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The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (movie tie-in) (Movie Tie-in Editions)
The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (movie tie-in) (Movie Tie-in Editions) | Michael Lewis
The #1 New York Times bestsellerNow a Major Motion Picture from Paramount Pictures From the author of The Blind Side and Moneyball, The Big Short tells the story of four outsiders in the world of high-finance who predict the credit and housing bubble collapse before anyone else. The film adaptation by Adam McKay (Anchorman I and II, The Other Guys) features Academy Award winners Christian Bale, Brad Pitt, Melissa Leo and Marisa Tomei; Academy Award nominees Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling. When the crash of the U.S. stock market became public knowledge in the fall of 2008, it was already old news. The real crash, the silent crash, had taken place over the previous year, in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesnt shine and the SEC doesnt dare, or bother, to tread. Who understood the risk inherent in the assumption of ever-rising real estate prices, a risk compounded daily by the creation of those arcane, artificial securities loosely based on piles of doubtful mortgages? In this fitting sequel to Liars Poker, Michael Lewis answers that question in a narrative brimming with indignation and dark humor.
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GarethSouthwell
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For those still trying to understand the crazy world of high finance, Michael Lewis is still the best guide. Not an easy read (synthetic collateralised debt obligations, anyone?), but what carries it is Lewis's cast of eccentric characters who saw the 2008 crash coming, and it's these lively pen portraits that are as intriguing as the crash itself. TL;DR: you think there's someone at the wheel? There's not - or they're drunk.

CarolynM Such a good book! The first few chapters made my brain hurt, but once the various investors came along it was quite a fun ride (if I didn't think about how much damage was done worldwide) 3y
GarethSouthwell @CarolynM Yes, I had to try a few times to get into it, too. As you say, though, it does pick up momentum, and the backstories are perhaps the best part. He's a great writer, I think - though I'm struggling a bit more with Liar's Poker. 3y
stevesbookstuf1 Michael Lewis is great, I loved every book of his that I've read. If you've not already read his book “The Fifth Risk“you might want to give it a go. Excellent book that doesn't get the attention it deserves. 3y
GarethSouthwell @stevesbookstuf1 Thanks, Steve, I'll check that out. I've read this one, Boomerang, and am half way through Liar's Poker, which I'm struggling with a little. I quite fancy Flash Boys, as I'm interested in computery stuff. 3y
35 likes3 stack adds4 comments
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Francknbeans
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Truth is like poetry. And most people hate poetry.

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Nikki_E

“Success was individual achievement; failure was a social problem.”
― Michael Lewis, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine

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JackOBotts
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1. Yes! I‘m trying to be more practical - if it‘s not a favorite or not special for any other reason, I‘ll move it forward (“Trying” is the operative word)
2. Depends on length, genre, how much I‘m enjoying it. I‘ve read 500+ page fiction books in a couple weeks, 300 page memoirs in days, 250 page non-fiction books in 6+ months
3. Tagged: see #2 about some non-fiction). If I didn‘t call it and bail, it‘d probably still be a “current read”

Eggs I saw the film Big Short but did not know it‘s a book. Thanks for playing 🌺👏🏻📚 5y
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ClairesReads
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The story behind the 2007/8 financial crisis, is so outrageous it is at times hard to believe it is true. The detail with which Lewis dissects the mechanics of this crisis, is both fascinating and horrifying. It makes clear exactly how real it is. Built on greed, lies, and a healthy dose of wilful ignorance, this is a story that has to be read to be believed, and should be read to be understood by everyone taking on debt in our capitalist economy.

Sace I may see if my library has it. I suspect it's a book that will make me angry. 5y
Cinfhen Should read this!! I‘ve heard film is fabulous 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @Sace @Cinfhen I will second all of that...definitely worth the read! Especially now as they are dismantling all of the financial protections that we put in after that meltdown! 5y
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Riveted_Reader_Melissa @ClairesReads not to get political, but after this I would recommend Warren‘s A Fighting Chance which deals with her first experience in Washington being called in to try and help after the financial meltdown to enact some better laws, and her later This Fight is Our Fight where she talks about how they are already dismantling them. They cover other things of course, but love her or hate her the content regarding banking was VERY informative. 5y
ClairesReads @Cinfhen @Sace it will definitely make you angry and the film is good too. The book covers the mechanics more thoroughly which is really interesting, while the film is a bit more ‘personality‘ focused. 5y
ClairesReads @Riveted_Reader_Melissa thanks for the recommendations! They sound interesting I‘ll definitely seek them out! 5y
Sace @ClairesReads Hmmm. 🤔 I wonder if I'm smart enough/persistent enough for it. I'm intellectually lazy and don't like to have to think too much 🤣 5y
ClairesReads @Sace I think it‘s pretty well explained so it‘s not too taxing 5y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @Sace It‘s actually not bad on audiobook if you prefer, 5y
30 likes9 comments
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ClairesReads
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A business book #readharder2019

AceOnRoam The last one? 5y
ClairesReads @AceOnRoam one more after this- the book that won a prize in 2018 by a woman or AOC... I‘m going for 5y
AceOnRoam Good choice, then you can read the sequel 😊 I look forward to your review. 5y
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danibel
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Currently reading (listening?)

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Chrissyreadit
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I asked my niece to pick out a scary movie to watch together....it was. But seriously, I need some good Halloween movies to watch- besides Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic, not Saw or torture themed. Please and Thank-you.

Clare-Dragonfly The Nightmare Before Christmas! The Corpse Bride, Beetlejuice, The Addams Family, Addams Family Values. 5y
Chrissyreadit @Clare-Dragonfly yes- I think I will see if the family would like any of those! We do not have and having satellite means we need to buy movies so there is no lag! 5y
ravenlee My husband and I like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and The Lost Boys; but they‘re not family-friendly. A friend recommended a Mary-Kate and Ashley movie that I think was called Double Trouble? But we couldn‘t get into it. 5y
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Chrissyreadit @ravenlee the lost boys is one of my favorites- my teens might like it now that they are older- we are good with any level they are 15-17. 5y
Reggie The 9th Gate with Johnny Depp is sooo good. It‘s just really dark and atmospheric. 5y
Chrissyreadit @Reggie yes!!! That sounds like a good one. Am going to try to get it today! 5y
PaperbackPirate If you like ghost stories I would recommend Stir of Echos. 5y
71 likes7 comments
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Vivlio_Gnosi
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⭐⭐⭐⭐
An excellent analysis of the '08 #financial collapse by one of my favorite authors. A little drier & slower paced than I expected.
Now it's time to check out the movie adaptation.
#GreenvilleSC #Nonfiction

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Kanishkalitsy

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him.
Leo Tolstoy, 1897 from The Big Short by Michael Lewis

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EmilieGR
Pickpick

He makes it easy to read despite my unfamiliarity with the subject

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WellReadCatLady
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A bit confusing and I even learned about the great recession and its causes when I was in business school, but from what I gather from this book, many professionals in trading and finance don't even understand the market all that well. So I feel better. Entertaining to learn about a handful of people who were being dismissed for thinking Wall Street was wrong and decided to go against what everyone else was doing.

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CarolynM
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I read this book for my IRL book group a few years ago. The first few chapters did my head in, but once I started to understand it I found it equal parts fascinating and horrifying. I haven't seen the film, maybe one day.
#AbbaInAugust #MoneyMoneyMoney

Reggie The film is so depressing. 6y
emilyhaldi Would love to read this AND see the movie!! Somehow I‘ve never seen it! (edited) 6y
CarolynM @Reggie The book's not laugh-a-minute either😂 It's pretty frustrating to realise just how dumb and sheeplike a lot of the people who make decisions that impact all of us actually are. (edited) 6y
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CarolynM @emilyhaldi I found it really hard to follow the financial instruments stuff at the beginning, but I persevered until it started to make sense. Then I got angry. 6y
Amiable The movie is excellent--would definitely recommend 6y
CarolynM @Amiable I would like to see it sometime. 6y
Mdargusch I haven‘t read the book or seen the movie, but it sounds perfect for the prompt! 💸💸💸 6y
Reviewsbylola This sounds very interesting. 6y
Meredith3 Perf! 6y
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MirrorMask
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1. Going to Ann Arbor
2. The week before vacation is always a little odd
3. San Francisco
4. Sloth
5. 87 degrees Fahrenheit

#friyayintro @jesshowbooks

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GeekGrl82
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My mom & I had tickets to see Patti LuPone in Gypsy, prompting our first trip to NYC. We just happened to be in town on September 15, 2008, the day Lehman Brothers collapsed. I am at the oldest end of the "Millenials." At the time I was 25, working my first jobs after college, figuring out what I wanted to do. I didn't know that the train was about to come off the rails, that the job market would collapse, that pay would plateau.

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wellitworkedlasttime
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Lines like that make me feel queasy. "Waiting for homeowners to default". Really? Betting on people's lives. No wonder the system crashed....

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Clrroth
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Saw the movie first but absolutely loved this book! Gives incredibly detailed information that the movie fails to go into. A must read for anyone interested in what happened within our banking system in the past years! It really makes you question our global economic system as a whole.

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LauraBeth
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Amazing, sad, scary, true, prophetic story about #moneygrabber. I saw the movie and it was just as brilliant - note the ending...

Cinfhen Movie is brilliant! Own the book, hubby has read it. And yes, we are dealing with a new crisis...water supply 😞 8y
RealBooks4ever Really scary if we lose our water! 😕 8y
Reggie This movie made me so angry and sad because of how reckless Wall street/ big banking was. But did enjoy all the breaking of the 4th wall, especially when Selena Gomez shows up to give a lesson. 8y
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MyNamesParadise Oh yeah the line about how we'll end up blaming immigrants and poor people. 😟😞😔 8y
Izai.Amorim I loved the movie as well. Yes, water is supposed to be the next big thing. Some people talk about future "water wars" between countries. But there is already a big war on privatization going on. Drinking tap water has become kind of a political statement. 8y
LauraBeth @Reggie I forgot about that! I actually needed those lessons - what's a synthetic CDO? 🤷‍♀️ 8y
LauraBeth @Izai.Amorim I hadn't ever paid attention to what is going on with water until that movie 8y
LauraBeth @RealBooks4ever I think at the rate we're going with the environment, our water won't be potable 8y
LauraBeth @Cinfhen 😔😔 8y
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ElectricKatyLand
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Really interesting. Lewis explores the financial crisis through the stories of the outliers who saw it coming. Recommend.

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Iindseyo
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Started looking back at what I read in January 2016. Always interesting to see how my reading taste has changed in some ways, not so much in others. 😊Also, it appears I go for Michael Lewis in Januarys - I finished The Undoing Project a few weeks ago! #flashback #whatiread

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stacybmartin
Mehso-so

Meh. Finance, Wall Street, and rich people are some of my least favorite topics. Mostly, this book just made me mad and took me back to a terrible time of trying to sell a condo right as the housing market collapsed - thanks to these jerks, my property value tanked over $50K and made it impossible to sell. What a nightmare. On to better books!

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stacybmartin
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Today's #labsoundtrack for examining and cutting evidence. I've got a lot of nonfiction queued up lately on OverDrive - wonder what's up with that.

LindsayReads I've been craving non-fiction on audio, too, lately. I used to prefer it on paper. Maybe the act of hearing people telling us real things? 8y
CouronneDhiver I agree... I've been on a non fiction kick too. 8y
BarbaraTheBibliophage I listen to lots of nonfiction on audio. Seems to work better for me. 8y
49 likes3 comments
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sarahmazing
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This should be required reading in either high school or college. Fantastic book so far. I don't know why I've waited so long to read it!

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Amiable
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A pile of books, a cozy fire, a mug of tea ... and me. 🙂

Penny_LiteraryHoarders That's a pretty similar view over here at my house too! 8y
Lindy Yesterday, our neighbours across the street had a fire and a hot chocolate stand set up on the sidewalk in front of their house. -21 C weather. I was happy to stay inside with my book, even without a fireplace. 8y
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Cobscook
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#currentreads These are all so great I have a hard time deciding which one to read at any given moment!

BarbaraTheBibliophage Terry Tempest Williams! ❤️ 8y
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KateWalsh
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2008-present financial world perfectly described in one quote by Steve Eisman in Michael Lewis' The Big Short. Like, "Hey, you guys had a huge role, whether through incompetence or avarice, in making this catastrophe....now tell us what to do next!" As an accountant and former employee of a major WS firm, [information redacted ?] I believe EVERYone should read this book.

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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So bummed to watch This Week Tonight and see that what we've really learned from the sub-prime lending & bundling, was how to apply it to other industries.

http://www.newsweek.com/john-oliver-last-week-tonight-auto-lending-490429

Well, I learned enough from this book for this to worry me so, yay good book!

kdwinchester I love John Oliver ❤️ 8y
WordWaller Oh I love John Oliver!! Planning to watch that one soon. 8y
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LauraBeth Sadly, banks and industries still prey on the poor 😔 8y
KVanRead I just watched that last night! ❤️John Oliver 8y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @LauraBeth Yes they will, but what was so interesting about this book, was how they then used those little preyed upon people, to prey upon the entire American middle class in the stock market, and eventually all American taxpayers who bailed them out. The book was really good for me to see how they just kept rolling it into a bigger and bigger way to make money off of everyone else in the system. 8y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa @Mamashep @LauraBrook I saw you two added this book, the book is good, the audiobook is great, but skip the movie at least until after the book, otherwise I found it confusing. 8y
LauraBrook @Riveted_Reader_Melissa Thanks for the tip, will do book first! 😘 8y
Mamashep @Riveted_Reader_Melissa thanks for the tip! 8y
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KimHM
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Pickpick

Like Taleb's The Black Swan, this book isn't only about money, it's about the way things happen, about expectations and people's willingness to be deluded and about the system's unlimited appetite for preying on the deluded. It's not sexy or fun but it is genuinely enlightening.

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KimHM
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Watched the movie twice and now I'm ready for the book. (Pic is a screen shot from a Guardian review that matches character names to real ones.) I enjoyed Moneyball and learned a lot. . . Though I couldn't ever watch baseball the same way after that . . .

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TeaRainBook
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Pickpick

5/5 stars. Looking at buying my own copy (read this from a library loan). Very different from the movie - I love both, but some may find the movie easier to understand. You definitely need to know a lot finance lingo and concepts to understand this book - it's not a textbook in the slightest.

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TeaRainBook
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Picked this up from the base library today. Summer bingo square filler for "book adapted to the screen". I already love the movie, so this should be a slam dunk.

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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Read it & finally got to watch the movie today. They did a great job portraying this eclectic group of eccentric geniuses who figured it out in advance, and the horrible derision they suffered trying to warn & speak the truth to power. Still a complicated subject to explain though, even on film.

Ukulelebob I haven't read it but I really liked the movie. 8y
Riveted_Reader_Melissa The movie was excellent, the book was even better (which is usually the case). Steve Carell and Christian Bale did a fabulous job with their characters though, very spot on. Only a few minor name changes & backstory tidbits. The book just has even more detail, and none of the odd asides. 8y
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MatDavies
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Pickpick

Financial journalism meets thriller in brilliant expose of Wall Street greed and ineptitude. Stellar book; highly recommended.

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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Pickpick

Very good book about a complicated subject. Amazing & disheartening all rolled up together. If you thought you understood what happened in hindsight, you don't even know the tip of the iceberg, let alone realize how deep under the surface it went, or how sharp those parts under the surface remain.

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Riveted_Reader_Melissa
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The more you listen to this one, the more you realize that no matter how much you thought you understood what happened in retrospect, you don't know the half of it. Truly, insanely, crazy. This one falls under the..."You know nothing, Jon Snow"

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SubwayBookReview
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Amie: "I loved the film but didn't understand most of it, so I thought I'd read the book. The author managed to make an incredibly boring subject fascinating because he‘s so captivated by people. He's taken a topic like the financial crisis and made it about human stories."

TulipBooks I loved the film (but I have qualifications in finance so it was a bit of a geek out for me 😬) - is the book a memoir or just a non-fiction account? 9y
Nel_Mezzo Excellent! As are most of Lewis' books. Have read book and purchased the movie. Recommend both. 9y
Glenda Excellent book. Love Michael Lewis's narrative style. 8y
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Joshuatree
Pickpick

Way better than the movie.

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BenMezrich

A big congrats to Charles Randolph for winning the Oscar last night for best adapted screenplay. I'm lucky enough to be working with Charles on the adaptation of my book Ugly Americans :)

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librosporeluniverso
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Best Adapted Screenplay for The Big Short... I'll have to read it!

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GabrielleMRO
Pickpick

This book not only taught me so much I didn't know or understand about the housing market crash, but also was incredibly entertaining with captivating characters. Great way to combining a confusing topic with an accessible way of reading.

todd Wow, you act (and post) fast. Thanks for getting Litsy with us this weekend. So much fun! 9y
3 likes1 comment
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BenMezrich

I love this Michael Lewis quote from VF on the movie biz: "I had come to think of the movie business as a place that spent huge sums of money with incredible enthusiasm to ensure the movies of books were never made."

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BenMezrich

Also a big congrats to Charles Randolph, who is nominated for an Oscar for co-adapting The Big Short. Charles is adapting my book Ugly Americans for tv (im exec producing with Jerry Bruckheimer) and I feel very lucky to be working with him!

todd Congrats! I'll keep my eyes and ears open. 9y
4 likes1 comment