About this Episode
It’s a double-header of greed, murder, and intrigue on this episode of the Screeners, but before we dive into the underbelly of society, we thought we’d make a quick pit stop. The Golden Globes are pretty much the entertainment industry’s way of satirizing itself—a bunch of rich people get together in a big room to get drunk, give each other awards, and put The Martian in the musical/comedy category. Ricky Gervais hosted, though, so at least everyone was uncomfortable. Other than those two things, though, was there anything the Screeners could have found worthy of comment?
No? OK; let’s just head to the main event.
Some People Go to Jail; Some Don’t...No One Knows Why
First on the list is another movie Chris swears isn’t a comedy, presumably because it uses big words. The Big Short focuses on the most digestible, straightforward topic of the last few decades—shoddy financial products invented to disguise other shoddy financial products by chopping them up into tiny pieces, bundling them, then selling them to high rollers on Wall Street. You know, the stuff that tanked the economy about 8 years ago. They’re covering it in elementary school now, right?
There might be a bit of a generational difference among the Screeners when it comes to The Big Short, but diversity’s always a good thing—unless, of course, you happen to be casting a movie about the financial industry.
After everyone’s done reliving their experiences of house shopping in the age of foreclosures, it’s time to move on to material that might be even more depressing: The documentary that’s become Netflix’s most recent cultural phenomenon. Making a Murderer follows a Wisconsin man wrongfully convicted of a crime in 1985, his exoneration after 18 years in prison, and his subsequent arrest and trial for murder (the title wouldn’t have had the same punch if he’d been charged with a DUI, would it?).
Like we mentioned, the series has lit up debate on both sides of the aisle, and the Screeners just can’t help throwing in their two (four? eighteen hundred?) cents on the issue. Does the 10-hour distillation of the 10-year process work as a documentary? Is it a fair treatment? Most importantly, what do our favorite armchair lawyers think of the case’s merits?
Once again, the Screeners are short on topics, but long on talk. Join us next time for our yearly retrospective—we’ll go over everyone’s favorite and least favorite movies of 2015, find out about some underrated films you might have missed, and answer the most important question of all: Did Josh actually see 10 movies last year, or is he just plagiarizing his lists from Buzzfeed? Until then, as always, join us on Facebook!