**Margin Call **may not yet have quite the buzz of other Oscar hopefuls, but make no mistake, this is a film to be taken very seriously indeed. But just to prove that it's not all men (and women) panicking on the top floors of big banks, this clip demonstrates that it's also got all the self-awareness of Skynet on Judgment Day.
It's only short but we thought it might tickle you as much as it did us. Yes, that is someone asking* *Spock if he's a rocket scientist. Like, durrr.
To put the clip into context, Zachary Quinto is the bank's gun analyst who spots a potential catastrophic problem on the bank's balance sheet. Quickly shepherded through the upper echelons of the corporation to explain his discovery, he's faced with increasing levels of incomprehension and sang-froid. Turns out he's on board The Titanic and the captain has already left the wheelhouse.
Part drama, part thriller, J. C. Chandor's debut takes a forensic eye to the seismic events that led up to the global financial meltdown of 2008. Those 36 hours are viewed from the inside of a fictional Wall Street bank (loosely based on Lehman Brothers) with a trading floor's worth of acting talent scalpelling the icily self-serving logic that brought capitalism to the edge of collapse. This is the film Wall Street 2 should have been.
With Quinto, Jeremy Irons, Demi Moore, Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Simon Baker and Stanley Tucci all strutting their funky stuff, Margin Call is definitely one to mark down for the New Year. It's out on January 13.