Glengarry Glen Ross (1992)
Director: James Foley
Adaptation: David Mamet
Original play: David Mamet
Actors: Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Johnathan Pryce, Bruce Altman, Jude Ciccolella.
BRIDEY: Always did love this picture. Love it the more each time I see it. Wow. That jazz is so jazzlike as to be absolutely jazzy.
BUD: I like the shadows. The reds, the blues… They’re deep-deep like when you’re in high school and you realise you’re smarter than the teacher and you tell him so and he laughs in your face and then flunks you.
AL PACINO: They say it was so hot downtown this afternoon that grown men on the street corner were going up to cops and begging them to shoot them.
BUD: Only time I’d ask a cop to shoot me is if your mother said she was moving in.
BRIDEY: Speak to me, Al!
BUD: He’s a shrimp!
BRIDEY: Ah, but a man like that makes a woman feel like a goddess!
BUD: Right. A goddess. Bigger than life, you’re meaning. You don’t need no help in that department.
ALEC BALDWIN: Decision! Have you made your decision for Christ?!
BRIDEY: I used that line once to clear the house when Bud Jr. was having a party.
BUD: Look at ’em sitting around on their fat lardy asses! That guy makes sense. They should be out selling real estate. They haven’t none of them made a sale in months!
BRIDEY: Only because management doesn’t give them good leads! It’s the same all over. Just like to the fish plant-the boss wants you to fly to the moon and gives you a rubber raft to get there in.
BUD: This looks a lot like Tin Men .
BRIDEY: Yeah. Like, they’re forced to be shysters just to survive.
AL PACINO: You think you’re queer? Let me tell you something-we’re all queer. You think you’re a thief? So what!…Does hell exist on earth? Yes! I won’t live in it. That’s me.
BRIDEY: See how he gets inside this guy’s mind? Gets all tender and sensitive? Wins his trust?
BUD: Sells him something he doesn’t want?
BRIDEY: Makes you want to stop and think next time someone engages you in a heartfelt and meaningful conversation.
BUD: Makes you want to keep your hand on your wallet.
BRIDEY: Mamet’s a genius. Remember American Buffalo?
BUD: Yeah. But this is more like Tin Men.
BRIDEY: Yeah. Because of the salesman thing. It also puts me in mind of Clerks, and Friday because most of the scenes are in the same place. And The Big Kahuna and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf because the tension keeps rising and has nowhere to go. Did you like it?
BUD: I’d have to see it again. Is it in your Top Fifty?
BRIDEY: It’s there with bells on. It’s currently number twenty, in between American Buffalo and A Clockwork Orange .
Bud and Bridey only watch old movies. If you’re looking for reviews of more recent films, check out Laura Seymour’s Flicks and Folios Film Review
By Wanda Waterman St. Louis, with Steven St. Louis.