‘The Big Short’ is entertaining, the script is fantastic and the acting is superb.
Christian Bale in particular can emote and adopt mannerisms with amazing attention to detail. In this he plays an ASDÂ doctor of economics. Carell demonstrates his chops in a role not built on punchlines and bring endearing fury to his portrayal. Pitt is old man Pitt and Gosling is a douche but an engaging one.
The topic however, is not ok. If you don’t leave this film furious you weren’t paying attention. No matter how likable they work to make their protagonists the association with the great fuckup that was the GFC tarnishes them all. The seeming inevitability of an encore global financial meltdown within the next decade certainly leaves a sour taste in the mouth of the viewer.
And of course it fails Bechdel pretty spectacularly, all the women in this film are props. Some are and articulate and realised characters but they only converse with men or the camera.
Daily
Spent the day spraying woody weed regrowth on the farm with a backpack spray bottle. The job would be insufferably boring without a good audiobook. With it, it is merely very unpleasant work. The chemical being used is nasty but far from the worst on the market and we are taking appropriate safety precautions. Woody regrowth is a major economic risk to the farm because if the turpentine scrub is able to establish itself grazing ground cover all but disappears and because of land clearing legislation the woody weeds cannot be removed. It is very hot, very dull, backbreaking work made even more tedious by the cleanup which involves rinsing, filling and emptying by spray each backpack three times at the conclusion of work.
I was grateful to have a reason to stop, shower and go tutoring.
Creative
Nothing so far today and I am not long from bead but I have some work to do before then. I did make a fair bit of progress on the background of the castle card last night.
You can’t really blame the film for failing the Bechdel test given that it’s based on true events.
By the way, I wrote about it in my column a while back: http://www.smh.com.au/money/investing/what-the-big-short-movie-can-teach-ordinary-people-20160117-gm7ufu
I actually read that when you posted it.
I disagree about Bechdel, the thing is it is a really low bar. It is not insurmountable, it is not even challenging to meet and not doing so now after all the publicity Bechdel has received is either lazy or deliberately ignorance.
There were quite a few well realised female characters. Sure none of the seven or so mains were women. That is clearly direct from the source. But they took artistic liberties, hell they even break the fourth wall to admit as much in the Goldman Sachs lobby. But of the maybe 30-50 other speaking roles less than ten were women. One of them was naked in a bathtub, one a stripper. Both had great fiscal exposition. But could they really not have had any two female characters in the film exchange even a single line about something other than a man.
It’s pathetic and I will continue to call it out as such.
You’re right that they could have snuck it in somehow, but it would have been token. Certainly none of the main characters were women.
Bechdel is a Token test, it is the lowest possible benchmark. The fact that they couldn’t even meet that is what is so disappointing.