The Big Short (Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, and Steve Carell)

[progressoid]

Here's a movie that is sure to make my blood pressure rise.

Based on the 2010 book of the same name by Michael Lewis, about the Financial crisis of 2007–2010 by the build-up of the housing and credit bubble. Starring Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, and Steve Carell. Scheduled to be released on December 11, 2015.

[geardaddy]

1. I'd watch that.

I like movies that piss me off.

[catchnrelease]

2. Wow

That's quite a cast! Movies seem to get the attention of the average person more than books, articles, speeches etc. I wonder if it exposes all of that underhanded stuff, if there will be any repercussions.....nah. There will probably be another Transformer movie out at the same time and that will be that.

I would definitely like to see this one.

[Schema Thing]

3. Holy Craps Y'all, this looks good!

[yodermon]

4. Steve Carell, damn

some serious acting chops there

[progressoid]

7. And a completely different look for Bale from American Hustle

[longship]

8. Playing Steve "fucking" Eisman!

Steve Eisman, who is the main character in the book. He is the one who pierced the veil and stared the doomsday machine in its face. Thanks to some help, from others.

And Mike Burry, the one eyed physician who, as an amateur, was making a killing on Wall Street after midnight, but managed to piss off all his investors after making them seriously big bucks.

The book is seriously good. Lewis delivers.

Eisman is the star of the book. Not sure about the flick. As usual, Hollywood fucks everything up. Apparently facts do not mean anything to them.

I still plan on watching this one. I will probably end up throwing my popcorn at the screen in disgust.

The book is the best description of what a synthetic collateralized debt obligation is, (a synthetic CDO), a credit default swap (CDS), and why the doomsday machine was inevitable. As Eisman said, there is zero percent chance that these bonds won't zero. (Sorry about the double negative, but that's the way he put it.)

Also from Eisman, "I am short your product." (Or something to that effect.)

Great book! Cannot wait for the film. But I expect Hollywood to utterly fuck it up.

[Joe Chi Minh]

5. Lewis' books are brilliant. The first few pages of Liar's Poker read

like a Spaghetti Western - with a brilliant finale in which the king-pin trader .. well I won't spoil it...

I believe it's in The Big Short that there is a surreal scene in which Lewis and another maverick, a more truculent, picaresque character, are sitting on the steps of a cathedral, watching people walking by, who, unlike them, haven't a clue that an extraordinary scam has just been accepted as policy by their bank, whereby the risk involved in derivatives will be transferred from the bank to the stockholders - eventually leading to an economic Armageddon, which I believe has still not worked it way through yet. I think I've got that right, but money matter are arcana to me.

Funny thing is those young turks are mostly PhDs. People don't generally get to live in big houses in nice, leafy suburbs by being Mr Nice Guy. Worldly wisdom and affluence have a distinct affinity. Unsurprisingly, you Americans seem more aware of this than we Brits. We still tend to subliminally assume that money equals respectability and poverty disreputability. Unsurprising, perhaps, as your economic right wing are not too subtle about being 'red in to tooth and claw'. Thatcher was a particularly crass exception, almost entirely a creation of Murdoch and the MSM. A true puppet of the most venal and corrupt crypto-fascist elements in the Tory Establishment, who'd had to keep their heads down for a while, after WWII. But those Tory 'backwoodsmen' hadn't gone away. On the contrary; they were always beavering away in the background, corrupting the national discourse via the media with jokes about the inefficiency of British Rail (and other nationalized utilities) - always underfunded, yet light years ahead today's privatized scams.

[gregcrawford]

6. A brilliant cast...

and a story that has been successfully obfuscated by swine like Blankfein, Dimon, et al. with the help of captive media. And they threw Madoff to the wolves so they could make a clean getaway. I SOOO want to see a perp walk parade down Wall Street, and Goldman Sachs razed to the ground.