Free Republic

At a packed screening of Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps at the weekend, any thoughts of New York being a town chastened by the global financial meltdown of 2008 went out of the window. For a start, the movie theatre was turning people away, it was so crowded (this, despite the film having endless problems getting a release date; the script was reportedly re-written umpteen times and producers were rumoured to be having dreadful trouble pleasing test audiences). The film opened at number 1 at the box office and made $19million despite less than enthusiastic reviews. “It’s somewhat unique...

Twenty-three years ago in Wall Street, Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas created a memorable character, Gordon Gekko, who symbolized everything that was wrong about American business. Gekko begins by making his famous case for greed, which has since entered the vernacular: "greed is good. Greed works, greed is right. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed in all its forms, greed for life, money, love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind. . ." The film then reveals the wages of greed. Gekko takes over an airline by sweet-talking the union and some...

The title is from a song by Warren Zevon, I’d always heard the line as a telegram from a banana republic in crisis, and that the whole line was, “Send lawyers, guns and money; all Hell has broken loose.” Still, this is a column about lawyers that is favorable, and kind. This morning, a lawyer I’ve known all my life invited me to go to the beginning of the session of the Superior Court in Sylva, the seat of Jackson County. (For those unfamiliar with that town in the Blue Ridge Mountains, many of the late scenes in “My Fellow...