"Coffee's for closers" Glengarry Glen Ross poll

"what are you gonna do about it... asshole?"

Kevin Spacey is such a goddamned boring actor

Lemmon's the one guy I don't buy for a minute. Too much acting in his acting.

Pacino and Lemmon's pas de deux for Jonathan Pryce's benefit is my favorite scene.

Lemmon's good to great, with a couple of ridiculous moments when he does his patented pleading-for-sympathy wheeze that throws me out of the movie: he makes us feel sorry for the character.

Baldwin is great but I think he actually gives the weakest performance in this movie.

-- n/a, Tuesday, November 13, 2007 9:12 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

yeah I kinda feel the same way. great role but he doesn't really kill it the way he does in later roles that demand some of the same things, like The Departed.

-- Alex in Baltimore, Tuesday, November 13, 2007 6:09 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

I didn't mean anything about Baldwin, I think he's great (as I said), I just think basically everyone else in this movie is amazing. I think Lemmon is perfect. His acting style is different, more "actory" then everyone else in the movie, but it works because he's of a different generation, so it makes sense that he's different, less hard and more schmaltzy (as seen when he switches into salesman mode).

"Lemmon's good to great, with a couple of ridiculous moments when he does his patented pleading-for-sympathy wheeze that throws me out of the movie: he makes us feel sorry for the character."

yeah, cuz god forbid anyone in the film should give a performance that doesnt allow us total & unabashed scorn for his character. where are you coming from here alfred?

That Lemmon gives the same goddamn performance in every serious film but this time it almost fits?

the character's a sack of shit; that's how it's written.

& portraying him as the sad sack of shit that he in fact is makes him a lot more memorable & interesting

and my memory of how Lemmon always does the shirt tugging and bathos and tears in every other serious performance gets in the way.

Could probably have a Best of Mamet poll. House of Games has provided me with some good jokey catchphrases to share with friends, like "Because I *WON* that money from ya baby!"

I love Glengarry, though I've only seen the original Mamet stage version...

you should see the movie

Ugh "coffee's for closers" is used around here by the sales wankers. AARGH KILL. Still never seen this film, mind.

ohyeah this reminded me to bump the thread abt "the unit" even though i have this feeling not v many people are watching it at least people on ilx - underrated! and i don't think it's just me giving it too much credit or reading into it or whatever, no, i think it treads this amazing line btwn subversive and mainstream yet isn't fence-sitting - maybe it's like the psychic paper of tv shows or something - you see what you want to see

haha from wikipedia entry for the unit:

In episode 13 ("The Wall"), Mack offers Bob a cup of coffee, who says, "Coffee's for closers" - a reference to the play Glengarry Glen Ross, written by David Mamet, who also writes The Unit.

Say this to salespeopl...

"You seen "Glengarry Glen Ross"? "

ans: yeah

"THAT MOVIE OWNZ YOU!!"

sue2007bu (1 week ago)
This clip makes me happy I don't work in sales anymore. The day I quit was the happiest day of my life.

HustlingVegas (5 days ago)
good u dont belong in sales in the first place, you're weak

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.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

These have all been committed to memory by every scumbag salesman in every office I've worked in for at leat the past ten years. Oh, irony.

-- Dr Morbius, Tuesday, November 13, 2007 2:03 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

ha ha, too true. i once tried to fuck with a smarmy rep by getting her to recite the ABC's. when she feigned ignorance i blurted "Always Be Selling.. wait, no, that's not right..", then she replied sales wouldn't be my forté.

also, since it hasn't been posted yet

this

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

OK, I have now seen the scene.

It reads better in this thread than it performs in the clip.

(The "Brass balls" bit is corny as hell)

It was more like someone walking into the set of that retired cops prog (UK) "New Tricks" (or is it "Old Dogs"?), shabby suits, etc. The surprise is not the bloke handing out the arsekicking, it's more that the characters in the office are in sales at all.

Then, I didn't see the film, and hey, if that's the best scene, job done, right?

Has the Always Be Cobbling sketch on SNL been linked yet?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=nqBXl0tVzv0

"You road a hedgehog to work. I got here on a talking moose."

And sorry if these have been mentioned, but Mammet got inspiration from the documentary Salesman, right? And Gil, on the Simpsons, is based on Jack Lemmon's Glengarry character, right?

Oh, and Baldwin roolz in this scene/you guyz R high.

Mamet got the inspiration from being the office manager (Spacey) in a real estate office on Peterson Road in Chicago when he was in his early twenties.

Fuck you, that's my name. You know why mister? Cause you drove a Hyundai to get here tonight, I drove an 80,000 dollar B

icycle

And to answer your question, pal: Why am I here? I came here because Mitch and Murray asked me to, they asked me for a f

iver and i said sorry guys i don't have any money but i'll go talk to those guys at your office if you want and do that funny thing with the balls

Get out there. You got the prospects coming in, you think they came in to get out of the rain? A guy don't walk on the l

eft side of the road usually

These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you, they're gold. And you don't get them. Why? Because t

hey're in my other pants

You see this watch? You see this watch? That watch costs more than your car. I made 970,000 dollars last year, how much

pennies is that

And you know what you'll be saying. Bunch of losers sitting around in a bar: ''Oh yeah, I used to be a salesman. It's a

guy who goes around selling stuff

Go and do likewise, gents. The money's out there, you pick it up, it's yours, you don't, I got no sympathy for you. You

guys

'Cause you're talkin' about what...you're talkin' 'bout...bitchin' about that sale you shot, some son of a bitch don't w

ear anything strapless

AIDA. Attention. Interest. Decision. Action. Attention. Do I have your attention? Interest. Are you interested? I know y

oga tricks

Do you write for the Simpsons by any chance?

Actually, you know what? I changed my mind.

That bit was the brass balls is actually very telling.

For all that the guy is kicking their asses and angry and all that, producing the brass balls when he did suddenly deflates the whole thing into a performance.

Which is the point, right?

http://www.eballz.com/new/daballz.html

Those are the best, Dick Tanner.

hey i saw this for the first time this weekend. who is better: jack lemmon or al pacino in this movie???

Jack Lemmon.

Pacino doesn't cry – he wins.

Is that the missing line from the top speech?

yeh i think it's jack lemmon

FWIW:
On the DVD, there's an interview with Lemmon where he says his aim was to not make the character sympathetic at all. In fact, he told the director/other actors to warn him if his performance was letting too much sympathy in.

Was the Alec Baldwin/Blake character written into the Movie Script or was he in the original play (saw a production w/out him and am unsure)?

written especially for baldwin for the movie iirc.

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.