"Coffee's for closers" Glengarry Glen Ross poll

There was an interview with Theo Paphides, in "The Word", this movie was mentioned but Theo hadn't seen it and didn't know it. He wrote the name of it down.

Hope he enjoyed it.

Ok, because today I talked to someone who had seen the same production, and complained that the Alec Baldwin character wasn't in it. Incidentally when I saw it on stage, I thought Alec Baldwin played an extant character, and only realized he was someone else after.

I like how he half-assedly mimes drinking a shot after saying: "Oh yeah, I used to be a salesman. It's a tough racket." He can hardly stand to even PRETEND to be that guy.

― Lie Bot, Wednesday, November 14, 2007 6:26 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark

Haha, I just decided that this is my favorite part of the scene, the way he pantomimes taking a shot makes me die laughing every time

Dick Tanner ftw in this thread...

so given that Mamet wrote this almost 30 years ago, you don't think he LIKED these characters, do you? Wouldn't that be retroactively tarring his past work with his recent looney-tunes politics?

another Broadway revival rumored, w/ Pacino as Shelly Levene.

http://gothamist.com/2012/06/12/glengarry_glen_ross_revival_planned.php

the ultra-camp "go to lunch" is defo my favourite.

"second prize is a set of steak knives, third prize is your fired" should have won this in walk

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/hl-3889642/saturday_night_live_glengarry_glen_christmas_season_31/

Baldwin redoes Glen Garry Glen Ross in the above clip on SNL -- it's corny but I still get a kick out of it

best part is when his brain thinks he's in the real play!

I love that.

I mean, it must be like memorizing a song, the beats are already so carved into your head that you just go on autopilot. Especially for dialogue like that Glen Garry scene.

thread revive regret

did cable air this often? I'm amazed how many people have seen this over the years.

sorry morbs :)

Pacino would do great with Levene's opening monologue. He also is at his best when playing someone who can't shout and control the room (Donnie Brasco, The Insider)--another reason this could be great.

yes Al, no more shoutin'. I hope he would lose the weird primped black hair for this role and play it like he's 72 (he is).

yeah al's just for men addiction creeps me out

They should get Gosling to do Williamson.

Only thing I think this piece gets wrong is that the speech is more about making the stakes clear at the start.

http://www.avclub.com/articles/why-glengarry-glen-ross-alec-baldwin-scene-is-so-u,82782/

Lemme buy ya a pack of gum -- I'll show ya how to chew

I guess I should crosspost the HAL PACINO 2001 video

did cable air this often? I'm amazed how many people have seen this over the years.

I actually saw this in a high school class!

http://thehairpin.com/2012/08/notes-from-an-all-female-glengarry-glen-ross-viewing-party

N: What if David Mamet was actually just Jared from Subway?

That hairpin piece is so annoying lol

V cool movie I worked doing admin stuff in a sales office once. V weird environment. I knew all about leads lol

I can't tell if you're quoting someone or if you're posting on ilx. The hairpin piece was funny and kinda insightful.

idk struck me as privileged grumbling from ppl who'd never stepped inside a shitty sales office

N: He’s not very encouraging.
AH: This is how you encourage a group of old men. You yell at them and belittle them. Remind them how weak they are.
N: I find it to be almost like nonsense, like I can’t — I can’t make sense of it. What is it that people like about this movie? Is it like, human? Is it true in any way?

yes

Yeah, I can see it that way, but I can also see why they think the movie's kind of over the top and unrelatable. Not every facet of being human is especially relatable to other humans (not an especially helpful truism, but it reconciles your and their povs), and in light of that, their questions and comments are fair. Plus, I think they're trying to entertain each other and their audience, so I don't junk it's fair to characterize what they said as grumbling.

GGR's in this class of movie about men that's ostensibly critical of certain male-centric institutions (like the mob) that at the same time seems to lionize some of the worst aspects of those institutions. Upthread morbs makes a comment about the shift in Mamet's politics, and I don't know his work too well, but considering GGR and Oleander, both of which I've read, I wonder if his politics have just calcified (which I think is what Morbs was wondering, too).

Anyway, that doesn't mean that GGR doesn't say anything of value about sales, real estate, the 80s, middle aged men, or capitalism.

The movie also makes statement on importance of coffee imo

pretty sure Mamet's language is not aspiring to big R Realism

none of this is to say i can't understand why you wouldn't like this thing by an unlikeable playwright about unlikeable characters behaving unlikeably

right it's not that i dont get why people wouldn't like it—its obv about a very particular culture (and masculine as it may be, I think its being underestimated maybe cuz the movie focused on men how many women have similar jobs w/ the same pressures—the office I worked in, the leading sales person was female, and the women were often doing better than a number of the dudes) (nb everyone was kind of sad).

but it's the feigned ignorance i guess that bothers me, the "who would live like this" stuff...idk, maybe a guy trying to take care of his daughter in the hospital? an average working person?

finding it tough to watch makes sense, the faux naif thing just bothers me for some reason

the best sales person in the office was a woman—and she was also known for using extra sleazy sales tactics to move the units they needed

yeah the culture of sales is in no way a uniquely male one, any more than the culture of office (micro)aggression is

and for most people, if you don't think bullying happens in yr workplace, you're probly the bully

The Wolf of Wall Street seems similarly dated. When I saw it, I thought of all these guys getting rich selling things over the phone, when now no one will pick up the phone to talk to a stranger, let alone their friends.

Daniel Pink has a good chronicle of how sales has fundamentally changed when both parties have access to the same information.

Also, related to D's comment, when I saw In The Company of Men I remember that the pack-mentality reminded me more of groups of saleswomen than men in the offices where I temped at the time.

Glengarry in a very specific way feels of the 1979-80 recession, the same "I got debts that no honest man can pay" of Nebraska, with the same underlying story being that there was no way for a weak-performing salesman to get the leads that would keep him from being a weak-performing salesman.

this movie is incredibly dated, but i still liked it. needs a reboot/sequel.

one where the coffee is gritty

The timeline confuses me. Roma, Levene etc believe Williamson that he "filed the contracts at the bank" even though it's night when they leave the office and obv no banks are open?

Ha, I never thought about that.

Well, now the clocks have moved over here, it gets dark before the banks close.

Banks in grocery stores used to be open late.

I doubt Williamson was dropping real estate contracts at a Safeway bank kiosk.

show of hands: how many ilxors in retail have been shown the Alec Baldwin clip by their supervisors?

Fantastic.