I have to admit that I don't understand all the intricacies of the bond markets that were being manipulated here. Whether one is a Wall Street maven or not isn't the issue. The fact is that people sold mortgages to others who had no business getting into them. I recall a 60 Minutes report on the bubble before the crash took place. The expert had them drive through a desert area, filled with enormous houses, all of which were in default. If one looked in the windows of these, you could see that some of the tenants had stripped all kinds of fixtures and walked away. There were two types of buyers, it seemed. Those that were trying for the fast buck and those that really had no clue what they were getting into. The balloon mortgages took them from affordable to bankruptcy. This was unsustainable and it wasn't long before the banks found themselves with armloads of houses and buyers with hopeless debt. The guys in the movie are aware, but, for the most part, aren't all that sympathetic to these foibles. They go in to make money and they manage to do it. The whole thing that overrides this entire film is that all the evidence was right there, but the greed of most of the parties supersedes all of that. I thought this was a fine movie with a superb lesson. To the new generation. You may not be entitled to have whatever you want without paying your dues.

"The Big Short" is a good film but also a film that would be tough for the average viewer to enjoy and understand. This is because although the housing bubble's burst was a mess and destroyed a lot of peoples' lives, few folks really understand it. Sure, folks know that the banks were foolish as were home buyers (since they couldn't possibly afford these homes)....but that's about as far as their understanding goes. And, with the film tossing around all sorts of insider jargon, it's sure to confuse more than entertain.

What I would LOVE to see is a pop-up video version of the film with explanatory text appearing on the screen throughout the movie to further clarify what is happening. I've seen several Japanese import films like this--and they helped to explain cultural references that most non-Japanese viewers would miss.

The bottom line is that I am extremely well educated compared to the average person and yet I sometimes felt a bit lost. Enjoyable but best watched with an economics professor sitting in the room to explain it all in detail.

'The Big Short' fascinated me into seeing it without hesitation, had always wanted to see it but it took me a while to get a chance to do so. Have a lot of respect for any film that takes on complex serious subjects that absolutely should be portrayed and the talented cast. While the awards attention (particularly for the script) and critical acclaim (almost universal) interested me further. Plus it looked good.

Good 'The Big Short' indeed was. Very good in fact and while it was not quite perfect it is deserving of the acclaim it got and still gets. Not quite one of the best films of the year for me but very close, with the good things being many and being exceptional in quality. 'The Big Short' took on a subject that needed to be told and holds relevance today and found myself admiring how it approached it while also making something of very high quality as an overall film.

Structurally, 'The Big Short' can get a little complicated and not always easy to follow. Never incoherent as such, just sometimes not always as clear as it could have been.

It definitely would have benefitted from doing less than it did, perhaps not having as much going on and having less characters.

However, 'The Big Short' is well-made with mostly slick photography, despite the odd shakiness that distracts a little, and a fine eye for detail. Furthermore it is smartly directed, keeping things involving throughout the over two hour length, paced in a way that it doesn't feel that long and one is not feeling the seconds.

All the cast are terrific and embody their characters instead of just playing them. Christian Bale's confident quirky performance rightly garnered him an Oscar nomination and Ryan Gosling has one of the film's more challenging roles and essential to anchoring it and he is suitably despicable, not a side we see much from him and it was both interesting and slightly unsettling to watch. Steve Carrell plays it straight while still adopting a jokiness that doesn't feel out of place, he is fun to watch while showing an anger and torment that makes him moving. Brad Pitt does well too and the cameos don't jar or bog things down.

The script is one of the reasons why 'The Big Short' works as well as it does and deserved its Oscar win. It does a great job entertaining and informing and doing it in a way that's taut, smart and making one feel the right emotions. Even though there are issues with the structure, the story is still incredibly compelling, with the interconnecting subplots being involving and developing the compellingly real characters well, and have a lot of admiration for its handling of the subject. It's a very serious, brave subject and not an easy one to bring to film but a subject that's a relevant and important one to tell, 'The Big Short' does remarkably in this aspect. It's always engaging, and it is also funny and informative while also making me feel shocked, angry and emotional as the events unfolded.

Overall, very good with many wonderful things. 8/10 Bethany Cox