Latest / The Money Puzzle / Money Movies - The Australian's film critic picks his all-time favourites

Transcript

Money Movies - The Australian's film critic picks his all-time favourites · The Money Puzzle

• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to a special edition holiday edition of
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: the Money Puzzle podcast. It's all about money and the movies,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and I hope you get a bit of time over
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: the holiday season to catch up on some movies. I
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: don't know about you. I'm a big fan of movies
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: and movies about money and business dramas of all sorts.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: But you know, do they tell us anything useful actually
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: about making money or the whole world of business and
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: money now, believe it or not. Inside The Australian, which
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: is a broad church, we have someone Steven Rome, who
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: was a many many years ago, the business editor. He
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: is now this film critic of The Australian. So what
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: can I tell you uniquely positioned I'd like to think
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: to talk about this. Why are you Steven?
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I'm well, thanks Jim, thanks for having me only program.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Love me to have you on the program. I mean,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I do think you probably. I don't know how often
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: it's relevant at all that you were once upon a
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: time a business specialist, but it must be in the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: way you see movies, particularly when you see money movies,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the big money movies, and I'm thinking of the major ones.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I hope we might start with the best money movies
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: in many people's eyes, certainly the best known ones. And
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I think, folks, if you haven't seen it, the original
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: of the species is probably Wall Street with Michael Douglas.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that greed, for lack
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: of a better word, is good. Greed is right, Greed works,
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Greed clarifies, cuts through and captures the yes of the
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: evolutionary spirit, greed in all of its forms, greed for life,
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: for money, for love, knowledge, as upwards through.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Do you remember that, Steve, And what were your impressions
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: of it?
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: Yes? I do well.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: It came out in eighty seven, which was a fairly
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: tumultuous time for the stock markets, from memory and directed
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: by Oliver Stone and starring Michael Douglas as someone a
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: character who had become a kind of legendary figure in
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: films about the money markets, and that's Gordon Gecko, and
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: he is still remembered all the year later. One quote,
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: greed is good. And the thing with being a former
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: business that everould be Australian. It does help because obviously
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: I had to sort of exform myself about how the
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: stock market and the money market and commodities, markets and
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: companies worked.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: The interesting thing about films about the financial market is
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: and the typical way of filmmaking. Almost all of them
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: are kind of bad stories. They're about people being too
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: greedy and not good enough.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there is a running theme, isn't there? Moral fables?
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: I mean Wall Street? There was a few things about
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Wall Street. The movie I'm talking about, Well, it was
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Oliver Stone, and if I recall correctly, Oliver Stone's father
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: was a stockbroker, so that's right. Yeah, so he had
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: this like he did have a real understanding. There's a
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: couple of minor scenes in which, to me met it
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: all the more real. There's a guy at one stage
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: who's been let go and he's saying to his boss,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I've got the divorces and I've got this,
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: and I've got that, And there's this sort of heartlessness
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: maybe in some of the big Hollywood movies about money
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: and about making money and how they do it. I mean,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: so more recently, that's Wall Street, that Michael Douglas movie, folks,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: which I would recommend. What else do you like in
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: more recent times? What movies do you think up to
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: that world?
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: Well, I think there are two that would be high
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: on the list, and each of them have an Australian connection,
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: i e.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Margo Robbie.
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: One of them is The Big Short from twenty fifteen,
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: based on the book by Michael Lewis, and it's about
• 4:25
  Speaker 4: moral less investments, mainly in real estate, that go wrong
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: and how the crisis that ensues. And who can forget
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: the scene where Margot Robbie is lying in a bubble
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: bas drinking champagne and explaining how mortgage backed bonds work.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: It's like she could fill Colt to Newcastle. I would
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: those mortgage back bond. It's Margot Robbie was telling me
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: how to buy it.
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: Basically, Lewis rain Ari's mortgage bonds were amazingly profitable for
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: the big banks. They made billions and billion on their
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: two percent fee they got for selling each of these bonds.
• 5:04
  Speaker 6: But then they started running out of mortgages to put
• 5:06
  Speaker 6: in them. After all, there are only so many homes
• 5:10
  Speaker 6: and so many people with good enough jobs to buy them, right,
• 5:14
  Speaker 6: So the banks started filling these bonds with riskier and
• 5:17
  Speaker 6: riskier mortgages.
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Benja.
• 5:20
  Speaker 6: That way they can keep that proper machine hurning.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: She is also in Wolf of Wall Street, the Martin
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: School's eighty film from twenty thirteen, which focuses on one
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: individual stock scammer, Jordan Belford, played in the film by
• 5:34
  Speaker 4: Leonardo DiCaprio.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Within minutes, he had me set up with a forger
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: who could fake Aunt Emma's signature.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: I just had to get there by tomorrow.
• 5:41
  Speaker 7: We'll lose twenty million dollars.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Now, I guess people going to Monica so they can
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: go to Switzerland. Okay, but her aunt just died.
• 5:49
  Speaker 6: I realize that.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: But I have business in Switzerland. I need to go
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: to Switzerland right now.
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: So she did both of those films, and they're both,
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: I would say, in anyone's top five of financial market movie.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Where she's in the bath with glassa champagne and it's
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: really glitzy, and she's explaining how mortgage backed securities work,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: which are done right boring. But the thing is a
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: lot of the big business movies, that's their challenge. I think,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: isn't it that in reality a lot of these people
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: are just sitting at screens. So I mean, I wonder
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: do they have to be better? Do the scripts have
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: to be better to actually make them successful because they're not.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: It's not innately visual as a medium.
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the point you make is a good
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: one in that on the surface, investing in the financial
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: markets can.
• 6:38
  Speaker 8: Look a little boring, but a really good film like
• 6:43
  Speaker 8: The Big Short, what it does so well is explains
• 6:47
  Speaker 8: quite simply the mechanism of the financial markets and usually
• 6:52
  Speaker 8: how they're being manipulated by the traders.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: And doing it with Marga Robbie in a bubble bar
• 7:01
  Speaker 4: drinking champagne. Well, you know you're going to be paying attention.
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: So it's a good way of explaining the otherwise conflict
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: mechanisms of the financial market. And I think it's important
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: to also remember, as you and I are both people
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: who are now living by writing, that most of these
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: films are based on books, and so The Big Short
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: was based on the book as I mentioned, by Michael LeWitt,
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: who's one of the best financial writers in the world,
• 7:31
  Speaker 4: and that happened at their interest that he'll be in
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: Australia in March for the Adelaide Writers Festival, right, and.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: You know Michael Burry is still out there, you know,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Steve I wrote about him the other day, believe it
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: or not, So Michael Burry, folks, I'm sure you know,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: was the person who managed to short that is, profited
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: from the fallen prices in the Great crisis of the GFC,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: which was sort of epicenter of all that was American.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: But he's in the news again because he did it,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: not a big short, but one point five billion dollars
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: down on that the AI stocks of today would collapse
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: and he would make money from them, and of course
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: it didn't work. So it's interesting to even that these
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: stories and these themes they sort of they continue because
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: there's always fear and greed and ambition in the market
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: well of wall streets. That that's exceptional, I suppose, isn't it.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: It's Scorsese. Was that a book as well.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: I'm not a hundred percent sure on that actually, so
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: I can't buy it.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: But it was a true story, I mean it was
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: based on a true story.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, indeed it indeed it was.
• 8:39
  Speaker 4: And that's the other thing about financial market movies is
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: often they're either based on a true story or they
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: very closely imitate a true story. So another very good
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: example is wrote Treger Trader from nineteen ninety nine, which
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: is a made up film, but it's clearly based on
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: Nick Lee, the man who single handedly brought down Back
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: Bearings Bank, and that was a real financial scandal that
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: they made into a very good film. And then you
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: can go to sort of the more directly documentary approach
• 9:16
  Speaker 4: and look at a film such as Enron The Smartest
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: Guide in the Room from two thousand and five. Now,
• 9:25
  Speaker 4: I remember back in two thousand and five, sorry before
• 9:28
  Speaker 4: two thousand and five, when Enron was collapsing and it
• 9:32
  Speaker 4: was saying BHP is collapsing it. This is a huge,
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: important bastion of a company. But what emerged and what
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: emerges in the book that the film is based on,
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: and then the film is the whole thing with a congome.
• 9:46
  Speaker 4: The whole thing was a sham. And that's why I
• 9:50
  Speaker 4: think really scares people and also fascinate them if they
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: haven't lost their money, to realize that such a big,
• 9:59
  Speaker 4: important company can actually be a help of cart that's fascinating.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: And as again as I said, these are permanent, perennial themes.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: And then we will have companies I don't know, you
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: don't know, but there will be companies in this AI
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: boom that turn out to be frauds. For sure, we'll
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: take a short break away back in a moment. Hello,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Australian Special Edition Christmas edition of
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: The Money Puzzle, and we are talking to Steven Rome,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: who is the film critic of the Australian and not
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: just a film critic, but also someone who actually has
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: an innate understanding of business, which probably isn't that common
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: I among film critics. I shouldn't presume, should I, Stephen?
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: But I imagine I'm on the right track. Tell me,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: looking at other movie I wanted to just widen it
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: out now on some other movies. I don't know. I mean,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: what do you think is the best movie ever as
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: a business movie? And it doesn't have to be a
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Wall Street movie that tells us what we need to
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: know about what drives people in business.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: But gee, that's a big question. I mean, I think what.
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: Movies about the financial markets have in common is they've
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: got all of the elements that get people interested.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: You know, you've got kind of.
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: Genius, perhaps got genius used badly. You've got rises, you've
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: got falls, you've got tragedy, you've got comedy, you've got death.
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: You know, it really does fill the whole spectrum. And
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: then of course if you have a film like Wolf
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: of Wall Street, also've got romance, so it really can
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: play on all of the human emotion. And I think
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: that people, you know, obviously, money kind of matters to
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: all of us. And when we see how the money
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: can be used in fa many ways to our disadvantage. Particularly,
• 11:57
  Speaker 4: I think how we get very interested in film from
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: nineteen ninety two, Glen Garry Glenn.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Roth Lady on the play.
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: One of the lines in it is the rich get rich.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: That's the law of the land, okay, And I think
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: that shouldn't be the law of the land, but most
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: people out there probably think it still is the rich
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: get rich. And that's the way it goes. How you
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: asked me what the best one was, Well, that's a
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: difficult question to answer. But let's go with one that
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: crosses over into reality. And I'm going to go way
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: back to nineteen twenty one and Citizen.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Kane and across as into reality and what we.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: It cropes into reality in that the main character played
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: by Auston Well is a newspaper magnate, okay, And it's
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: clearly based on the real life newspaper magnate William Randolph Hurst,
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: and he hated this fact the film was being made,
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: and he brought all of his media power to do
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: whatever he could who disadvantaged the film, and so he
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: refused to take advertising for it in his newspapers, He
• 13:19
  Speaker 4: refused to allow reviews to be run, he refused any
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: mention of the.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Film in his newspapers.
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: So where now, all these decades, almost one hundred years,
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: ninety eighty years later, a lot of people think Citizen
• 13:35
  Speaker 4: Kane is one of the greatest films ever made. It's worked,
• 13:38
  Speaker 4: remembering back to how a rich person tried to stop it.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: And in fact, when it was released in forty one,
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: it didn't do that well. I mean, it only became
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: as famous that it is in subsequent times. It only
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: won one Oscar and that was for the script by
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: Wells and and make of it, I see. But that
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: sort of tells you that how that film about someone
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: who had great control in the business world reflected the
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: real life control that the pin was based on.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Head.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I suppose that's the kind of a sub genre, isn't it.
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, and I'm not putting Citizen Kane in a
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: subgohen because it's brilliant in many ways for many reasons.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: But there is that sort of tycoonography. And when you
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: were saying earlier about money and big money and how
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: it's interesting, I suppose whatever else tycoons do. They live
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: big lives and they have that everything is sort of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: writ large and that comes across obviously in Citizen Kane
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: or a movie. Some of the biopics haven't been bad.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: The Aviator is one actually I often I liked, which
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: is about Howard Hughes. One of those you're talking about
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Citizen Kane. That's a great. One of the scenes that
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: remember of Citizen Katan is I can't remember who it
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: is the chair the Chairman be Joseph Cotton or as
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: he's the reporter, I can't remember which. But he walks
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: down this corridor and there's a nameplate on the door
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: as the chairman, and he knocks on the door and
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: he says, excuse me, you know, do you have a moment?
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: And the chairman says, of course, son, I'm the chairman.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I've got all day. Will it make to tell you?
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: What do chairman?
• 15:22
  Speaker 7: Do?
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: You often wondered, you know that is still pretty relevant
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: to I reckon, Hey, I'm thinking about big movies and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: big characters. This was fictional, but boy, it's one hell
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: of a movie, and I think our listeners would love
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: to see if they haven't, I wonder what you think
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: of it. I'm thinking of There Will Be Blood, the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: big Daniel Day Lewis movie a few years ago about
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: an oil man as he calls himself. What's your impressions
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: of that and what do you think it tells us
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: about business and investment? Because we liked I mean I
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: when that movie opened. I really admire this guy. You know,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the drive he had, He's out by himself, the there's
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: an explosion, he crause back to the town. Sheer willpower.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: You have to admire that sometimes, but then, of course
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: it takes a darker journey after that was your presion
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: of that movie.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: It's a great movie. Two thousand and seven that came out,
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: and I noticed that when various publications started listing the
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: greatest films of the past twenty five years, There Will
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: Be Blood was high on many of the lists. It
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: is it's about the Californian oil boom in the late
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: nineteenth century and early twentieth century, and yet the main
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: character played by Daniel.
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: Day Lewis started out in Silba from memory, but he
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: moves into oil and it's based on the novel called
• 16:47
  Speaker 4: Oil by Upton Lewis, and it goes directly to when
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: you talk about wealth, particularly national wealth, which then becomes
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: personal wealth.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: Oil is still a huge deal.
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: And you've only got to think, for example, if you
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: want to really extrapolate, what are the mad Max films about,
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: what's the one pressured commodity in this post apocalyptic Australia
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: oil petrel They'll drop your head off to fill their
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: tank sort of thing.
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: So, yes, petrel.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: Oil is still as important as it was in the
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: late nineteenth century the early twentieth century. And just to
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: go down one other path, King Winton Bladers novel Juice,
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: which is also said in the near future. Once again,
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: without getting so much away, oil is very important.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: Very interesting. All right, Now, we're going to take a
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: short break. We'll be back in the morning, folks, and
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: we're going to look at I just want to kick
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: it around a little and I'm just going to ask
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: Stephen about some movies that tell us about business but
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily be classified as a business movie. Back in
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: the moment, Hello, Welcome, back to the Australians Money Puzzle
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Christmas edition on money and Movies. I've got Stephen Rowe
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: May here from the Australian. He's the Australian's film critic.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you a few movies that
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: I found affecting in various ways, Stephen, that were not
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: necessarily upfront immediately obvious about business. Actually one the first one,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: and you know you were talking at the start about
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the majority of business movies are in a way morality
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: plays and invariably someone achieves great success and often they
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: are compromised in various ways. Going back to Wall Street,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: which had a marvelous plot really, which was about how
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the young guy Charlie Sheen is he's driven by his ambition,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: he's picked up by this Gordon Gecko who is a
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: sort of Wall Street tycoon, and ultimately he is forced,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: not forced, but he's put in a position where he
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: must betray his own dad and then it's all about
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: what happens after that. But sometimes not all money movies
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: are sort of you know, that sort of painfully moralistic
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: in tone. Crazy Rich Asians. That was the movie I
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: thought that captured glamour and they seem to be relatively
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: happy as rich people in that it is a wrong
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: comma after all, would you put that in the category
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: do you think it has anything to tell us?
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Well, yes it does.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: I mean it is a wrong common it's fun, but
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: you know, there's sort of still trouble within the family.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: And I think what that filman others starting.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: To do is to explore the fact that Asia, particularly China,
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: is becoming kind of the one of the wealth finnits.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: Of the universe.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: We've moved on from a film about wealth being about
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: oil wells and it is in there will be Blood,
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: It will.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Be and you know this is it.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: I mean wealth and it is a changing parameter and
• 20:19
  Speaker 4: we're now living in different times and I think films
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: like Crazy Bridge Asian are definitely tapping into that.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Well. I want to mention I did mention Mad Max,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: and I think I should mention an Australian film even
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: where an Australians place the dimension and it is The
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Bank from two thousand and one, directed by Robert Connolly,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: stars David Wenham as a genius mathematician who thinks he
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: can predict the movement in the stock market, and a
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Lapalia plays someone running a bank.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: Anyway, you can imagine how that works, sort of a
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: mathematmatical genius, trying to work out the stock market, people investing,
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: people with their money in the bank being interested in
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: investing as well.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: It's not a happy story, but it's a very badful.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know. That's so interesting, And of course
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: you know that's the parallel in real life. The Long
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Term Credit Management was a fund which was started, oh,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: twenty years ago or so, and this was their whole theory.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: They had these two Nobel Prize winners on the board,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: economic professors who were Nobel Prize winners, and everyone thought, well,
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: how can we go wrong? And well, let me tell you, folks,
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: we were really wrong in real life. No one's made
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: a movie about it just yet, but I imagine it
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: would suit the medium very very well. I will maybe
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: finish on something. And again we were asking you, which
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: is a bit unfair, I know, asking someone like yourself
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: what's your favorite movie all the time. But I'm looking
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: at movies and I was trying to think of movies
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: where they tell us a lot, but they're not necessarily
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: a business movie. And I did mention this to you
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: in advanced mother, what you told of it. The French
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: will be gen de Florette, which is, yes, a gorgeous movie, wonderful.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: So many of these movies are based on books. I
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: never quite realized that, Stephen, And it seems to be
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the case that the best business movies are based on books.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: This was also based on a pair of books. Actually,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: But you're talking about how it was all about oil.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Gendre Florette is like a movie if you were really
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: sort of to be banal about it. It's about water rights, right,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: But it's really again, it's about a commodity, isn't it,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: And it's about fear and greed around a commodity. But
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: in some ways it's it tells us as much as
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Wall Street does.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: I think, well does then?
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: I mean we only have to go back in history,
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: who be where fascination and obsession with certain commodities, such
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: as the Dutch chilup scandal.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: Can bring businesses and people undone.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: I mean, imagine now loving everything because the viewer investsment
• 22:59
  Speaker 4: in flower.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: But that's what happens. And perhaps Ai is a you
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: alluded to earlier.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: Perhaps AI is the next flower that will bloom, or
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: perhaps will you wanted to know which film is not
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: particularly about the stock market day, but it's still about finances.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: I'll choose one from almost the same time as it
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: didn't came also based on a novel by John Steinbeck,
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: The Grapes of Wroth.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: Course. Yeah, that during the Great Depression.
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: It's about a family that has to move when the
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: place where they live and work.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: Stops doing the industry.
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: That they're involved in, and it's about people coming to
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: terms with one of the greatest financial setbacks that can
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: happen are depression.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: I would say that one is not directly about.
• 24:01
  Speaker 4: Money like Wall Streepia, but it's still the great film
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: starring Henry Fonda and anyone, and it would be people
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: that alive who lived through the depression would appreciate the
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: importance of it.
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: And I suppose that the wider theme, as you say, Stephen,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: is about the decisions made at a high level and
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: how they affect everybody. So the decisions that are met
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: in federal Treasury, for instance, in US and the nineteen thirties,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and how that comes about. They think this family that
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: has to move from is Oklahoma, isn't that I think
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: over to California, Yes, amazing. I never thought of that.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: We have were running out of time. I'll ask you
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: one last one, which I think captus. It's interesting the theme,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: and I didn't have the theme before we started the show.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: But really part of it is Chased the Money and movies.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: A lot of it is about fear and greed, ambition
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: and drive. But another part of all movies about money
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: is about com about commodity. We talked about water g
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: on there Florette, we talked about oil, There will be Blood.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: And for me, the first money movie I ever saw,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: and I'm not that old, but the first one that
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: really knocked me out was The Treasure of Sierra Madra,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: John Houston's first movie, I think, our first big successful movie,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: and that's about three guys in the middle of nowhere
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: who find gold.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it goes back. Yeah, it's a good film. It
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: goes back further.
• 25:31
  Speaker 4: Than oil in a tent in the gold Obviously the
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: gold rushers in the United States in Australia absolutely peoptal
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: moment in the history of those plates. But yeah, that's
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: what we're talking about. Commodity.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Once it was Tulip's, then gold, then oil.
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: Now Ai he asked earlier what we can learn, what
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: we should take out of these films.
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: Well, here's what I would think of.
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: When if you've seen Cinthan Kane, which I'm sure most
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: people have, the opening theme is the media magnate dying
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: and the thing that he remembers is not his mansion
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: at Xanadu. It's not his wealth, it's not his overseas trips,
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: it's his childhood sled Rosebud.
• 26:24
  Speaker 7: Mister Kane was a man who got everything he wanted
• 26:26
  Speaker 7: and then lost it. Maybe Rosebud was something he couldn't
• 26:29
  Speaker 7: get or something he lost. Anyway, it wouldn't have explained anything.
• 26:34
  Speaker 7: I don't think any word can explain a man's life. No,
• 26:39
  Speaker 7: I guess Rosebud just a piece and a jigsaw puzzle
• 26:44
  Speaker 7: missing piece.
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: So perhaps the lesson to take out of all of
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: this is you can't take it with you with you.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Very good, you can't take it with you. Yes, indeed,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: thank you very much. That was great, Steve. I hope
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: you have a good holiday and I hope all our
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: listeners have a good holiday. Thanks for coming on the show.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Stephen Rome, film critic of the Australian Pleasure.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: That was Stephen Rome who is film critic on the
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Australian and that was terrific and I've never seen the bank.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: That would be something I will watch over the holidays. Okay,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: best to look to everybody over the break. We'll be
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: back very soon. Talk to you soon.