[ThisWeek] Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

[thisweek at kenworthy.org]

This week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre-

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (not rated)

Friday, October 7, 7:00 pm
Panel discussion to follow film
Moderated by Myron Schreck
Panelists include:
Mark Anderson, UI Professor of Law
Robert Greenberg, WSU Professor of Accounting
Deirdre Rogers, UI Professor of Sociology

Also showing:
Saturday & Sunday, October 8 & 9
4:30 & 7:00 pm
Tickets $5/adult, $2/child under 13
(see Review below)
* * *

Next week at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre . . .

Mad Hot Ballroom (PG)
Friday, October 14
7:00 pm
Saturday & Sunday, October 15 & 16
4:30 & 7:00 pm
$5/adults, $2/children under 13

Coming in October: Turtles can Fly, March of the Penguins
Check KPAC¹s web site for dates & times. http://www.kenworthy.org

Regular Movie prices:  $5 adult, $2 child under 13
KFS passes accepted year-round for Sunday movies!
* * *

Fall 2005 at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

Darol Anger Republic of Strings in concert
Thursday, October 27
7:30 PM
Tickets $16/adult, $12/senior or student

"Darol Anger is the quintessential improvising violinist," says Dr. Billy
Tayler of CBS Sunday Morning.  Eric Fidler of the Associated Press says,
"Darol Anger has been obliterating musical borders for years, but never to
better effect.  ... the Darol Anger Fiddle Ensemble creates rich, lusciously
textured, complex and quite beautiful music."

Renowned for his versatility and depth, Darol Anger has helped mastermind
the evolution of the American string band with his groundbreaking groups The
Turtle Island String Quartet, Fiddlers 4, Psychograss, Newgrange, Montreux,
and the David Grisman Quintet.  Michael John Simmons of Amazon.com says,
"Harmonically complex, rhythmically rich arrangements.  You might call this
improvised Afro-Scandivanian Irish old-time string band music, but it would
be equally true, and much simpler, to just say they play great music."

The concert is sponsored by local businesses Advantage America Mortgage and
Hayden, Ross & Co. and is funded in part by the Idaho Commission on the Arts
and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Tickets for the concert go on sale October 1 at BookPeople of Moscow.
Tickets are $16 for adults and $12 for seniors, children or students with ID
and can be charged by phone to 208-882-4127.  There is a $.50 per ticket fee
on all charge card orders.

For more information, visit www.kenworthy.org or call 208-882-4127.
* * *

Moscow Community Theatre presents
Noodlehead
Original musical by Lisa Kliger
November 3 - 5, 10 - 12 at 7:30 PM
November 6 & 12 at 2:00 PM
$11/adult, $9/student or senior

* * *
This week¹s review-

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Directed by Alex Gibney; written by Mr. Gibney, based on the book "The
Smartest Guys in the Room" by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes
This film is not rated. Advisory: This documentary has brief scenes of
nudity. 

As reviewed by Marjorie Baumgarten writing for the Austin (Texas) Chronicle

It¹s a truism that things are done big in Texas, but who knew that approach
applied to failures as well successes?

The Enron debacle ­ the bankruptcy scandal that demolished the Houston
corporation that was ranked the seventh largest in the country, and also
devastated its swindled employees, stockholders, business associates, and
even casual observers ­ is put under the microscope in Gibney¹s documentary.

Based on the book by Fortune writers Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, Enron:
The Smartest Guys in the Room documents the collapse in vivid detail and
with cinematic flourish. Moreover, the film doesn¹t require an economics
degree to understand the factors that led to Enron¹s demise, although laymen
may occasionally wish for a pause button in the theatre in order to absorb
the volumes of information in more manageable scoops.

The film teeters between two narrative strategies: Enron¹s undoing seen as
the work of some bad apples who tainted the whole bushel and the story of
Enron as an American saga ­ a story not only of rampant hubris and
self-interest at the local level but also a story about the operational
mentality of the largest corporate contributor to George W. Bush¹s
re-election campaign and the tacit complicity of banks, accountants, stock
analysts, and others in willfully turning a blind eye to irregularities that
might have pointed out that the emperor was wearing no clothes.

With such characters as Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, and Andy Fastow at
the helm of Enron, the "great man" approach is irresistibly tempting, since
their "sins" are so lurid and grandiose. Gibney makes great use of lots of
inside material: training films, news footage, party spoofs, and some
especially damning audiotapes of Enron traders callously manipulating the
price of oil on the West Coast as California suffered the consequences with
rolling blackouts. In the course of showing these scoundrels for their true
measure, Gibney strikes a few unfair blows that make it clear that the
filmmaker¹s stance is not fully objective, and that should not be forgotten
either while watching his film. But the sensibility that manipulatively
matches the Traffic tune "Dear Mr. Fantasy" with the introduction of Andy
Fastow is the same sensibility that closes the movie with Tom Waits¹
fabulous rendition of "God¹s Away on Business." (The film's music choices
show great forethought.) Despite these biases, the movie helps the average
American understand the nature of the shell games perpetuated by Enron and
how "synergistic corruptions" can corrupt absolutely.


As reviewed by A. O. Scott writing for the New York Times

If you are looking for a good dose of outrage at a theater near you, you
won't find a better bargain than "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," a
documentary directed by Alex Gibney. Based on the best-selling book by the
Fortune magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, "Enron" is a
tight, fascinating chronicle of arrogance and greed.

Interweaving Peter Coyote's sober, ever-so-slightly sarcastic voice-over
narration with interviews and video clips (as well as one ill-advised and
unnecessary re-enactment) and accompanied by an anthology of well-chosen pop
songs, it manages to be both informative and entertaining.

Much of the entertainment value comes from the undeniable pleasure of
feeling morally superior to many of the people on screen, a nice antidote to
the envy they might have inspired when they were riding high. Mr. Gibney
uses video from Congressional hearings and financial chat-show appearances
to damning effect; in the era before CSPAN and CNBC, the case against Enron
might have been much harder to make.

He has also obtained in-house video from company meetings, in which Mr.
Skilling and Mr. Lay, in their very different styles, strut and brag through
the company's boom years. Mr. Lay is a bit like a classic Texas football
coach - gruff, tough but also possessing a measure of courtly charm. Mr.
Skilling is more tightly wound, supremely confident of his intellect and
abilities, with a chillier demeanor than his boss. When their enterprise
starts to collapse, Mr. Skilling, expressing no remorse and accepting no
responsibility, abruptly quits. Mr. Lay, rallying his troops, indulges in
one of the most dismaying appropriations of the Sept. 11 attacks ever
recorded - - -  declaring to employees in the autumn of 2001 that, just like
America, Enron is under attack.

Appropriately enough, Mr. Gibney's quick, fluid editing gives his film the
suspenseful, queasy fascination of a disaster flick, even - or perhaps
especially - because you know exactly where it's headed. As the story moves
forward, keep your eye on the bottom of the screen, where the stock price is
periodically shown. Watch it soar, and then watch it plummet.

Of course, the consequences of Enron's foray into funny money were quite
serious, and "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" does not forget the real
costs of this catastrophe. While it notes the friendship between Mr. Lay and
the Bush family, and details Enron's role in the California energy crisis
and the political destruction of Gray Davis, the film is for the most part
too journalistically scrupulous to indulge in anything that might smack of
conspiracy theorizing.


As reviewed by Jonathan Curiel writing for the San Francisco Chronicle

Its name is synonymous with corporate misbehavior, but a documentary about
Enron elevates its story into the ranks of the truly absurd. "Enron: The
Smartest Guys in the Room" is laced with dark humor and "Are you kidding
me?" moments that shed new light on the rise and fall of the giant Houston
energy concern. 

Take the audiotapes that director Alex Gibney features in "Enron." The
recordings, made during the height of California's energy crisis in 2000 and
2001, reveal Enron traders gloating as they shut down perfectly fine power
plants in a bid to raise kilowatt prices -- and their own profits. One
trader hears about wildfires that are engulfing state property (including
power lines that, if burned, would raise kilowatt prices even more), and
says, "Burn, baby, burn!" Another says, "That's a beautiful thing." Gibney
obtained the audio from the Snohomish County Public Utility District in
Washington, whose lawyers secured them in an Enron-related lawsuit. The
tapes, whose contents have been previously reported in dribs and drabs, are
damning evidence of Enron's immoral practices, which fueled California's
rolling blackouts. 

Another coup by Gibney: getting major players in the Enron debacle, and
those heavily affected by the corporation's ruthlessness, to speak frankly
to the camera. Among them is former California Gov. Gray Davis, who was
arguably deposed by the shenanigans undertaken in the name of Enron Chairman
Ken Lay and chief executive Jeff Skilling.

With a dose of incredulity that humanizes him, Davis rips the Federal Energy
Commission (whose chairman owed his job to Lay) for failing to intervene
early on in California's energy woes. Bush also failed to intervene, setting
the stage for Arnold Schwarzenegger's gubernatorial run. Asked whether Bush
and Lay had a political agenda to blame Davis for the state's energy woes,
Davis says, "Hello?"

Gibney mixes in old clips of Lay and Skilling, then adds darkly humorous
touches, such as having the Dusty Springfield song "Son of a Preacher Man"
play in the background as we learn that Lay's father was a Baptist preacher.
(Another darkly humorous segue: juxtaposing the money-grubbing culture of
Enron with old black-and-white clips of the Milgram experiment -- the Yale
University exercise that suggested that people would zap others to death if
motivated by money and pressure.)

Gibney lets Lay and Skilling hang themselves with words that are oh-so-
ironic in retrospect. Lay: "Enron is a company that deals with everyone with
absolute integrity." Skilling: "We're the good guys." Americans were taken
for a ride by Enron. This film lets us sit back and see how it all happened.
There will be lots of seething at the sight of it all, but there are enough
good laughs to make the experience more than worthwhile.

Film reviews researched and edited by Peter A. Haggart
* * *

Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre
508 S. Main Street, Moscow, Idaho
For more information, call 208-882-4127 or visit http://www.kenworthy.org
* * *

Sign up for this weekly email on events and movies at the Kenworthy by
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAMELA PALMER, Volunteer
Mailto:ppalmer at moscow.com
Film and Events Committee
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre

http://www.kenworthy.org
To speak with a KPAC staff member,
call (208) 882-4127
Mailto:kpac at moscow.com
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