Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room

[Ultrahip]

I saw this recently. Much more accomplished than F. 9/11 in every respect. Really makes you hate the fuckers responsible.

Here's the trailer:

[modage]

i saw this trailer.  it looked good, but i think i'm politica-docu'd out for a while.

[MacGuffin]

Widow of Top Enron Exec Criticizes Film

The wife of a former top Enron Corp. executive who killed himself after the company fell apart challenged how her husband was portrayed in a documentary that was screened for former Enron employees Tuesday at half-price.

The film, "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," opens with a dramatization of Cliff Baxter's 2002 suicide. Later, Fortune Magazine reporter Bethany McLean, co-author of a 2003 book that inspired the film, says Baxter was a manic depressive.

"He was never diagnosed with that illness," an emotional Carol Baxter told McLean and film director Alex Gibney after the two-hour screening before a packed house.

McLean expressed sympathy for Baxter's death, then told his widow that other executives at the company had described him as having extreme mood swings.

"It's no reason to state a lie," Carol Baxter replied.

Gibney said Carol Baxter had asked that the reference to her husband's suicide be removed when she screened the film before Tuesday, but he decided to retain it because it was a "fair reflection of the highs and the lows."

Cliff Baxter fatally shot himself Jan. 25, 2002. He left a note on the dashboard of his wife's car that said, in part, "Where once there was great pride, now it's gone."

He had resigned from Enron in May 2001; the energy giant collapsed in an accounting scandal in December 2001.

The documentary was shown at a movie theater adjacent to the wealthy neighborhood that is home to Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling. Lay, Skilling and chief accounting officer Richard Causey are scheduled to be tried early next year on fraud and conspiracy charges.

The film debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January and will have its official premiere in Houston Wednesday at the same theater that hosted Tuesday's screening.

The film will open at select theaters in Houston and New York on April 22, and across the country April 29.

[Ravi]

I didn't know the details about the Enron collapse beforehand, but the documentary laid them out in a fairly understandable manner.  Periodically Enron's stock price is shown at a certain point in time, and it was interesting to see it fall from around $70 down to $0.40 a share towards the end of the film.  The hubris and greed on display here will leave you appalled and enraged.

I'm sure the DVD will include much more footage.  I would like to see some more on the ties between Kenneth Lay and the Bush family, as well as more on the California energy crisis.

[GoneSavage]

Very well done and straight-forward documentary.  Not as "styley" as the trailer would lead you to believe.  And of course I was won over by them using multiple Tom Waits songs.

[pete]

so, they are guilty at last.  or something.

[SiliasRuby]

Very solid documentary, hilarious how stupid they were, to think that this would work. Makes you really angry that there are people out there who do this.