The Big Short is an excellent movie. Who knew
a movie about the housing bubble could be hysterical? This movie is frenetic,
serious, comical, fast paced, irreverent, and brilliant in its scathing wit.
Michael Lewis wrote the book – it is calm and clearly incisive in explaining
how making bets against the housing industry seemed insane, and that banks were
too big to fail. The movie throws calm out the window and with a wide range of
characters played by Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt,
and more – we see math and economics come to life as certain individual
investors calculated the folly of the subprime mortgage industry.
This movie explores the folly of humans and the trust they
put into the financial system. The hubris of Wall Street and the billion dollar
money flow proved explosive. The movie explains some of the more esoteric terms
(collateralized debt obligations or synthetic CDOs) with examples by chef
Anthony Bourdain creating a new stew from three day old halibut, or Selena
Gomez at a Vegas gaming table. The movie is splashy and scary as we hear
Melissa Leo (an official at Standard & Poor’s) explain away ratings because
she can’t have the customer go down the street to Moody’s. As the Wall Street
Journal movie review says, “high dudgeon gives way to heightening disbelief,
followed by horrified belief, about rampant deception, self-deception, and the
system’s frailty.”
Great acting all around. Clever film making about a darn
tricky subject. The Big Short is smart and sharp, and as a movie
will not sell you short. Expect to see a lot of Oscar buzz on this one.
And unfortunately do we learn from our mistakes? Alas, money makes the world go
round, and up and down, and bubbles burst.
