Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. All Critics (68) | Top Critics (22) | Fresh (61) | Rotten (6) | DVD (2) Gibney doesn't have anything more than tantalizing clues and a huge amount of circumstantial evidence, but he doesn't need much more than that to indict Wall Street itself. As Gibney demonstrates in Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, plenty of politicians remained in office amid similar revelations. It's the coolness of Gibney's account of the possibly systematic sabotaging of Spitzer's career, perpetrated by a strangely camera-friendly cast of enemies-cum-conspirators, that makes it such transfixing viewing.
"Client 9" is made with skill and intelligence, but I kept wanting to hear another story; one that I hadn't heard before. You want tears? You want convulsive sobs, weepy remorse, pleadings for forgiveness? Well, look elsewhere, because Eliot Spitzer isn't going to give them to you. Client-9 ... is a fascinating, if occasionally fawning, character study of the man who would be king.
December 10, 2010. When you talk too much for Twitter. The U.S. vs. John Lennon. Casino Jack And The United States Of Money. All Critics (71) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (53) | Rotten (11) | DVD (5) Auds will feel info-glut over the course of the two-hour-plus film, which is hardly the desirable response for a piece of reporting on the vital issue of the corrupting effect of money in American politics. The narrative trots all over the globe, including stops for labor exploitation in the Marianas Islands, dealings with Russian mobsters,ripping off Indian tribes in the desert southwest, and jetting to Scotland to golf with impressionable politicians.
Buying votes in Congress, illegal then, legal now. Dully tells the blood-boiling story of the convicted disgraced conservative superlobbyist Jack Abramoff. A filthy toad of a human being whose every wart is revealed in this hard-hitting documentary. A morose but instructive story about the destructive influence of money--and fanaticism--on American government. There's not much new in Casino Jack and the United States of Money, but it is a lucid, entertaining documentary. Michael Moore Pictures. Naomi Klein - The Shock Doctrine - Part 1 of 6. The American Form of Government. Food, Inc. All Critics (107) | Top Critics (33) | Fresh (102) | Rotten (4) | DVD (5) This is the kind of muckraking we should see more often. This solidly constructed documentary aims to do for food production what An Inconvenient Truth did for global warming. Smart, gripping, and untainted by the influence of Michael Moore.
After you see what IBP is doing to cattle, what Tyson is doing to chickens, what farmers are doing to us and what Monsanto is doing to farmers in the new documentary Food, Inc., you may never eat again. A mind-boggling, heart-rending, stomach-churning expose on the food industry. If you are what you eat, we are mostly genetically modified, poorly regulated, unhealthy meat byproducts generating profits for a few gargantuan corporations.
One word of caution: Eat before you see it. A doco which could make you sick! Food, Inc. -- a disturbing expose of the food industry -- is essential watching. July 4, 2010 A seriously important film. Living off the fat of corporate farming. American Fascists, Chris Hedges on The Hour (CBC) Chris Hedges: "AMERICAN FASCISTS" The Christian Right vs USA. Michael Moore. Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story. All Critics (31) | Top Critics (16) | Fresh (27) | Rotten (2) Fascinating to a political junkie like me who wasn't aware of the game back then. Director Stefan Forbes has assembled a brilliantly complex portrait that shines an unnerving light on the man who painted the landscape of contemporary American politics.
By the end of Forbes' brisk, economical portrait, Atwater has been revealed as a repugnant and pathetic soul--and a political visionary, among the first to fully understand and harness the raw power of voters' fears. Stricken with brain cancer in 1990, Atwater renounced his Machiavellian ways, but as Forbes points out, his legacy lives on in his eager proteges Karl Rove and George W. Boogie Man is a fascinating portrait of an almost likable rogue. Instead of attempting a character study, Boogie Man returns an indictment. A morality tale about the sewer politics of the Republican Party since Reagan and very relevant to the 2008 elections. Conventional but absorbing. October 24, 2008. Yoono. 1812 Overture - V For Vendetta. V for Vendetta Speech. Just…just…wow. « Toward a Moral Life. Capitalism: A Love Story. All Critics (180) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (133) | Rotten (44) | DVD (2) The thesis that rapacious capitalism has horrific social consequences is credible and well illustrated, if hardly eye-opening to European viewers.
Moore is always visually playful and subversive, and even when dealing with such serious and depressing topics entertaining; but he's also game enough to examine America's mythology of prosperity. Smart-alecky and simplistic? Yeah. As a filmmaker creating a product for a marketplace, supported by profit-seeking investors, he obviously has some comfort level with capitalism in the sense of doing business. Michael Moore is up to his old tricks in Capitalism: A Love Story, and that's sure to both infuriate, and entertain and inform, depending which side of the Michael Moore fence you stand on. A lot of the old Moore is still obvious in Capitalism, his genuine belief in everyone pulling together his feel for a good public stunt but he's lost a little something.
Capitalism: A Love Story Trailer. Sicko Trailer. Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer. Capitalism: A Love Story Trailer. Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story. *THIS COUNTRY IS FINISHED* GEORGE CARLIN ON COUNTDOWN. Naomi Klein: Disaster Capitalism. Inside Job. All Critics (143) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (139) | Rotten (3) | DVD (4) You'll need a clear head to follow this impressive and angry American doc about the financial meltdown... This scathing expose should be enough to alarm people all over the political spectrum. Wall Street owns Washington. You might think you know this, but "Inside Job" makes you feel the enormity of it.
You don't have to know the difference between a credit default swap and a collateralized debt obligation to feel enraged anew by Charles Ferguson's thorough dissection of the country's economic collapse of 2008. November 5, 2010 Whether it's parsing the definition of a derivative or detailing the bad faith of major financial institutions, the new documentary Inside Job approaches its deconstruction of the financial meltdown with laserlike focus.
[Ferguson] can get to a story later but provide so much more context that his film seems definitive. Ferguson is so mad he's punching at whatever's in front of him. Fair Game. All Critics (169) | Top Critics (37) | Fresh (134) | Rotten (35) | DVD (4) This isn't a message movie, per se, but a strong point of view comes through regardless: In the battle of principles vs. politics, politics always win. An absorbing, unhysterical thriller that largely rejects the clichés of the genre. The blind-siding of Valerie Plame wasn't fair and wasn't a game, but this cinematic outcome is a touchdown for true patriots. Fair Game" is such a brutal and personal testimony to the consequences of dirty politics that it often feels too ugly to be true. For every spycraft scene, every illustration of the deadly blowback from the leak that Liman dramatizes, the movie has half a dozen scenes of a delicately balanced home life turned on its head by a government bent on destroying one of its critics.
Naomi Watts settles for semi-inscrutability while Penn, engaging as he is, is encouraged, particularly toward the end, to deliver his performance from the lectern. V for vendetta trailer. The American Form of Government. The Corporation. All Critics (117) | Top Critics (35) | Fresh (98) | Rotten (11) | DVD (20) A history lesson, a warning shot and damning personality profile, all backed up with expert interviews.
Carries a powerful, albeit not new, message. It is frightening. The rare movie that sets out to alter the audience's consciousness -- and succeeds. This documentary's extra-long running time and a narrator who sounds like a sedated Star Trek computer won't win many converts. This is a movie that will make you think. Sharp-witted, infuriating and at times depressing. The 150-year old legal construct of the corporation, as a "person," is dissected for all to see how its lack of accountability has enabled the faulty model to become a ruling institution, acting beyond the reach of any government.
As a clever joke, the filmmakers run down a list of the traits of a psychopath and find a corporate action to match each one. One of those necessary films that we have to see for our own health. November 26, 2004 October 28, 2004. American: The Bill Hicks Story. All Critics (57) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (47) | Rotten (10) | DVD (5) Directors Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas work wonders with the old photos, animating and enhancing them to simulate Hicks' excellent adventure. Ultimately, the doc comes off as yet another reminder that, in showbiz and elsewhere, one of the greatest tragedies in life is unfulfilled promise. A portrait of the short-lived artist that will move fans while letting the uninitiated witness enough onstage highlights to leave them wanting more.
In the stand-up world, to be a cerebral comic in America is to invite anonymity. In his short life, Bill Hicks extended that invitation and, more or less, it was accepted. Posthumous albums and now this film are securing his legacy and enduring influence. It is a bit of a revelation to realize that Hicks, who would develop into one of the angriest and edgiest standup comedians of his time, was once such a clean-cut and straight young man.