Thursday, October 05, 2006

Easy come, easy go

If anyone gets a chance, Showtime on Demand has a "documentary" on about a homeless man who the filmmakers gave $100,000 cash to, you know, just for giggles.

Reversal of Fortune is a passable exercise in hypothetical math, though I'd be lying if I didn't tune in to see if it would be a train wreck. While it could have been a major exploitation of Ted, the homeless man involved, they pretty much gave him the cash and backed away.

***SPOILER ALERT***

The guy pretty much pisses away every dime on trashy women, weed and a new truck worth nearly $40 large. Oh, and he didn't bother to haggle down the price and bought all the add-ons. Let's just say it shed quite a bit of light on how things got to be so bad for him.

I'm not saying that he was homeless because he wasted his money as a younger man, but when you're given a lump sum, maybe you shouldn't start dumping money into top-of-the-line trucks when you don't even have a drivers license.

It's worth noting that he was thrown to the wolves by the producer - a financial planner and homeless advocate were both quickly dismissed as carpetbaggers - Ted decided he knew what was best and saw his life didn't necessarily get better with the cash.

Mo money, mo problems, I suppose.

Anyways, it's easy to overlook this movie, but it's pretty quick and disgustingly entertaining. If you have a few hours to kill, it's worth a look.

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