moment you can change very quickly. And it's a movie, what makes movies fun is change.Working nights isn't very cinematic - it has little emotional impact seeing people at screens talking about things. There was very little sense of desperation - which is probably accurate given how jaded most of those characters are - but for someone outside finance it's hard to connect with.Explaining how CDO^2 and Gaussian copula caused the crisis in a feature film? - even if this was cinematic and conveyed like peotry to a viewer who understood every word of it it would still be pretty uninsightful - both things you mention play actually quite a small role.Plus there is very little tension in the movie, very little.The movie is a fairly bland character study. That's all. We learn nothing new about different personalities in extreme situations, there are no characters to connect with. If there had been no financial crisis recently, nobody would have gone to see this.

This thread wet my appetite and i think I'll go and watch it.Does anyone else share my feeling that if I had to write a list of best Wall Street movies, Trading Places would also come on top? (probably second or third place after Wall Street and Rogue Trader)

QuoteOriginally posted by: BrightDayThis thread wet my appetite and i think I'll go and watch it.Does anyone else share my feeling that if I had to write a list of best Wall Street movies, Trading Places would also come on top? (probably second or third place after Wall Street and Rogue Trader)LOL trading places is on italian tv every single christmas eve since I exist.

QuoteOriginally posted by: BrightDayThis thread wet my appetite and i think I'll go and watch it.Does anyone else share my feeling that if I had to write a list of best Wall Street movies, Trading Places would also come on top? (probably second or third place after Wall Street and Rogue Trader)Actually, rogue trader was a more fun to watch than Margin Call. Trading Places is a genuinely entertaining movie, aso was Murphy at his best. Wall Street also good.

(Spoilers)QuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist999Some questions:1. How do any of the characters grow and change from the experience? In particular - the protagonsit(presumablby the quant)It's too little time for that, but most characters have a psychological breakdown in that night: The junior guy's crying fit in the bathroom, the head trader climbs over the railing on top of their building, the CEO rambles crazy shit during their board meeting, and Kevon Spacey digs a grave in his ex-wife's frontyard. Yet, they all stay functional until the their part of solving the problem is done. The protagonist has nothing to lose: He found the problem - why would anybody fire him? Quote2. What are the stakes - i.e. what do the protagonists have to lose, because Spacey, Quinto (it's interesting how nobody here actually remembers the characters names) so they lose their jobs? They don't seem very concerned with saving their jobs.Actually they escalate the problem at like 1AM so that everybody comes into the office including the CEO. Not really sure what more you could possibly do to save your job? Quote3. Does the movie provide any real insight into the crisis for thelay person (I would say it's a crap business strategy making movies whose target audience are finance workers)Was it a areasonably accurate representation of banking morons - sure.Was it based on a controversial event that would attract a lot of has been actors on the cheap - sure.To be very blunt, I thought the movie was boring, mundane, and whereas I would rather tear my eyes out than watch wall street 2 again, I'd sooner watch wall street again than Margin Call, by a very wide margin.Actually the movie cost 3 million and made 11, so 300% return is not so bad. I think the real merit of the movie is it's realism. It is precisely good because there are no womanizing "traders" racing their Ferraris through downtown Manhattan and then manipulate stock prices through a bizarre software that shows 3D zooms over semiconductors while $-numbers and ticker symbols fly into the screen, all intercut with a large clock showing some artificial countdown. If you think about the trading strategy of the guy in Wall St. is "buy stock" based on info found by junior analyst turned thief. That's pretty much idiotic.

QuoteOriginally posted by: BrightDayThis thread wet my appetite and i think I'll go and watch it.Does anyone else share my feeling that if I had to write a list of best Wall Street movies, Trading Places would also come on top? (probably second or third place after Wall Street and Rogue Trader)A list of best Wall Street movies or a list of best movies how Hollywood pictures Wall Street? On the first list you would have two titles: Margin Call and Rogue Trader.

@CrashedMint"It is precisely good because there are no womanizing "traders" racing their Ferraris through downtown Manhattan"The head trader spends tens of $1000s on prostitutes, though.@Gamal"Explaining how CDO^2 and Gaussian copula caused the crisis in a feature film?"I think that Margin Call got this part right: it's not the copulas which caused the crisis, it's the irrational bets on the housing bubble.

I have not seen the film. It sounds good - I get very annoyed with films that portray a fantasy of any job/situation. Banking just happens to more painful as I experience day-in day out. As I have said before the book FIASCO is rubbish - Trader Guns and Money reconciles closely with what I see.But EscapeArtist raises a good artistic point. I enjoyed The Last Days of Lehman as it is a drama-documentary about what probably happened in that infamous meeting.But Margin Call is artistic. So do the characters learn anything from their experience? If the characters acted differently would the outcome have been different? Am I better for watching the film - does it give me an insight into human nature that I would not have perceived prior to watching the film?

QuoteOriginally posted by: katastrofa@Gamal"Explaining how CDO^2 and Gaussian copula caused the crisis in a feature film?"I think that Margin Call got this part right: it's not the copulas which caused the crisis, it's the irrational bets on the housing bubble.You see, even now we have different views on that issue QuoteOriginally posted by: rmaxAm I better for watching the film - does it give me an insight into human nature that I would not have perceived prior to watching the film?I think so. It's first of all a moral study. All the evil doesn't come from a typical Hollywood guy you-love-to-hate but from a greyness area - as Chandor himself said.

QuoteOriginally posted by: GamalI think so. It's first of all a moral study. All the evil doesn't come from a typical Hollywood guy you-love-to-hate but from a greyness area - as Chandor himself said.That is one of the reasons Terry Gilliam made Brazil. He had just seen Star Wars and he thought that Darth Vadar was like real evil. He wanted to show that real evil is quite banal.

QuoteOriginally posted by: CrashedMint(Spoilers)QuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist999Some questions:1. How do any of the characters grow and change from the experience? In particular - the protagonsit(presumablby the quant)It's too little time for that, but most characters have a psychological breakdown in that night: The junior guy's crying fit in the bathroom, the head trader climbs over the railing on top of their building, the CEO rambles crazy shit during their board meeting, and Kevon Spacey digs a grave in his ex-wife's frontyard. Yet, they all stay functional until the their part of solving the problem is done. The protagonist has nothing to lose: He found the problem - why would anybody fire him? Quote2. What are the stakes - i.e. what do the protagonists have to lose, because Spacey, Quinto (it's interesting how nobody here actually remembers the characters names) so they lose their jobs? They don't seem very concerned with saving their jobs.Actually they escalate the problem at like 1AM so that everybody comes into the office including the CEO. Not really sure what more you could possibly do to save your job? Quote3. Does the movie provide any real insight into the crisis for thelay person (I would say it's a crap business strategy making movies whose target audience are finance workers)Was it a areasonably accurate representation of banking morons - sure.Was it based on a controversial event that would attract a lot of has been actors on the cheap - sure.To be very blunt, I thought the movie was boring, mundane, and whereas I would rather tear my eyes out than watch wall street 2 again, I'd sooner watch wall street again than Margin Call, by a very wide margin.Actually the movie cost 3 million and made 11, so 300% return is not so bad. I think the real merit of the movie is it's realism. It is precisely good because there are no womanizing "traders" racing their Ferraris through downtown Manhattan and then manipulate stock prices through a bizarre software that shows 3D zooms over semiconductors while $-numbers and ticker symbols fly into the screen, all intercut with a large clock showing some artificial countdown. If you think about the trading strategy of the guy in Wall St. is "buy stock" based on info found by junior analyst turned thief. That's pretty much idiotic.Actually, the production co usually only get 55% or so of the box office - it's an arthouse release so maybe less, for that matter if it hadn't been nominated for a screenplay oscar fewer people may have been to see it. Plus you don't know how much lobbying behind the scenes went on fo that nomination... There is a game to these indie movies. Furthermore, cinema is meant to be a cinematic experience, where was that? This could have been a play, or better yet a one page op-ed in the new york times, we got so little about the ethical struggle of the characters in extreme life and death scenarios (or perceived) for the characters - unlike Glengarry Glen Ross where you can sure as hell pick up the moral dilemas, desperations, etc.Name one character form this movie from memory, who you had any interest - ask yourself this, if they failed at what ever it was they were doing would you have cared? Plus we know how the story ends give or take there and there are few empathiseable characters. Most of what the characters do is ride around, talk and look at computer screens... Real exciting, real cinematic. He says he spends 80k on hookers a year well then they should have had to pull a hooker off of him at a brothel and get him back to the office.I will make myself unpopular saying this, but you only like this movie because yuo feel like it gives a reasonably accurate account of the banality of financial types and in a sense presents the reality of your world and it flatters your ego.

QuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist999Actually, the production co usually only get 55% or so of the box office - it's an arthouse release so maybe less, for that matter if it hadn't been nominated for a screenplay oscar fewer people may have been to see it. Plus you don't know how much lobbying behind the scenes went on fo that nomination... There is a game to these indie movies.Are you a producer of this mowie or just a spectator? Do you care about money gathered by the film or only its quality?

QuoteOriginally posted by: GamalQuoteOriginally posted by: EscapeArtist999Actually, the production co usually only get 55% or so of the box office - it's an arthouse release so maybe less, for that matter if it hadn't been nominated for a screenplay oscar fewer people may have been to see it. Plus you don't know how much lobbying behind the scenes went on fo that nomination... There is a game to these indie movies.Are you a producer of this mowie or just a spectator? Do you care about money rised by the film or only its quality?I was responding to CrashedMint's point of the movies return please think before you speak. And the movie whatever the quality was boring and added little insight beyond what you read in the papers - and frankly the type that goes to an film like this already read the papers they already know - YOU REACH NOBODY NEW. It's just a formal excercise like a Mathematical FInance PhD thesis. D-U-L-L

I still insist the box office is the less important feature of a movie. Unless you are its producer.