The Big Short

There aren't many films about the 2008 crash and what caused it, apart from the odd documentary (notably Inside Job, a 2010 film by Charles Ferguson), but there have been many books and one, written by Michael Lewis, who wrote Moneyball and Liars Poker, has been turned into a movie starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt.

Analysing the existing mortgage bond market, eccentric hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Bale) decides to "short" i.e. bet against the market,  which he thinks will shortly collapse. He is followed by other hedge fund managers Mark Baum (Carell), Charlie Geller (John Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock).

It must have been very difficult to portray the intricacies of what happened to an audience munching on their popcorn, but the use of celebrity asides, although corny, does work quite well and the moral outrage is expressed by Baum on the one hand and Ben Rickert (Pitt) on the other rings true. That it was allowed to happen at all and that others didn't spot the problems sooner is the truly amazing part.

The Place Beyond The Pines

Through the LoveFilm Instant service, this is a story of two men, the crime that joins them, and the consequences for both them and their sons.

An unusual crime drama, this is three stories told one after the other. The first is about circus motorbike rider Luke Glanton (Ryan Gosling) who, on finding he has a son, takes up robbing banks in a misguided attempt to support the boy and his mother Romina (Eva Mendes). He is finally cornered by policeman Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper) and the second story is what happens to Cross afterwards when he discovers police corruption in the wake of the confrontation. The third story is about their sons who encounter each other fifteen years later and discover what happened.

It's quite a long film, which is hardly surprising given the content, and it does drag a little in places. Gosling does his best as the troubled Glanton, but he can only play one note and that's getting a bit tiresome now. Bradley Cooper does better as the principled, but ambitious, Cross, and the support is good, if somewhat muted. All-in-all a good movie, but requiring some patience, especially at the end.

Gangster Squad

As part of my LoveFilm subscription, I watched this merry little cops-and-gangsters tale centred around Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn). John O'Mara (Josh Brolin) is tasked by L.A. Police chief Bill Parker (Nick Nolte) to take down Cohen and his gang.

What might otherwise have been a run-of-the-mill, and more violent, Untouchables clone is enhanced by a half-decent plot and good supporting cast. It's Penn and Brolin's movie, though, and you can feel every punch in the final showdown as they take each other apart. A decent, if undemanding, pizza movie.

Mob City, a series just started in the U.S., covers much the same story, but seems to have a more ambiguous tone:

A few years ago, I read (or tried to read: it's fairly heavy going) City of Quartz, a social, political and cultural history of Los Angeles by Mike Davis.

Despite it's style, it's a fascinating book on a fascinating subject.

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