Glengarry Glen Ross

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Summary: Plot like molassus but characters make it all worth while!
Review: This film is a sort of "day movie"; where the audience is taken into the life of a few men working at a normal job in normal lives. A slight criminal twist at the end simply adds to the flavor of the characters who are really the only reason to watch the movie. Each man and his personality is subtley revealed throughout the film and the nearly oscar winning performances by Al Paccino, Kevin Spacey and Jack Lemmon are stunning. Worth the experience and worth the down time.

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Summary: Dream cast in lean, mean performance that will blow you away
Review: Bringing Mamet's award-winning play to the screen, Foley just made his personal list of the best male actors of his time -- and every one of them said yes. The group turns in a stunning ensemble performance. This '80s answer to Death of a Salesman delivers the same level of harrowing emotional impact as its classic predecessor.

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Summary: Best Sales Movie Ever
Review: Exaggeration & Repetition: Performance keys to live by

There are two keys to being a good performer, whether you are writing or telling a story, whether you are selling something or selling yourself: Always exaggerate things by one thousand percent, and use repetition at least 500 percent.

Those who understate a story or product that may not be very strong in the first place, will fall victims to making that story or product look weak. The way to avoid making yourself or whoever/whatever you are representing look weak is to follow the aforementioned keys. The way to do that when the product or story is weak is to learn how to "B.S." That is where being a good performer comes in...

You are an actor, and being outgoing and to the extreme will always give the impression that whatever you are talking about is "the best." A good actor can do this perfectly and not come off as overly co.cky or obnoxious. Always say what the other person wants to hear. The customer is always right. Do whatever you can to "nail the gig."

There is something else to keep in mind when doing this particular form of "B.S.-ing," and that is the "K.I.S.S." method of "keep-it-simple-stupid." That may sound like a contradiction to the keys, but it is not. Keeping it simple, is not disclosing the real specifics, but still making your case sound like it's above and beyond every other possible option. This comes in handy particularly when someone asks you a question that you may not know the full answer to. That is where "filling" comes in---something that students do when writing an English essay on a test. If you have a general idea of what you want to say but don't have a specific reply to a portion of the question, you "fill" that essay with long winded run-on sentences. However, the whole thing must be coherent, and if your essay is well-written and has a good amount of clever puns and humor, you cannot lose. If you are a slick actor or writer, you can fool even the best of English teachers into at least giving you an "E" for effort.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you will never lose if you can "meet in the middle." What that means is this: Suppose a shirt looks like it is worth $15 to a customer but you build it up so much and make it sound like it's worth $50... By the end of the conversation, if you are doing your job, you are going to get them to meet you in the middle and the final conclusion will be that the price of the shirt is around $25. The real worth may be no more than $15 (and maybe even less), and certainly nowhere near $50, but you still get the "E" for effort and earn $25. You aren't really getting into details on why the shirt is worth so much more than the customer thinks, but you are pounding it into their head that it's worth $50. You are exaggerating and repeating. You are using adjectives that may or may not apply to that shirt but you are making it sound great and far above what it's worth. So finally, they will concede a price of $25. You were stretching the truth about the shirt being worth $50 and they may have been undervaluing it at $15. Essentially, you are both lying and both playing a game with one another, but finally, a minimum of $25 is agreed upon. No one may ever find out the true value, but it's irrelevant anyway. This works in any situation.

Exaggeration and repetition. But remember to K.I.S.S.

These keys could have been discussed in one paragraph, but it took an entire page, yet you as the reader were compelled to hang onto each word from start to finish. So I succeeded as a writer in that this essay was read from start to finish and my point was proven.

The "Whale"

A whale is a customer that you pull in, hook, line and sinker and mount on the wall. He is a golden nugget, a superstar, a monster. This type of customer that you get lucky enough to snag will be your customer for life. That means, you will either be set up for life from one deal you strike up or you will have him as a repeat customer that you can call back as a strong possible prospect forever.

Sometimes it is tough to spot a whale, he may not always be overly outgoing or obvious about being a "buyer." So anyone can be a whale. The way to learn if someone is a whale or not is to simply get into their home and learn about their life and about them. So anything you can do to get your foot in the door will work.

Start off small and discuss something that may appeal to their interest and work your way into their world. Don't pre-judge them until you learn about them. This will take time and patience, but all you need is a small "in" and then you can build on that and if you win the whale's trust, all it takes is one big deal to set you up for life.

So practice the "A.B.C." method of "always be closing" with everyone, because anyone can be a prospect. While the impression may be given that you genuinely care about them, the main objective is getting them to sign on the dotted line.

Of course the obvious "Gordon Gecko" type whales who go around showboating their spending habits and their skills are the true whales that if you are lucky enough to somehow snag, you are set.

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Summary: Easily one of the best sales meeting movies of all time!
Review: I've been in sales and have been present at many sales meetings. This movie opens with the sales meeting I sat through a hundred times if I sat through it once. my familiarity with the characters as well as the drive to be the best may jade my impression fo the film. But how can you go wrong with Pacino, Lemmon, Spacey, and the list goes on? Highly encourage this romp through the sales world for anyone looking for a great night in front of the movie screen. Also, try "Suckers" for an eqully great, funny flick about the car business.

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Summary: An excellent, complex, well-acted film
Review: "Glengarry Glen Ross" is writer David Mamet's masterpiece. In the 1992 classic, his rapid, incisive dialogue is quicker and more brutal than in every other movie he's done, and the characters, played by such people as Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon, all exhibit a kind of rowdy vileness and vitriolic disposition that is appalling, engaging and astounding. Mamet's message is not just that real estate is a cutthroat business; the real focus of Mamet's screenplay, based on his 1984 Pulitzer Prize winning play, is the struggle between men--the need for a weak, hurting, woeful individual to lash out against those who prevent him from being better; and the need for those at the top of their game to slander those they know are starving.

The movie's portrayal of a bummed real estate office down on their luck could be the portrayal of practically any tableau of unhappy, unruly men prepared to do anything to make a dollar. It's Mamet's characterizations--Al Pacino as Richard Roma, the slick, conniving, office leader; Jack Lemmon as Shelly "the machine" Levine, an old timer on a bad streak; Kevin Spacey as Williamson, the boss, a man who garners no respect from those below him; and Ed Harris and Alan Arkin as frustrated salesmen at the end of their wits--that makes the movie so important, so timeless. These are men of character who possess a twisted uniqueness, but also possess a common connection to all working people; they're fed up with work, with bosses, the unknowns, the pay, the long hours. They go through their routine gripped by spite and depression, confusion and anger, aware of how terrible their lives are, but too entrenched in their career to do anything about it. They're a part of the American dream but at the bottom rung of the ladder. They're living as capitalist independents but are no more satisfied with their work in the 20th century as a man might have been one hundred years before. They wear nice suits and ties and shoes, and some of them drive nice cars, but none of that can erase feelings of hopelessness and subjugation. When an upper level real estate agent gives a pep talk to Jack Lemmon and his coworkers on a dreary rainy night, he doesn't try to lift their spirits; he motivates by poking fun, denouncing, condemning and harassing.

To Mamet, the real estate business doesn't try to make a man feel better about himself; it's there to make a man feel worse--to feel brutalized, hopeless and frustrated. And even those who make it-like the rich real estate agent who verbally tears down all he thinks are less than him--even they don't have any real end in life; for at the top, men still care about possessions and power.

It's as though business traps a man, telling him what is good and right in life while shutting him out of every potential alternative. And as we see Jack Lemmon and Ed Harris and Alan Arkin battle against the relentless tide of job fulfillment, we see they have no other desires; all they care about is finding leads, twisting people's arms, making a few dollars. They come to believe that selling real estate is the most important thing in life, paramount to everything else, and their blinded pursuit ruins them, making them slouch in their chairs, making their eyes big and puffy, making them attack other men--good men--who were probably different people before they started. The film is visceral, bewildering, and depressing, showing what life could be for those who can't break out of a rigid system, who can't break free from a lowly, unhappy, position in life. The delivery of Mamet's dialogue by the actors is superb, ranking among the best ensemble casts of the 1990s. There is hardly a movie that more accurately shows people struggling to stay afloat in their job, besieged by inequities, dislike, and disrespect.

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Summary: It's cursy time!
Review: This movie is a man's movie, full of angry men cursing at each other. Alec Baldwin steals the movie with a speech full of lines like "What's my name? $#@* you - that's my name!" All of the other performances are great as well, with Pacino getting to do his usual yelling thing, and Jack Lemon transforming into a slimy old saleman. More importantly, Glen Garry features Ken Spacey back in the good ol days when he used to play unlikeable characters in interesting movies, instead of the leading man in cheesy, preachy garbage like Pay it Forward. Wait til the end of the movie for the part where Pacino calls him the C word - it's always enjoyable to watch.

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Summary: a movie of Mamet proportions!!!!
Review: Al Pacino (People I Know, Looking For Richard), Jack Lemmon (The Odd Couple, Out To Sea), Ed Harris (The Human Stain, Just Cause), Alec Baldwin (The Aviator, The Cooler), Alan Arkin (Grosse Pointe Blank, The Jerky Boys Movie), Kevin Spacey (Se7en, Beyond The Sea) and Jonathan Pryce (Pirates Of The Caribbean, Ronin) act their asses off in tense and powerful performances. Pacino, Lemmon, Harris, Arkin and Spacey all work as salesmen and they have to sell leads to get big mucho money by the next day or their fired...that's what the dynamic Baldwin says to them...he has everything and they dont...he doesnt like losers. So, the gang embark on selling the leads that they have and if the others dont, most of them get canned in the end. Harris and Arkin devise a plan or stealing the good leads for themselves...share them. The next day, they all come to work and find out that the place has been robbed...the contracts and leads and even the phones are all gone. A detective questions them all as the tension builds up as the actors bicker and banter on one another. Who stole the leads? A superb array of characters with the actors channeling their brilliant talents to them....Pacino is pulsating as the offfice hotshot...Lemmon hits the mark as the office loser....Arkin and Harris deliver as well and Spacey is riveting as the boss. Jonathan Pryce has a nice role as one of Pacino's clients. The dialouge rolls off the screen like firecrackers in true David Mamet style. A masterpiece. I recommend it highly. Directed by James Foley (The Corrupter, Fear)

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Summary: Excellent film version of scalding Mamet play
Review: David Mamet's GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS is, in many ways, a DEATH OF A SALESMAN for today. Like Miller's classic theater drama, it shows the American Dream gone wrong as it follows (real-estate) salespeople and their desperate attempt to make an honest buck. It is a marvelous play, and frankly better than DEATH OF A SALESMAN. Certainly, it is nowhere near as sentimental or preachy as SALESMAN occasionally was. Mamet achieves a kind of "poetry of the commonplace" with his fresh, witty, and sometimes painfully reverberant dialogue. The dialogue, as well as the compelling characterizations, ensure that GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS rises above its 1980s origins and becomes something more timeless and universal: a devastating portrait of desperation and broken dreams, set in a self-contained universe in which the name of the game is, really, just to make enough money to get by...even if it means lying, cheating, and even stealing.

James Foley's film version is a successful screen adaptation because Foley trusts Mamet's great dialogue to speak for itself. Thus, Foley admirably does not attempt visual glitz to try to "cinematize" the material; he just lets the actors deliver their lines, and he and his editor Howard E. Smith do a smooth job of retaining the rhythms of the dialogue. The result may still feel a little stagebound, but Mamet's characters and themes by themselves rise above the film's occasional staginess.

And what a cast! I can't really see a dud performance in any of the major roles here. For me, the standout here is the late Jack Lemmon, who excels in what is probably the most important character of the movie. Indeed, it is Shelley "the Machine" Levene who is probably the most potent representation of the shattered dreams that is at the heart of Mamet's play: once a real-estate big shot, he is now a desperate, blubbering mess who is now simply trying to make ends meet in his life. It is that sad desperation that Lemmon captures so vividly and movingly in his performance, and it is truly heartbreaking what eventually happens to the character in the course of the film. The rest of the performers are no less accomplished. Alec Baldwin turns his brief cameo role---written expressly for the movie by Mamet---into a brief but intense tour-de-force (one that perhaps anticipates his later performance in 2003's THE COOLER). Kevin Spacey's John Williamson starts out the movie as a model of rigidity, but then, at the very end, he acquires a subtle dimension that suggests something more cruel and evil at the heart of this otherwise-unexceptional man; Spacey does an equally subtle, terrific job of conveying both sides of this fascinating character. And perhaps one should give James Foley extra points for getting Al Pacino to restrain himself as Ricky Roma, the newest hot shot in the film's real-estate firm. I recently saw Pacino in ANGELS IN AMERICA---at least, Part I of the HBO miniseries, anyway---and found his portrayal of Roy Cohn to be an extremely mannered, inappropriately scenery-chewing performance that threw me out of the movie whenever he appeared. That bizarre delivery of his---in which strange words are elongated, while others are shortened---is thankfully nowhere in evidence in GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, and Pacino brings an additional energy and cockiness to the role that suits his character perfectly. Frankly, I just found it a relief to see a Pacino performance that recalled his great acting triumphs during the 1970s instead of the kind of hamminess that won him the Oscar in 1993.

GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS is a powerful film about the American Dream gone sour. Highly recommended.

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Summary: One of the Great Films of the 1990's
Review: Anybody looking for a break from CGI and what passes for cinematic entertainment these days should check this one out. Anybody who appreciates great ensemble writing and crisp dialogue will love "Glengarry Glen Ross". It is quite an achievement for a film that manages to engender sympathy for land parcel salesmen. Director James Foley has gathered a great ensemble cast here and there is not a bad performance in the bunch. Special citation has to go Alec Baldwin in his one scene as the motivational speaker that Mitch and Murray sent to the office to rally the troops. If Oscars are given out for one scene then Baldwin should have received one. Two lines that Baldwin delivers say it all; "Coffee is for closers" and "Hit the bricks". Jack Lemmon as Shelley gives, what I feel, is the best performance of his career. The desperation of his character is visceral. Whether he is frantically making phone calls to dead-end leads or knocking on the door in the rain on a potential sale that goes nowhere you can deeply feel the pathos of his character. On a real trivial note, for those who haven't seen this film, Lemmon's character was the inspiration for the Gil character on "The Simpsons". Not to diminish the work done by the remainder of the cast (Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Alan Arkin, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce) but I could go on infinatum as to how good this cast is. This film almost makes you pause when you receive an unsolicited phone call from a salesman. Let me emphasize, almost.

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Summary: Al Pacino stunk in "Scent of a Woman"
Review: And he won an Oscar for it. The same year, he was nominated for supporting actor in "Glengarry Glen Ross." I believe that this is where the brilliant actor's career took a fatal turn.

In the 70s, the man who gave such subtle, powerful performances in classics like "The Godfather" (I and II), "Serpico," "Dog Day Afternoon," "And Justice for All" was an acting dynamo. Then in the 80s he cooled off a bit and was reborn in interesting roles in "Sea of Love," and even "Dick Tracy."

But in my mind he reinvented himself the year "Glengarry" and "Scent of a Woman" came out, because his nuanced performance in this movie as an effortlessly talented salesman was pure genius. Scent of a Woman however was pure crap. He yelled a lot and was rewarded for it. And he's been yelling ever since. We let Al Pacino down, not the other way around, for not celebrating his role in "Glengarry" nearly enough. That's my theory.

Oh, also this movie is just plain excellent in every way. Kevin Spacey, Alec Baldwin, Alan Arkin, Ed Harris, Jonathan Pryce and the justly celebrated Jack Lemmon show exactly what acting is all about in this movie. And Pacino takes the cake.