Today's Run - Sunday, 1/27..."Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" Followed By Too Much Concrete

After dropping the boy off at the bus stop for his ski club, we went back home and I chilled for about 90 minutes in front of the TV (while eating some full-fat yogurt), for some reason glued to "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps." Yesterday, I happened upon the original "Wall Street," an iconic film from 1988 that I hadn't seen in some time, and so today I decided to watch the second installment, which I had never seen.

The original "Wall Street," as noted above, was/is iconic. It's a disturbing telling of the materialistic lust of the 80s. Who can forget what the antagonist proclaimed at a shareholders meeting in the movie: "Greed is good" (it was actually a pretty good speech, especially when he talked about the US's crushing trade and fiscal deficits and the lack of accountability among many management teams). Few times in cinematic history has there ever been a villain quite as cutthroat, with a few parts "art of war"-type philosopher (that's just enough to make you wish you didn't like him), as Gordon Gekko. Among the greatest cinematic villains, Gekko ranks in the top 5...on my list anyway. He says really cool stuff like, "If you're not on the inside, then you're on the outside." What guy doesn't find that kind of stuff cool?

Gordon Gekko, a legendary cinematic villain. Source: New York Times.

Unfortunately, in the second installment, Gekko, who is now out of prison and still cutthroat but this time with a peeler and not a full-on machete, wasn't given the platform to show his malicious wares that he had in the first "Wall Street." While the original film was/is a classic, the second one is overall entertaining (especially Gekko's run-in with Bud Fox) but is a swing and miss. It needed way more Gekko.

I just think that when you capture lightning in a bottle the way Oliver Stone did with Gekko in the first "Wall Street," it is pretty hard to keep that lightning in said bottle and then unleash it a second time.

As I was watching both movies, I was reminded that in the end the bad guys do usually lose. In this world, that's hard to remember because so often it seems the good guys finish last.

After getting through the first 90 minutes of "Money Never Sleeps," I went out for 16.1 miles, most of it on concrete paths in our town. Beat the ever-living sh%t out of my legs, too. I would have gone to the trails but still too much snow.

Then recovered with some "Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview."

Ended the week with 60.2 miles. Not bad.