Tag Archives: stock tips

Money Monster

Earlier this week we drove to East Hampton to see a show. Aside from the movies that we watch on television in Cabo, we don’t get to theatres until we’re either on the road to or from the Hamptons or while we’re here in the Hamptons. The show we decided to see was Money Monster directed by Jodie Foster and starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts.

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George Clooney has had a house on the corridor (between Cabo San Lucas and San José del Cabo) at a development called El Dorado for several years. The villa is on a compound shared by his best friend, Rande Gerber, and Rande’s beautiful wife, Cindy Crawford, and is known as Casamigos (which is the name of their tequila brand, by the way, and means “house of friends”). Both villas were recently sold in April of this year for $100 million to an unnamed Mexican billionaire (the infamous Carlos Slim, owner of Mexico’s cell and landline phone businesses, perhaps?). Ron has played tennis on the El Dorado courts next to George and his wife, Amal, and our good friend, Steve, was the head pro at this resort for many years and has played tennis and basketball numerous times with the star. We hope that they build in our area again as they have a reputation for their warmth, generosity and kindness when dealing with the local people and businesses (unlike many other celebrities).

In the movie, George Clooney plays a character named Lee Gates, a Wall Street guru who picks hot stocks as host of the television show Money Monster. Suddenly, during a live broadcast, disgruntled investor Kyle Budwell storms onto the set and takes Gates hostage. He tells Lee that he lost everything because of one of his stock tips. As Gates tries to plead with Kyle, he’s also using an earpiece to communicate with his longtime producer, Patty Fenn (played by Julia Roberts), in the control room. Together, they must figure out a way to defuse the situation and disarm the angry young man.

Hating Wall Street, greedy corporations and their corrupt executives have become popular themes in movies and this film certainly embraces all three. We found this film to be a bit predictable but definitely entertaining. I gave it 3 1/2 stars and Ron gave it 4 (out of 5).