They went around perpetrating those leveraged buyouts, but in those days at least when you read about a company But looking back on the 1980's, I think the crass, vulgar yuppies seem kind of staid. We're supposed to find these guys repellent. Off into one of his tirades, the brokers in 'Boiler Room' roar and cheer and recite Michael Douglas's lines along with him. At one point the young traders go to a colleague's underfurnished mansion to sit around drinking beer and watching 'Wall Street' on video. With the young men braying for money straight out of 'Bonfire of the Vanities' and references to 'Glengarry Glen Ross.' 'Boiler Room' borrows so shamelessly from Oliver Stone's 'Wall They drive Ferraris, chomp cigars, deliver 'Greed is good'-type orations and generally connect every dot in the classic yuppie stereotype. The villains in the film snort coke and wear monstrous watches. Into the world of the Drexel Burnham Lambert-era stockjobbers.

'Boiler Room' is supposed to be set in the present, but its main effect is to transport you into the past, Himself working in a corrupt brokerage firm, I actually felt nostalgic for the yuppies of the 1980's. Watching the new movie 'Boiler Room,' about a young man who finds * The term 'Jamaican' refers to the origin of a pound of coffee beans, not an ounce of marijuana.įrom 'The Yuppie Handbook' (1984), by Marissa Piesman and Marilee Hartley.Īch generation of 25-year-old millionaires makes the previous one look good. * Remote control on a telephone answering machine can be used from anywhere in the world. * Olive oil should not be stored in the refrigerator. * Cross-country skis are narrower than downhill skis. * Starting salaries at some Wall Street law firms have now hit $50,000. * Akitas originated in Japan as temple guard dogs. * A VHS cassette will not fit into a Betamax. * A condominium has a board of managers, and a cooperative has a board of directors. * Squash rackets have longer handles than those used in racquetball. In the new economy, yuppies seem like the guardians of old-fashioned values.

The yuppie handbook 1984