Hey, remember the 2008 Financial Crisis? When all those bankers ripped you off to the tune of a trillion dollars and then got bonuses for doing it? Of course you don’t. You’re too interested in this week’s mass shooter count, and that shitshow we call the 2016 election. Well, let us help remind you. If you haven’t yet, get off your duff and go see “The Big Short” (or pre-order it for later). It’s one of the first films about douchebags on Wall Street that will neither bore you to tears, nor make you feel warm and fuzzy about what clever guys they are and how you wish you were one of them. It not only features A-List actors turning in A-List performances, it propels the story along with a black humor and fourth-wall-breaking explanations from celebrities like Selena Gomez and chef Anthony Bourdain, which help you swallow the unbelievable pile of plundering that bankers pulled off in the rollup to the crisis. The storytelling also gets a little boost from the soundtrack, which (as well as a bunch of heavy metal) ranges from tunes like When the Levee Breaks to Ludacris’ Money Maker, the Gorillaz’ Feel Good Inc., and The Polyphonic Spree’s hilarious cover of Nirvana’s “Lithium” (see highlights further below). But we’re not here to review the soundtrack, we’re here to help you rediscover your righteous indignation. Check out the trailer, then go see the damn movie:

But I’m Broke As Hell & Homeless

Can’t afford to go see The Big Short, in this post-crisis economy where only billionaires are doing well and you’re too broke from carrying that student loan or maybe homeless after a mortgage default? No worries. One of the other best films about the financial crisis is viewable for FREE. 2010’s Inside Job won an academy award for Best Documentary Feature, but no-one noticed, because we were too busy debating the meaning of Inception and cooing about Toy Story 3. If you don’t mind watching a low-res copy with Spanish subs, it’s available on Vimeo, or you can get the whole thing in higher resolution on Archive.org. But frankly, we recommend an actual HD copy, it was rather stunningly filmed and edited, and has an excellent soundtrack and sound mixing.

 

But I Want To Be A Douchebag Myself!

If your dream has always been to be a Wall Street douchebag, stepping on the necks of anyone in your way as you amass billions of dollars, you’ll love The Wolf of Wall Street. But if you’re NOT some kind of money-mongering sociopath, it should propel you into an altogether different kind of rage, the kind you might experience when a director you used to admire makes the 21st century version of 1987’s Wall Street, the flick that glorified the roots of all this money madness in the first place, with its “Greed is Good” message. Way to go Mr. Scorsese, you make this rape of the American economy and pickpocketing the public look FUN. Much like the bonuses bankers got during the bailout, Scorcese’s film helped Jordan Belfort hustle another hundred million in 2014.

 

_{Not pissed off yet? We’ll be back soon with another roundup. In the meantime we’ll be laughing all the way to the bank, thanks to the revenue from these product plugs that feed right back into the system we’re critiquing 😉}