{"id":5306,"date":"2014-07-09T02:57:51","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T06:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=5306"},"modified":"2014-07-09T02:57:51","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T06:57:51","slug":"glengarry-glen-ross","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/glengarry-glen-ross\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Glengarry Glen Ross\u2019: Just Watch It Already"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"glengarry\"<\/p>\n

A close friend of mine committed suicide this past Monday. Someone I loved dearly and always felt like family. The last time I saw her was about a year ago, and it was wonderful\u2014we had a great time together. It was the most perfect last memory of her that I could ever ask for.<\/i><\/p>\n

This review is for her. One of the many things we shared was a deep love for this movie. I can\u2019t begin to make sense of her passing, but I can at least write this piece. She\u2019d be pleased to know it was out there.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Glengarry Glen Ross<\/a> (1992)
\n<\/b><\/span>Directed by James Foley
\nWritten by David Mamet
\n100 min.<\/p>\n

Everyone\u2019s heard of Glengarry Glen Ross. It\u2019s just one of those movie titles that is in your brain for as long as you can remember, throwing a wrench into that whole \u2018tabula rasa\u2019 thing where we are born with nothing in our minds or whatever. We are definitely born with Glengarry Glen Ross in our minds.<\/span><\/p>\n

For some reason, even though everyone\u2019s heard of it, most people haven\u2019t seen it. I guess because they just assume it\u2019s some boring movie about men in suits doing men in suits things, one that just happens to have a fun name, a fun name that a movie like that can\u2019t possibly live up to.<\/span><\/p>\n

If they have seen it, usually they\u2019ve only seen one scene from it\u2014the Alec Baldwin \u2018coffee is for closers\u2019 one. (And they probably watched it on YouTube\u2014a shitty pan-and-scan 240p version of it has 3.5 million views on there.) It\u2019s a great scene, but it doesn\u2019t really reflect the whole movie. And I guess people hear that, and assume that means the rest of the movie isn\u2019t good or something. They couldn\u2019t be more wrong. The rest of the movie is great, and Glengarry Glen Ross is one of the best American films of all time.<\/span><\/p>\n

David Mamet adapted it from his stage play of the same name, and what he did was he fleshed it out to what it probably should\u2019ve been in the first place. The stage play is brilliant, don\u2019t get me wrong, but it feels like a rough draft in comparison. It\u2019s kinda like how Joss Whedon, in adapting his film Buffy the Vampire Slayer<\/a> into a TV show<\/a>, realized how much bigger his idea was than he even thought.<\/span><\/p>\n

Not only is this Mamet at the top of his game, all the actors are at the top of their game too. Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, Jonathan Pryce\u2014hell, Bruce Altman, the sorta-stepdad guy from Rookie of the Year<\/a>, even turns in a career-best performance. My theory is that everyone wanted to be the best actor in the movie. Nobody wanted to be out-acted amongst all those greats. And in most movies, that might be distracting, and get in the way of the film, but given the characters\u2014highly competitive real estate salesmen\u2014it\u2019s perfect.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really want to say more than I\u2019ve already said. It\u2019s the kind of movie you should just sit down with, not knowing much, and watch in one sitting.\u00a0 I\u2019ve seen it many times, and it always holds up perfectly each time.<\/span><\/p>\n

5 out of 5 Codys.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"glengarry\"<\/p>\n

A close friend of mine committed suicide this past Monday. Someone I loved dearly and always felt like family. The last time I saw her was about a year ago, and it was wonderful\u2014we had a great time together. It was the most perfect last memory of her that I could ever ask for.<\/i><\/p>\n

This review is for her. One of the many things we shared was a deep love for this movie. I can\u2019t begin to make sense of her passing, but I can at least write this piece. She\u2019d be pleased to know it was out there.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts","category-codysreviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5306"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5310,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5306\/revisions\/5310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}