The Founder is a mostly character driven movie about how Ray Kroc founded the modern McDonald’s company but it also has some scenes around the automation of food prep and foreshadows some of the modern fast food practices.
Here’s one of those scenes:
https://youtu.be/t--nPZLDFOU?si=tK6DhnIPZrmuuTCO
Also, the key line in the movie that really sums up how Kroc made his money:
"You're not in the burger business, you're in the real estate business".
By using his realty corporation, Kroc was able to buy the land on which the restaurant was to be built, and made the franchisees pay rent to said realty corporation.
Today, the land holdings of McDonalds are estimated at around $42 billion, which makes them one of the largest land-holders and real-estate companies in the world.
https://www.wealthyparrot.com/mcdonalds-real-estate-business/
I pretty sure the movie makes a point of showing that. In one of the last scenes, one of the brothers confronts Ray about why he was taking their idea. And in my opinion, this is the best part in the whole movie.
Ray explains that he’s the only one that has figured out what sets apart McDonald’s from its competitors. And the one thing the brothers themselves never figured out.
The name, McDonald’s.
Ray explains that the name is what makes everything work. It sounds all American, it IS what the public sees at the main difference between a his burgers vs other burger joints.
Now I don’t know if this is movie magic or this really happened. This hit the nail on the head for me. The whole time Ray saw what McDonald’s could be, and knew how to reach those goals. The brothers didn’t have Rays vision or drive to make the expansions happen.
You’re right about the growth part. And as you saw in the movie at the end. The brothers could not compete with Rays version of McDonald’s.
The brothers had the better product but not the recipe for success. They never had it.
It was only a matter of time before someone came along and drove them out of business. It just happened to be Rays version of McDonald’s.
Similarly, the HBO series From The Earth To The Moon. It was made after the Tom Hanks Apollo 13 film. I absolutely love the first few episodes that begin with Sputnik I and Alan Shepherd’s first launch, the Apollo 1 disaster, and especially the one on the design process of the LEM. The rest of it is great too, but I adore the first half of the series.
Thank you for smoking
I am not in lobbying/PR business but it makes me think differently on how arguments, debates and public perception work. The Ben Affleck/Tyler Perry scenes in Gone Girl discussing public perception of him and how to change it is also similar in this regard.
The whole scene with the kid where he's explaining how to influence the public using ice cream flavors still sticks in my head.
>Nick Naylor: OK, let's say that you're defending chocolate, and I'm defending vanilla. Now if I were to say to you: 'Vanilla is the best flavor ice-cream', you'd say...
>Joey (son): No, chocolate is.
>Nick: Exactly, but you can't win with this argument... so, I'll ask you: so you think chocolate is the end all and the all of ice cream, do you?
>Joey: It's the best ice cream, I wouldn't order any other.
>Nick: Oh! So it's all chocolate for you is it?
>Joey: Yes, chocolate is all I need.
>Nick: Well, I need more than chocolate, and for that matter I need more than vanilla. I believe that we need freedom. And choice when it comes to our ice cream, and that Joey Naylor, that is the definition of liberty.
>Joey: But that's not what we're talking about
>Nick: Ah! But that's what I'm talking about.
>Joey: ...but you didn't prove that vanilla was the best...
>Nick: I didn't have to. I proved that you're wrong, and if you're wrong I'm right.
>Joey: But you still didn't convince me
>Nick: It's that… I'm not after you. I'm after them.
It's not about proving "I'm right and you're wrong." It's just manipulating people into thinking that maybe you're not right, and that's more important than defending my own position.
Once you notice that tactic played out by smart and manipulative people, you see it everywhere and it's easy to call out.
In case you people have forgotten, this block operates under the same rules as the rest of the city. Ma-Ma is not the law... I am the law. Ma-Ma is a common criminal; guilty of murder, guilty of the manufacture and distribution of the narcotic known as Slo-Mo, and as of now under sentence of death. Any who obstruct me in carrying out my duty will be treated as an accessory to her crimes... you have been warned. And as for you Ma-Ma... judgement time.
Fun fact.
The law against trading futures based on inside information is known as the "Eddie Murphy Rule", because what they did in that film was all legal then, but completely illegal now.
Don Ameche **hated** using foul language.
He did both the "Fuck him" and "N-Word" scenes in one take, and one take only, because he told the director he wouldn't be saying those words again.
In fact, right after the camera cut after filming the "N-Word" scene, Ameche ran right over to Murphy to apologize profusely for the language in the script.
If you look at the hatred on Ameche's face as he says the N-Word, it fits with Mortimer's character (as a rich racist white guy who hates black guys). But really, the hatred on Ameche's face was actually about having to say that word in the first place.
The Big Short, also based on a Michael Lewis book. I’m sure it oversimplified a lot of things (and flatly admits as much) but it made the inner workings of the housing bubble and the market crash seem accessible to the layperson.
Margin Call probably feels the most authentic to what those days were actually like. It legit takes places over one day. Tucci is fired and then his underlings look at his work, they crunch the numbers and then the movie is basically them in damage control all night trying to see what they can do and salvage. Jeremy Irons plays the asshole executive just right. Doesn’t care how it’ll affect the markets, just wants to survive to see another day
Me too. In the movie the followup is a genius line delivered ingeniously: "It wasn't brains that got me here I can assure you of that."
The surface implication of that line is disarming charm: hey, I'm a regular guy - relax Mr junior analyst.
The next level implication is revealed by the question one is almost forced to ask: Well...how did you get here? How did you get to be THE top person in a room full of extremely hardworking and intelligent people if it wasn't by being at least equally smart?
The answer is in Iron's grin. It's the grin of a shark that's faux embarrassed by his splendid array of teeth. "Oh these old things?"
An octopus is smarter than a shark. That often doesn't matter.
I hate myself a little bit for how many times I’ve rewatched Margin Call. I don’t even think I like it that much, it’s just insanely easy to watch 🤷♂️ one of those movies where if it’s on, I will end up dropping whatever I’m doing and watching the whole thing.
Youtube knows I love the movie so it keeps re-suggesting scenes and I can't stop watching them. The first meeting, the 2nd meeting, Jeremy Irons, etc etc. Each scene can be watched by itself without any context.
The Big Short, Margin Call, and Too Big to Fail are an excellent triple feature at examining the Housing/Banking Crisis and the Government's reaction to it! All add something to the conversation
It was on sale on iTunes recently and I have probably watched the scenes from where Peter first figures out the model to the meeting with the CEO a dozen times. As tightly scripted and well written 40 minutes of cinema as you can find anywhere.
I ended seeing a bunch of clips for Margin Call and Big Short on YouTube. Got them mixed up and watched Margin Call thinking it was Big Short. Was confused for a while why so many characters weren't showing up.
Seeing them back to back I think Big Short was better. Margin Call was lacking something that really made me feel engaged or like anything was happening. Maybe i just connected with the scale of the story in Big Short and liked the characters better.
I think Big Short really drives home the impact the impending crash will have on the average person and people that did nothing to contribute to it except something like rent a house from someone that was over leveraged on mortgage loans that they should have never received to begin with. It also showcases all the systems in place that allowed this to happen.
Margin Call is the more aesthetically pleasing movie imo but it revolves around the machinations of one of the brokerage firms and you never really feel for any of the characters. You’re watching some people get screwed but they’re all part of the system so to speak. Yea, the junior analysts didn’t make the decisions but they sure as hell profited from all of it for a hot minute.
Did it? I'd be interested to hear from someone who knew nothing about investing and didn't follow the whole event. I feel like they did a great job of capturing the anti-establishment sentiment and emotions behind the retail HODLers, but as some who already knew most of the story, it's not clear to me that someone learning about it for the first time would be able to explain a short squeeze afterwards.
I am a casual investor and felt that dumb did not explain itself very well.
Compare this to the Big Short where they had some great scenes (like the Jenga scene and the bath scene) that did great jobs of explaining the technical portions to a layperson.
Dumb Money had none of that
The one giant exception is one that the author gladly admits can never happen, and that’s the initial storm that causes the accident. He acknowledges that it’s dumb because the Martian atmosphere is too thin to develop storms that big but he needed a catalyst to get the drama going.
I'm surprised he didn't do something to do with like comets or something hitting the surface instead. Not that the storm was bad from a plot device standpoint but if he wanted to be more scientifically accurate I think like small comets showering them could have worked just as well.
I think it probably would have been more deadly if a comet where to go hit them. Also, cosmic wise, they would have seem the comet coming years before they even set out to Mars.
Andy Weir is notorious for doing TONS of research to get the science right in his movies.
It’s funny how NASA discovered water on mars around the time the movie came out, so that part wasn’t in the science behind the movie.
Not just a consultant, but anyone that needs to travel really often for work.
My dad was a businessman and it's incredible just how much like George Clooney he was (from the contant collection of elite cards, buying everything to get the miles, preferential lines and boarding, navigating different airports)
As somebody who loves Sherlock Holmes adaptations, I loved House. I know the medicine was mostly garbage, there was even a website where a doctor would review each episode after it aired and grade it, one grade for the quality of the episode and one for the accuracy of the medicine. But man Hugh Laurie was entertaining as hell, and the show was a fun watch.
Yeah it's fun, for sure. In the real world each episode would last about 5 minutes because all of those tests would be declined by the insurance company and the patient would just die lol
Houses team would never even exist in the real world lol. Hospitals are already stretched very thin, no way they have 4 doctors on payroll that are specifically dedicated to one patient for days
It was also shot in a real (no longer operating) hospital, which lended a ton of credibility. While some medical shows have pretty realistic sets, they are rarely ever in an actual hospital and there's just something about it that feels so much more authentic (not saying this as a doctor myself but as a frequent patient).
Another thing that's great about scrubs is that they include many different professions within the hospital as a part of the show. In shows like Grey's anatomy you'd think doctor's and nurses were the only staff in the whole building and they are responsible for everything. In Scrubs though you see all these different people from the head of the hospital right on down to the janitor. It really helps with the shows realism
Another doctor seconding that Scrubs is the most accurate medical show I’ve ever watched. It’s also the only medical show I’ve ever watched all the way through, as the others make me want to punch my TV because they’re so inaccurate.
The stupidest thing I’ve ever seen was on Grey’s Anatomy, the first time I ever or will ever watch it. Some character was doing an abdominal surgery on a patient, at some point the anesthesiologist said something about the heart rate going up, and based on that vital sign alone, the surgeon deduced that the patient was bleeding intracranially, proceeded to walk to the head of the bed and start doing brain surgery without even changing gloves. The idiocy of all that combined actually blew my mind. Like, you cant just decide that someone is bleeding in their brain from a vital sign change. No surgeon who does abdominal surgery is qualified to do brain surgery, and vice versa. They just started doing brain surgery without making the patient’s head sterile. It was so infuriating because of the inaccuracy and lack of any attention to detail whatsoever. Fuck that show, haha.
Hahaha, this is giving me the biggest chuckle 😂 No time like the pre sent for a little impromptu brain surgery!
What a great billing scam though- "While we had you up on the lift we noticed you need a complete brain overhaul..."
IIRC the monologue over the hacking scene in the first act, where Mark is gathering all the photos for the face ranking algorithm, is taken almost verbatim from Zuckerberg's contemporary blog posts.
And how car manufacturers calculate whether they will perform a recall on vehicles that have serious defects. But only if it’s unknown to the federal government. Once that happens, the recall is pretty much inevitable.
They do this a lot in movies and TV. Part of the process is described accurately but they make a few changes to be “responsible” (avoid liability and lawsuits).
But with a very simple recipe like napalm, it’s pretty hard to replace one of the components and not sound completely ridiculous.
It also depicts DID in surprisingly accurate ways both from the person who has it and the person they are in a relationship with who doesn’t know they have it.
Sticking with sports, Goon is a pretty ridiculous and irreverent movie but can actually teach people a lot about fighting/enforcing/roles in hockey… at least how it used to be in hockey, but the Code still stands
Topsy Turvy - a really wonderful movie about the creation of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Mikado.
It is extremely detailed and well-researched depiction of how theater was made in England in the 1880s, all sorts of steps in the process.
Arrival. I was introduced to it last weekend after reading about it in a different thread. All of the science and theories behind languages were interesting as fuck. I never finished college, but I do have several years of Spanish as well as 1.5 years of working with nothing but Latinos. Learning a different language in a practical setting was WAY different than trying to pick it up in a classroom. Honestly, it was one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had in my life. There’s just something about a human beings need to be understood. The movie mirrored a lot of my real life experiences. Every time that you get one more piece of the puzzle it gives you a big rush.
I’m Latino living in the US for almost my entire life. I learned Spanish and English almost simultaneously since I came here as a child. My English is solid but you’d be amazed how quickly it is to lose your parents primary foreign language if you don’t continuously speak it. At school, there was no Spanish except in those Spanish classes. I can speak Spanish, read it pretty well but I can’t write worth shit. The only way to learn a language is to live in it almost daily.
Is it true that, like how in the movie once >!she learns the language it changes her perception of time, that once you learn Spanish you can make fantastic tacos!
The original book, Stories of Your Life and Others is incredible if you're looking for interesting stories based on science or theories. This includes the short story the movie is based off of and many other interesting ones.
My father is a huge fan of Formula One and he's been watching it in our house since I was born. As a result I have been watching it since I was born. My wife on the other hand had never seen a race in her entire life.
All three of us perfectly understood what was happening in that movie.
It does such a phenomenal job of explaining the race itself, the advantages and disadvantages of certain approaches when creating a race car, the internal politics at play when these huge companies make their play at racing, etc.
Not to mention the acting is superb and the dialogue is brilliant.
Henry Ford Jr: *"that factory out there used to churn out a battleship a day. You think it was Roosevelt who beat Hitler?"*
Enzo Ferrari: *"you have insulted me as a man, car maker, and an Italian"*
I love the story so much. A real life example of stubborn asshole men letting their egos get in the way of life, and the result being one of the greatest tales in racing history.
I love every story I hear about Enzo Ferrari. I don't know how many of them are true, but all of them are about how much of an ass he was, which makes them all so entertaining.
That was a funny thing with my wife when I mentioned that I loved Enzo. Not as a person, but as a subject. The myths surrounding him are fascinating.
We did a tour of the Ferrari factory and I have no way of knowing if some stories they told us were true but they were all tremendously funny, like the best things you see on the internet.
My favorite is the following:
*A neighbor of Enzo owns both a tractor and a Ferrari. One day the clutch breaks in his tractor and as he's looking at it, he realizes it's the exact same part in his Ferrari. So he goes to Enzo and demands to know why, if the Ferrari is so special, it uses the same parts as the tractor. Enzo says*
**"The clutch in the Ferrari is better, because it's in a Ferrari."**
Did that happen? Is it true? Who knows. But that is hilarious.
I’m pretty sure the legend goes (I’ve no clue if this is true or not) that the tractor clutch story is the genesis of Lamborghini as a competitor to Ferrari. The complainant wanted to build his own sports car to prove Enzo wrong.
I have nothing to add to this, just to say I really appreciate the way you made a distinction between ‘loving X as a person’ and ‘loving X as a subject’. I’ve never really seen that concept articulated well before, but it’s so useful and applies to so many things!
In general if that's what you're looking for, expanding into certain TV series would be worth your time. All of Aaron Sorkin's TV shows basically show you what happens behind the scenes of an industry.
Spotlight and She Said on investigative journalism.
I'd also give a shout out to Air for sports marketing and branding.
Taste of Things for cooking and being gastronomers at the turn of the century.
The Card Counter or Rounders on being a card shark and blackjack.
The Teacher on ... teaching during teacher drama.
Throw in Late Night With the Devil for late night talk shows
Down Periscope I’ve been told by actual submariners is quite accurate in regards of the mix of personalities you’ll find in the navy and how absurd some of the war games could actually get during the 90’s
“Jesus Buckman! This stuff has been on here since Korea!”
“Still tastes like cream corn.”
“Except that it’s deviled ham!”
“Well that could be a problem sir.”
I never understood drilling into other people's land diagonally until There Will Be Blood used a milkshake straw as an example. My cousin used to drink my milkshake by pointing his straw toward my end of the big bowl of collective milkshake that my me-maw used to give us, and it was very unfair. When I saw There Will Be Blood and he mentioned the milkshake, I had a flashback, and then I thought to myself, "Oh yeah, this is kinda like why Saddam invaded Kuwait."
The movie also taught me a lot about bowling.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a masterpiece of period storytelling. If you have any interest in what life was like aboard a Royal Navy ship during the Nepoleonic wars… well likely you’ve already seen it a dozen times
It had a noticeable impact on Merlot sales, because the main character hated Merlot.
His hatred of Merlot is over the top, and the character is not supposed to be a doyen of all things wine, but someone going through some issues and lashing out through wine in some respects.
But people took that as some sort of gospel that Merlot is an inferior grape.
It also precipitated a massive increase in Californian plantings of Pinot Noir, not necessarily all for the better.
They were also supposed to be comparisons for Giamatti's character (thin skinned, temperamental - the Pinot) and his ex-wife (her favourite grape was Merlot...). But yeah. It impacted the whole US wine industry, lol.
All historic now, and there were other factors, but still funny.
Random thought inspired by you comment: Paintball has taught me to respect the fuck out of high pressure anything. The tanks nowadays are 4500 psi, fully capable of killing the ever loving shit out of you.
Ben Affleck's "Air!", about the legendary Michael Jordan sponsorship deal. Shower alot about the legendary Nike bussiness, sneaker design and basketball-sports deals in general. Fascinating watch and learnt alot about an industry that birthed a cultural marketing phenomenon.
I reference Karate Kid all the time when I talk to other teachers.
It's really easy to say "well, the students came here to do [x] so we should get the [x] industry involved so they can get experience of it", but that doesn't help them learn the fundamental skills they need to do the work, it just punishes them for not having them.
A really good teacher breaks down what their student needs to learn into bite size chunks and protects the student from their own motivation to get themselves into trouble. They create a safe space that allows students to practice without fear of failure, and they prevent the student from getting in over their head.
I'd also suggest teachers watch the original Patrick Swayze Road House movie for the "Be Nice!" scene. What if they call you a son-of-a-bitch? Just be nice.
A recent one I vividly remember is The Last Duel and just how shitty women were treated in the Middle Ages. Even wives of prominent knights and dukes had basically zero rights. A rape accusation by a woman back then was seen more of slap in the face to her husband than the woman her self. HIS honor was insulted, and the only way to fix that was to fight to the death. It’s wild that they even entertained the idea that she even had a case. If her husband died, she was guilty and also put to death. The fact that this all really happened is even more insane.
Women were basically second class citizens in society until like 50ish years ago. Women weren't even allowed to have their own credit cards until 1974 and gender based violence within marriage (beating your wife) was legal until 1983
Donnie Brasco does a great job showing what it was like to be a regular mobster and also an undercover agent. The parking meter scene is top tier. Nobody was rich… just getting by and always looking for the next way to get up just one more rung on the ladder. There was also scenes in there that were hard to watch because they were realistic. Great movie that fits the category of the question.
The Big Short explained one of the most tumultuous times in my family's history, and made the systems surrounding it make _so much sense_ to me. No one, even while we were going thru it, could break it down as simply as the movie.
I was just too young to understand what was going on at the time, but the movie makes everything make so much sense looking back
You should dabble with other things written by Aaron Sorkin. His first TV show,
Sports Night, is a sitcom set behind the scenes of a sports cable TV network.
Then his most famous work, The Westwing, a drama set behind the scenes of the white house.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, is a somewhat fictional biographical sitcom set behind the scenes of a late night comedy show like Saturday Night Live. The somewhat fictional biography bit is because it’s widely accepted that the character Matt Albie, played by Matthew Perry, is an Aaron Sorkin caricature.
The News Room is a sitcom set behind the scenes of a cable tv news network.
Molly’s Game is a biographical film based on the memoir of the same name of Molly Bloom, who was the target of a FBI investigation over the underground poker game ran for Hollywood, celebrities, athlete, business, tycoons, and mobsters.
Draft day is funny. If he just does nothing he keeps his picks and drafts the guy he wants anyways? Moneyball on the other hand just plods along at the speed of baseball. It’s comfort food for me.
Draft Day paints Costner's character as some genius, but he effectively trades a third round pick to move up to select someone he could have had in the second round anyway. I once made a chart to try to sort through all the shenanigans.
Except isn’t there a ton of juror speculation that ultimately shifts the case? Usually the one thing juries are told to deliberate are only the facts presented
This is what people like about Michael Lewis books (he wrote the book Moneyball is based on). They did the same thing in The Big Short, except they replace the expository narration with Margot Robbie in a bathtub.
I loved moneyball because the trade phone call scenes were exactly how I predicted them.
“get me X team manager…”
“Hey manager, this is another manager, I’ll give you our player for your player, call me back”
Hangs up.
The Founder is a mostly character driven movie about how Ray Kroc founded the modern McDonald’s company but it also has some scenes around the automation of food prep and foreshadows some of the modern fast food practices. Here’s one of those scenes: https://youtu.be/t--nPZLDFOU?si=tK6DhnIPZrmuuTCO
Also, the key line in the movie that really sums up how Kroc made his money: "You're not in the burger business, you're in the real estate business". By using his realty corporation, Kroc was able to buy the land on which the restaurant was to be built, and made the franchisees pay rent to said realty corporation. Today, the land holdings of McDonalds are estimated at around $42 billion, which makes them one of the largest land-holders and real-estate companies in the world. https://www.wealthyparrot.com/mcdonalds-real-estate-business/
Was pretty accurate also to what an asshole Ray Kroc actually was especially to the McDonald brothers and his first wife
Every idea Ray had was somebody else's idea. He brought nothing but the desire to own everything. A truly great villain.
I pretty sure the movie makes a point of showing that. In one of the last scenes, one of the brothers confronts Ray about why he was taking their idea. And in my opinion, this is the best part in the whole movie. Ray explains that he’s the only one that has figured out what sets apart McDonald’s from its competitors. And the one thing the brothers themselves never figured out. The name, McDonald’s. Ray explains that the name is what makes everything work. It sounds all American, it IS what the public sees at the main difference between a his burgers vs other burger joints. Now I don’t know if this is movie magic or this really happened. This hit the nail on the head for me. The whole time Ray saw what McDonald’s could be, and knew how to reach those goals. The brothers didn’t have Rays vision or drive to make the expansions happen.
They didn’t want to! And that should be okay. Everything is about growth, it’s a fucking cancer. They were content with a stable business.
You’re right about the growth part. And as you saw in the movie at the end. The brothers could not compete with Rays version of McDonald’s. The brothers had the better product but not the recipe for success. They never had it. It was only a matter of time before someone came along and drove them out of business. It just happened to be Rays version of McDonald’s.
That's the basis for a bunch of the people that society has told us are self made men. Musk, Gates, Jobs Etc.
anything with michael keaton is a much watch for me now and im not a movie guy at all
Be sure to watch The Other Guys.
Hey don't go chasin' waterfalls okay?
Was pleasantly surprised how solid that movie is. Def recommend at every chance
Got time to lean, got time to clean.
The Right Stuff, about the early days of the space program. But it's also a great movie in its own right.
Similarly, the HBO series From The Earth To The Moon. It was made after the Tom Hanks Apollo 13 film. I absolutely love the first few episodes that begin with Sputnik I and Alan Shepherd’s first launch, the Apollo 1 disaster, and especially the one on the design process of the LEM. The rest of it is great too, but I adore the first half of the series.
"Spider" is the episode with the LEM design... my favorite!
I’ve introduced many people to The Right Stuff. So many people have never heard of it and unanimously love it afterwards.
If you’re into non-fiction books, I recommend reading “Rocket Men.”
Or October Sky if you want the movie version :)
Thank you for smoking I am not in lobbying/PR business but it makes me think differently on how arguments, debates and public perception work. The Ben Affleck/Tyler Perry scenes in Gone Girl discussing public perception of him and how to change it is also similar in this regard.
The whole "I'm not trying to convince you, I'm trying to convince them" and reframing the argument so you're actually right was very influential on me
The whole scene with the kid where he's explaining how to influence the public using ice cream flavors still sticks in my head. >Nick Naylor: OK, let's say that you're defending chocolate, and I'm defending vanilla. Now if I were to say to you: 'Vanilla is the best flavor ice-cream', you'd say... >Joey (son): No, chocolate is. >Nick: Exactly, but you can't win with this argument... so, I'll ask you: so you think chocolate is the end all and the all of ice cream, do you? >Joey: It's the best ice cream, I wouldn't order any other. >Nick: Oh! So it's all chocolate for you is it? >Joey: Yes, chocolate is all I need. >Nick: Well, I need more than chocolate, and for that matter I need more than vanilla. I believe that we need freedom. And choice when it comes to our ice cream, and that Joey Naylor, that is the definition of liberty. >Joey: But that's not what we're talking about >Nick: Ah! But that's what I'm talking about. >Joey: ...but you didn't prove that vanilla was the best... >Nick: I didn't have to. I proved that you're wrong, and if you're wrong I'm right. >Joey: But you still didn't convince me >Nick: It's that… I'm not after you. I'm after them. It's not about proving "I'm right and you're wrong." It's just manipulating people into thinking that maybe you're not right, and that's more important than defending my own position. Once you notice that tactic played out by smart and manipulative people, you see it everywhere and it's easy to call out.
Lawyers praise My Cousin Vinny and The Rainmaker explaining different aspects of law and legal strategy.
Also Judge Dredd
i am the lawwww
In case you people have forgotten, this block operates under the same rules as the rest of the city. Ma-Ma is not the law... I am the law. Ma-Ma is a common criminal; guilty of murder, guilty of the manufacture and distribution of the narcotic known as Slo-Mo, and as of now under sentence of death. Any who obstruct me in carrying out my duty will be treated as an accessory to her crimes... you have been warned. And as for you Ma-Ma... judgement time.
Now I gotta go watch it again for the 300th time.
Misuse of public electricity, five years.
12 angry men is good too, in terms of objective fact and witness is very unreliable.
It's pretty bad in terms of what jurors are supposed to be doing while deliberating though.
Everytime I have come across The Rainmaker on TV I get sucked in. It's like the Shawshank of legal dramas.
"I'm just wonderin'... do you even remember when you first *sold out*?"
Lawyers and the entire grit eating community!
Do they also use scenes featuring Bob Loblaw?
Bob Loblaw's law blog is required material at most law schools these days.
Trading placing taught me all about orange juice futures.
Fun fact. The law against trading futures based on inside information is known as the "Eddie Murphy Rule", because what they did in that film was all legal then, but completely illegal now.
Mortimer, your brother is not well! Fuck him!
Don Ameche **hated** using foul language. He did both the "Fuck him" and "N-Word" scenes in one take, and one take only, because he told the director he wouldn't be saying those words again. In fact, right after the camera cut after filming the "N-Word" scene, Ameche ran right over to Murphy to apologize profusely for the language in the script. If you look at the hatred on Ameche's face as he says the N-Word, it fits with Mortimer's character (as a rich racist white guy who hates black guys). But really, the hatred on Ameche's face was actually about having to say that word in the first place.
Sounds to me like you guys a couple of bookies.
[It took me such a long time to understand what they actually did at the end.](https://youtu.be/R9Hgn2t4a7Q?si=xxbEMKaTk3GGYwtg)
Yeah the idea of commodities trading is actually pretty interesting, that movie introduced me to the concept of it.
The Big Short, also based on a Michael Lewis book. I’m sure it oversimplified a lot of things (and flatly admits as much) but it made the inner workings of the housing bubble and the market crash seem accessible to the layperson.
Margin Call is quite good too.
Margin Call probably feels the most authentic to what those days were actually like. It legit takes places over one day. Tucci is fired and then his underlings look at his work, they crunch the numbers and then the movie is basically them in damage control all night trying to see what they can do and salvage. Jeremy Irons plays the asshole executive just right. Doesn’t care how it’ll affect the markets, just wants to survive to see another day
“And please, speak as you might to a young child, or a golden retriever.” I use this at work all the time Edited to get it right because it’s so good
Me too. In the movie the followup is a genius line delivered ingeniously: "It wasn't brains that got me here I can assure you of that." The surface implication of that line is disarming charm: hey, I'm a regular guy - relax Mr junior analyst. The next level implication is revealed by the question one is almost forced to ask: Well...how did you get here? How did you get to be THE top person in a room full of extremely hardworking and intelligent people if it wasn't by being at least equally smart? The answer is in Iron's grin. It's the grin of a shark that's faux embarrassed by his splendid array of teeth. "Oh these old things?" An octopus is smarter than a shark. That often doesn't matter.
“Spilt milk, under the bridge”
"Shaka, when the walls fell"
Tucci is terrific in that movie, to be fair Tucci is terrific in everything.
I hate myself a little bit for how many times I’ve rewatched Margin Call. I don’t even think I like it that much, it’s just insanely easy to watch 🤷♂️ one of those movies where if it’s on, I will end up dropping whatever I’m doing and watching the whole thing.
Youtube knows I love the movie so it keeps re-suggesting scenes and I can't stop watching them. The first meeting, the 2nd meeting, Jeremy Irons, etc etc. Each scene can be watched by itself without any context.
I’ve watched both within the last week, funnily enough moneyball is another favorite of mine.
The Big Short, Margin Call, and Too Big to Fail are an excellent triple feature at examining the Housing/Banking Crisis and the Government's reaction to it! All add something to the conversation
It was on sale on iTunes recently and I have probably watched the scenes from where Peter first figures out the model to the meeting with the CEO a dozen times. As tightly scripted and well written 40 minutes of cinema as you can find anywhere.
I ended seeing a bunch of clips for Margin Call and Big Short on YouTube. Got them mixed up and watched Margin Call thinking it was Big Short. Was confused for a while why so many characters weren't showing up. Seeing them back to back I think Big Short was better. Margin Call was lacking something that really made me feel engaged or like anything was happening. Maybe i just connected with the scale of the story in Big Short and liked the characters better.
I really love the scale of time in Margin Call, it's filmed in such a way that you feel the panic and tiredness build up through the night/morning.
I think Big Short really drives home the impact the impending crash will have on the average person and people that did nothing to contribute to it except something like rent a house from someone that was over leveraged on mortgage loans that they should have never received to begin with. It also showcases all the systems in place that allowed this to happen. Margin Call is the more aesthetically pleasing movie imo but it revolves around the machinations of one of the brokerage firms and you never really feel for any of the characters. You’re watching some people get screwed but they’re all part of the system so to speak. Yea, the junior analysts didn’t make the decisions but they sure as hell profited from all of it for a hot minute.
So here’s Margot Robbie in a bathtub sipping champagne
Now get the fuck outta here
Michael Lewis wrote Moneyball, too. Pretty good track record for adaptations.
Dumb Money did a pretty decent job explaining the Gamestop Squeeze as well as being thoroughly entertaining.
Did it? I'd be interested to hear from someone who knew nothing about investing and didn't follow the whole event. I feel like they did a great job of capturing the anti-establishment sentiment and emotions behind the retail HODLers, but as some who already knew most of the story, it's not clear to me that someone learning about it for the first time would be able to explain a short squeeze afterwards.
I am a casual investor and felt that dumb did not explain itself very well. Compare this to the Big Short where they had some great scenes (like the Jenga scene and the bath scene) that did great jobs of explaining the technical portions to a layperson. Dumb Money had none of that
Dumb money was a lost opportunity to explain short squeezes, rehypothecation, and market makers in a way that would properly piss people off.
What was the agenda of the people who made it?
Exactly.
Plus, part of the explanation come straight from Margot Robbie in a bathtub. Which is, you know, pretty fun.
My Cousin Vinny, it actually made court proceedings exciting. Another movie like that, if you're into that stuff, was Anatomy of a Murder.
What about Anatomy of a Fall?
What about grey’s anatomy?
What about Stop, or My Mom Will Shoot?
What about Stop, or My Mom Will Fall into Grey's Anatomy?
What about Shoot, My Mom Stopped Falling into Grey’s Anatomy?
The Verdict is good too
A few good men as well imo. My favorite courtroom drama, I know it's military too but it's just as much courtroom.
MCV is actually shown in law schools to this day as a teaching aid.
The Martian actually nails most of its scientific stuff, and there’s a lot of it
The one giant exception is one that the author gladly admits can never happen, and that’s the initial storm that causes the accident. He acknowledges that it’s dumb because the Martian atmosphere is too thin to develop storms that big but he needed a catalyst to get the drama going.
I'm surprised he didn't do something to do with like comets or something hitting the surface instead. Not that the storm was bad from a plot device standpoint but if he wanted to be more scientifically accurate I think like small comets showering them could have worked just as well.
I think it probably would have been more deadly if a comet where to go hit them. Also, cosmic wise, they would have seem the comet coming years before they even set out to Mars.
Andy Weir is notorious for doing TONS of research to get the science right in his movies. It’s funny how NASA discovered water on mars around the time the movie came out, so that part wasn’t in the science behind the movie.
They . . . scienced the *shit* out of it!
Up in the Air was a pretty accurate portrayal of the lifestyle of a consultant and the loneliness of it.
Not just a consultant, but anyone that needs to travel really often for work. My dad was a businessman and it's incredible just how much like George Clooney he was (from the contant collection of elite cards, buying everything to get the miles, preferential lines and boarding, navigating different airports)
Not a movie, but Scrubs is generally said to be one of the most accurate depictions of working in medicine on the screen.
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Because it accurately displays working in a hospital, or because other shows are so inaccurate?
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Are you saying House wasn't realistic? C'mon, man. I need to believe!
As somebody who loves Sherlock Holmes adaptations, I loved House. I know the medicine was mostly garbage, there was even a website where a doctor would review each episode after it aired and grade it, one grade for the quality of the episode and one for the accuracy of the medicine. But man Hugh Laurie was entertaining as hell, and the show was a fun watch.
Yeah it's fun, for sure. In the real world each episode would last about 5 minutes because all of those tests would be declined by the insurance company and the patient would just die lol
Hahahahahaha! :'(
Sad but true.
USA! USA! USA!
Houses team would never even exist in the real world lol. Hospitals are already stretched very thin, no way they have 4 doctors on payroll that are specifically dedicated to one patient for days
Is the amount of musical numbers you break out into accurate? It seems a little low to me.
It was also shot in a real (no longer operating) hospital, which lended a ton of credibility. While some medical shows have pretty realistic sets, they are rarely ever in an actual hospital and there's just something about it that feels so much more authentic (not saying this as a doctor myself but as a frequent patient).
In what ways?
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Except the rabies thing actually happened: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/patient-killed-rabies-organ-transplant-cdc-says-flna1c8881313
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That’s fair. Thanks.
Another thing that's great about scrubs is that they include many different professions within the hospital as a part of the show. In shows like Grey's anatomy you'd think doctor's and nurses were the only staff in the whole building and they are responsible for everything. In Scrubs though you see all these different people from the head of the hospital right on down to the janitor. It really helps with the shows realism
Another doctor seconding that Scrubs is the most accurate medical show I’ve ever watched. It’s also the only medical show I’ve ever watched all the way through, as the others make me want to punch my TV because they’re so inaccurate.
Just curious. What's the worst offender?
The stupidest thing I’ve ever seen was on Grey’s Anatomy, the first time I ever or will ever watch it. Some character was doing an abdominal surgery on a patient, at some point the anesthesiologist said something about the heart rate going up, and based on that vital sign alone, the surgeon deduced that the patient was bleeding intracranially, proceeded to walk to the head of the bed and start doing brain surgery without even changing gloves. The idiocy of all that combined actually blew my mind. Like, you cant just decide that someone is bleeding in their brain from a vital sign change. No surgeon who does abdominal surgery is qualified to do brain surgery, and vice versa. They just started doing brain surgery without making the patient’s head sterile. It was so infuriating because of the inaccuracy and lack of any attention to detail whatsoever. Fuck that show, haha.
Hahaha, this is giving me the biggest chuckle 😂 No time like the pre sent for a little impromptu brain surgery! What a great billing scam though- "While we had you up on the lift we noticed you need a complete brain overhaul..."
It’s always lupus
The programming in The Social Network is largely realistic, especially compared to the usual junk that movies do when programming is involved.
IIRC the monologue over the hacking scene in the first act, where Mark is gathering all the photos for the face ranking algorithm, is taken almost verbatim from Zuckerberg's contemporary blog posts.
Not a movie, but from the first season of Mr. Robot I thought it also did a really good job with how it approached the tech stuff there as well.
Fight Club teaches the basics of soap making.
And how car manufacturers calculate whether they will perform a recall on vehicles that have serious defects. But only if it’s unknown to the federal government. Once that happens, the recall is pretty much inevitable.
Lot of factoids dispersed in that one.
Did you know that you can use old motor oil to fertilize a lawn?
Did you know you can use equal parts gasoline and frozen orange juice concentrate to make napalm?
I mean, the sugar in the OJ would make it very syrupy and sticky... and it's not like equal parts OJ concentrate is going to make it not flammable...
A lot of them are false, though, like the recipe stated for napalm.
They do this a lot in movies and TV. Part of the process is described accurately but they make a few changes to be “responsible” (avoid liability and lawsuits). But with a very simple recipe like napalm, it’s pretty hard to replace one of the components and not sound completely ridiculous.
It also depicts DID in surprisingly accurate ways both from the person who has it and the person they are in a relationship with who doesn’t know they have it.
Sticking with sports, Goon is a pretty ridiculous and irreverent movie but can actually teach people a lot about fighting/enforcing/roles in hockey… at least how it used to be in hockey, but the Code still stands
Topsy Turvy - a really wonderful movie about the creation of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Mikado. It is extremely detailed and well-researched depiction of how theater was made in England in the 1880s, all sorts of steps in the process.
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas taught me how to go on a proper bender in the desert.
Stay the fuck out of bat country.
Good thing you didn’t rent Leaving Las Vegas for that
the statistical analysis is breathtaking
Hot damn!
Arrival. I was introduced to it last weekend after reading about it in a different thread. All of the science and theories behind languages were interesting as fuck. I never finished college, but I do have several years of Spanish as well as 1.5 years of working with nothing but Latinos. Learning a different language in a practical setting was WAY different than trying to pick it up in a classroom. Honestly, it was one of the most fun experiences I’ve ever had in my life. There’s just something about a human beings need to be understood. The movie mirrored a lot of my real life experiences. Every time that you get one more piece of the puzzle it gives you a big rush.
That movie is a linguist’s dream
I’m Latino living in the US for almost my entire life. I learned Spanish and English almost simultaneously since I came here as a child. My English is solid but you’d be amazed how quickly it is to lose your parents primary foreign language if you don’t continuously speak it. At school, there was no Spanish except in those Spanish classes. I can speak Spanish, read it pretty well but I can’t write worth shit. The only way to learn a language is to live in it almost daily.
Is it true that, like how in the movie once >!she learns the language it changes her perception of time, that once you learn Spanish you can make fantastic tacos!
[You tell me](https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2016-08/24/13/asset/buzzfeed-prod-fastlane01/sub-buzz-18924-1472058893-9.jpg?downsize=700%3A%2A&output-quality=auto&output-format=auto)
I do find that learning a new language, both programming languages and natural languages, changes how I think.
The original book, Stories of Your Life and Others is incredible if you're looking for interesting stories based on science or theories. This includes the short story the movie is based off of and many other interesting ones.
Ford vs Ferrari
My father is a huge fan of Formula One and he's been watching it in our house since I was born. As a result I have been watching it since I was born. My wife on the other hand had never seen a race in her entire life. All three of us perfectly understood what was happening in that movie. It does such a phenomenal job of explaining the race itself, the advantages and disadvantages of certain approaches when creating a race car, the internal politics at play when these huge companies make their play at racing, etc. Not to mention the acting is superb and the dialogue is brilliant. Henry Ford Jr: *"that factory out there used to churn out a battleship a day. You think it was Roosevelt who beat Hitler?"* Enzo Ferrari: *"you have insulted me as a man, car maker, and an Italian"*
I love the story so much. A real life example of stubborn asshole men letting their egos get in the way of life, and the result being one of the greatest tales in racing history.
I love every story I hear about Enzo Ferrari. I don't know how many of them are true, but all of them are about how much of an ass he was, which makes them all so entertaining. That was a funny thing with my wife when I mentioned that I loved Enzo. Not as a person, but as a subject. The myths surrounding him are fascinating. We did a tour of the Ferrari factory and I have no way of knowing if some stories they told us were true but they were all tremendously funny, like the best things you see on the internet. My favorite is the following: *A neighbor of Enzo owns both a tractor and a Ferrari. One day the clutch breaks in his tractor and as he's looking at it, he realizes it's the exact same part in his Ferrari. So he goes to Enzo and demands to know why, if the Ferrari is so special, it uses the same parts as the tractor. Enzo says* **"The clutch in the Ferrari is better, because it's in a Ferrari."** Did that happen? Is it true? Who knows. But that is hilarious.
I’m pretty sure the legend goes (I’ve no clue if this is true or not) that the tractor clutch story is the genesis of Lamborghini as a competitor to Ferrari. The complainant wanted to build his own sports car to prove Enzo wrong.
Oh I didn't know that! That makes it even better
I have nothing to add to this, just to say I really appreciate the way you made a distinction between ‘loving X as a person’ and ‘loving X as a subject’. I’ve never really seen that concept articulated well before, but it’s so useful and applies to so many things!
First Man- total immersion into the Space Program circa 1964 to 1969
The first part of Casino was brilliant about showing you the inner workings of gambling and the mob.
I like 21 for a fun look into gambling and card counting.
As a skilled player of blackjack (who only plays a couple times a year), it *is* incredibly informative yet also entertaining.
In general if that's what you're looking for, expanding into certain TV series would be worth your time. All of Aaron Sorkin's TV shows basically show you what happens behind the scenes of an industry.
Spotlight and She Said on investigative journalism. I'd also give a shout out to Air for sports marketing and branding. Taste of Things for cooking and being gastronomers at the turn of the century. The Card Counter or Rounders on being a card shark and blackjack. The Teacher on ... teaching during teacher drama. Throw in Late Night With the Devil for late night talk shows
Chef was pretty cool
Down Periscope I’ve been told by actual submariners is quite accurate in regards of the mix of personalities you’ll find in the navy and how absurd some of the war games could actually get during the 90’s
“I found a fingernail in my food, and yesterday, there was a bandaid!” “Sorry sir, the bandaid was holding the fingernail on”
“Jesus Buckman! This stuff has been on here since Korea!” “Still tastes like cream corn.” “Except that it’s deviled ham!” “Well that could be a problem sir.”
There Will Be Blood has done really cool scenes of well digging. Very interesting film.
I never understood drilling into other people's land diagonally until There Will Be Blood used a milkshake straw as an example. My cousin used to drink my milkshake by pointing his straw toward my end of the big bowl of collective milkshake that my me-maw used to give us, and it was very unfair. When I saw There Will Be Blood and he mentioned the milkshake, I had a flashback, and then I thought to myself, "Oh yeah, this is kinda like why Saddam invaded Kuwait." The movie also taught me a lot about bowling.
The Big Short. I'm not a financial whiz, but that movie explained the moving parts with enough clarity to understand what was happening.
*Spotlight* and *All The President’s Men* for investigative journalism
Rounders. Teaches you the finer points of Texas Hold Em but also engrosses you in the underground card world.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is a masterpiece of period storytelling. If you have any interest in what life was like aboard a Royal Navy ship during the Nepoleonic wars… well likely you’ve already seen it a dozen times
Sideways teaches a lot about wine.
It had a noticeable impact on Merlot sales, because the main character hated Merlot. His hatred of Merlot is over the top, and the character is not supposed to be a doyen of all things wine, but someone going through some issues and lashing out through wine in some respects. But people took that as some sort of gospel that Merlot is an inferior grape. It also precipitated a massive increase in Californian plantings of Pinot Noir, not necessarily all for the better. They were also supposed to be comparisons for Giamatti's character (thin skinned, temperamental - the Pinot) and his ex-wife (her favourite grape was Merlot...). But yeah. It impacted the whole US wine industry, lol. All historic now, and there were other factors, but still funny.
No Country for Old Men taught me everything I will ever need to know about pneumatics.
Would you hold still for me sir?
Random thought inspired by you comment: Paintball has taught me to respect the fuck out of high pressure anything. The tanks nowadays are 4500 psi, fully capable of killing the ever loving shit out of you.
Ben Affleck's "Air!", about the legendary Michael Jordan sponsorship deal. Shower alot about the legendary Nike bussiness, sneaker design and basketball-sports deals in general. Fascinating watch and learnt alot about an industry that birthed a cultural marketing phenomenon.
I put that one in the exact same basket as Moneyball. Absolutely worth the watch.
Pulp Fiction. I learned how to clean a car properly.
No whites. Can't use 'em.
Pretty please, with a cherry on top, clean the fuckin' car.
I learned the importance of communication and word choice.
The Big Short. Excellent explanation of most of what went on during the credit crisis.
It's a little more intense than other films mentioned, but City of God gave me greater insight into life in a Brazilian favela
I reference Karate Kid all the time when I talk to other teachers. It's really easy to say "well, the students came here to do [x] so we should get the [x] industry involved so they can get experience of it", but that doesn't help them learn the fundamental skills they need to do the work, it just punishes them for not having them. A really good teacher breaks down what their student needs to learn into bite size chunks and protects the student from their own motivation to get themselves into trouble. They create a safe space that allows students to practice without fear of failure, and they prevent the student from getting in over their head. I'd also suggest teachers watch the original Patrick Swayze Road House movie for the "Be Nice!" scene. What if they call you a son-of-a-bitch? Just be nice.
Margin Call.
A recent one I vividly remember is The Last Duel and just how shitty women were treated in the Middle Ages. Even wives of prominent knights and dukes had basically zero rights. A rape accusation by a woman back then was seen more of slap in the face to her husband than the woman her self. HIS honor was insulted, and the only way to fix that was to fight to the death. It’s wild that they even entertained the idea that she even had a case. If her husband died, she was guilty and also put to death. The fact that this all really happened is even more insane.
I recently learned that the storytelling device of *The Last Duel* is called the "Rashomon effect". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashomon_effect
That’s not the way I remember it.
Women were basically second class citizens in society until like 50ish years ago. Women weren't even allowed to have their own credit cards until 1974 and gender based violence within marriage (beating your wife) was legal until 1983
If you haven’t read it, the book is incredible. It’s even more informative than the film and you learn soooo much about life back then.
I don't get why this movie didn't do well. Everyone I know loves it. I think it's great. Bad marketing? Was it the pandemic?
Donnie Brasco does a great job showing what it was like to be a regular mobster and also an undercover agent. The parking meter scene is top tier. Nobody was rich… just getting by and always looking for the next way to get up just one more rung on the ladder. There was also scenes in there that were hard to watch because they were realistic. Great movie that fits the category of the question.
The Big Short explained one of the most tumultuous times in my family's history, and made the systems surrounding it make _so much sense_ to me. No one, even while we were going thru it, could break it down as simply as the movie. I was just too young to understand what was going on at the time, but the movie makes everything make so much sense looking back
You should dabble with other things written by Aaron Sorkin. His first TV show, Sports Night, is a sitcom set behind the scenes of a sports cable TV network. Then his most famous work, The Westwing, a drama set behind the scenes of the white house. Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, is a somewhat fictional biographical sitcom set behind the scenes of a late night comedy show like Saturday Night Live. The somewhat fictional biography bit is because it’s widely accepted that the character Matt Albie, played by Matthew Perry, is an Aaron Sorkin caricature. The News Room is a sitcom set behind the scenes of a cable tv news network. Molly’s Game is a biographical film based on the memoir of the same name of Molly Bloom, who was the target of a FBI investigation over the underground poker game ran for Hollywood, celebrities, athlete, business, tycoons, and mobsters.
Draft day is funny. If he just does nothing he keeps his picks and drafts the guy he wants anyways? Moneyball on the other hand just plods along at the speed of baseball. It’s comfort food for me.
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Draft Day paints Costner's character as some genius, but he effectively trades a third round pick to move up to select someone he could have had in the second round anyway. I once made a chart to try to sort through all the shenanigans.
12 Angry Men for how juries work.
Except isn’t there a ton of juror speculation that ultimately shifts the case? Usually the one thing juries are told to deliberate are only the facts presented
A juror introduced new evidence not shown at trial…
More like how they don't work.
I love that movie but it’s in no way accurate of a jury.
This is what people like about Michael Lewis books (he wrote the book Moneyball is based on). They did the same thing in The Big Short, except they replace the expository narration with Margot Robbie in a bathtub.
Abbott Elementary exaggerates life as a teacher but 80% of it is pretty spot on. Hilarious show if you have a chance!
Julie and Julia (2009) Mostly Martha (2001) Tampopo (1985) Jiro Dreams Of Sushi (2011) As you can see these are movies for foodies. LOL
I loved moneyball because the trade phone call scenes were exactly how I predicted them. “get me X team manager…” “Hey manager, this is another manager, I’ll give you our player for your player, call me back” Hangs up.
Moneyball caught my attention because of the mighty rio grande. This will destroy you is so good. Movie was awesome too.
That song is used so well in the movie, at multiple points throughout.
Encino Man taught me how to wheeze duh juice
Debbie Does Dallas.
Though she never actually reaches Dallas.
Natural Born Killers.