20160417: Comedy Review--The Big Short

Name: The Big Short (2015)
IMDb: link to The Big Short page

Genres: Biography, Comedy, Drama   Country of origin: USA.

Cast:
Scion Capital: Christian Bale as Michael Burry, Dave Davis as Burry's assistant, Rudy Eisenzopf as Lewis Ranieri.

Deutsche Bank: Ryan Gosling as Jared Vennett, Jeffry Griffin as Chris (Jared's assistant).

FrontPoint Partners: Steve Carell as Mark Baum, Marisa Tomei as Cynthia Baum, Brad Pitt as Ben Rickert, Hamish Linklater as Porter Collins, Jeremy Strong as Vinnie Daniels, Adepero Oduya as Kathy Tao.

Directed by: Adam McKay.  Written by: Charles Randolph, Adam McKay (screenplay), Michael Lewis (book).

Deutschebank meets FrontPoint

The Three Acts:

The initial tableaux:
Michael Burry MD retired from medicine and became a hedge fund manager.  When joining Scion Capital, he negotiated to have strong control, no matter what, of his part of the hedge funds.  A bit over a year before the start of the the housing collapse in 2007/2008, Burry saw the writing on the wall, and managed to short (bet on failure) several housing securities that seemed bulletproof.  He was widely criticised and attacked from within his company.

Jared Vennett listens extensively to what's going on in the markets.  When he catches some of the Street's disdain for Burry's short bets, he takes a closer look, and decides that he too can profit from the coming recession.

While Jared was looking for allies in shorting housing securities, one of his calls is misplaced.  The 'other' FrontPoint Partners takes the call, and the small but talented group arranges a meeting with Jared.

Delineation of conflicts:
Michael Burry is at war with this company throughout most of the film.  Sticking to his position is not easy in the least.

Jared has a hard time convincing others of his position, which was derived from Burry's.  He also perseveres through some heavy flack from others.

Jared's presentations inspire Mark to do his own research.  Some of the delving into the absurdities of the housing bubble were hilarious; others, incredibly sad.  The uncovering of fraud leaves Mark outraged; others seem to think he is a stupid idealist.  Mark's group joins the small wave betting on failure in the artificial housing securities.  Mark resists wave after wave of pressure to sell off his bets.

Resolution: The dialectic of conflicts ends late in the film.  Stay tuned.

One line summary: Follows small group who bets against the housing market.

Statistics:

Cinematography: 4/10 Sucked.  Pointless bad camera work.

Sound: 7/10 I could hear the actors speak.  The music varied quite a bit, from irrelevant to too damned loud to right on target.

Acting: 10/10 Gosling, Carell, Bale, and Pitt were all brilliant in their parts.

Screenplay: 7/10 Too many threads, too many balls in the air simultaneously, not always enough context, way too many drops of the f-bomb.  After the first 20, the next 50 are of little effect.

On the other hand, the black humour is often so trenchant that one has to laugh, and I laughed many times.  The movie drives home the damage done by the widespread fraud and endless lies in the securities industry.

Final Rating: 8/10

20140225: Drama Review--Bruna Surfistinha

Bruna Surfistinha (Little Surfer Girl)

1. Production Fundamentals; Reception
1. Brazilian live action feature length film, 2011, TV-14, 107 minutes, biography, drama.  Spoken word is in Brazilian Portuguese; subtitles in English.
2. IMDB: 6.0/10.0 from 2,583 audience ratings. Estimated budget, 4 million BRL.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet,' and 37% liked it from 309 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.3/5.0 from 19,022 audience ratings.
5. Directed by Marcus Baldini.
6. Starring: Deborah Secco as Raquel/Bruna, Cassio Gabus Mendes as Huldson, Drica Moraes as Larissa, Fabiula Nascimento as Janine, Cristina Lago as Gabi, Guta Ruiz as Carol.


2. Setup, Plot
1. Raquel Pacheco was adopted by an upper middle class family in Sao Paulo.  However, at 17 she broke away from this life to live in a brothel.  She uses Bruna as her working name, and Surfistinha as her nickname.  She does well for a while, but her relationship with the other women becomes turbulent.  She moves to a new apartment setting with Gabi after meeting Carol at a dance club.  She has even more success, starts a blog about her activities, which brings her even more business.  She enjoys the spotlight for a while. Eventually she starts using drugs; unfortunately, the drug use and the fame hit about the same time.  She crashes over this, and ends up chasing men in cars.


2. After recovering from the drugs, she writes a book about her experiences, and the book does fairly well.  Her popularity in Brazil inspired the current movie, which is a dramatic representation shown on television of a section of her life.


3. Netflix showed this as 'Confessions of a Brazilian Call Girl.'


3. Conclusions
1. There is quite a lot of skin and simulated sexual activity shown in this film.  TV14 seems a bit light of a rating; NC17 might be closer to accurate.  So watch under advisement.


2. Bruna Surfistinha is a soft core porn film that exploits Deborah Secca's physique more than anything else.  The acting is better than that of American 'reality' television, but not by a whole lot.


3. As a dramatic treatment of a difficult life, the film seems too rosy, even though it depicts hard times that Raquel experienced.


4. One line summary: Rise, fall, and recovery of a Brazilian call girl and media star.


5. Three stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 7/10 The film looks good for the most part, but it often shows TV/VHS quality rather than theatrical quality.


2. Sound: 6/10 was not that relevant to me.  I do not understand Brazilian Portuguese, and the incidental music was not a factor.  The subtitles seemed to be in reasonable parallel to the actors' intentions.


3. Acting: 5/10 OK, but not great, as noted above.  Deborah Secco and Drica Moraes were the best.


4. Screenplay: 6/10 The film does tell a story, though it is more than a bit disjointed at times.

20131220: Drama Review--Lovelace

Lovelace

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film, 2013, rated R, 92 minutes, biography, drama.
2. IMDB: 6.1/10.0 from 12,910 audience ratings.  Estimated budget, 10 million USD.
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 54% on the meter; 37% liked it from 9,813 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 3.4/5.0 from 201,979 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman.
6. Starring: Amanda Seyfried as Linda, Peter Sarsgaard as Chuck, Sharon Stone as Dorothy Boreman, Robert Patrick as John Boreman, Chris Noth as Anthony Romano, Bobby Cannavale as Butchie Peraino, Hank Azaria as Gerry Damiano, Adam Brody as Harry Reems, James Franco as Hugh Hefner.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Linda grows up in a repressive household, then marries a dominating husband, who eventually corners her into the porn industry.  She gets the job because Chuck had trained her to pleasure him orally, then took home movies of it.  The producers were enthused.


2. Deep Throat is hugely popular, and she gets a vanity film or two.  She is quite a sensation, and gets to know quite a number of influential people.  Then we jump forward six years to where Linda is into writing books.


3. The film progresses (?) into re-interpretations of what was shown in the first 20 minutes.  Most of the focus was on how stupid or bad the first husband, Chuck Traynor, was.  Clearly he was a bad businessmen.  Their mobster friends could have done much better.  Clearly he mistreated Linda.  On the other hand, the exposition of how Lovelace could have shifted from prostitute and porn star to moralistic author was weak to the point of non-existence.


4. Was Linda's second marriage better?  Did she really escape? The movie does not really address this at all.


3. Conclusions
1. One line summary: Muddled account of Lovelace's sadly mismanaged life.
2. Two stars of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 10/10 Well shot.


2. Sound: 8/10 The spoken voices fade away into nothing now and then.


3. Acting: 5/10 Cheers to James Franco, Chris Noth, Hank Azaria, Bobby Cannavale, Robert Patrick.  On the other hand, Amanda Siefried, Peter Sarsgaard, Adam Brody, and Sharon Stone just stank on ice.  I hope to avoid Amanda Siefried in all future roles; she was amazingly terrible here.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 I'm not sure what the story was.  The timeline is very confused.