The Rundown: Let’s Cast The Hypothetical Movie About The GameStop Stonks Scandal

The Rundown is a weekly column that highlights some of the biggest, weirdest, and most notable events of the week in entertainment. The number of items could vary, as could the subject matter. It will not always make a ton of sense. Some items might not even be about entertainment, to be honest, or from this week. The important thing is that it’s Friday, and we are here to have some fun.

My knowledge of the stock market could fit inside a Dixie cup. Multiple people have explained short-selling to me multiple times and I still do not fully understand why or how it exists. I am not the person you should look to for answers about the GameStop/Reddit/Robinhood stonks situation, unless you are looking for someone to say something like “Hmm, this seems kind of hilarious.” If you want more helpful analysis, look here. I do not understand it and I do not particularly want to.

What do I understand, on the other hand, is formulaic Hollywood productions based loosely on real-life events. This is kind of my specialty, honestly, thanks to many years of watching movies on basic cable on rainy Saturdays. So while I cannot help you sort through your stock portfolio in the wake of various chaos-adjacent events that involve many arrows pointing in many different directions, I can help you dreamcast a movie based on all of it. It’s very useful. I have not wasted my life at all. Let’s do it.

Two notes before we begin:

Here we go:

The evil hedge fund CEO — Walton Goggins, obviously

The embattled-but-sweet CEO of a GameStop-type company whose name is something like Gamer Heaven — Michael Keaton, although an argument can be made that we should shoot for someone younger like a Nicholas Braun in full “Cousin Greg from Succession”-mode

The Reddit-type daytraders who moderate the forum where it all starts, which is called like HotStockTipz — Manny Jacinto and Jake Johnson, because I love them

The intrepid young finance reporter who won’t stop pursuing the story even as it goes all the way to the top — Zendaya, with her hair pulled back and a pencil stuck in there

The intrepid young finance reporter’s editor/mentor who is skeptical at first but later encourages her to keep chasing the story even as pressure from corporate forces puts his own job and/or life in danger — John David Washington, just being as principled and righteous as all hell

Some as-yet-undetermined character played by an unshaven Jonah Hill — Jonah Hill

The idealist lawyer who runs a small firm that is cluttered with papers and boxes but is secretly brilliant and leads the class action — Paul Giamatti, in his full flustered and rumpled glory, with a dress shirt on and a tie that is so loose it looks like a necklace and, for some reason, suspenders

The young associate at the lawyer’s firm who is a mousy research genius and also at one point at the beginning of the third act shows up to a fancy event in a strapless gown and no eyeglasses and suddenly everyone is like “I had no idea she was attractive!” even though she’s been played by Anna Kendrick the entire movie — Anna Kendrick, although Aubrey Plaza can work here, too

The Elon Musk-type billionaire who tweets too much — James Wolk, who already played an Elon Musk-type in Billions and was killed off when he blew himself up in his own spaceship, which I point out here because it is still very funny to me

The cable news anchor who reports on all of this in little snippets the audience only sees over the shoulders of other characters who have it on in the background — Jay Jackson, in part because he plays an anchor or reporter in everything and in part so I can shout “That’s Perd Hapley from Parks and Recreation!” every time he shows up, every time I watch, to the great annoyance of everyone I know

The sleazy senator who is in the pocket of Wall Street — Eric Roberts, because no one does sleazy authority figures better, with the possible exception of Joaquim de Almeida

The aide to the sleazy senator who realizes he’s on the wrong side of history after a rousing speech by the young lawyer who he also develops a thing for — Zac Efron, mostly so I can remind you how much I loved his eco-travel show

The good senator — Salma Hayek, just giving passionate speeches during Senate hearings and saying stuff like “The people deserve answers!”

The President of the United States of America — Angela Bassett, because more movies should feature Angela Bassett as the president and if I’m the one putting together the cast of this sucker then I’m going to get the ball rolling

I look forward to watching this movie 700 times on TNT in the next decade, preferably in a mini-marathon with The Accountant.

Larry King passed away. That stinks. Larry King was an institution on television. He was on television as long as I’ve had a television. He was extremely on television, too, in a way very few people have been or will be. Think about it this way: Larry King was on television so long that it’s hard to remember a time before there were jokes about Larry King being on television a long time. Losing him and Alex Trebek and Regis Philbin in the span of a year feels like the universe turning a page in a very harsh and unwelcome way. Also, his real name was Larry Ziegler and he just up and decided one day to go by Larry King. Larry King was such a cultural institution that we did not stop and find it hilarious that there was a person who changed his name to “Larry King.” That is not nothing. Not even close.

He did a lot in that time on television. He interviewed presidents and world leaders and movie stars and asked them whatever questions he wanted to, because he was Larry King. He was also deeply weird in a way not enough people are anymore. He had Kermit and Miss Piggy on his show and asked them about their hypothetical offspring. He did a hedgehog impression while interviewing Ben Schwartz — who voiced Sonic the Hedgehog in the live-action Sonic movie, a character and movie Larry King knew nothing about and did not bother to begin learning about until they were recording the interview — and it remains one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. (It’s in the video up there. Watch it.) He tweeted, a lot, or rather had someone tweet things for him. It was a modern extension of a column he wrote at USA Today for years and it was… hmm. I think the easiest way to explain Larry King’s tweets is to show you a few. The only thing you need to know is that context for them is unnecessary because context for them never existed.

— Larry King (@kingsthings) June 27, 2017

Kiev is a hell of a town.

— Larry King (@kingsthings) October 27, 2014

If you've seen one fireworks show you've seen them all.

— Larry King (@kingsthings) October 20, 2014

I don't know why, but I've never enjoyed drinking water.

— Larry King (@kingsthings) October 27, 2014

I can't remember the last time I went to a zoo.

— Larry King (@kingsthings) October 20, 2014

Just perfect. Larry King, in the ninth decade of his life, became an iconic poster. That’s not nothing either. And it’s even better when you realize how he tweeted:

When Larry King wants to tweet, he doesn’t log onto the Internet. He pops open the flip phone stored in the shirt pocket between his suspender straps and calls the number for a voicemail set up specifically for this purpose. Then he dictates a thought that will be picked up by an assistant and transcribed onto his @KingsThings Twitter account. And nearly 2.6 million followers are there to receive it.

People loved him, too. After his death, The Hollywood Reporter ran a kind of as-told-to piece from a longtime waitress at his favorite Los Angeles diner. Look at this collection of words.

On weekends, he would come in a little later but he always ate the same thing. I would have two bowls waiting on the table, filled with plain blueberries. He took coffee with heaps of ice — a lotta, lotta ice and always more ice than coffee — and 20 packets of Splenda with nonfat milk. He would even put Splenda on the blueberries. A long time ago, he used to throw the empty packets on the floor and we would get mad and say, “Larry! You can’t do that.”

Then he would eat matzo brei burned. Or lox and onions burned. Finally, one day I had to ask, “Larry, what is wrong with you Why do you eat all of this food burned” He said, “Gloria, I don’t like the taste of eggs so I only want to taste it burned.” He hated eggs.

Again, just fantastically weird in a charming way. He was Larry King all the time and he loved it. He was still going viral as recently as a few weeks ago. It feels weird to know that he won’t be doing that anymore, or sitting behind home plate during Dodgers playoff games, eating ice cream in the front row, just over the batter’s shoulder, always there, a part of the action even when he’s not directly involved in the action like he always was. It doesn’t feel right.

Rest in peace, King.

The trailer for Godzilla vs. Kong came out last weekend and I straight-up lost my mind about it. I pitched a post on it to my editor via text on a Sunday afternoon (sorry, Brett), and I had 1700 words up about it Monday morning. This may seem silly and unnecessary to you in a profoundly stupid way. This is fair. I have no great defense for any of it beyond pointing you to the GIF above, in which King Kong punches Godzilla square in his scaly jaw. This is so funny to me for reasons I cannot and will not articulate. It is so, so funny. BLAMMO. I would watch this movie if it were just two hours of these fictional beasts clobbering each other with haymakers. This is, for better and worse, what I am about.

Anyway, a few days later, just when I was ready to move on, this happened.