Inside Job, a film about the reasons - and culprits - behind the financial meltdown of 2008, was named Best Documentary at the 2011 Academy Awards.
1. I really liked the beginning of the film, which featured an interesting diversionary story about the economy of Iceland and how it was sent spiraling because of the chicanery of a bunch of greedy American bank-pillagers. Plus the credits were set to the monstrous-at-the-time, yet somehow forgotten, greatness that was Peter Gabriel's "Big Time." It reminded me that the 80s are known for a lot of sh*tty music, yet when you think of it a lot of the stuff that you think of as sh*tty you really enjoyed at the time and it really isn't even that sh*tty now. Know what I'm sayin'?
2. If I had it to do it over again, I probably would not have started this flick at 10 o'clock. It was interesting enough to keep me awake, but it definitely cost me some of my ability to concentrate on complicated issues. The fact that I knocked back about four or five beers from Flying Dog Brewery prior to (and during) the viewing probably didn't help either.
3. Watching this flick really made me wish I knew a little bit more about my finances. I've always knew that my spending habits made perpetual brokeness a virtual certainty. But now I really think I'm screwed. If my mortgage dude showed up on my steps tomorrow demanding the keys to the house and sending me into the streets to life as a filth-ridden vagabond, I would not be shocked.
4. Whoever the guy was who conducted the interviews during the film, I liked his style. He'd have an intellectual up there who was having a good time dissecting what other people did wrong, and then he would all be like, "Um, excuse me!?" And then the next thing you knew, you were finding out that the intellectual had written a corrupt paper that served the purpose of so-and-so big financial organization and lined the pockets of his tweed jacket. And then the intellectual was stammering and stuttering. And then the intellectual was urinating in his slacks. And then the intellectual was trying his hardest not to curse out the inquisitor or commit ritual suicide on camera. I don't know. I like to see intellectuals get humiliated. It is fun and cathartic!
5. I hate to go back to the Oscars, but while this film was good, if it is going to be in a category with Exit Through the Gift Shop, then Exit Through the Gift Shop has to win, right? While this piece was thoughful and informative, it is the kind of egghead dissection of a major social topic that one has seen a million times before. It is a film that needed to be made. I'm all for dragging these thieves in Brooks Brothers suits into the public square for a cinematic tarring-and-feathering. But it certainly wasn't groundbreaking. Meanwhile, Banksy's film was adventurous, inventive, well-structured, nerve-wracking, unpredictable, and a whole lot of other adjectives that mark a film as superb. Of course, a good argument can be made that it wasn't even a documentary. But as long as it was going to be nominated as a documentary, it should have been judged as one. And it WAS better than Inside Job...in my opinion. But they were both very good movies.
6. Whether he deserved it or not, special love goes out to director Charles Ferguson for shafting hypocritical Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie during his acceptance speech at the Oscars. Lurie sort of cried about it later since he had thrown a bunch of money at Ferguson so he could make his opus (he and his wife were executive producers). Anyway, I guess Lurie doesn't mind calling out other folks for their greediness, but he cares enough about the green stuff to hire a jersey-selling dog murderer to quarterback his team under the guise of giving a guy a second chance. Awww!!!! Mr. Lurie, to you I say, "F you, your arrogant bridesmaid of a coach, your immoral, uncaring opportunist of a signal caller, and your eternal also-ran of a locked-out football franchise!" How's that for a speech?
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