Both of these movies were adapted from books. The Big Short was adapted from the book by Michael Lewis, and Steve Jobs was adapted from the biography Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
As The Big Short began, I found myself wondering: how can this work? I was very pleasantly surprised. I think it worked very well. I found it very enjoyable.
The scene in which Margot Robbie, sitting in a bathtub full of bath bubbles, explains selling short, would probably be worth the price of admission alone to some viewers.
The movie captured the story of the book, the individual stories of these iconoclastic individuals who bet against the system and won. I think it also captured what I would call the "sheep" mentality of seemingly many bankers who assumed that low quality mortgage-backed securities could not fail because no one refused to sell them and sellers didn't have much trouble selling them, either.
The ending was sobering, as the filmmakers pointed out that no one has gone to jail for selling something worthless or putting families into mortgages they could not afford, and that nothing else has changed, either.
I found Steve Jobs to be less successful. The tremendous compression of event into the three acts was kind of overwhelming. One exception, I think, were the scenes between Jobs and Scully. That, I think, was completely successful in conveying the very complicated relationship the two men had. In retrospect, I think Jeff Daniels' acting was just sublime .. an accomplishment all the harder to achieve, I think, because it was a very "playey" film, that felt like the film of a play. In retrospect, I have to say I think the acting was great.
As The Big Short began, I found myself wondering: how can this work? I was very pleasantly surprised. I think it worked very well. I found it very enjoyable.
The scene in which Margot Robbie, sitting in a bathtub full of bath bubbles, explains selling short, would probably be worth the price of admission alone to some viewers.
The movie captured the story of the book, the individual stories of these iconoclastic individuals who bet against the system and won. I think it also captured what I would call the "sheep" mentality of seemingly many bankers who assumed that low quality mortgage-backed securities could not fail because no one refused to sell them and sellers didn't have much trouble selling them, either.
The ending was sobering, as the filmmakers pointed out that no one has gone to jail for selling something worthless or putting families into mortgages they could not afford, and that nothing else has changed, either.
I found Steve Jobs to be less successful. The tremendous compression of event into the three acts was kind of overwhelming. One exception, I think, were the scenes between Jobs and Scully. That, I think, was completely successful in conveying the very complicated relationship the two men had. In retrospect, I think Jeff Daniels' acting was just sublime .. an accomplishment all the harder to achieve, I think, because it was a very "playey" film, that felt like the film of a play. In retrospect, I have to say I think the acting was great.
No comments:
Post a Comment