Still playing at the Roberts Theatres Wellmont Theatre on Seymour Street -

ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM is riveting – if there was ever the tiniest question of “who knew what and when,” this searing examination of the most spectacular business scandal of our time will answer that question definitively.  It becomes crystal clear that Enron’s only product was in fact Enron stock, and that the hubris, greed and sense of entitlement of its top officers crafted this disaster.  The comparison used in the movie is that on the Titanic, the captain went down with the boat; here, the leaders jumped on the life boats (with millions of $$), looked up at the rest of the people and said “don’t worry - it’s going to be ok.”   Director Alex Gibney artfully focuses on the psychology and greed of Enron’s top officers rather than the accounting and the financials.  Smartest Guys is a fascinating and very well-done documentary, loaded with Enron internal video clips, and one mind-boggling scene where a top exec makes a spoof video of his own “get rich quick” scheme.   With any luck, future jurors on the Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling cases (both scheduled for early 2006) will catch this one….

Does anyone else find Enron’s ubiquitous slanted “E” logo disturbingly swastika-like? 

(Note to Roberts Theatre Wellmont:  The bottom foot of the screen is critical to see in documentaries- we missed half of the names because the picture was not perfectly aligned with the screen.)

For another shocking tale of excess

WHAT TO RENT:

While we’re on the subject of thought provoking documentaries, we just cannot say enough about SUPER SIZE ME, which chronicles first-time documentarian Morgan Spurlock as he attempts to show how the fast food industry has led to the obesity epidemic in this country by embarking on  a 30 day diet of nothing but McDonald’s.   (The only “rule” was that if the McD’s associate asked if he would like that order “super-sized,” he would have to oblige.)   What happens is truly shocking – this healthy 33 year old man gained 30 pounds (10 in the first week!), saw his cholesterol and blood pressure skyrocket, and experienced a host of additional medical and psychological ailments.  Spurlock’s odyssey is so horrifying, yet so hysterically presented, that we have found this flick to be one of our top comedic rental picks.

June 24, 2005 in Movie Mojo | Permalink