Boom Bust Boom

A remarkably enjoyable, and sometimes very funny, documentary about a frightening topic.

For those who aren't automatically turned off by the idea of an issue-doc that Schoolhouse Rock-ifies a serious, grown-up subject, Boom Bust Boom is a worthwhile way to spend an hour.

The point of Boom Bust Boom, a friendly little pic hosted by Monty Python's Terry Jones, is that the world is little closer to acknowledging the causes of that trauma, and until we digest its lessons, something similar is bound to happen again.

Jones presents a stark picture of a bifurcated economic system: the real one, in which ordinary citizens struggle; and the financial economy, in which the livelihoods of citizens are leveraged by the wealthy for speculative bets.

Treating our historically specific economic system as an extension of human nature, one which can be diagnosed by studying incipient monkey-capitalists, isn't much of an analysis.

A spunky and creative critique of neoclassical economics.

Whoever could have dreamed that economics could be so much fun? I guess that goes with the territory when it is explained by people of the left in a film in the Monty Python tradition.

Monty Python alum explains financial crisis, with puppets.

It's a terrible conceit with terrible execution...

[A] breezy, puppet- and song-filled jaunt through the dismal science of economics.

It had me right up to the moment it passes off John Cusack as one of its economics/history/psychology "experts."

From Monty Python's Terry Jones comes an amusing, informative breakdown of just what the hell is wrong with the economy and a few ideas on how to fix it.