Babe, I just want to thank you for giving me another chance. I promise I’ve planned something really special for Valentine’s Day.
No, it’s not a tour of the Tenement Museum! Not again.
This will just be a romantic night in with a bottle of vino, that truffle-salt popcorn you love, and a little something on streaming to get you going.
I’m talking secrets. Intrigue. Betrayal. A young Penn Badgley.
Oh, yeah. I rented Margin Call.
What do you mean, “What’s that?”
It’s only the most acclaimed 2011 ensemble drama about the 2008 financial crisis that made almost five and a half million dollars at the domestic box office. The Big Short can go fuck itself.
Shhh. Shut up. Picture this.
Your pint-sized dreamboat, Penn Badgley, at the club. His card? Black. His hair? Tousled. The music? Pulsing. A bead of sweat runs down his perfect Adam’s apple. His phone rings. Who is it?
It’s Hot Spock himself, Zach Quinto, beckoning Badgely back to the office to look at a bunch of spreadsheets.
Is it a quickie?
No.
For the rest of the night, prepare to watch this twink junior investment banker get absolutely railed by descriptions of math. You’ve seen Penn Badgely, but you’ve never seen him like this. He’s looking confused in the background of meetings. He’s looking despondent in the background of meetings. He’s looking down from the roof between meetings, contemplating whether it would be better to just jump–
Oh.
I thought you liked Penn Badgley. I guess I was projecting.
Okay, new plan. How about a V-Day foursome with Paul Bettany and Stanley Tucci? Your Albino King and your Pasta Daddy? Are you as al dente as I am?
Perfect.
So, in Margin Call, “The Tooch” is head of Risk Management before he gets fired in the first five minutes. Yeah, faster than you can say “risotto.” No, he’s gone for most of the runtime.
And your pale English rose, Bettany, has to find him.
Yes, just like Sleepless in Seattle!
Only, instead of calling into a whimsical radio show, he’s chain-smoking, flop-sweating, and yelling into his cell phone.
But it’s all worth it when these stubbly hunks are sitting thigh-to-unshowered-thigh on the stoop of Tucci’s Brooklyn brownstone to contemplate trading their integrity for fat severance packages.
And who’s sitting in the car like a lapdog watching them liquidate their positions?
Penn Badgley.
Mmmfff. That’s the sizzle! That’s the sauce, babe. That’s Margin Call.
I don’t understand what your problem is here! This cast is a murderer’s row of panty-droppers. Tucci. Badgely. Quinto. Bettany. Aasif Fucking Mandvi. That smug guy from The Mentalist. You know, the one who looks like an expensive lion?
Simon Baker! Thank you.
Baby, I’m trying to give you Simon Baker in his prime: shirtless, bronzed, leaning over the office men’s room sink to take a whore’s bath because he’s been planning the financial devastation of the American people since 2 AM. His biceps ripple like the impending consequences of his actions.
Suddenly, from one of the stalls, we hear it. Muffled, yet alluring sobs. Someone else is in here.
The door opens.
And who’s shivering like a sexy chihuahua as he tries to avoid the ego-annihilating shame of crying in front of his boss who’s about to fire him, even though he has the tight, nubile body of a Greco-Roman faun?
Oh god, yes. It’s Penn Badgley.
Wow. Now, that was just hurtful.
And it’s fucking unfair to say that I have “increasingly strange fixations” and “a pathological inability to listen.” (Did you go back to Dr. Manoukian without me?) I’ve been paying rapt attention to the movies you’ve picked, and the pattern couldn’t be clearer. Pretty Woman. Fifty Shades of Grey. Disclosure. Honey. If you’d just own your kink for white-collar bureaucracy and contract negotiation, we’d both be a lot happier.
By the way, speaking of Disclosure, if you got off on Demi Moore seducing Michael Douglas in the office, you’ll love seeing her get bent over a desk by Jeremy “The Iron Man” Irons.
You know. Figuratively.
When he forces her to resign as Chief Risk Management Officer.
And take the blame for the firm’s over-leveraged position.
In Margin Call.
Babe. Where are you going?
Babe?
Oh my. That is a girthy stack of forms. Let’s take a look.
Are these divorce papers?
I see what’s going on here.
Fuck. Fuck that’s hot.
All this office talk has gotten you panting, and now you want to role play.
Well, hand me that ballpoint pen, and let’s see where this goes, you minx.
But I get to be Penn Badgley.