 Now, have we got some shows for you? I'm Jay Fidel. This is Stink Tech. And the first show is stepping off right now is the movie show. And that's with George Casey and me. And today, we're going to review the last days of capitalism. But also, I'm telling you this in advance, you should write it down. We're going to compare that with one of my favorites of all time, Pretty Woman, okay? Back in 1990 with Richard Gere and Junior Roberts. What a movie. Okay, George, you've seen them both. So I guess let's talk about the last days of capitalism first, because that's what we promised to do. Okay, this is a movie. There's only two characters, a woman and a man. Sarah Rose Harper plays the woman, Mike Fiola plays the man. They don't give you names too much at the beginning either. So they're in a Las Vegas luxury hotel, high rise, penthouse. And it's the banter between the two of them. And I don't know, giving away too much, but she's a cougar. He's called her initially and he's got a lot of money, but we don't know exactly how he got it at first. And she claims she's a student and she's making money for her student. That's her persona that she's projecting, right? So then the two of them, they get back and forth, back, a lot of talk, and she's a lot smarter than you would think. She's sort of sometimes smarter than him in her statements and whatever. And you get into a lot of different issues, religion, God, money, power, a lot of these back and forths between the two of them because initially he hired her just for a few hours and then he wants to extend it because I guess he's a lonely guy and he needs company. So he's there in Vegas. And it goes back and forth and they're sort of trying each other. They have secrets. She's not really telling him the truth. He's not really telling her the truth. He claims he's a painter and she claims she's a student. And then she comes up with all these different persona. One time she said her mother's dying of cancer. She gives a name and he keeps telling her, saying to her, what's your real name? What's your real name? And he keeps upping the ante. He wants her to be real. I guess the guy's lonesome. So he wants a real person there but he's paying for a coal girl. And she doesn't want to give initially her secret of who she is and what she is and he doesn't want to say what he is. But you see, one of the things that she's out for the bucks and he talks about, he's throwing a lot of money, big money around and he's got a safe and when he's not around, she's trying to break into the safe with a code, take money. And then he says there's another safe under the floor with more money. So the guy's, plus he can call down and they bring him $100,000 in cash from the concierge, whatever. So the guy's got big bucks, right? But he's not a happy guy. That's why he wants this pretty young woman. He's middle age. I say he's about 38, 40. She's early 20s. And she's really pretty in her own way. She's kind of pretty in a rough way, in a street wise kind of way. I didn't find her very pretty. I really struggled to find pretty there. And I think that the fake out in this movie is you thought they were exploring each other in a sincere, intimate way. You thought this was an extraordinary, you know, Amy O'Soula-esque kind of experience where you take two people, different walks of life, and you put them in a situation like this, and you let them do the whatever they want to do. And you find this more to them. You find that they actually connect. And I think the movie wanted you to find that. It wanted to tease you about, hey, maybe there's real affection here. Maybe there's love. Maybe they're finding each other when they're, as you said, they're both lonesome and isolated. And maybe this strange circumstance brings them together. And that's that's the proposition of the movie for most of the movie, until she's very smart. And she wants to figure out what the combination to that safe is. And she asks him questions like his birthday, you know, which could be a combination to the safe. And then she tries it and presto it opens. And she takes every bloody penny from that, from the safe, puts it in her pocketbook, and she's ready to split on him. That's what he tells her. Oh, that was peanuts. I knew I know that you you robbed me because I saw a chip. There were chips in the safe, too, Las Vegas chips. And I saw a chip and it wouldn't have been there unless you robbed me. So I know I got your number now, but you missed out because I had a lot more money under the second safe. But what you know, what that tells you is that, no, no, they, they couldn't go there. They, they couldn't find a relationship that it was, it was possible, but it didn't happen. And that's where, you know, that's where the challenge of the movie is to, to understand the dynamics between them. They in the movie, they never leave the room. This is a $10,000 spectacular. They never leave the room. It's only the dialogue between the very, very good. The dialogue is very, very good. And they're very, both of them are very good actors. But it's at the end of the days, it's not a love story. It's a story of being unable to reach the other person. I'm not sure how hard or hard they were trying in the movie. I mean, she falls back on robbing, stealing from him. And he, you didn't mention this one thing is he's sick. He's sick. We never find out exactly what he's sick about, but we find him, you know, throwing up, we find him weak, we find him, you know, essentially falling down. And for a moment, she is expressing, you know, concern, care for that. But the end of the day, though, she leaves them there in a weakened condition. You're not sure what's going to happen to him, but you know, it's not good. It's probably something terminal. And maybe that's why he was in the hotel. You never find out. That's why he was in the hotel. That's why he had this money. I had the impression that the money came from his father, who was a very rich man. And this fellow, whatever his real occupation was, was being the son of a rich man. And he virtually threw the money at her. And it was, it was like deep breathing. He just gave her $5,000 in a wad of bills. And then a few minutes later in the movie, he gives her another $5,000. And then $10,000. He's virtually throwing the money at her. And she's stuffing it into her pocketbook as fast as her little fingers can move. And you say, hmm, you know, isn't she affected by this? This man is being as generous as anyone, anyone could ever be. But she's, you know, what you when you think about it, all she's doing is piling it on into the pocketbook. At the end, she walks out with virtually a fortune of cash and Las Vegas chips. And you say, hmm, you know, that was greed. And with him, it's a strange thing that he would throw this money at her without really having a reason to do it. Because she wasn't really expressing. I guess he wanted her to express affection. He wanted to have some kind of affectionate relationship. But it never happened. And he kept trying. He wanted her to stay longer and longer. He offered her thousands of dollars to stay overnight. And in a day or two, the whole movie is over a three day cycle, 72 hours. But it doesn't work. You know, I guess he just throws the money at her. She doesn't respond. And in the end, neither of them trust the other. And as you said, George, it's about lying. It's about lying. At the end, he says that something about he's in oil futures or something like that. And that and then she says to him, you know, when your dad and you, you know, when you went into Iraq, you that the same day you went down to Miami Beach and you took your friends and you had women and cocaine and whatever. And and you didn't care that you know, thousands of hundreds of thousands of people died because of that going into Iraq. And then she says her dad was probably a soldier, right? He died when she was 10 years old. And I think she said her mother when she was 16 passed away. So she was pretty much left without parents. But but she's really hard. She's a hardened person, you know, and and when you say, you know, they were doing cocaine, he and her. Oh, an enormous amount of cocaine in this movie was all over the place. And they were drinking. So, you know, I mean, maybe he had an underlying medical condition too, but he was abusing himself too. You know, he would have to coke and then and then and at the end, I don't know, as you said, was that terminal? Was he dying? I thought it was. I thought it was. There was a certain desperation in him. And she recognized it. She recognized the desperation. And she wasn't going to hang around and ride him down. You know, he was he was irrelevant to her at the end. She wanted the money. She didn't really care about him at all. Yeah, because the thing is, if he was having a seizure or something, she didn't care. She just walked out, you know, and he had the seizure when when she was telling him, you know, how cold and heartless he is, right? And then and then she came, she said that she came from a poor family, you know, and dad died and then the mother died. And it was a little small town, I think somewhere in Nevada, you know, up north in Nevada with those little tiny little pick towns, you know. So she but she was smart. I mean, she kept up in the conversation with him. And then she said, when he was saying about God, you know, and she said, you know, Jesus was only on the cross and they nailed him up. The rest of it is just to keep people, you know, in, you know, thinking about this rather than dealing with the fact that they're struggling. And then she said something about, we're all given our fate at birth, right? And, and, you know, you had your fate where your dad left you millions and millions of dollars. And I had a I have to struggle and so many other people have to just struggle just to get through the day, you know. So there was some real profound things, as you said there. And yes, he wanted, you know, if the guy's got that kind of money, doesn't have to get a cold girl, I'm sure there's some woman that would like him for the money and play the game, you know, doesn't have to get a cold girl. So that's, that sort of bothered me if he had options, you know, I mean, the other movie when we get into it, we can talk about that too. But, you know, he had, he had other options. So maybe you were right that he was sick, you know, that this is, he's in a terminal condition. But it was broken. They were both broken. Yeah. Yeah. And they were both isolated. And as much as you, you were drawn to the possibility of a romantic engagement between them, it never got there. And also you mentioned, you know, at one point in the movie, when he really had a lot of money, the safe was filled with money. It was just right, you know, to the top of it. And chips with big chips. And then he would, he would just throw these wads of, you know, $5,000 at a time at her all through the movie. And she just tucked it away. But there were a couple of really extraordinary money scenes in there. One is when, when he called, as you said, he called the concierge. And he said, without even identifying himself, he said, would you, would you bring $100,000 to our room? And two minutes later, there's a guy at the front door handing him a bag of $100,000. Now, that's wealthy. I mean, it was an expression of wealth that you really, in our lifetimes, you don't see that. The other thing is he says, let's have an adventure today. Why don't we make some real money? Why don't we trade? I think they were trading currencies. And yeah, and he puts around the phone with his currency trader, again, not identifying himself to the trader. The trader presumably knew his voice. Actually, he wasn't on the phone. He put her on the phone. And he gave her enough information so that she can identify him. And the trader at the other end, wherever he was, was willing to trade millions of dollars of yen. And in a matter of five minutes, she made millions of dollars in this, in this, this trading. I'm not, it wasn't clear as to whether she actually realized that or whether it was just for his account. But it was pretty interesting how this person who knew nothing about trading anything on the basis of some oral instructions he gave her, was able to earn millions of dollars in five minutes trading yen. But you know, the bottom line here is it was, it was very well written. The colloquy between them was extraordinary. As you say, they, you know, they were both really sharp and really profound in their own way. But on the other hand, it was tragic. In the end, it was tragic. And one other thought about this movie before we move on to the next one is the sign of good literature, my view, is an author, a writer, a script writer who, who, who peels it off to you step by step. You know, nobody ever in this movie is telling you the whole story. They're giving you one little factoid, and you have to put it together. Another factoid, you have to accumulate the factoids and analyze them. And I think that's a sign of good literature. And some things you never can not only never get it, you know, they don't tell you. And so you and I may have one perception about, you know, what they were saying, what the background was, what the real meaning of this was. But, you know, take other people, watch the same movie. They would see different things in it. They would pick up on different cues. What you've got in this movie was the cues. And that's what, that's what made it so very interesting. But the other part, George, that was really interesting was this whole democratization of disparity of wealth. Here is a woman, whether she's lying or not, you didn't have too far things. Okay. And here is a man, whether he's lying or not, who had unlimited money in cash at his beck and call, people he could call to bring hundreds of thousands of dollars to him and so forth. And so you're left with sort of the American dream of poor girl meets rich man. Okay. And there's somehow is the possibility of the democratization of the disparity. It's the American dream. I should meet a rich rich man and he will like me and I will have some of his riches, even though I, you know, I would not otherwise have anything. And that was why, at least one of the reasons why the movie was so interesting. And although I did not think of it at the time, only thought of it later. This was a trip off the other movie, Pretty Woman, 1990. So here's a current movie in Las Vegas. Okay. And looking at comparing a movie, which is 30 some odd years old, 1990 with Richard Gere and Julia, Julia Roberts and the two of them had magic. It was the first movie they made together. It was magic. The repartee, the way they looked at each other treated each other, the way they carried their lines. It was it's extraordinary movie. I would have to give it a higher rating than the last days of Capitalism. Yes. But what do you think? Why don't you talk about that movie? Well, I love that movie, 1991, I saw it. And I haven't seen it since. But I still remember that as one of my favorite movies and Julia Roberts, I love Julia Roberts as an actress and as a person. I think she's really attractive. So the thing is, the difference between the two, right? Pretty Woman was something that lifted your heart. They did finally meet up and he was going to the end, he was going to marry her and have the fairy tale romance or whatever. And it's sort of, it's very uplifting, which the last day of Capitalism is not uplifting. It's educational, but it's not uplifting, really serious. So it's a much, Pretty Woman is a much more happy movie, a much more joyful movie. A romantic comedy, that's what they call it. It's a romantic comedy. And at the end, he, even though he's afraid of heights, the Richard Geer character, I forgot his name. Edward Lewis. Exactly. And then he climbs that fire escape where she lives in Hollywood with her prostitute friend, the two of them, their sweet walkers. And he takes flowers to her, even though he's got fear of heights, right? So at the end, it's really uplifting, the way he takes his limousine with the flowers and whatever. While the other one was sort of, wasn't uplifting at all. And at the end, you don't know whether that guy, you know, Mike Faola's character, is he dying? Is he just, he had mental, I think his illness was mental, I think more than physical. I think he had mental, mentally ill. And his dad had just died and left him all these millions, right? So he's throwing money away, you know? But I You wanted him to succeed. You wanted that couple in the last days of Capitalism to find each other. And that was the challenge of it. And that was the frustration of it. And you didn't, you couldn't, they wouldn't let you. The filmmaker would not let you enjoy any real romance in that movie was, as I said, it was a tease. In the case of Julia Roberts, she was really beautiful in that movie. This was her debut in many ways. And the way she handled herself, the way she smiled, the vitality that she had, I'm not sure she's ever been as good at anything else. And Richard Geer, he was just perfect. And so the two of them as a couple, they were, they were just perfect. But, but it was the American dream. Again, here's a man with incredible wealth and hard driving business acumen and all that. And here's a street walker who she got to be a street walker by, you know, by accident, they all do, I suppose. You're not born that way. And there's romance. And little by little, the romance unfolds. The barriers peel off. They find each other in humor, in good nature, in, you know, in philosophical discussions, whatever. And before you know it, these people from the completely the other side of the tracks, they are attracted. And it's clear. And it's fun. And it's, you know, the whole thing is a sweet experience. It's perfect for Valentine's Day. Perfect for Valentine's Day. Really, it's a good feat. You leave the theater. I left the theater back then in 1990 with my ex-wife. And we were really uplifted. It was a really happy experience, you know, to go and to see this movie with these two stars. And but this last day of capitalism, sort of depressing at the end, you know. Yeah, two broken people. Two broken people, you know. And she's hard as nails, you know. She's all, you know, because she's had a tough life and she has no feeling for it. She was all, they were play acting. She was play acting with him, you know, that she had affection for him. Because at the end, you could see how hard, hard-nosed she is. But Julia Roberts' character was, can't remember her name right now. Vivian. Vivian. Yeah. Ms. Vivian. She wasn't broken, you know. She was not a broken character. She had never really been comfortable with being a street walker. And she wanted to do bigger and better things. And she just didn't know how to get out of it so that she could do those things. And he, on the other hand, was, he was really not happy with what he was doing, pushing people around, you know, in the high finance world. And had this very creepy lawyer who made him do that, Jason Alexander. So, so creepy. Jason Alexander played that role to a tee. You know, the Scheister attorney, you know, no feeling. And then Richard Gears carrying the loot and tells them, you only like the kill. And then they had Ralph Bellamy. That was his last, I think before. Oh, I loved Ralph Bellamy. He was a marvelous actor. Great in that movie. And then he was, to what Edward Lewis was doing in that, in that era, they were taking these companies that were having problems and sort of splitting them up, you know, selling off parts of them, right. And then destroying the company. This guy Bellamy, he's, all his life, he worked at build boats, you know, to build this company. And then he's having trouble. So Julia Roberts, so told Edward, you know, do you make anything? No, no, we just, so that he put something in his head. And then he decided at the last minute, he was going to do a deal with Bellamy, right, they were going to go into partnership to build boats with actually building something, right. And then the lawyer, Jason Alex, he went nuts. Because then Edward says to him, you're only in it for the kill. You don't really give a damn about anything else, all you care is for the kill. You know, so it's a totally great movie. I mean, So the Vivian character was actually the moral compass. Exactly. For the billionaire character. She was showing him the way the streetwalker was showing the billionaire the way. I mean, there's so much music in that. I found, I found all the characters lovable in their own way. They were and here's the thing, you know, another sign of good literature is when the characters evolve in front of your eyes, where they become different people. And she did, she became a different person. She found herself. And he found her and together they found each other. And he became a different person, more moral, more kind, more gentle, more together. And you saw this unfolding. It was brilliant movie. I mean, it was not only fun or romantic comedy. It was a brilliant movie because of the evolution, the changing, the improvement of the characters involved. But I'll tell you my favorite character in the whole movie. It was the hotel manager. So Latino who ran this fancy hotel is somewhere on real sheer Boulevard. Those are my old stomping grounds. Oh my goodness. I got a little apartment on Reeves. So I was only a block away from the. Oh no. So I know that. One other thing I wanted to say before we go. The other movie, The Last Day of Capitalism, she was also moralistic. But he, he, he was so mentally disturbed or whatever that instead of agreeing with her, he just fell apart. You know, she was telling him at the end, you know, about Iraq and all these people dying and the wealthy don't give a damn about the little people. So she, you know, she was moral, moral too, but it ended in a very contrast, the two, how that one ended with the pretty woman ended. So. Yeah. I mean, it's really worth seeing them in tandem. But they, but the common denominator, George, is this thing about the American dream of closing the gap, closing the wealth gap, you know, because, you know, in our lifetimes, the wealth gap has grown. You know, just think of executive compensation, which is still, you know, leaving the train in the station. And, you know, people make hundreds of times the amount of money that the average employee makes in their company. And it's still happening. We had a discussion this morning about that another show. And, you know, it's really too bad. But what it, what it offers you is, is good material for a movie because of the gap and the common denominator and both of these movies, 1990 and now, you know, how many 30 years later, okay, it's the democratization of romance. It's the Prince Charming thing. You know, yes, we can still have a close effect. We can still have love and marriage, not only love, but marriage. We can break all the barriers down by love, despite the fact that you are a filthy billionaire and I'm an impoverished, you know, girl from the wrong side of the tracks. It's that American dream that they use that term in Pretty Woman a lot that opens and closes on the notion of the American dream. But it's the democratization of our society and in offering you that story of democratization, what they're telling you is that right now, then and now, we don't have democratization. We have this huge gap and we have to work on that. It's not only for the movies. It's for the government. It's for all of us. It's for real life. We can't have this huge gap and only imagine it closing in fiction, in the movies, Hollywood, sorry, we need more. I couldn't agree with you more that there's really an issue about too much too many gaps between the wealthy and the and the and the less wealthy. I think it's hard to bridge that too. And we'll talk after, you know, it's hard to bridge that gap between wealth and people coming. But there was a Polish woman who was married to this very wealthy, wealthy man, I'm trying to remember. And then he died and she became an heiress. I forgot exactly the name, but you know, I read about that. I mean, she was she was from a poor family and she married this wealthy, wealthy man in reality, you know, and so that worked, you know, so sometimes it works, you know, doesn't work very often. Sorry, we should do it. You know, it's better. It's better to have have government programs. It's better to have a society that will equalize it. You're always going to have some gap, for sure. But we should work toward avoiding that. We should work toward avoiding poverty on the one hand, and enormous wealth on the other. It's built into, you know, the American history, American experience. And it goes to a movie I would like to review with you called The Gilded Age, maybe next time. But in the meantime, let's let's rate this, okay? First of all, which did you like better? What ratings would you give each one of them? And secondly, should they be seen separately or in tandem? Okay, pretty woman, 10 plus. I've always loved that movie. Last day of capitalism in its own way, pretty good. I would give it close to a 10, I'd say nine and a half. There's some real, real issues there that they're brought up that are great, that are great and definitely in tandem. Because by doing a comparison between the two, you sort of learn something, you know, about the differences there. So I, that those are my ratings. 10 plus for pretty woman, nine and a half, or maybe even a little more for last day of capitalism and definitely in tandem. Now, how do you feel, Jay? I hate when we agree on everything, George. We don't always agree. There's been times we have not agreed at all. You know, I mean, go back to two shows and you and I are on tangent. We're on different, different levels. But this one, if you have, if you want to agree with me, fine, if not, you know, whatever your heart is telling you, whatever you believe, do it. Yeah, well, the pretty woman, as with you, pretty woman is one of the best movies in my, in my life of watching movies of all time. It touched me then. And I did go back and look at it, you know, for the comparison a few days ago, and it touched me again now. It is a keeper. It is a classic. It does not grow old. It is just as wonderful now as it was then. So I would, I would give it a 10 or a 10 plus. And I would, and I would give the last days of capitalism a little less, you know, not that much less, maybe a nine right in there somewhere. And finally, I would urge people to watch them both. And it doesn't matter what sequence, it could be one than the other or the other than the first, but to watch them both in order to get a handle on how things have changed in movies and in, in the country and the relationships of men and women. And in, you know, unfortunately in, in the way it works in the disparity between 1990 and now, I would watch them both, they should be seen together and they should be compared just as you and I have compared them. Thank you, George. It's always, it's always good. We'll find another spate of movie next time and there'll be just as interesting that it's an important part of our life these days in the time of COVID. Thank you so much. Thank you, Jay. Aloha.