By Susan Granger

Based on Michael Lewis’s best-seller, “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine,” “The Big Short” is the story of how “affordable and flexible” home mortgages encouraged borrowing by homeowners who were unable to repay their loans, causing the financial collapse of 2008.

Working with screenwriter Charles Randolph, it’s adapted and directed by Adam McKay, best known for collaborating with Will Ferrell on “Anchorman” and “Talladega Nights.” That explains why “Wolf of Wall Street” sexpot Margot Robbie explains mortgaged-backed securities while sipping champagne in a bubble bath.

Starting in 2005, this grimly comic drama revolves around two anti-social money managers. Scion Capital executive, bohemian Dr. Michael Burry (Christian Bale), says that the mortgage market is a Ponzi scheme that’s doomed to fail, expressing his concern to Wall Street’s Mark Baum (Steve Carell).

Confident, far-sighted Burry buys millions of dollars of financial instruments called ‘credit default swaps,’ or shorts, which will only pay off if and when the subprime market collapses.

Westporters Adam and Ginger Propper, residents of 5 Old Hill Road, were recently presented with a photograph of their 1920-built house and, through lenticular photographic imaging, a replica of the house as it appeared in 1935. The lenticular imaging was created by Westport graphic artist Miggs Burroughs (r). The photographs are part of the collection of 131 photographs included in the Westport Historical Society (WHS) exhibit “Window to Westport’s Past and Present.” Making the presentation was Bob Weingarten (l), WHS house historian. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

This lenticular image by Westport artist Miggs Burroughs shows Westport’s 5 Old Hill Road today and as it appeared in 1935. The work is part of the current Westport Historical Society (WHS) exhibit “Window to Westport’s Past and Present.” Lenticular by Miggs Burroughs

The Westport Arts Center is holding its second annual Westport High School Student Art Exhibition showcasing the artistic talent of the student community.

Last year’s winner of the Tracy Sugarman Award was Audrey Seo, 17, a junior at Staples High School, who posed in front of a self-portrait.. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Helen Klisser During for WestportNow.com

Selected works will be on display in the Westport Arts Center’s Project Space from March 18 – April 23, an announcement said.

The competition is open to all students who reside and/or attend high school in Westport. There is no specific theme or subject matter for the exhibition, allowing students to submit the work of their choice.

The juror for the exhibition is Ann Chernow, a Westport artist who is known for her portrait-style illustrations that evoke the images of female cinematic figures of the 1930s and 1940s. Her exhibition, “NOIR,” will be on display at the Westport Arts Center from March 18 – April 23.

The Westport Arts Center tonight hosted a reception to mark the opening of its “Enid Munroe: Artist & Alchemist” exhibition featuring paintings, works on paper, and three-dimensional “bling boxes” composed with found objects by the Westport artist. Munroe is pictured with Westport Arts Center Executive Director Cindy Armijo in front of Munroe’s “Studio Still Life,” acrylic on canvas. The exhibit, which runs through Feb. 27, was curated by Helen Klisser During, the center’s artistic director emeritus. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Leslie Lasala for WestportNow.com

A scheduled Saturday talk by bestselling author and musician James McBride, whose book “Miracle at St. Anna” is this year’s WestportREADS selection, has been rescheduled a week later because of the storm, organizers said today.

McBride’s keynote address for the month-long community reads program will now be held Saturday, Jan. 30 at 6 p.m. at the Westport Country Playhouse.

By Susan Granger

“The Revenant” begins in 1823, when frontier ‘scout’ Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) sets out to explore an uncharted northern Missouri River area. When he and his fur-trapping cohorts are near what is now Lemmon, S.D.,, Glass is savagely mauled by a grizzly bear and left for dead.

According to the dictionary: ‘revenant’ means one who returns from the dead, so it’s quite apt to describe stoic Glass, who not only survives but is determined to wreak revenge against those who abandoned him and killed his teenage half-Pawnee son (Forrest Goodluck).

En route to Fort Kiowa, tormented Glass resolutely forges on foot through the harsh, frigid wilderness, dodging Arikara tribesmen searching for a chief’s kidnapped daughter. The collateral damage inflicted by encroaching white men on the spiritual culture of America’s indigenous people is thematic.

And if you thought Alejandro G. Inarritu’s bitterly sardonic, Oscar-winning “Birdman” (2014) was obtuse, this perilous epic is even more so, as cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki finds primordial symbolism in the rugged landscape, using all-natural lighting.

Sandy Lefkowitz and Douglas Tirola of the Westport Cinema Initiative this wek are at the Art House Convergence, a conference supported by the Sundance Institute for Independent art house movie theaters. Lefkowitz, WCI president, presided over two roundtables called “building a film community to build a community.”  4th Row Films filmed the conference. They are pictures with Russ Collins the Founder and President of the AHC. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo