Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

A documentary about the Enron corporation, its faulty and corrupt business practices, and how they led to its fall.  Alex Gibney, who wrote and produced Eugene Jarecki's The Trials of Henry Kissinger, examines the rise and fall of an infamous corporate juggernaut in Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, which he wrote and directed. The film, based on the book by Fortune Magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, opens with a reenactment of the suicide of Enron executive Cliff Baxter, then travels back in time, describing Enron chairman Kenneth Lay's humble beginnings as the son of a preacher, his ascent in the corporate world as an "apostle of deregulation," his fortuitous friendship with the Bush family, and the development of his business strategies in natural gas futures. The film points out that the culture of financial malfeasance at Enron was evident as far back as 1987, when Lay apparently encouraged the outrageous risk taking and profit skimming of two oil traders in Enron's Valhalla office because they were bringing a lot of money into the company. But it wasn't until eventual CEO Jeff Skilling arrived at Enron that the company's "aggressive accounting" philosophy truly took hold. The Smartest Guys in the Room explores the lengths to which the company went in order to appear incredibly profitable. Their win-at-all-costs strategy included suborning financial analysts with huge contracts for their firms, hiding debts by essentially having the company loan money to itself, and using California's deregulation of the electricity market to manipulate the state's energy supply. Gibney's film reveals how Lay, Skilling, and other execs managed to keep their riches, while thousands of lower-level employees saw their loyalty repaid with the loss of their jobs and their retirement funds. The filmmaker posits the Enron scandal not as an anomaly, but as a natural outgrowth of free-market capitalism. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

Rating: 97% http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/enron_the_smartest_guys_in_the_room/

Rating: 7.7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1016268/?ref_=tt_rec_tt

Up in the Air

Jason Reitman's adaptation of the novel Up in the Air tells the story of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), who makes his living personally handing out pink slips -- he's the top hatchet man at a company that other companies hire when they are downsizing. And since business is booming, his job keeps him on the go constantly. He flies all across the country, staying in a series of nice hotels. And although this itinerant lifestyle prevents him from having any kind of stable, regular life, this doesn't bother him in the slightest -- he's thrilled to be a boy in a traveling bubble. During one particular layover, he strikes up a conversation with Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), a fellow savvy traveler. They bond over the ins and outs of various airlines and hotels, and quickly fall into bed. By morning, they are figuring out when their schedules will allow them to meet up again, even though they both make it clear that there are no strings attached. When Ryan arrives back in the home office, he meets no-nonsense career-oriented twentysomething Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), a fast-rising up-and-comer who wants to change the company's practices and save millions by having the staff fire people remotely via webcams. Furious at the thought of losing a lifestyle he's grown quite comfortable with, he convinces his boss (Jason Bateman) to let him take Natalie on a few trips so that she can learn what it's really like to fire someone. Melanie Lynskey, Danny McBride, and J.K. Simmons co-star in this Best Picture Academy Award nominee. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

Rating: 90% http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/up_in_the_air_2009/

Rating: 7.5/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1193138/

Capitalism: A Love Story

Twenty years after his influential debut, Roger & Me, Michael Moore returns to his roots by pulling back the curtain on capitalism to reveal the insidious role it has played in the destruction of the American dream for many people. Back in 1989, auto workers in Flint, MI, were lamenting layoffs and wondering how they would support their families without jobs to pay the bills, or benefits to ensure their health. Flash forward two decades, when cities all across the country are feeling the same pressures that Flint residents were back when GM left them high and dry. With an average of 14,000 U.S. jobs lost every day and taxpayer money constantly being pumped into failing financial institutions, the question must be asked: how long can this go on before the entire system collapses? Is there really any hope for Americans who are losing their homes to foreclosure and seeing their savings get wiped out at an unprecedented rate? In order to seek out an answer to this question and many more, Moore takes a trip to our nation's capitol, engaging average Americans in conversations about the prospect of repairing America's failing, debt-ridden economy along the way. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Rating: 75% http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/capitalism_a_love_story/

Rating: 7.3/10  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1232207/?ref_=tt_rec_tt

October Sky

NASA engineer Homer H. Hickam, Jr.'s autobiography provided the basis for this drama about a teenager coming of age at the dawn of the space race. In 1957, Homer Hickam (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a high school student in Coalwood, West Virginia when the Soviet Union launches Sputnik, the first man-made satellite. While most of his friends and neighbors react with fear or distrust, Homer is instantly fascinated and begins studying everything he can find on jet and rocket design. While many of Homer's friends are puzzled by his new obsession, several new friends share his enthusiasm, and with the encouragement of his teacher (Laura Dern), Homer and his fellow "Rocket Boys" begin designing and launching their own homemade missiles. However, Homer's father (Chris Cooper) takes a dim view of his son's interest in rockets and is convinced Homer's future should be the same as his own, working in the local coal mines. October Sky mixes the drama of traditional family conflicts with a nostalgic glimpse of life in the mid-50's and a look at the earliest days of our journey into space. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Rating: 90% http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/october_sky/

Rating: 7.7/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0132477/

Up

A feisty septuagenarian teams with a fearless wilderness ranger to do battle with a vicious band of beasts and villains in this computer-animated adventure scripted by Pixar veteran Bob Peterson and co-directed by Peterson and Monsters, Inc. director Peter Docter. Carl Fredricksen is a 78-year-old balloon salesman. His entire life, Carl has longed to wander the wilds of South America. Then, one day, the irascible senior citizen shocks his neighbors by tying thousands of balloons to his home and finally taking flight. But Carl isn't alone on his once-in-a-lifetime journey, because stowed away on his front porch is an excitable eight-year-old wilderness explorer named Russell. Later, as the house touches down on the world's second largest continent, Carl and his unlikely traveling companion step outside to discover that not only is their new front lawn considerably larger, but that the predators therein are much more ferocious than anything they ever faced back home. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Rating: 98% http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/up/

Ratings: 8.3/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1049413/

Inside Job

Takes a closer look at what brought about the financial meltdown. Producer/director Charles Ferguson (No End in Sight) speaks at length with journalists, politicians, and financial insiders in order to offer a clearer picture of the economic meltdown that hit America starting in 2008. Academy Award winner Matt Damon narrates this unflinching look at the deep-rooted corruption that has left millions of middle-class Americans jobless and homeless as the major corporations get bailed out while paying millions in bonuses. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Rating: 98% http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/inside_job_2010/

Rating: 8.2/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645089/

A Beautiful Mind

The true story of prominent mathematician John Forbes Nash Jr. is the subject of this biographical drama from director Ron Howard. Russell Crowe stars as the brilliant but arrogant and conceited professor Nash. The Prof. seems guaranteed a rosy future in the early '50s after he marries beautiful student Alicia (Jennifer Connelly) and makes a remarkable advancement in the foundations of "game theory," which carries him to the brink of international acclaim. Soon after, John is visited by Agent William Parcher (Ed Harris), from the CIA, who wants to recruit him for code-breaking activities. But evidence suggests that Nash's perceptions of reality are cloudy at best; he is struggling to maintain his tenuous hold on sanity, and Alicia suspects a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Battling decades of illness with the loyal Alicia by his side, Nash is ultimately able to gain some control over his mental state, and eventually goes on to triumphantly win the Nobel Prize. Based loosely on the book of the same name by Sylvia Nasar, A Beautiful Mind (2001) co-stars Paul Bettany, Adam Goldberg, Anthony Rapp, Christopher Plummer, and Judd Hirsch. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Rating: 77% http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beautiful_mind/

Rating: 8.1/10 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/