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« Cell Phones of the Future Past | Main | Michael Berube joins Crooked Timber » Monday, March 19, 2007Early cell phonesI wanted to note that one of those paleolithic cell phones, much like the ones pictured in Josh's post below, appears prominently in the 1987 movie "Wall Street," starring Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen, pictured here in a still from the film. Douglas plays the wealthy, rapacious, and wonderfully named magnate Gorgon Gekko -- he's a lizard! -- and utters the famous line "Greed is good." At one point Gekko is seen strolling a magnificent beach in linen pants, if memory serves, and holding a cell phone, probably worth only a little less than $3,995, that is roughly the size of a hardcover book. Seriously, it's amazing. It makes you think of one of these field phones from World War II. "We've got a man down here. Send in a medic." Parenthetically, cell phones should no longer be called cell phones because they are now digital and don't use cellular technology, but try telling that to the whole country. Besides, if you say "Call me on my mobile" you sound like a wanna-be Brit. Posted by Evan Hughes at 06:06 PM
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