Survived another Monday!
Everyone looking back at their big wishes for 2020
An arts-heavy issue, but alas, with a lot of movie theaters closing indefinitely … it feels important to keep up these conversations. The New Yorker’s theater critic Vinson Cunningham asked, “How Are Audiences Adapting to the Age of Virtual Theatre?” You might learn a bit more about the history of the American theatre, too — I definitely did!
I think it’s safe to say that we’re officially in the golden age of movie cast reunions. Katie Couric managed to summon the cast of Mean Girls together on Zoom (with a surprise cameo from Rachel McAdams, to boot)…
…and alright alright alright, the cast of Dazed and Confused is getting together for a live read on Sunday the 11th at 4:30 PT as a benefit for Voto Latino and March for Science! Per THR, everyone for Parker Posey to Matthew McConaughey and even Ben Affleck is participating.
Now, what you came for…
DAY 207: The Big Short (available for free with ads on Pluto TV)
I realize a movie about the last major economic crisis of our lifetimes might not sound like the most appetizing watch while we are currently in the midst of another, arguably bigger, one. But I truly think The Big Short is an absolute marvel of filmmaking, one that I’m still agog even exists nearly five years after its release. Writer/director Adam McKay pushes storytelling and aesthetic boundaries at every turn in service of a truly remarkable mission: empowering the average American.
The Big Short is a testament to just how much power we all have as citizens if we can tune out all the noise and distraction designed to lull us into complacency. McKay knows it’s all too easy to get sucked into a societal morass of gluttony and ignorance, and his wild, jarring montages (that feel more like pop cultural collages) plunge us as an audience into that mire. But he cuts through the crap with fourth-wall breaking asides that offer vivid, simple lessons as to what terms like a “collateralized debt obligation” or “subprime mortgage” mean … using the very tools of our cultural captivity like celebrity, sexuality and gamification.
The biggest takeaway from The Big Short is that you are absolutely smart enough to understand what’s going on in the economy. It’s in the interest of the Wall Street bigwigs and low-level traders alike to make you think it’s too complicated or confusing so you’ll just give up trying and hand them the financial keys to your life. We the people have the power to reverse that strange alchemy of malevolence and incompetence by simply paying attention. And I’ve seen enthusiastic reactions to McKay’s methods from people running the gamut of MAGAs to Bernie Bros, mind you!
It’s a thrilling ride of personal enlightenment to watch The Big Short, and it’s accompanied by an equally gripping narrative of isolated parties who each saw the collapse of the housing market coming through critical thinking (and a little bit of luck). Everyone from savant investor Michael Burry (Christian Bale) to high-strung hedge fund manager Mark Baum (Steve Carell) make for fascinating guides through a world blissfully unaware it’s on the verge of collapse. But McKay is never shy to undercut their accomplishments by reminding us that their heroic triumphs are predicated on the future misery of others. In other words, it’s all the fun of The Wolf of Wall Street with a clearly affixed moral compass.
I’ll close with a little excerpt from a piece I wrote for Movie Mezzanine on the film prior to its release in 2015. Though many scoffed that the director of Step Brothers and The Other Guys wanted to make a movie about the financial collapse, I argued his comedic stylings are vital to the film breaking through and making its point with such righteous anger:
“Humor trivializes the issues in The Other Guys. In The Big Short, it is employed to illustrate just the absurdity of the system, and then it amplifies our incredulity at that absurdity once the bubble bursts and nothing is funny any longer. By embracing the spirit of his inner comedian, McKay discovers an intrepid streak that extends beyond one-liners and seeps into the presentation of the tricky material. The Big Short thus not only supersedes all his prior work but also could very well mark the first fully informed fictional film on the financial crisis to date.”
Be good to yourselves and to each other,
Marshall