Short Cut Review: Arbitrage

A Short Cut Movie Review is normally less than 400 words, but in some cases may go slightly over. This is my attempt to keep writing about as many films as I see without getting bogged down with trying to find more to say. They are meant to be brief snapshots of my reaction to a movie without too much depth.

Richard Gere as a wealthy hedge fund manager whose company is secretly hiding losses of $400 billion in order to complete a successful sale. Then he gets into further trouble when he crashes the car carrying himself and his mistress. She dies, putting in jeopardy his chances of selling his company and avoiding financial ruin for himself and his family. It's a smart and taut thriller, a well-made genre picture, but ultimately lacking in anything truly creative or groundbreaking. I also had trouble buying into a lot of the character development. Tim Roth gives a bizarre performance as a New York police detective. I don't know from where he drew the inspiration for the character's uneven and strange accent and his caveman-like manner, but it was a mistake.

Kicking and Screaming Movie Review

Watching all those Whit Stillman movies a couple of months ago got me thinking again about Kicking and Screaming, a movie about four friends recently graduated from college, which I hadn’t seen since I was their age. It was Noah Baumbach’s first feature film (he shares a story credit with Oliver Berkman), made on a fairly low budget in the mid-90s when low budgets were sheik, and features the actor Chris Eigeman, whose presence is part of what connects the movie in my mind to Stillman’s work. That and similar writing styles that focus on educated characters who speak literately and engagingly on a variety of topics.

The Last Days of Disco Movie Review

For his third feature film The Last Days of Disco, Whit Stillman graduated to better financing and a bigger budget, but maintained his unique writing style and characterization depicting the “Urban haute bourgeoisie” of his first film Metropolitan. Again the characters are well-educated Ivy Leaguers and New England liberal arts college graduates who spend a lot of time talking. Stillman’s Barcelona brought these characters to another country, but this time he brought them back to New York City, where the well-to-do of that first film paraded around in tuxedos and ball gowns discussing philosophy, literature and social mores. The setting has changed slightly with the characters frequenting the dying disco scene of the early 80s, but the conversations are similar.

Barcelona Movie Review

Whit Stillman’s Metropolitandrew on his own experiences going to debutante balls and hobnobbing with wealthy socialites. His second film, Barcelona, similarly drew on his own life, this time mining the time he spent living abroad. Ted and Fred Boynton are cousins who share Ted’s apartment for a short time when Fred turns up unexpectedly as part of a Navy advance man ahead of the arrival of the Sixth Fleet’s shore leave. Ted works for an American company out of their Barcelona office. Fred is a brash outspoken American who vehemently defends the United States’ honor against the frequent verbal abuse levied by Spanish locals. Ted is a bit more reserved, though no less a patriot, and versed in some of the subtleties of Spanish culture.

Metropolitan Movie Review

On the cinematic evolutionary line after Woody Allen but before Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach is Whit Stillman. He wrote and directed three films all released in the 90s and then disappeared for 13 years (his fourth film, Damsels in Distress opens this month). As a writer he stands tall among the giants of literate screenplays written by, for, and about educated people. His characters are often reflections of his own upbringing in a world of upper class privilege and Ivy League education. His stories explore issues such as social group dynamics versus coupling, distinctions between social classes, and conservative political values. He’s a writer unafraid to give his characters interesting things to say and have them sound intelligent. If you find yourself occasionally lost, it’s quite possibly because the conversation is centered on something outside your experience.