The Big Short

2015

Directed by Adam McKay

Netflix says… Before the housing and credit bubble of 2007 triggers an international economic meltdown, a handful of financial outsiders sees the crash coming and bets against the big banks in a daring play that could reap them huge profits.

• So… I like this movie…
• But I’m not too sure how it wound up in my personal Top 100.
• It may have been one of those instances where I saw it, was really impressed afterward, then jumped onto Flickchart and immediately ranked it higher than I really intended.
• Here’s the thing… I’m watching it again and I’m remembering that there’s a lot of language in the dialogue that I just don’t understand.
• And that’s because I’m just not a finance guy.
• Yeah, I worked for a bank for a few years, but I was a nobody at that bank. I was a peon.
• I never could have risen above the level of teller because, while I’m good at the math, I’ve never been good with markets and bonds and mortgages.
• But here’s what I do like about this movie…
• The dialogue, while confusing at times, is snappy. It’s clever.
• And when things get too confusing or technical, they bring in the likes of Margot Robbie and Anthony Bourdain to explain in layman’s terms.
• That is brilliant.
• It’s incredibly entertaining to watch these bankers acting so incredibly arrogant before the housing market crashes.
• They believe that they’re on top of the world and nothing could possibly bring them down.
• And then it all collapsed.
• This was real life, people.
• It really happened.
• A few people saw it coming and they made a crap-ton of money based on the banks’ stupidity and arrogance.
• This affected people across the U.S. Maybe even the world.
• Because all of these economic structures are so interwoven and connected.
• Did it affect you?
• I was working for a bank when all of this went down. I watched it happen from the inside.
• Granted, I was the lowest man on the totem pole, but I was there.
• I didn’t have a mortgage. I didn’t have any kind of investment in any of this.
• I lost nothing. I gained nothing. Life, for me, just continued.
• But to see how people were able to take advantage of all that was going on through the course of this movie is kind of mind blowing.
• The question I have at the end of it all is… Did we learn anything from the collapse of the housing market?
• My next question… What’s next on the bubble? What’s gonna go under in the future? Student loans? Healthcare? Facebook?
• If nothing else, this simply highlights the rampant corruption that exists among big banks, businesses, and government.

Come back next week for something a little less realistic… The Avengers.