Movie geeks of a certain upper-crust persuasion will soon be creaming themselves, given that Variety is reportingRobert De Niro and Al Pacino will team onscreen
for just the second time in Righteous Kill, a planned $60 million indie
production put together by Nu Image’s Millennium Films and Emmett/Furla
Films, with worldwide rights being shopped this week at the Cannes Film Festival. Jon
Avnet, fresh off directing Pacino in 88 Minutes, will helm the picture, from Inside Man scribe Russell Gewirtz’s
script about two cops chasing a serial killer. Shooting will begin the first week of August in Connecticut, with some autumnal filming in New York City to follow.
De Niro and Pacino each appeared in The Godfather II, but shared no scenes together. Michael Mann’s Heat, of course, scored big points by cleverly playing up its cat-and-mouse diner scene between the pair of legendary actors (and Kate Mantilini’s upscale truck-stop restaurant even got a boost from hosting it), but this will be much more of a partnership, so it seems. Producer Randall Emmett said the idea for the film actually originated from the two actors’ desire to work together more directly.
That’s great for screen aficionados, really, but the last part worries me. At two hours and 50-plus minutes, Heat managed only $65 million or so domestically, earning most of its laurels overseas, where it pulled in $120 million. Pacino and De Niro remain nearly unparalleled in respect, but their commercial track record isn’t exactly consistent (Godsend, anyone?), even in fare that tips toward the commercial side of the track. Contrived talent-melding projects rarely come across as less than rigged, and I’d really like for this movie not to eventually end up in the bargain bin alongside The Bone Collector. Fingers crossed, I guess…
I had a passing conversation recently with someone who’d flown through and spent an extra day in Houston, and was struck by the still-massive economic footprint of the Enron washout, several years down the line. I recommended Alex Gibney’s moving and beautifully depressing documentary, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and so I thought I’d post a review of the film, tweaked slightly from its original publication concurrent with the movie’s theatrical release. To wit:
The numbers hit you first, though not with the direct club
force of a riot baton that you might expect. Enron, the ascendancy: The seventh
largest corporation in the United States.
From $10 billion to $65 billion in business in under 10 years. Enron, the
aftermath: 24 days to complete bankruptcy. More than 20,000 shell-shocked
employees left without jobs, many given 30 minutes to clear out of the
company’s Downtown Houston office building. $1.2 billion in personal savings
and $2 billion in pensions wiped out, a financial tsunami. Oh, and the other
numbers? A handful of executives waltzing away with hundreds of millions of
cashed-out stock options while their crew all went down with the proverbial
ship. There, it all starts to come together.
Written and directed by Gibney and an essential hit at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is essential viewing for every adult trying to make sense of the insanity
and inanity of corporate culture, and sure to be a continued zeitgeist talking
point for years, beyond the scope of punishments meted out to former (and now deceased) CEO Kenneth Lay and COO Jeff Skilling. Based on Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind’s book of the
same name, and featuring insider accounts and incendiary corporate audiotapes
and videotapes — the worst of which find Enron traders laughing and praying for
wildfire and earthquakes as they induce California’s artificial power shortages
of 2000-01 and reap windfall profits from the gouging — this is as emotionally
destructive a movie as you’re likely to see any given year, because it’s all true. The
brilliant achievement, though, is that Gibney takes what could simply be
boisterous denunciation and turns it into a call to action, a screaming
cautionary tale of pride, arrogance, outsized greed, ambition and intolerance
all run amok over “the little guy.”
It’s all too easy — fish in a barrel, really — to demonize
the bad guys of Enron. They deserve it, make no mistake. Asleep-at-the-wheel
Lay’s ridiculous cloak of moral rectitude doesn’t stand up to the righteous anger
of those called to represent the thousands he instructed to keep their savings
invested in company stock while he and other executives engaged in a
behind-closed-doors fire sale. But to stop there is to miss the larger point:
that the Enron scandal is important because it takes the predatory nature of
big business and money-hungry capitalism to its logical extension — an
insidious, incremental creep into fraudulence. The company did not exist in
some bubble, and it’s not an exception to the rule; it’s a jaw-dropping,
eye-opening of the way things too often work, as the collateral damage
destruction of accounting firm Arthur Andersen and tainting of a wide number of
savings and loans and financial lenders complicit in Enron’s schemes (and if
you have a credit card, chances are they’re one of your companies) amply
demonstrate.
Narrated by Peter Coyote, Gibney’s documentary traces the
rise and fall of the company with remarkable clarity, and it’s surprising how
heart-rending it is without dipping into cheap sentimentality (the defrauded
pensioners are embodied only by one PGE utility line worker, who saw his life
savings of $350,000 shrink to $1,2000). Skilling comes across the purveyor of a
corporate culture that allowed for corruption and decay, but Chief Financial
Officer Andrew Fastow is the architect of its fiscal shell games. The film,
though, comes full circle, developing into a disquisition on the nature of evil
— is it amorality, willful negligence in the pursuit of personal gain, or
perhaps an overlapping combination of the two?
In the end, it’s the numbers that start to hit you again. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
will likely make you mad as hell. The question is whether or not you’re going
to take it anymore. (Magnolia, unrated, 109 minutes)
With a rich and emotive voice, Garnett Silk began his career
as a child toaster, and rose to become one of Jamaica’s most astonishing
singers — an exciting young talent from the 1980s dancehall scene. International
stardom on a bigger order seemed in the cards, but Silk’s career and life were cut
cruelly short, however, as he perished in December of 1994, while trying to
rescue his mother from a house fire. Each year, now, the Garnett Silk
Foundation coordinates an Earth Day Bash in his native country to honor his
name and celebrate his music.
Comprised of 74 minutes of concert footage from the
eponymous foundation’s 2003 Earth Day Bash, this disc features a lengthy list
of artists that includes Ras Fire, Doniki & Steady Ranks, The Rastareens,
Edi Fitzroy, Aaron Silk, Anthony Cruz, Lehbanculah, Chuck Fendah, Richie Spice,
LMS, Turbulence, Lukie D, Ras Shiloh and Sizzla Kalonji. The gathering is
substantial, but also maintains a backyard BBQ party feel — something aided by the
single camera approach used to capture the footage here. For the most part,
this works, as it’s clearly filmed on high-grade digital video. Occasionally,
though, the operator(s) pan out into the crowd or mis-rack focus, cutting you out
of the action for several seconds. And when a flag-waving fool keeps clouding
your vision of Richie Spice’s act, you’re left wishing for an editor and/or
director to provide you with a cutaway.
The energy throughout this disc is high, but the performances
vary rather wildly in quality. Chuck Fenda is the reggae equivalent of a
carnival barker, and it’s a tiresome act. Mixed-sex collective LMS is sort of a
poor man’s Fugees, but they bring a cool vibe to their set. Likewise, Suga
Black weighs in nicely with “A Change is Gonna Come” (a track not listed on the
disc’s accompanying song list), and then segues into an interesting cover of “Let
It Be.” The problem is, the song — like many on this disc — is cut off, mid-tune. With
such a packed roster, we sometimes don’t get full tunes, and certainly not entire
sets. It makes for a frustrating experience, ultimately. It’s additionally strange
that there’s not a cover of “Hello Africa,” Silk’s biggest hit.
Presented in a 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio, and housed in
a regular Amray case, this region-free disc is anchored by stereo and surround
sound audio mixes, both of which sound a bit tinny at times, the result,
perhaps, of the concert’s soundboard being placed too close to its stage
speaks. Slightly flickering, motion menu screens give way to song selections or
a “play all” function, but there are unfortunately no special features contained
herein. Some sort of behind-the-scenes material on the concert would have been
nice — and seemingly not too difficult to throw together, given all the warmth
for Silk — or even a text biography for relative reggae newcomers. Alas, this
disc remains a specialized entry. C- (Concert) C- (Disc)
Formula works, in entertainment as in math and science. Anyone doubting should check out Home Improvement, a classic, Red State example of a television series that defines its audience early on
and then gives that subset more of what it has grown to love. The show was originally rooted in the gruff, “guys’ guy” stand-up
comedy of star Tim Allen — part of a spate of pilot production deals handed out
to up-and-coming comedians in the early 1990s — but anyone who followed the
series in its later years will attest that only the most trace amounts of that
edge remained. Instead, Home Improvement
grew into the equivalent of a pine tree — a dependably predictable if unspectacular small
screen laffer. Not quite the majesty of an oak, definitely not the delicious novelty of an
apple or lemon tree (that would be more like Arrested Development), nor the mannered beauty of a willow tree… but there you have it, a syndication-ready small screen hit nonetheless.
For those unfamiliar with the Detroit-set show, Allen (above left) stars
as Tim Taylor, the affable, pun-loving host of a Bob Villa-type, do-it-yourself
television program called Tool Time.
His faithful co-host is Al Borland (Richard Karn, above right), and his long-suffering wife
is Jill (Patricia Richardson). Together, they preside over a brood of three
rambunctious sons (with an irritating nine names between them — Zachery Ty
Bryan, Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Taran Noah Smith), and live next door to a
rarely glimpsed neighbor, Wilson (Earl Hindman), who dispenses nuggets of
advice that help, when necessary, steer the perpetually mishap-making Tim
toward compromise and apology.
The series’ sixth
season finds the kids a bit older, so the cuddly “cuteness factor” herein is definitely on the wane. Episodic highlights include Jill planning an anniversary party with her neurotic sisters and, separately, using an inheritance to buy a fancy sports car; Tim fretting over renovation plans of his boyhood home; and Tim forgetting where he hid Jill’s Valentine’s Day gift. Home
Improvement, like many of its familial sitcom brethren, sometimes stoops a bit too
often to the overly simplified husband-as-idiot routine,
and the episodes that cover well-worn ground like couples therapy can’t match the confident strides of The King of Queens or Everybody Loves Raymond. The show is better sticking to family time squabbles and Jill’s attempts at parsing and defeating the sometimes too-macho-by-half attitudes Tim tries to instill in his sons. Still, the characters
are nicely sketched and rather warmly brought to life by both Allen and
especially
Richardson. Guest stars herein include members of the famous Unser racing family and the Beach Boys, who turn out to be cousins of neighbor Wilson.
Presented in 1.33 full screen with audio in Dolby digital
2.0 stereo, Home Improvement: The
Complete Sixth Season comes spread out over three discs in a cardboard slipcase that houses the set’s sturdy gatefold packaging.
Unfortunately, though, the only bonus material comes by way of a six-minute, season-specific blooper
reel, at least some of which fans will no doubt recognize from Dick Clark’s
visit to the set for his blooper-laden specials. C+ (Series) B-
(Disc)
