"Trading Places" Could Run for President

I'm not sure how I had never seen "Trading Places" before, the classic Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd comedy about commodity trading. Having come out in 1983, it's now old enough to run for president.

IT'S SO GOOD. First we follow Dan Aykroyd's character's morning, as he gets ready for work and how work goes for him. It's a pretty familiar world for the richest Americans. After meeting Eddie Murphy's character briefly, we get the first piece of action that sets in motion the events: a sadly familiar misunderstanding made by a rich white man at the expense of an innocent black man.

Eventually the extremely rich white brothers hatch their bet---that if they were to force the roles to be different, Eddie Murphy would do just as good at Aykroid's job as Aykroyd, while Dan would resort to crime if left for nothing on the street---and the rest is film history.

This is definitely a canon Eddie Murphy movie, especially when his Billy Ray starts to crush it as a commodities trader. The whole movie is executed with a grand precision that I found...invigorating?

I'm not sure how to describe it. We waited a while to watch it after finding it on Netflix, and that was probably my doing. I'm not sure if I was reluctant because I didn't want to be disappointed. I'd heard that it was fantastic, but lately things people say about movies aren't quite doing it for me...maybe it's the people I work with.

But IT'S SO GOOD.

Corrie and I were talking about how this movie, made thirty-five years ago, is a perfect movie for our time. It's got a pair of super-rich a-holes playing with commoners for their own amusement, and getting it in the end. Comeuppance in a stroke of complicated Wall St shenanigans.

Also, nobody ever told me that Jamie Lee Curtis, older than in Halloween (1978) yet younger than in Blue Steel (1989), got bare-chested multiple times in "Trading Places." Besides her natural ability to be funny, smart, sexy, and above all else, commanding of the camera, she showed off her body's natural gifts.

If you have never had the pleasure of seeing "Trading Spaces," make the time.