Sunday, March 26, 2017

The Big Short

Very good. Funny, engaging, easy enough to follow, and lit with anger at the many systemic failures that allowed the financial crisis to develop and the impact it had. The various men (they're nearly all men) in suits all come to life - the protagonists we follow who spot the bubble, and the hissable others with whom they interact as they discover how complex, out of control and ultimately fraudulent the whole edifice is - and the direct-to-camera asides and celebrity explanations (Margot Robbie in a bubble bath on sub-prime mortgages and 'shorting', Anthony Bourdain in the kitchen on collateralized debt obligations, Richard Thaler and Selena Gomez at a casino on synthetic CDOs) are witty and effective.