MovieChat Forums > Billions (2016) Discussion > All the movie references

All the movie references

posted 6 months ago by ccr1633 (1449)
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I like this show (at least the first few seasons), and I like an amusing film reference on occasion. But this show has characters quoting movies from other films constantly, as if the writers are trying to impress us that they've seen all the cool movies made since the late 60s. It's to the point of distraction. Even real-world movie fanatics don't quote famous film dialog that much. A charitable interpretation is that the writers are trying to suggest that hedge fund parasites don't really have a personality of their own, but I'm not so sure.

[–] R_Kane (15828) 5 months ago

First: you write extremely well,

Second: for whatever it’s worth, I concluded that Billions is written by solipsistic assholes who took their stylistic cue from a Dennis Miller standup set. “Hey, Ma! Look how smart I am.” Brevity is the soul of wit and this approach quickly gets boring. Truly smart people need not show off. People just know that they are smart. I’m reminded of the movie I think was titled Limitless, where they showed us things they thought smart people do, but do not actually. Hand Alexander a Rubic’s cube and he’ll cut it in half with his sword.

I stuck with Billions because I liked a few of its actors, not because of its alleged erudition.