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Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room.

Started by Multibeast12, August 15, 2011, 03:17:04 PM

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Multibeast12

I will start the discussion on this film, and would like to apologize for the delay.

This was a very nicely done documentary, but from my point of view it was nothing to spectacular of a documentary. Being born in 1990 at the time i did not care what was happening as long as i could still watch my cartoons, so i never really learned what happened with Enron. So for the education of what happened to the company was a cool thing. I never knew how just utterly fucked up the whole system was. And basically Enron took the path of the stories i read in mythology, Hubris and Greed always gets the best of people.

While i was watching this i was watching this i was thinking how i would hate to see my company crumble right before my eyes. And i would like to comment that the Mark-Market accounting is the dumbest idea ever.

But i would rate this movie a 5, informative, and now i know more about what happened to Enron but it was still kinda boring at parts.

rowjimmy

I read the book ages ago. It was fascinating and infuriating.

Multibeast12

Quote from: rowjimmy on August 16, 2011, 10:30:16 PM
I read the book ages ago. It was fascinating and infuriating.
It seems like the book would be a little better.

gah

From your review mb, it seems like you missed the whole point and think it's just about this one company crumbling. It had much broader aspects that maybe you were just too bored to realize, but the fact that they swindled Americans out of their hard earned money, not only from their employees, but to all those they got from acquiring other smaller energy companies (i.e. the individual in Portland who lost all his retirement savings during a "freeze" while the CEO and top execs were taking all their money out) to the general public that had invested in this company whether directly or indirectly through mutual funds, etc.

They literally increased their own stock through fictional means to keep it going up, and having the general population putting money in it, and then stealing that putting it right in top their pockets, and leaving everyone fucked.

That isn't even to mention the influence on the politics that was uncovered with Ken Lay being all buddy buddy with the Bush family. And then that whole recall mess in Cali with Gray Davis, and getting Arnold elected.

I think if you just watched it as the collapse of a company and how it affected the people working there, you missed the point. But like you said, you were bored by it, so maybe that's the fault of the way the material was presented. I think you're right though, the book might be a better option for absorbing and understanding the effects and influences.
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own.

rowjimmy

The book was really great. At the time (it was several years ago) I could have fully explained the concepts of mark To market accounting with mathematical examples.

cactusfan

maybe i'll read the book.

i liked the movie, but mainly for the outrageous behavior it exposed. goodabouthood, you put it well. what Enron did had massive repercussions, both in what they did, what it connected in the country at large, and what their behavior represented.

but as a documentary, it's a pretty straighforward expose. it doesn't have a whole lot going for it in a film-making sense. its power comes from what it reveals, not in how it reveals it.