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Looks like Our Boy Zach ("I'm a Gay Man") Quinto's Margin Call is a Winner!Yay!
Aloysius J. Gleek:
http://movies.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/movies/margin-call-with-zachary-quinto-review.html
Movie Review
NYT Critics' Pick
Margin Call (2011)
Number Crunching at the Apocalypse
By A. O. SCOTT
Published: October 20, 2011
Zachary Quinto and Penn Badgley in "Margin Call."
There have been reports of hurt feelings among the bankers and brokers who have been the focus of public ire and Occupy Wall Street protests. And it is true that those poor, hard-working souls have been demonized and caricatured. Surely the much-reviled 1 percent does not consist of plutocrats in top hats or predators in blue suits, but of human beings just like the other 99 percent of us, albeit with more money and perhaps more to answer for.
That, in a way, is the message of J. C. Chandor’s “Margin Call,” which does a great deal to humanize the authors — and beneficiaries — of the 2008 financial crisis. But the film, relentless in its honesty and shrewd in its insights and techniques, is unlikely to soothe the wounded pride of the actual or aspiring ruling class. It is a tale of greed, vanity, myopia and expediency that is all the more damning for its refusal to moralize.
There are no hissable villains here, no operatic speeches condemning or celebrating greed. Just a bunch of guys (and one woman, Demi Moore) in well-tailored clothes and a state of quiet panic trying to save themselves from a global catastrophe of their own making. Watching them going about their business, you don’t feel the kind of fury inspired by “Inside Job,” Charles Ferguson’s great muckraking documentary on the origins of the financial crisis, but rather a mix of dread, disgust, pity and confusion.
And also, above all, admiration for an extraordinary feat of filmmaking. It is hard to believe that “Margin Call” is Mr. Chandor’s first feature. His formal command — his ability to imply far more than he shows or says and to orchestrate a large, complex drama out of whispers, glances and snippets of jargon — is downright awe inspiring. The movie rarely leaves the Manhattan offices of the fictional investment bank (loosely modeled on Lehman Brothers) in which it takes place and limits its action, which consists mainly of phone calls and hurried meetings, to a frenzied 24-hour period. Within that narrow frame the gears of a complex narrative mesh with ravishing clockwork precision.
“Margin Call” is a thriller, moving through ambient shadows to the anxious tempo of Nathan Larson’s hushed, anxious score. It is also a horror movie, with disaster lurking like an unseen demon outside the skyscraper windows and behind the computer screens. It is also a workplace comedy of sorts. The crackling, syncopated dialogue and the plot, full of reversals and double crosses, owe an obvious debt to David Mamet’s profane fables of deal-making machismo. Hovering over all of it is the dark romance of capital: the elegance of numbers; the kinkiness of money; the deep, rotten, erotic allure of power.
If no one in this world is patently evil, no one is innocent either. A young risk analyst named Peter Sullivan (Zachary Quinto) may be as close as the movie comes to a hero, but it is also possible to see what happens to him as a parable of how the system corrupts and exploits its most decent and honest minions. Working late one night Peter (who we later learn has a Ph.D. in physics) glimpses a sign of the apocalypse lurking in a mathematical model. Recent volatility in the market is threatening the stability of the mortgage-based securities that have been generating most of the company’s profits, and the resulting losses are likely to swallow this bank and make trillions of dollars vanish into thin air.
Which pretty much happened of course. The task Mr. Chandor sets himself is not to explain, once again, what occurred in 2008 — though a comparison with the journalistic records suggests that “Margin Call” is broadly accurate — but rather to explore the psychological pressures and ethical choices at work among those who caught an early glimpse of the abyss and then helped push everyone else into it.
Peter alerts his callow co-worker Seth Bregman (Penn Badgley) and their immediate superior, Will Emerson, a cynical soldier played by Paul Bettany. In a gangster movie Will would be the midlevel enforcer, entrusted with the dirty work but denied real authority. His superior is Sam Rogers, played by a splendidly world-weary Kevin Spacey. Sam oversees the sales force that has been peddling the bad securities, and he must now carry the bad news upstairs, through several more layers of company hierarchy.
There is a tense showdown with Sarah Robertson (Ms. Moore), who seems to have promoted the scheme that is now unraveling and who may have ignored warnings about its outcome. Eventually word of what Peter has learned reaches John Tuld (Jeremy Irons), the charming, dapper, black-hearted boss of bosses, who arrives by helicopter in the dead of night, like a vampire summoned from the crypt.
One of the running jokes of Mr. Chandor’s script is that the higher a person’s rank, the less he is likely to understand what the firm is actually doing. This ignorance is almost a point of pride. “I don’t get any of this stuff” — this line is repeated about Peter’s discovery by Will, then Sam, then Sam’s boss, Jared Cohen (Simon Baker) and then Tuld. In a further absurdity, one person who does get it, Peter’s mentor, Eric Dale (Stanley Tucci) has just been downsized out of the company. As a security measure his cellphone has been disconnected, which means that his increasingly desperate former colleagues are unable to find him when he might be of most use.
Not that anything can really be done. The most chilling and most believable aspect of “Margin Call” is how calmly and swiftly its drama of damage control unfolds. A scapegoat must be found, and a survival plan worked out. The consequences are acknowledged — those we are living with now — and then coldly accepted in the name of a vaporous greater good. “We have no choice.” “There is no choice.” “It’s not like we have a choice.” These phrases are uttered again and again, by people who truly believe what they are saying. Some of them may have sleepless nights ahead, but none are likely to suffer very terribly. The accomplishment of this movie is that it allows you to sympathize with them, to acknowledge the reality of their predicament, without letting them off the hook or forgetting the damage they did.
“Margin Call” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Obscene language and obscene sums of money.
From left, Penn Badgley, Zachary Quinto and Paul Bettany play analysts at an investment bank
loosely modeled on Lehman Brothers in "Margin Call."
MARGIN CALL
Opens on Friday nationwide.
Written and directed by J. C. Chandor; director of photography, Frank DeMarco; edited by Pete Beaudreau; music by Nathan Larson; production design by John Paino; costumes by Caroline Duncan; produced by Joe Jenckes, Michael Benaroya, Robert Odgen Barnum, Neal Dodson, Corey Moosa and Zachary Quinto; released by Lionsgate, Roadside Attractions and Benaroya Pictures. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes.
WITH: Kevin Spacey (Sam Rogers), Paul Bettany (Will Emerson), Jeremy Irons (John Tuld), Zachary Quinto (Peter Sullivan), Penn Badgley (Seth Bregman), Simon Baker (Jared Cohen), Demi Moore (Sarah Robertson) and Stanley Tucci (Eric Dale).
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Luvlylittlewing on October 20, 2011, 08:07:07 pm ---Those of us who live in California, especially those in So Cal (I've lived there for many years) have sort of an "in" when it comes to who is gay and who is not in show business, and are very cynical. My brother has met many actors and actresses, and in his opinion, all male actors are gay, no exception.
--- End quote ---
Cynical in what way?
Where does your brother live? To me, thinking that all actors are gay is sort of the equivalent of thinking that no actors are gay.
Aloysius J. Gleek:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on October 20, 2011, 08:00:40 pm ---But Zach Quinto doesn't seem quite B-list, either. To me, B list celebrities are those who haven't held one of the top starring roles a big-budget major studio movie, playing a beloved TV character, and didn't also star in a successful TV series. Maybe he's A-minus list.
--- End quote ---
Not for long, I think.
"Then Spock beamed in."
Wow! He's a 'Playa'--a playa with pointy ears! 8) :laugh:
"Zach is such a powerhouse in a gentle way," [Paul] Bettany said. "He's such a go-getter. Things I've thought about doing with my life, he's just got on with it and done it."
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-zachary-quinto-20111020-1,0,3878174.story
Zachary Quinto rides a wave
of professional, personal growth
Actor-producer Zachary Quinto is in firm control of his world,
with 'Margin Call,' his production company Before the Door's
first feature, set to premiere.
By Rebecca Keegan, Los Angeles Times
October 20, 2011
Zachary Quinto's production company's first release is "Margin Call," in which he also acts.
In late 2008, "Margin Call" looked like the kind of film project that could languish indefinitely: an unfinanced script from a first-time writer-director on a wonkish subject — the math behind Wall Street's recent collapse.
Then Spock beamed in.
Zachary Quinto had just wrapped filming on J.J. Abrams' reboot of "Star Trek," playing the pointy-eared young Starfleet Academy commander, and his NBC show "Heroes" had a cult following. He had formed a production company with two drama school friends and was looking for projects, so he met "Margin Call" writer-director J.C. Chandor at the Fairfax Farmers Market on the recommendation of a mutual friend.
"I recognized that I had a window of opportunity that had opened because of my exposure as an actor," Quinto, 34, said in an interview at the Silver Lake offices of Before the Door, his company with Neal Dodson and Corey Moosa. A bungalow that was once Quinto's apartment, Before the Door feels as much like a home as a business, with Quinto's genial mixed Irish wolfhound, Noah, padding through the rooms. "I wanted to take some control of the stories that I'm a part of telling."
"Margin Call" became Before the Door's first feature, with Quinto starring as a Wall Street analyst who discovers a catastrophic flaw in his company's financial formula. Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany and Demi Moore are some of his equivocating bosses, who must determine how to manage the crisis; Penn Badgley is a young colleague out of his depth, mathematically and emotionally. As the film arrives in theaters Friday, Quinto is navigating another, more personal moment in the spotlight, and telling more of his own story: Last weekend he revealed that he's gay.
On his personal blog, Quinto said that the suicide of gay 14-year-old Jamey Rodemeyer had motivated him to come forward. "In light of Jamey's death," Quinto wrote, "it became clear to me in an instant that living a gay life without publicly acknowledging it is simply not enough to make any significant contribution to the immense work that lies ahead on the road to complete equality."
If Quinto has found new clarity in his personal life, as a producer and actor he seems more intrigued by ethical gray zones. "Margin Call" tracks a Lehman Bros.-like investment bank over a 24-hour period on the eve of the 2008 financial meltdown, and Chandor, the son of a Merrill Lynch banker, unfurls his story not as an anti-Wall Street polemic but as a kind of economic disaster movie, propelled by a series of morally ambiguous decisions.
"The script required you to invest in the emotional life of these people who have been so blanketly vilified and commonly blamed for what happened in 2008 and what continues to happen today," Quinto said. "I liked that it didn't toe a moral line. It doesn't rake people over the coals, and it doesn't lionize anybody. The ambiguity of it was the thing that struck the loudest chord."
Once Quinto attached himself to Chandor's script, he set about finding actors to join him, beginning with Spacey, whom he knew through friends in the New York theater scene.
"It wasn't just Zachary's connections," said Chandor. "It was the follow-through. We spent months together lobbying agents, meeting with actors. He is a very, very serious guy, and there's a deep intelligence there combined with this insane fire and energy and motivation that people pick up on and react to."
Before the Door secured "Margin Call's" $3.5-million budget from a relative Hollywood newcomer, Seattle real estate scion Michael Benaroya of Benaroya Pictures. Chandor shot the film in 17 days in summer 2010 on an abandoned trading floor of a Manhattan skyscraper, with actors using old offices as dressing rooms — a process that tested Quinto's multi-tasking abilities as an actor-producer. "To get money, get actors, work out schedules, locations, hire a crew — all of that stuff was so consuming that all of a sudden I was like, 'Oh, my God, we're actually shooting this movie. I have to focus on my work as an actor.'"
"Zach is such a powerhouse in a gentle way," Bettany said. "He's such a go-getter. Things I've thought about doing with my life, he's just got on with it and done it."
Quinto says his drive is rooted in a traumatic event from his childhood in Pittsburgh. When he was 7, his father — a hairdresser and son of Italian immigrants — died of cancer. "I don't know that I would have been so self-sufficient and so ambitious if I hadn't lost him," Quinto said. "It triggered some sort of survival instinct in me."
At a high school summer theater program, Quinto met Dodson. They attended Carnegie Mellon University together, along with Moosa. The school ethos infuses Before the Door — the company is named for a CMU drama school exercise, and Quinto estimates that 85% of Before the Door's future projects involve CMU connections. The company has produced two graphic novels and has several TV and film projects in development and another feature just shot, a $500,000 3-D horror film called "The Banshee Chapter," directed by CMU alumnus Blair Erickson.
"My best friends are, all of them, people I knew before I was famous," Quinto said. "That's hugely important, surrounding myself with the people who hold me accountable to the person I've always been."
Quinto moved to Los Angeles after graduation, quickly securing several TV roles — a code-cracking CIA analyst on "24" and Tori Spelling's gay Iranian Muslim best friend on the VH1 sitcom "So NoTORIous." His breakthrough performance as the villainous Sylar on "Heroes" led to his first major film part, as perhaps the most iconic sci-fi character of all time. Playing Spock capitalized on one of the actor's chief assets — a breathtaking pair of eyebrows.
Last fall, after shooting "Margin Call," Quinto made his first New York stage appearance as a man who abandons his AIDS-afflicted lover in an off-Broadway revival of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America."
Though he has spoken out on gay rights issues for years, Quinto never publicly acknowledged his own sexuality. "Boundaries and clarity about the difference between my life and my public persona, my work as an actor ... is very important to me," he said in an interview just two weeks ago.
But in a follow-up email this week, he said of his decision to come out: "This decision was made with a tremendous amount of thought and introspection — in my own time, on my own terms and with my own words. I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the scores of men and women who have preceded me to this action — both within the industry and in more intimate personal journeys throughout the world. Momentum builds in waves — and I am so grateful to be riding this wave of equality with more openness and integrity than I was ever able to embrace before making this declaration."
Beginning next week, Quinto will appear in F/X's "American Horror Story," in January he'll begin shooting the "Star Trek" sequel and he's trying to get another play in the works in New York. A long hoped-for project — as composer George Gershwin — has been put on a back burner by its busy director, Steven Spielberg.
"There was a time when celebrity was associated with people who were actually good at something," Quinto said, reflecting on Gershwin. "I'm trying to hold on to that, to not believe I need to feed some machine of pop culture or insatiable tabloid journalism in order to prove my value or define myself as an artist."
[email protected]
Luvlylittlewing:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on October 20, 2011, 09:40:39 pm ---Cynical in what way?
Where does your brother live? To me, thinking that all actors are gay is sort of the equivalent of thinking that no actors are gay.
--- End quote ---
Where does your brother live?
In Sacramento, but he has lived all over the State during his life.
To me, thinking that all actors are gay is sort of the equivalent of thinking that no actors are gay.
Possibly. But personally, I think most actors are gay. :)
Aloysius J. Gleek:
He's so brainy. (You know which one.)
:laugh: :laugh:
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