Speaking of the horrors of the Reagan administration… 

In the 1980s, Reagan oversaw massive deregulation across most industries, and his policies gave rise to a powerfully rich subculture of yuppies who got rich gutting businesses, embraced greed, and produced nothing more for the world than the carbon dioxide they breathed out. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas, who won an Oscar for the role), the central demon of Stone’s “Wall Street,” is the ultimate semi-deity for that yuppie class, representing the slick anti-cool of stock traders and empty wealth. The young Bud (Charlie Sheen) is seduced by Gordon’s smooth talk and moneyed-up lifestyle, but soon learns how his business is useless and unethical. 

Eventually, Bud asks Gordon how much money is enough. “It’s never enough,” he says. Accruing wealth is a game, and the more money you get, the more money you get, period. “Wall Street” not only points out the deep corruption in stock-based systems, but how extreme wealth is bad for the brain. Rich people, Stone implies, are isolated, weird, and terrible, convinced that their bad ideas are good and that their personal intestinal gases smell rosy. (If you want a good interrogation of the Reagan era, watch “Wall Street” and “RoboCop” back-to-back.)