You know how some things just stand out in ways that can really surprise you? Well, there’s this quietly amazing moment in The Big Short that has stayed solidly in the very forefront of my mind since I saw the movie about a week ago. And it’s weird that it’s this scene that I can’t stop thinking about because it’s not a particularly showy scene. In fact, it’s not even an actual scene. Instead, it’s part of a montage near the end and there is no dialogue taking place at all because, by then, there’s just not a whole lot that needs to be said. The economy has crashed spectacularly – and sorry, but I refuse to label such a thing with a spoiler alert because if you don’t know the economy went belly-up in 2008, that can’t be my problem. (Feel free, though, to blame any combination of your parents, the liberal media, Donald Trump, or whatever virus you caught the last time you ate at Chipotle.) Anyway, two minor characters in the film … Continue reading →

On a street right near my house sits a church with a sign on its expansive front lawn. I’m not sure who actually changes the letters on the sign or at what time of day the newest message to the public is thrown up there, but I do know that every few weeks new words appear. I’d think maybe it’s God himself, but sometimes things on the sign are spelled incorrectly and my guess is that God’s got fact checkers and editors and at least three wise men up there who would never let a “your” pass for a “you’re.”

The messages on that church’s sign are usually vaguely threatening, at least the way I read them. They are always blunt – as I guess a sign should be – and they involve commands like, “Kneel. He wants you to,” and I cannot help thinking in return, “But are you sure he wants you ending a sentence with a preposition?” This week the message on the sign is far more tempered than I’ve ever … Continue reading →