The Big Short

Let me first say that I know next to nothing about big banking terms or the housing market and unless that knowledge impacts a major life decision, I don’t care to learn much about it.  The filmmakers behind The Big Short realize that many people feel as I do, and they work with it.  They take what is a very dry subject and make a fun and quirky movie about it. That being said, I apologize in advance if I fudge on terms and lingo ahead.

This movie could have easily just been a bunch of white guys in suits getting worked up about numbers and big bank terms.  It kind of is… but the film has a charm and charisma all its own that makes it less pretentious.  It breaks the fourth wall multiple times, sometimes telling us just how close to the truth the last scene was or wasn’t.

When the film gets to a moment where they need us to understand some big banking term, they break it down in with a fun, easy to understand example, often with Jenga or a celebrity guest like Selena Gomez.  For example, when talking about CDO’s, they bring in chef Anthony Bourdain.  He explains that he’s got old halibut that didn’t sell on Friday, so instead of counting his losses and tossing it out, he just drops it in a seafood stew for Sunday.  And that’s what a CDO is made of some new stuff, but also some old stinky fish no one wanted.  Look, I learned something!

Anyway, The Big Short is about the guys who see the big mortgage crisis that hit the mid 2000s coming years before it happened.  There is Michael Burry (Christian Bale), a man much better with numbers than with people who sees it first.  Without his investor’s consent, he bets, or shorts, against multiple big banks, who think what he’s doing is dumb and crazy.  The banks gladly make the deals with Burry, thinking they’ve got the advantage.  When other investment firms understand what Burry has done, they take out shorts as well.  There is a firm run by Mark Baum (Steve Carrell) who prides themselves on being very cynical.  Then there is Charlie (John Marago) and Jamie (Finn Wittrock), two young men who started a firm in a garage and turned $10,000 into 30 million.  They catch wind of the shorts against the banks, ask their banking guru friend Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) for help and advice and go in on it as well.  

The common American people affected by the housing crisis are not forgotten in The Big Short, though they are not in the spotlight.  One scene shows a man who rents a house very concerned to learn that is landlord has not been paying the mortgage when he has been dutifully paying the rent.  Later in the film, we see the same man and his family living out of car.  I’m sure the jackass who didn’t pay the mortgages was doing fine.  Good job, America.

Christian Bale has earned an Oscar nomination in his supporting role as Michael Burry.  Michael is a unique character.  He works at his finance firm in old ill fitting t-shirts, sandals and annoyingly blares metal rock in his office as if he were listening to Mozart.  He has a very awkward demeanor, he is obviously better with numbers than with people.  Perhaps that’s why he would be the first bold enough to bet against the whole American economy and how he can stand so firm against his decision.  Bale makes this character very believable, but not very endearing.  

The Big Short is nominated for a total of five Academy Awards.  Along with Bale’s nomination, they include best adapted screenplay, best editing and best editing.  Adam McKay picks up his first nomination as a director.  Depending on how the Academy votes, I can see The Big Short taking the award for editing.  The quirkiness goes a long way to make the film much more enjoyable.

Perhaps the most powerful comparison The Big Short makes, is one of its most subtle.  We learn that Mark’s brother committed suicide.  He saw the signs but didn’t do much about it.  Maybe he was in denial or just hoped he would get over it.  But when the worst happens and you see it coming but do nothing to prevent it, nothing can make you feel more terrible and irresponsible.  If only Wall Street’s big bankers of yester decade felt as moral and remorseful as Mark does in this film.  

“We live in an era of fraud in America.  Not just in banking, but in government, education, religion, food.  Even baseball…”

Summer Movies: Part III

Pacific Rim

This may have been the most fun I’ll have at the movies this summer.  In the moment, Pacific Rim is awesome.  Giant robots fighting giant alien dinosaur looking things is as epic as it sounds.  This feels like someone took a kid’s daydream from Power Rangers and Godzilla, amped it all up into one visually fantastic ride.

From what I gathered, a portal to another world or universe opened at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and Kaijus (the giant dino-monster things) came out and started attacking humanity.  In order to fight the Kaiju, the human race has come together to build giant robots manned by at least two compatible individuals.  Sure, making giant fighting robots may not seem like the most practical idea, but it is the most entertaining.  As more and more fearsome kaiju are passing through the portal, a drift pilot with a tragic past may need to get back into a robot and save the world.  It sound ridiculous, but in the moment, you eat that shit up.

Oh, and along with all that is a very fun side-plot: Dr Newton Geiszler, a scientist obsessed with the Kaiju (wonderfully played by Charlie Day), has figured out how to drift with one.  Sorry, drifting basically means two beings connecting and sharing a brain.  It’s how pilots make the giant robots move and it’s how Geiszler learns vital information about the Kaiju.  Day’s character and his antics are a very fun slice of comic relief and he makes a scientist seem like a rockstar.

Pacific Rim is one of those films you really have to relax and let all your inner inhibitions go.  It is so far fetched, with some major glaring plot holes, but just let it go and you will have so much fun.  I mean, you’re watching giant robots fight giant alien-dinosaurs and it’s all so artistically beautiful.  I loved how the Kaiju seem to have glowing properties, it all flows well with the setting.  I sense Pacific Rim could be up for the visual effects and art direction awards come Oscar season.

The Wolverine

If you ask an average kid to name their favorite X-Men character, odds are it’s Wolverine.  Not that he is the best, lets not open up that huge nerd-fueled debate, but as far as the movies are concerned, he gets the most screentime and one of the best actors.  Here, Hugh Jackman is back in his title role, but not with any other familiar faces, yet, it works.

The film starts with Logan (aka The Wolverine) held captive by the Japanese during the end of WWII, near Navasaki.  As sirens wail, Logan protects a young soldier, Yashida from the nuclear blast.  Seeing Logan’s healing power, Yashida spends his life obsessed with the idea of immortality.  In the present, Yashida is a wealthy head of Japan’s biggest tech company and on his deathbed. Yukio (Rila Fukushima) brings Logan to Japan, claiming to want a last goodbye, but Yashida is really seeking a way to take Logan’s immortality and use it himself.  However, when Yashida dies, an internal power struggle send thugs after his granddaughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto).  Logan must protect her, even as his healing powers fade.

Last June, I said that I enjoyed Iron Man 3 because it was so character driven, the same goes for The Wolverine.  Superhero movies that are more than CRASH, BOOM, PUNCH are the best.  While we still get a lot of action and fighting, there is enough look at Logan as a tortured, lonely person that keeps me on board, wondering what will motivate him next.

What I didn’t expect, was a strong martial arts film.  With the majority of the film set in Japan, we get lots of samurai swords and ninjas running along the rooftops, they seem to blend well with Logan’s brash claws.  Logan is always an outsider, this just seems to attenuate?? it.  And thankfully, the girls can kick ass just as well as the guys.

And a last word of warning, if you’re one of those who bolts out of the theater once the credits start, oh, you’re missing one of the biggest X-Men treats yet!

The Way, Way Back

I walked into this film blind, and by choice.  All I knew was that this was by the same people and studio who made Little Miss Sunshine, one of my all-time favorite movies.  Once again, they led me down a wonderful path.

The Way, Way Back is many things.  It’s part coming of age story, part restrained family drama, set within a suck-tastic summer story with an awkward teenage protagonist.  Duncan (Liam James) is fourteen years old, about to spend a summer with his mom (Toni Collete) and her boyfriend Trent (Steve Carell) at Trent’s beach summer home.  It’s a quiet little beach town that adults think kids can have fun at, but really, it’s just spring break for the adults.  While they drink and party with the other adults, the kids are often alone, and unless they have a bunch of friends, brooding over what a raw deal they’ve got.

Eventually, Duncan escapes to the local water park and becomes an employee.  This becomes his the only place he is happy and a double life.  Though his mom asks, he never tells her where he spends his time, and she doesn’t pry.  As Duncan gets more involved at the park, and comes out of his shell there thanks to the sarcastic park manager, Owen (Sam Rockwell), things get messy back at the beach house.

From the very first scene, we are drawn in and taking sides.  As they’re driving to the beach town, Trent asks Duncan, as the rest of the passengers are sound asleep, how he rates himself on a scale of 1-10.  Duncan timidly gives himself a six, while Trent harshly dubs Duncan a three.  Who tells that to a kid?  Trent tries to make it sound like Duncan should try to improve his number over the summer, but we see Trent just as Duncan does, an asshole who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

I doubt this will gain much recognition during Oscar season, it doesn’t have the level of heart and charisma that Little Miss Sunshine did.  However, it is very good, heartfelt, fun and one of my favorite films of the summer.  Allison Janney put on my favorite performance of the summer as meddling, middle aged lush next door, and I look forward to Liam James’ career.  Anyone who can remember how awful it was to be fourteen can identify with Duncan, and wish they had such a great summer job.

Little Miss Sunshine

This is my “newest favorite movie.”  By that, I mean than no movie in the past three (going on four) years has been as great as this.  As I explained to my husband earlier, Raiders of the Lost Ark is still my all time favorite, but if I were to meet a physical embodiment of the film, I would high-five Indiana Jones and give the yellow VW from Little Miss Sunshine a great big hug.  That’s just how they differ in my heart.

Little Miss Sunshine is the story of a modern family consisting of a mom Sheryl (Toni Collette), dad Richard (Greg Kinnear), brother Dwayne (Paul Dano), grandpa (Alan Arkin), little Olive (Abigail Breslin) and Uncle Frank (Steve Carell).  Of course there’s more to them than that, they all have their vices.  Except for little Olive, who’s just gotten word that she’s in the running for Little Miss Sunshine in California.  To see her dreams come true, her whole family will drive in a yellow VW buss for eight hundred miles.

A family road trip can be a defining moment in someone’s life, huh?  Well, not everyone can relate to having three generations in one vehicle.  My family drives from Indiana to Florida every winter, sometimes with grandma.  Being the oldest of three, I sometimes felt that I was in the gay uncle position (feeling out of place for a while, then egging on needless conversations for entertainment and offering my advice to the younger ones).  But in the end, it’s not always about the destination, but what we learned and lived through on the way.

The nucleus of this story is little Olive.  She’s so cute, sweet and innocent, everyone wants to protect her.  But the bitter truth is there’s only so much they can do.  She’s exposed to beauty pageants by her aunt (which is before the film ever begins).  Her grandpa shows her “these moves” and constantly swears.  Even when her parents think they’re doing and saying the right things, little Olive can pick up signals, (“Why is everyone upset?”).  One of the great things about this film is the fact that we will always expose kids to really fucked up things (not on purpose, of course), but as long as we keep that family unit and support the youngest generation, they’ll probably turn out all right.  With luck, they might not realize just how messed up everything was around them until they’re older.

Now, Little Miss Sunshine was given the R rating, making it dreadful to parents and more enticing to their children.  Please, if you were to cut out all but one of the fucks this would be PG-13.  In fact, I encourage this to be a family time movie.  I don’t mean round up your five year old and send them to pre-school with their new favorite phrase, “God damn fucking chicken!”  Here’s a good rule of thumb that may open the eyes of a few parents: if you’ve ever let your child watch South Park or anything from the Family Guy realm, Little Miss Sunshine is perfectly fine.  The sexual references in either of those cartoons are way more explicit than Grandpa saying he had “second degree burns on his Johnson.”  As for the unedited fucks, please, they’re barely edited out of those cartoons and your kids can figure out what they are (word gets around schools, by age eight or so).  The worst thing is a little thrill from hearing that famous word so clear.

At the Oscars Little Miss Sunshine was nominated for four awards and took home two.  It was beat out for best picture and Abigail Breslin’s nomination for best supporting actress, but took home top honors in original screenplay and Alan Arkin won best supporting actor.  Not bad for that little indie film from Sundance.

I could gush on this film for hours, but the two things that I believe make this film so wonderful and heartwarming is its sense of timing and showing the strength of a family unit.  Take that first dinner scene, as conversation grows, it’s edited perfectly so we see a specific person’s face react to what the other is saying.  When Uncle Frank is explaining his reasons for suicide, it’s directed mostly to Olive, but we see Richard’s disapproving face and Grandpa blows his nose at the perfect spot to get some awkward laughs from the audience.

Well, that doesn’t sound like a strong family does it?  Remember, that’s only the beginning.  By the time they roll onto Redondo Beach they’ve faced a broken clutch, heartbreaks and over eight hundred miles together.  To get their beloved VW going the whole family has to push it.  What a family exercise!  When everyone’s safe inside with mission accomplished their blood and adrenaline is pumping and there’s that sense of accomplishment.  Even Uncle Frank is all smiles shouting, “No one gets left behind!”

I dare you to find a better family film.  The Griswold family never had such heartwarming laughs or faced such heartbreaking events and they drove twice as far.  Little Miss Sunshine is what a family road trip is all about and once you open your heart to it you might be surprised at what it has to say.

“-You do what you love, and fuck the rest.

-I’m glad you’re talking again, Dwayne. You’re not nearly as stupid as you look.”