Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)

[Dave (imported)]

I decided to watch an old movie last night. In the past week, my house is being painted (inside) and I had to empty my bookcases and sitting on one shelf was Tom Wolf's Bonfire of the Vanities. The movie was free in my cable and I decided to watch it a second time (It's been 20 years)

There was a time in the 1980's when the men who reigned on Wall Street were considered The Masters of the Universe. And Tom Wolfe wrote a dandy and very wicked book about one Sherman McCoy (Tom Hanks) who in a stupid act with his mistress (Melanie Griffith) takes a wrong exit and runs over a Black teenager. Well, a has-been author (Bruce Willis) gets his hands on the story and a rather outspoken Black reverend takes up the case ... And entertaining book that was made into an entertaining movie but ended up a big-budget bomb. The cognoscenti didn't like movie. The cognoscenti liked the book because "who reads Tom Wolfe" anyway?"

The title comes from Ecclesiastes opening line "Vanity of Vanities, all is vanity" and it comes from the practice in medieval times of burning materials that were sinful in a bonfire.