Review, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” I went to see Oliver Stone’s last film the other night. And by that, I don’t mean his most recent film — I literally mean, the last film he is likely to make (at least with a big studio budget, at least for a long while). That’s because it...Read More
Reviewing the Reviewers You can hardly fancy yourself a “serious social commentator” — and what self-respecting blogger doesn’t? — unless you take a crack at reviewing Jonathan Franzen’s epic new novel, “Freedom.” Which, of course, first requires that you actually read the almost-600 page thing — no small undertaking. Before getting to my review, though,...Read More
“Date Night” Realtor Vignette In “Realtors in Modern Culture,” I noted the paucity of Realtors depicted in movies and on TV. Well, add one more: Tina Fey’s character, Claire Foster, in “Date Night” (I just saw it on DVD). The highlight of the movie (at least to this Realtor) was a blink-and-you-missed-it scene near the...Read More
One Size Doesn’t Fit All More than four years after it opened, I finally got to the “new” Guthrie Theatre near the Mississippi River — just in time to see the closing performance of Tennessee Williams’ “A Street Car Named Desire” (thanks for the tix, David and Shana!) The performances were indelible and wrenching; I...Read More
Voiding Credit Default Swaps In a book stuffed with scathing insights and blockbuster revelations, here’s perhaps the biggest one (courtesy of Michael Lewis, writing in The Big Short): The reason Citigroup (amongst others) is considered “Too Big Too Fail” isn’t because it holds over $1 trillion in ordinary Americans’ savings in their vaults. It’s not...Read More
Dropping Prices: Two Theories I put it in the same category as a 50 degree day in January (at least in Minnesota), or the movie theatre with the popular new movie — and no lines: a welcome development, to be sure, but one that’s still slightly unnerving. What am I referring to? The rather steep...Read More
