Monday, January 25, 2016

Review: Film: The Big Short, by Julie Renee Phelan

Thumps from 1 to 5: Thumps of 4.5.
The film, The Big Short was just that—it was cut too short. After a two hour build up, the film dumps into the laps of the audience a huge problem without resolution, except a bill. Perhaps in that manner, the movie was seeking to act as a literal and figurative metaphor for the fraud perpetrated by the bankers on Wall Street that came to a head during the summer of 2008. To resolve the conflict between the Wall Street Fraudster Bankers who still received and continue to receive their multi-million dollar yearly bonuses, and the American people who received foreclosure notices by the millions, lost their jobs by the millions, and received and paid the Bankers bill by the billions. For example, On January 21, 2016, JP Morgan Board of Directors voted to give their CEO Jamie Dimon a bonus this year in the amount of $27 million, up from the year before of $20 million; while at the same time JP Morgan is laying off more than 100,000 employees. This movie was made to be an alarming indictment of our society, but it failed to provide an answer—why did those Wall Street Banker Fraudsters get away with their criminal activity?
The Bankers got away with it because in order to prosecute them, it would take political officials to indict them, but the political officials are elected based on the Bankers contributions to their campaign elections. If a person wants to be elected into public office, they must be heard, and in order to be heard, they need lots of money. Who contributes to their campaigns? The wealthiest one percent of our populations, who include those Banker Fraudsters. The politicians are smart enough—not to bite the hand that feeds them. Until we massively overhaul campaign financing, this will continue to happen, and we will continue to pay for the incompetency of Wall Street who despite their criminal activities still want their yearly multi-million dollar bonuses, which is paid by us, the common man.
Because of this film’s obvious short fall, this film should not be the Best Picture of the year, but I appreciate Hollywood enlightening the public; I just wish they would have taken it one step further and explained why those criminals were not prosecuted like the common man would have been. Christian Bale does do an outstanding acting job and is nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and Brad Pitt does an awesome job playing what appears to be himself. But of exceptional note was the remarkable performance by Steve Carell, who hits the actor’s ball out of the ballpark, and is not nominated for an Oscar. Where is the oversight committee?

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