I refuse to believe that the bean counters at Scion Capital would let IT set all their computer workstations to "never sleep" the display. Think of all the electric bill inflation!

What's really great about all the Dell workstations scattered through the film is that I have either used or currently own nearly all of the peripherals shown on screen. (That probably just reveals how dated some of my hardware is, to be honest…)

Now, with that out of the way… I liked the tone of this documedy (if that wasn't a word yet, it is now). The mix of comedy and obvious dramatization (even pointing out the fictitious bits at points), the tongue-in-cheek hiring of celebrities to explain the "dry" bits—all of it…except the music. On several occasions, the choice of music just didn't make any sense. I get that the film was going for loud, in-your-face, even obnoxious, but it just didn't work sometimes. It felt like trying to force a laugh at the juxtaposition of music with scene, and seemed half-baked.

The characters didn't really stand out much from each other. With the exception of Mark Baum, all of the bankers were interchangeable more-or-less white guys, both in appearance and in personality. Ben Rickert was more of a caricature than a character, hardly possessed of any depth. Not that I expected depth in a movie of this sort…but it's still disappointing. It's 100% possible to have both deep characters and good comedy, but _The Big Short_ delivered (mostly) flat characters and (generally) passable comedy.

7.3 seems about right, since I did laugh a solid few times and learned some stuff. (7.4 if I were feeling generous, but I'm not.)