Reviews

The Big Short is superbly-acted and well-written. Brad Pitt, Steve Carrell and their supporting cast give great performances, but the shocker for me was Christian Bale's portrayal of a brilliant fund manager with Asperger's syndrome who can "do the math" and read markets with unnerving clarity and correctness even when the results go completely against the grain of conventional thinking.

Bale inhabited this character, based on Dr. Michael Burry, with stunning effect as if he actually had this difficult to identify condition. It was a stunning transformation and masterful feat of acting. The tortured humanity of Carrell's character also came through luminously as his conscience wrestled with profiting from the economic collapse and the stupidity and dishonesty of the immediate circumstances that preceded it. But Bale's performance was by far the more subtle and awe-inspiring to me.

Michael Lewis' story is compelling on a human level, describing the tribulations down in the trenches as three different hedge funds bet against the housing bubble mortgage market and derivatives on it. It highlights human greed and stupidity, and the inertia of huge institutions. But it also highlights very different life experiences of three very different funds, one on Wall Street, another in Silicon Valley, and another originally from a garage in Colorado.

The production is very stylish and bright, presumably to dress up what might otherwise be a dull topic. The anguish at the stupidity of the situation, where banks are packaging toxic assets as if they were investment grade also creates emotional space for the actors to explore, but ultimately the story is told with an unduly heavy hand, as one might expect from Hollywood. The events are dramatic enough that a little scaling back of the acting might have served the story better. But Hollywood movies don't work that way; someone always gets to take the lead and ham it up, while others play it straight.

What's disappointing is that The Big Short is ultimately a highly orthodox, doctrinaire, short-sighted, lightweight and ignorant critique of capitalism. The film, and presumably Lewis (I have not read the book it's based on) completely miss the big picture context of government regulations forcing banks to make subprime loans as a form of "social justice" by getting otherwise unqualified buyers into home loans. This is touched on briefly in the scenes with the mortgage brokers, but the movie perhaps intentionally ignores the context of why it happened in the first place. It is blind to the underlying causes.

I can only suppose that this is because it goes against the orthodox leftist premise that business, markets and capitalism are bad, and that governments must act in opposition to them lest they prey upon innocent people. The reality is that government policies forcing banks to make bad loans created the situation, starting decades earlier. The culmination was collapse, but the fundamental cause was government intervention in the economy. Even Congressman Barney Frank, a staunch champion and initiator of such intervention, ultimately admitted this was a mistake after the crash.

Google for the Community Reinvestment Act and the role of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae in underwriting bad loans and educate yourself about the facts. Don't be spoonfed incomplete and one-sided information.

I had very much the same reaction to this episode as some of the other reviewers. "Blink of an eye" is an example of excellent science fiction very well presented. The premise of a planet operating in an accelerated time field and its effect on societies living in it are exactly the type of thought-provoking topics science fiction was created to address. The interaction of the planet and Voyager takes place in interesting ways.

The story reminds me of the cultural anthropological explorations of science fiction writers like Ursula K. Le Guin.

Daniel Dae Kim gave a very strong and memorable performance as an astronaut from the planet. I'm glad to see he has gotten more opportunities to use his talents in other works.

Tarantino continues to make idiotic cartoons that at best glorify and at worst encourage violence. Next time there's a mass shooting somewhere, consider whether movies like this one have made violence fashionable, dramatic, cool, newsworthy, glorious or even a little less than totally unacceptable.

Suspension of disbelief can't possibly include fantasizing that the Nazis would be stupid enough to send all four of its top leaders into a tiny Jewish-run cinema in Paris. Comic book authors usually won't insult their readers to that extent. On the contrary, they tend to write with a level of logic and intelligence far above Tarantino.

Production, acting, music, cinematography in the film are very good, but they can't counteract the insipid premise, plot, and overall concept. Speaking of music, the borrowed Morricone pieces are very good, but the rock, r&b, etc., are totally out of place and tear down the facade of a period piece.

Similarly, Christoph Waltz as SS detective Hans Landa gave an amazing performance which was ruined by psychotic leaps out of character as written by Tarantino. Yes it showed Waltz's amazing acting range, but it also destroyed the integrity of his character.

There are numerous "artistic" continuity errors in the film, no doubt created to give a cleaner looking shot. When Landa strangles von Hammersmark, both of their chairs mysteriously disappear. When Raine carves Landa's forehead, Landa's handcuffs disappear so he can grasp at the grass in pain, etc. Again this reinforces the notion that these are comics, and rather bad ones at that.

I hate to gush, but Babylon 5 is easily the best Science Fiction ever to be brought to television and better and vastly larger in scope than most science fiction brought to the movie screen. I've seen just about every major American and British science fiction television series and film, and I take my SF very seriously. Each episode of Babylon 5 is like a chapter of a good SF novel brought to life. One very unusual aspect of Babylon 5 is that the entire 5 seasons tie together into a single, huge story arc. That's unprecedented and incredibly bold, especially for television.

Also unusual is that the series is very well-written, acted, set, directed, filmed, costumed, made-up, special-effected, etc. (Be aware that the effects were the best that could be done in 1995; computer generated imagery was in fairly early stages then, yet very powerful use of the technology was used for the time, and the results are nonetheless compelling.) This is a phenomenal effort which, despite having a smaller budget than any of the Star Trek franchises, creates a well-told, consistent, interesting story of galactic conflict and heroism, starring alien races young and old. I am a definite Star Trek fan, but Babylon 5 is superior to Star Trek, particularly in the gritty tone yet ultimately very uplifting mood and spirit.

Babylon 5 is about choices made for right or wrong and the consequences of those choices. It is about moral, ethical behavior and the lack thereof. However it is seldom preachy, letting morality play through the telling of its large story, with many of the consequences played out in unexpected ways. Along the way there are many surprises, triumphs and failures aided in great part by unique alien environments, yet the story is told with a human frame of reference. Ultimately, however, this is less a study of aliens than a study of our own humanity and inhumanity.

The series is being released one season at a time on 6-disc DVD sets by Warners. These DVD sets are one of the best ways to see it: without commercial interruption and in the correct sequence. Catching most of the episodes on broadcast TV did not prepare me for the impact of seeing the series in proper sequence, which tells a grand story in grand fashion. Be sure to NOT watch the spoilers or director or actor commentary until you have viewed the entire 83-hour, 5-season series, otherwise some of the effect will have been spoiled.

Babylon 5 gets my highest recommendation of anything yet set to paper, stage, opera, film or video. If you are a fan of science fiction or simply good storytelling Babylon 5 is an absolute must see. I have not said that about any other film, and I expect I never will.