The Big Short (2015, dir. Adam McKay) brilliantly explains how Wall Street used complexity to bury fraud and trigger the 2008 financial crisis. How? Anthony Bourdain makes seafood stew from three-day-old halibut to visualize Collateralized Debt Obligations.
This is how banks built CDOs: stuffing them with junk subprime loans, second mortgages, home equity lines then disguising the rot by mixing it with better-performing commercial real estate to make the whole thing look safe.
It's a perfect metaphor: rotten fish hidden under fresher ingredients.
The screenplay is an excellent complement to Michael Lewis's original book. From Moneyball to The Blind Side to Going Infinite, he reveals character in broken systems. The Big Short hits the hardest.
