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(Both Bale and Carell are Golden Globe-nommed in the Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical category.)Įmerging as a progressive force in Hollywood, Brad Pitt portrays Ben Rickert, a financial whiz kid who comes out of retirement to assist two Colorado investor outliers seeking to become players in the Lower Manhattan scene. They include the real life characters: Michael Burry (Christian Bale), a quirky neurologist with a penchant for heavy metal music and research, whose due diligence discerns the oncoming onslaught opportunist Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), who also sees it all playing out and acts to cash in on the impending crash and Michael Baum (scene stealing Steve Carell), whose religious Jewish background prompts him to strive to do the ethical thing, encouraged by wife Cynthia, played by Marisa Tomei. While the so-called business press completely missed the story until this “shit” hit the fan, Short tells how a few investment outsiders stumbled upon the unfolding crisis and bet against it. Even more importantly, Short explains how the technical-sounding lingo of the so-called “masters of the universe” is deliberately intended to obfuscate, intimidate, and confuse ordinary folks, and to cover up the fact that Wall Street’s financial “products” are often worthless (or as several characters put it, “dog shit”). These droll vignettes help to demystify the highfalutin’ high finance verbiage and to make them more accessible to us mere mortals who don’t hold MBAs. For instance, to make technical terms such as CDOs (Collateralized Debt Obligations), tranches, etc., understandable they are described by a beautiful blonde swigging champagne in a bubble bath, celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain slicing and dicing seafood in a restaurant kitchen, and pop star Selena Gomez gambling in a casino.
#MICHAEL BAUM THE BIG SHORT MOVIE#
Leavening what many might find extremely dry, complicated subject matter with humor, McKay keeps the movie moving. Indeed, Short has been nominated for four Golden Globes, including for Best Motion Picture-Comedy or Musical,īased on actual events and characters, Short focuses on the fall of the housing market. Now the star-studded The Big Short enters the film fray, but with a twist: Co-writer/director Adam McKay, whose credits include Saturday Night Live and Will Ferrell flicks like 2004’s Anchorman, brings a comedic sensibility to financial sector shenanigans. McKay, however, balances the laughs with high-stakes drama and remorse.The 2008 financial collapse is the stuff of high drama, and cinema’s heavyweights have weighed in, depicting and documenting capitalism’s catastrophe with films such as Oliver Stone’s 2010 Wall Street sequel, 2011’s Margin Call, Costa-Gavras’ 2012 Capital, Martin Scorsese’s 2013 The Wolf of Wall Street and Charles Ferguson’s Best Documentary Oscar winner, 2010’s Inside Job. These and the snappy pace make for a lively, if slightly smug, crash course. If you’re sketchy on subprimes and CODs, cameo asides from Margot Robbie, Selena Gomez and Anthony Bourdain give dummies’ guides to the jargon. Meanwhile, two young up and comers also look to get in on the action with help from Brad Pitt’s beardy retired bankman. Vennett approaches hedge fund manager Michael Baum (Steve Carell) and convinces him to move on the potentially lucrative gamble. Narrating is Wall Street wolf Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) who happens upon a theory by brilliant hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale) the US housing market is set to pop and purchasing “shorts” against the market will equal a huge payday when it does. Michael Lewis’s 2010 book provides the real-life source material. The Big Short is the latest and snazziest of the sub-genre, and sees Anchorman director Adam McKay line up a fine all-star cast to remove the fourth wall and unveil the seediness of US banking to Oscar-nominated effect. Despite providing an autopsy of the machinations of the disaster, the dearth of human morals is still hard to swallow.
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Indeed in this country films like The Guarantee told of the shifty corporate goings on that led to financial ruin for the ordinary man.
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And if nothing else, kind reader, that is an achievement in itself.įOR all the Inside Jobs or Margin Calls Hollywood serves us, we’re still not done revising the calamitous economic crash of 10 years ago. Don’t ask me today what a collateralised debt obligation is but The Big Short gave me enough of a crash course during it to keep up.