The Big Short and No Impact Man Films Analysis Essay

The Big Short (2015)

This film is an interesting biographical comedy-drama that that premiered in the American theaters in 2015. The film was directed by Adam McKay and Charles Randolph and written by McKay. It was based on the book "The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine" authored by Michael Lewis. The film closely follows the story in book to clearly bring out the financial crisis that hit the global economy in 2007-2008 triggered by subprime mortgages in the United States real estate bubble. This film presents insightful information to financial analysts, investors and economics scholars about the actual causes of the global financial crisis.

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The plot comprises of three different stories that are loosely connected but acted concurrently. The storyline relates to the events that led to the housing market crunch that hit the United States real estate in 2007. Michael Burry-played by Christian bale hedges a $ 1 billion fund after discovering that the real estate market was extremely unstable exposing real investors to risks of losing their investment, especially to subprime mortgages. He proposes the creation of a credit default swap to transfer his risks to other investors allowing him to make a profit of $ 1.69 billion (YouTube 00:57:04-01:02:18). However, the market becomes unstable after a couple of years resulting in a major crunch.

The leading stars in this film include Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Hamish Linklater, Melissa Leo, and Brad Pitt among others. Guest actors who made brief appearances in the film included Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez among others. The best actor in the film who the lead actor Christian Bale who portrayed the actual financial attributes of real-life investor Michael Burry.

In conclusion, this film provides important insights to its target audience which include real estate investors. The most important message portrayed in the film is a warning to investors not to be controlled the greed to make more money at the expense of the entire economy. In the film, investors were focused on doubling their investments without considering its consequence on the real estate sector. In the end, their prices of houses plunged resulting in a major global financial crisis that made most of the investors to lose their investments and forced majority of financial institutions into bankruptcy.

No Impact Man

No Impact Man is an American documentary film that premiered in the theater on September 4, 2009. It was directed by Justin Schein and Laura Gabbert. The storyline was based on the book "No Impact Man" by Colin Beavan.

The film stars Colin Beavan and Michele Conlin who abandons the high consumption life and completely go green in an attempt to save the environment. The film follows the story in the book about the life of the Beavan family who gave up all comforts of living a modern life such as electricity, shipped or inorganic foods, gas-powered transportation choosing to live a life that would be considered primitive in the modern day (YouTube 00:57:27-01:06:32). The Beavans manages to save on electricity, engage in more physical exercises through riding a bicycle to work, eating healthy and protecting the environment.

The most important message that is being communicated in this film is the need to protect the environment from climate change. The Beavans believed that if they could manage to live without the intervention of modern technology that would otherwise harm their environment for one year, other people can also manage to protect the entire environment from pollution and degradation. This one-year project helps in bringing the Beavans family closer together as they strived to achieve their set goals.

Works Cited

YouTube. No Impact Man (2009). 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PzaSSTPY6s&list=PLfLAVYab_WWjpfvjgmZvz3NDohp9lmRd7&index=10. Accessed 16 Nov 2018.

YouTube. The Big Short (2015). 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl0FltPnAF8&list=PLWAY9T0qe2rABUP-aC4O2thxVmPhl-i-A. Accessed 16 Nov 2018.