Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: The Big Short (2015)

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Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 01-06-2016, 09:49 PM:

A group of investors identify a way to cash in on the 2008 economic collapse, but at the same time must deal with the moral issues raised by their actions. At Pacific's Grove Cinemas, Hollywood, California.

*****

According to this movie and the book it was based on, the great recession of the mid 2000s didn’t happen because bankers were evil or greedy, it happened because they were stupid. For years, they had bundled and sold sketchy adjustable-rate mortgages into bonds and other financial instruments that they themselves barely understood, and then when the rates adjusted upwards and people stopped making their mortgage payments, the bonds collapsed and took the world economy with them. But prior to this, an eccentric financial manager named Michael Burry realized what was going to happen and convinced the banks to sell him what are called “credit default swaps”, in essence, betting the banks that their bonds were worthless, a practice called “shorting”. When others saw what he was doing they got in on the action, and after some tense months cleaned up to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, but then had to face the fact that they made a fortune on everyday Americans losing their jobs, homes, and life savings.

The Big Short, the film based on all of this, is a very complex picture that will require no small effort to follow, but I thought it was the best movie i've seen in months. The filmmakers know that they are dealing with hard to understand issues so they provide helpful and humorous on-screen definitions, as well as various celebrities explaining financial complexities (including beautiful Margot Robbie sitting in a bubble bath). The performances are all great, especially Steve Carrell as a skeptical investor with a guilty conscience who gets in on the scheme in part to punish the bankers he sees as criminally stupid. It’s a pretty fast paced and rapidly edited picture, and there’s no checking your brain at the door on this one, but if you keep up you’ll be entertained by the movie and astonished at what it reveals about the American banking system and the people who run it.

Posted by Brian D. Whitish (Member # 825) on 01-07-2016, 01:20 PM:

I loved it as well. Very well done. It really surprised me. Liked it almost as much as Spotlight.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 01-09-2016, 10:59 PM:

I hated this movie, I felt like I was being talked down to. Dragging some relatives to this over the Christmas holiday period, I so wanted to apologize to them for picking and inflicting them to this, they didn't care for it either.

Posted by Frank Cox (Member # 6258) on 01-14-2016, 04:17 PM:

Interesting and informative to watch. I learned quite a bit about how this stuff works.

It's certainly a different kind of movie from the sort of thing that I usually play so it's going to be interesting to see who shows up to watch it.

Posted by Dave Bird (Member # 490) on 01-14-2016, 10:12 PM:

The way I always understood it from the book was that in the end the banks were actually using these instruments they were selling to Burry (and a few others smart enough to buy them) to raise cash to simply keep these bad loans solvent, while creating more out of thin air. But I haven't seen the film yet. I got the impression that although Burry et al knew it would all collapse, and they felt bad about that, there was nothing they could do and in fact, by buying these "default swaps" actually delayed the inevitable crash for a while.

Posted by Buck Wilson (Member # 5885) on 01-15-2016, 02:53 AM:

Saw this at the (Freshly purchased by AMC) Legends 14 in Kansas City. Nice theater. Totally dead. I saw 2 employees and 2 customers total. I was #5.

Movie was a very nice watch! I loved the style. I learned some things. Carell was fantastic as usual. Bale was downright creepy which was the intent I suppose. Pitt did very well. Didn't even recognize Gosling until after the movie! There was lots of hunks.

Missed the first few minutes of the movie because I'm "That guy" unfortunately.

Posted by Matt Russell (Member # 8989) on 01-24-2016, 10:31 AM:

As a fan of Adam McKay's previous work (Step Brothers, the original Anchorman, and The Other Guys are three of my favorite comedies, at least from this decade), I was looking forward to The Big Short because I wanted to see how McKay could depart from his standard gross-out comedies, and neither the less, Big Short proves that McKay is fully capable of not just comedies, but drama as well. He does a great job at taking what was such a serious crisis in the financial world. However, he uses humor in the most unexpected ways in the movie, for example, using actress Margot Robbie and singer Selena Gomez to help explain financial terms in a more "accessible" way to the audience. It's unexpected, but brilliant at the same time. The performances are all great, Steve Carell and Christian Bale in particular stand out, but Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt also have pretty memorable performances. I really enjoyed how the story singled out these characters and brought a lot of development to it. I wasn't that interested in some of the characters' side-stories, but they didn't overshadow the movie's story nor pace. Overall, The Big Short is a fantastic movie for those interested in what goes on in the financial world. It's dark, humorous, and almost intense, and thus I give props to Adam McKay for making one of the most interesting (concept wise) movies in recent years.
Film: 3 and a half out of 4 stars
Presentation: 3 out of 4 stars (Lots of grain on screen as people have mentioned before, it's not annoying, but it certainly doesn't look that good on a big and digital screen.)