Director: Alex Gibney
Cast:Ken Lay
Release: April 22, 2005 (Limited)
Synopsis: Inside story of one of history’s greatest business scandals, in which top executives of America’s 7th largest company walked away with over one billion dollars while investors and employees lost everything. Based on the best-selling book “The Smartest Guys in the Room” by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind and featuring insider accounts and incendiary corporate audio and videotapes, Gibney reveals the almost unimaginable personal excesses of the Enron hierarchy and the utter moral vacuum that posed as corporate philosophy. The film comes to a harrowing dénouement as we hear Enron traders’ own voices as they wring hundreds of millions of dollars in profits out of the California energy crisis. As a result, we come to understand how the avarice of Enron’s traders and their bosses had a shocking and profound domino effect that may shape the face of our economy for years to come.

Enron, that unholy machination of a mega corporation, that barreled though the economy like an amped up Ron Mexico on his way to touchdown, or STD, ingloriousness, was publicly taken down with a panache no one had ever seen before. This is a story that needed to be told, from start to finish, and I sure as hell want to see how the corporation rose to prominence, crested and then crashed into the national economy.

This trailer sets things up nicely with a snippet from an interview with a guy in a very proper suit and tie, laying out the financials. It had taken Enron 16 years to build their financial empire and then, from their apex, lost it all in 24 days.

“The greatest innovation in the new economy was greed…”

From here, and in the kind of documentary style that many have come accustomed to, interviews from people on the inside and analysts who knew about the situation, we get some real key things about what really caused this company’s downfall. It didn’t help that the traders of electricity, which I still don’t understand how one can really trade futures in something intangible like power, are caught on tape laughing about they’re stealing money from old grandmothers. The tenor of how which this story is going to be told is set.

What I especially like about this trailer is that we get some real great evidence presented that shows you the kind of gentlemen who will, ostensibly, be visiting some sort of federal “pound me in the ass” prison in their near future. Jeffrey Skilling, at one of the federal hearings looking into this matter, is shown being asked the question of whether he converted, cashed-out, stock worth 66 million dollars. Skilling affects one of the least effective “what, me worry?” poker faces as he responds, “Uh…I don’t know.”

Words from another Enron guy, you’ve probably seen his mug on the TV a bit, Ken Lay, is looking all serious as he says that Enron deals with everyone with absolute integrity; obviously, it’s an old interview.

What’s also remarkable about this trailer is that, at a real quick clip, it pushes you through Enron 101. You had former nerds who were all of a sudden really rich and powerful; they wouldn’t let their importance in the market be diminished so they did whatever they had to do to retain that power; they had California in their own stranglehold; they used the rolling blackouts to increase their profits; and they even have an Enron trader on tape saying that for every day that the blackouts continue they are able to skim a million or two, who’s counting, into the coffers of the corporate execs.

The blistering sound bites from the many involved with this company come fast but you begin to see the tangled mess this turned into when deregulation was allowed to happen. Whether deregulation was ultimately a good thing or a bad thing I don’t know but I like how this kind of documentary seems to be more prevalent nowadays; the kind that uses some of the most recent video, audio, documents, etc… to establish continuity and liven up the whole documentary experience. I’m sure the chances this documentary would fare much better, though, on the small screen, rather than the big one if only for the reason that we all know big business is screwing us so why spend the money to confirm it?

Director: Hans Weingartner
Cast: Daniel Brühl, Julia Jentsch, Stipe Erceg, Burghart Klaußner, Peer Martiny
Release: July 22, 2005
Synopsis: Jan, Peter and Jule are living out their rebellious youth. They are united by their passion to change the state of the world. Jan and Peter become “The Edukators,” mysterious perpetrators who non-violently warn the local rich their “days of plenty are numbered.” Complications follow when vulnerable Jule ends up falling for both young men. Reckless choices result in danger. An operation gone wrong and what was never intended to be a kidnapping brings the three young idealists face-to-face with the values of the generation in power.

Usually I’m all for foreign films as they sometimes inform my experience as a world citizen in ways that, not intentionally, American cinema sometimes lacks.

However, this isn’t one of them.

When you first watch this trailer you wonder what the hell is happening. Some really rich people, a nice nuclear family, arrive home to find all their possessions have been rearranged in the home. Now, I’m not talking a Queer Eye transformation but some people broke into this family’s home and put everything that was in its place into a radical new one. A note taped to a mountain of furniture says that their days of “plenty” are numbered. Ok, even though I don’t know what days of plenty mean, I get it, and the quick card that comes after this note saying “You’ve been Edukated” only makes me think that Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out with his hat all askew on his head and acting like an obnoxious twit.

Instead, we see that some punk kids are the ones behind this. In fact, it’s those kinds of roustabouts who are out, not protesting, but throwing chairs through the windows of any nearby Starbucks at any G8 meeting in the world. I am sure there is a fine line with peaceful protest and violent opposition and these people seem to be the latter and with nothing else on their mind but general mayhem and wanton destruction to property.

In fact, what I see happen in the next few scenes are moments of these “protestors” shouting the words “capitalist pigs” as the po-pos drag some of these youth away in what looks like a pretty heady moment of a fairly violent altercation. It’s these varieties of global pin heads that make trying to protest the system of unfair imbalances of the world that much more difficult. I really don’t want, and don’t have, any sort of empathy for these kinds of people and that’s what makes watching this trailer that much more difficult.

When next I see that some chick wants to get involved with them I feel sorry for her, not happy that someone else is joining the “resistance.” When they are attempting to “edukate” some rich fellow’s home the guy comes back early. The homeowner grabs the chick, who is clad in the clichéd outfit of black clothes and black stocking cap, but the gimp boyfriend who convinced her to go along with this whole thing sneaks up on the apprehending suburbanite and knocks him out.

The people end up kidnapping him and take him to one of their socialist log cabins.

After they take his gag off and let him sit down at their communist table the “edukation” continues as they try to tell him that amassing nice things with the money he’s earned is a bad thing, a wrong thing. He’s very casual as he says he’s the wrong scapegoat for their misery.

He’s right but we don’t really get anything else here that would say that the people who’ve kidnapped him really evolve in any meaningful way. Things just seem to go on with no real clear direction of where I should be going and I don’t like it. Should I be sympathizing with the plight of these “revolutionaries”? No, obviously not, but I can’t say for sure with the trailer I’ve been given. It leaves me confused and a confused customer is not likely to pay to see your film.

Director: Iain Softley
Cast: Kate Hudson, Peter Sarsgaard, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt, Joy Bryant
Release: August 12, 2005
Synopsis: Set largely in the dark atmospheric backwoods just outside of New Orleans, The Skeleton Key stars Hudson as Caroline, a live-in nurse hired to care for an elderly woman’s (Rowlands) ailing husband (Hurt) in their home…a foreboding and decrepit mansion in the Louisiana delta. Intrigued by the enigmatic couple, their mysterious and secretive ways and their rambling house, Caroline beings to explore the old mansion. Armed with a skeleton key that unlocks every door, she discovers a hidden attic room that holds a deadly and terrifying secret. Peter Sarsgaard portrays Luke, the local attorney working on the couple’s estate, and Joy Bryant plays Jill, Caroline’s best friend.

This looks like ass.

The opening is good, though, I have to give it that. Even throaty Voiceover Guy sounds like he huffed on a few extra packs of Camel non-filters to get that mysterious and creepy pitch just right as he talks about where our story takes place. And, sure enough, when you’re talking about anything weird, odd, and just way off the norm, you’re talking about the South. Louisiana, to be exactly right.

We’re told that there are people who still use witchcraft, sacrifice, conjures, and spells as their religion and we even see some really “creepy” images of hand-drawn circles, burnt out candles, chicken legs and anything else you could associate with witchcraft. You know, things you’d find in the bedroom of your average, coming-of-age, Cure or CROW fan circa 15 or 16 years-old.

I know what the trailer makers are trying to do is to be all Joe Flaherty SCTV Count Floyd “Ooo…it’s spooky!” and it works to a certain extent. I’m even pumped up when I see it’s written by the original guy who did the American version of THE RING; hey, say what you will but there was a reason why the 2nd RING, as god awful as it was, was made and this will really show whether Ehren Kruger really just got lucky or if crappiness is just his style. For further examples of said awfulness, and potential train-wreckage for this film, see his work on REINDEER GAMES and SCREAM 2.

Now we get Kate Hudson into the mix. She’s going to Louisiana to take care of some old coot that was rendered paralyzed by a stroke. The house is really old and in the old manse style that populated so many Southern yarns in literature at the turn of the century and, of course, the home is in some disrepair which adds to its “spookiness.” So, she’s there to be a home health aide to this sickly man and, judging by the tight violin music, when her patient suddenly grabs her arm in a Kung-Fu pebble sort of way, that should have been the universal sign for drop everything and leave quickly.

Instead, what seems to happen is that Kate then employs witchcraft or, at the very least, starts to dabble in it. Huh? If you’re working somewhere and you suddenly feel compelled to begin taking Wiccan steps to ensure your safety against “evil” that might be around you it’s either time to take a 3 day break on a Carnival cruise line and stay rip roaringly drunk or it’s time to see someone and have a chat about other professional avenues in your life.

What really chaps my hide about this trailer is that we go from things getting slightly weird to things getting out of all sorts of control in less than fifteen seconds. First some woman tells Kate to get the hell out of the house, Kate then finds some really effed up witchcraft swag in her employers’ attic, the wife of her patient isn’t all there and is dangerously close to looking like she herself is in a permanent psychotic state, and we see some really odd clip of Kate using a compact mirror like she’s trying to determine whether the old guy she’s taking care of is a vampire, to which the guy flips out when he sees his visage.

There’s some really crazy things going on in this movie and I can tell you it’s not intentional. I just can’t see why I would even want to get close to this unless there was some kind of lesbianiac séance to awake the healing powers of female love to protect her. Even then I would be hard pressed.

Director: Jun-hwan Jeong
Cast: Shin Ha-Gyun, Baek Yun-Shik, Hwang Jung-Min, Lee Jae-Yong, Lee Ju-Hyeon, Ki Ju-Bong
Release: April 20, 2005 (Limited)
Synopsis: Lee Byeong-Gu (Shin Ha-Gyun, JSA) is a sensitive, blue collar sad sack hopped up on conspiracy theories and sci-fi films whose life has been derailed by one bad break after another. Yet he knows there’s no such thing as bad luck. The only thing that could have made such a mess of his life are…aliens. Nasty, disgusting aliens who have infiltrated human society. Sly aliens who are planning to destroy our planet at the next lunar eclipse. The one alien possessing the Royal Genetic Code needed to contact the Crown Prince and stop the destruction just happens to be his old boss, CEO of Yuje Chemicals, Kang Man-Shik (Baek Yun-Shik).

Prognosis: Positive. Resist the urge to stop this trailer a few seconds into it.

It will be the oddest thing you see today, I swear it. (This’ll be a good thing)

It’s hard not to roll your eyes when the first images we get of this Asian import are of some dude with a construction helmet on his head with assorted accoutrements and gizmos stuck on it and who is also wearing a trash bag as a coat. Its silliness is only rivaled by its sheer visual stupidity, I know.

It seems our new friend, who is either a danger to himself, society, others or all of the above, thinks his boss is an alien. The yellow cards that state this claim look like they were designed by someone who just discovered the joys of making fonts as big as the screen.

The bag man in question walks up to the boss in question and asks if he’s from his hometown. The bossman, who is awfully calm for a man being questioned by a trash bag wearing weirdo, says that no, he grew up in Seoul. “Not Andromeda?” our fruit loop asks.

“He may be right,” the next card says. What?

I realize that it’s about here where you would go off and clip your toenails but stick with it as the next scenes just assault you with some of the oddest situations that I have ever seen come out of Korean cinema.

First, we see that our garbage man knocks out his boss with some sort of gas. Then, in a series of chronological events, boss guy is taken to some kind of abandoned industrial park, he’s strapped down to a chair, his head is shaved, we see trash guy has a similarly dressed associate with him, and the card that flashes at us states that this film, “is not horror.”

Well, who would think that? Before I get to the “who would” of my question we see that boss guy has his right leg extended on some kind of ottoman, as a real punky version of “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” jams in the background, and his crazy abductor wields an ax that is being slammed into the dude’s leg. What the hell is going on?

I still don’t have a clue but I know I can’t look away.

The next card says that this isn’t science fiction. No shit? Really? I can’t see how that would be as all my favorite sci-fi movies have forceful amputations of body parts with garden tools in them.

Next, an ethereal and more mellow singing of “Rainbow” lilts softly as animated math equations take over the narrative storytelling of this trailer. Streams of impossibly definable X’s and Y’s and =’s confound me even more than what comes at me in the follow scenes.

The punk “Rainbow” comes back as we get a wholly different set of people fighting at a bee hive. What? Some guy, in a really funny/odd/crazy moment, tosses a jar of what looks like honey on a potential assailant causing bees to gather in a cloud right above his drippy head. What does our honey boy, wielding a pistol, do to defend himself? Shoots at the bee swarm. With every shot that goes off you see a single bee drop. It’s completely surreal.

“This is something you’ve never seen before”

I can’t even tell you what I think of the quick clips that follow in this movie’s desperate attempt to make a cohesive reason why I should see this film. The fact that it was an official selection at Toronto and a multitude of other film festivals in the past year really starts to scramble my synapses as I wonder why, now, garbage man is having a kung-fu battle in the middle of the street where the laws of physics don’t seem to be a concern for anyone involved.

The one thing that makes me even think of investigating further into this film is the recommendation of some fairly good press outlets which include a glowing proverbial thumbs up from Film Threat. I can’t imagine anything stranger I’ve seen in the last few months as odd as this movie but it did make for an interesting couple of minutes.

Director: Sean Anders
Cast: John Angelo, Greg Behrendt, Sean Anders
Release: April 15, 2005 (Limited)
Synopsis: Shawn is the founder of the Mesa Frozen Entree Enthusiasts Club. He has inspired this group of fanatical collectors to attempt to host the world’s first Frozen Entree Enthusiasts Convention. Shawn also sings for a local punk band that has recently converted to Christian Rock as they find the Christian fans much easier to shock and impress. Milo Binder, a local Christian rock promoter and owner of an anti-abortion themed Christian cafe, assisted the band’s conversion. As Shawn pursues the convention and Christian fame, Al (the bass player) pursues Shelly. Shelly is a mousy virgin who’s infatuation with Shawn may be more than AL can overcome. NBT is a dark, edgy warts-and-all comedy that leaves nothing sacred.

Not literally, as I could maybe accommodate a small production of Waiting For Godot, and someone would have to bring the tree, but this film was constructed with Phoenix hands and I feel like I can share the positive vibes I get from this ad with the rest of you.

The premise is strange but the trailer sells this lo-fi budgeted comedy with smashing aplomb; let me explain. At the beginning, we’re introduced to a collector. The guy isn’t just your normal collector, mind you, as the object of his desire is frozen dinner entrees. It’s the coveted collectible of all the hoarders at the center of this film as are the freezers that populate these people’s homes which are used to store them. Some people have long boxes, others, GE deep freezers. One of the guys who boasts a collection of some 900 different varieties is absurd but, when you watch it, it really is amusing.

We next meet a concert promoter. The man, who talks to the camera in a documentary style, clad with a fetus eraser tip on his pencil, says he has been a part of the Christian rock scene for the past 10 years. Quickly, we cut to a performer in a local club where he says that the next song they’re going to play is about…well…Jesus.

I laugh.

In a Lou Pearlman, Backstreet Boys style machination, we are introduced to the man who creates a Christian rock band and tells the members how they’re going to be successful. It is, in this order, man has problem, man finds Jesus, Jesus fixes problem. Repeat.

The obnoxiousness of the band’s lyrical content and performance on the live stage is readily apparent as is the meeting of the losers who all gather to talk about Swanson’s newest frozen dinner entrees that is near release to the general public. Is this what it looks like to people when I tell people how excited I am of an impending Jim Mahfood release?

We next get introduced to our other players and find out a little bit more about each one. In particular, we are presented Shelly. Shelly works at the William Jefferson Clinton Abstinence Center. The Center is a hotline where people can call up and get talked down from having premarital relations, with themselves. Her conversation with someone who is in mid master-coitus stokes the laugh track inside of me.

The quick clips that follow show all sorts of odd things: refrigerated display cases, a la baseball cards, that herald new offerings of frozen dinners for sale, a guy who spills a copious amount of shampoo into his palm while showering right before treating himself like “an amusement park,” a dog humps the hell out of a disaffected guy’s leg who drinks a beer in his underwear, and there is even a moment between friends which show how mean some of our very friends can intentionally be.

Without any way to see exactly how any of this could be very entertaining I can see why it would be hard to get excited about this kind of a movie. I do know, however, that having to sit through an inordinate amount of trailers submitted by first time moviemakers, which fail to do anything, that this one really shines above a lot of them for being able to excite me.

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