9/11 Movie: ‘Rebirth’

Posted on September 1, 2011 at 3:50 pm

Jennifer Merin, About.com’s documentary expert, has a review of a documentary about five survivors of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2011. It is called Rebirth. Merin says:

The film doesn’t replay the well-known but still shocking footage of airplanes flying directly into the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers and exploding, nor of the collapse of the massive buildings, nor of the carnage that was exposed and cleaned up during the ensuing months.

Instead, Whitaker guides us to reflect upon the effects of that tragic day — and, for that matter, of any such overwhelming and tragic incident — by following his subjects as they struggle to come to grips with their losses and learn to move on. Rebirth is about healing.

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Documentary

A Day in the Life — New Series on Hulu

Posted on August 28, 2011 at 8:00 am

Hulu has another new original series, “A Day in the Life.” Documentarian Morgan Spurlock (“Supersize Me,” “Pom Wonderful Presents The Greatest Movie Ever Sold”) is spending time with fascinating people and showing us what one day looks like. Want to know how billionaire Richard Branson spends his time? Or comic Russell Peters? Here’s a chance to find out.

refocusing his lens on the most innovative and intriguing individuals in our pop culture landscape, allowing the audience to experience what it’s like to be at the pinnacle of an exciting and extraordinary career by being “a fly on the wall” during the course of a typical day. Each episode goes behind the scenes with today’s leading figures – celebrities, musicians, comedians, dancers, entrepreneurs – literally chronicling one day in their lives in a half-hour documentary film.

Interview: Harry Markopolos of Chasing Madoff

Posted on August 22, 2011 at 5:32 pm

The award for the biggest “I told you so” of all time has to go to Harry Markopolos, who fought for nine years to convince anyone — regulator, prosecutor, journalist, or customer — that Bernard Madoff was a crook. Finally, Madoff turned himself in for what turned out to be the biggest financial fraud in history. At least, it’s the biggest one we know about so far. And it continues to make headlines, the latest today as a court ruled that Madoff victims cannot recover the fictitious profitsreflected on the statements they received.

Markopolos is the subject of a new documentary called “Chasing Madoff.” He spoke to me about preventing and detecting fraud and the cases he is involved with now. He will be attendng the Taxpayers Against Fraud conference in Washington, D.C. next month.

In the movie, you describe yourself as the boy who cried wolf — except that there was a wolf.

It felt like a fairy tale or was entering The Twilight Zone, no straight lines, just crooked lines.

I can understand why harried bureaucrats and conflicted politicians and journalists might be reluctant to tell the emperor he had no clothes. Madoff was a very connected and distinguished man. But why would the people who had money invested with him have no interest at all in asking him about the questions you raised?

The key point is that the smart people assumed he was front-running. That would put Madoff in jail if he was caught, but not the people who invested with him, and they’d still have the money. He was handling 5-10 percent of the stock value trades in the US and they assumed they were the beneficiaries of the fraud, not the victims. He intimidated people into not asking any questions. If you tried, he’d offer to give your money back. People did not pursue it because they wanted to remain in the money club.

Why would such a successful man think fraud was worth the risk?

You’re assuming he was successful before. He had a boiler room operation out of his apartment when he first entered in 1962. He had a 46-year-long crime spree.

Why did he finally give up? To protect his sons?

To protect himself. It didn’t start out dangerous. When I saw the offshore hedge funds putting money in, I knew it was organized crime, laundering money against host nation tax authorities. Prison was the only place to keep him alive.

Do we know the truth now? Have you read his interviews since going to jail?

He is still lying. One or two or three things are true; the rest are lies. It is true that he hates me; he said that. He worked with the Chicago Board of Exchange and the big banks; they were willing conspirators. He named some names, threw some people under the bus. But three out of four of them are dead and the other one is 99 years old. There were a lot of people in bed with him.

Have any lessons been learned? Are we doing a better job of preventing and spotting fraud?

Not really. They should call them “compliant officers,” not “compliance officers.” Their specialty is looking the other way and not rocking the boat. You might as well give them a broom, they just sweep things under the rug. They are about appearances, not reality. Our cases against Bank of New York and State Street are moving forward and more are in the pipeline. For years, they were taking .3 of a percent from every trade for their pension fund clients.

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Crime Documentary Interview

Help Tell The Story of Rwanda

Posted on August 18, 2011 at 5:57 pm

My friend Jennifer Merin writes about documentaries for About.com. She has a thoughtful new post about a new project from film-maker Anne Aghion to create a repository for historical documentation about Rwanda, including a huge cache of footage shot during the ten years she was on location in the country.

On the Kickstarter page about the project, which has already exceeded its funding target, Aghion says:

Since 1994, all Rwandans share genocide as their central legacy. As they search for a path to long-lasting recovery and peace, discovering—or re-discovering—their common history and cultural identity is essential to moving forward and to consolidating peaceful coexistence. Our goal is to give free and open access to that history in picture and sound.

The Iribia Center for Multimedia Heritage, whose name means “the source,” will gather films, photographs and audio recordings dating from the start of colonial rule in East Africa, more than a century ago, to the present day.

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Documentary

Glee Live! 3D

Posted on August 11, 2011 at 6:09 pm

Gather up, Gleeks, “Raise Your Glass” and get ready for “Fireworks!” The musical TV series about a high school show choir, now poised to move from hit to cult, continues its juggernaut from television, CDs and iTunes downloads, live performances, a Karaoke video game, board game, Slushie cups, an iPad app, and Cheerios Cheerleader Costumes (with baby bump) into theaters with a concert movie, 3D of course. It is expertly designed to make the fans happy with a can’t miss set-list of greatest hits, sung and danced as though the New Directions had been given another shot at Nationals. This is fabulously entertaining. There is nothing new here but it is a love letter for the fans, especially the fans who fast-forward through the talking parts of the show to get to the music.

On the Fox television series, now getting ready for its third season, New Directions is the name of Lima Ohio’s William McKinley High School show choir (the new version of the old glee clubs, but no less dorky). In the opening episodes, Will Schuester (Matthew Morrison) persuades the principal to let him re-start the glee club, his favorite activity when he was a student there. Soon he as a combination of school misfits and outcasts including Lea Michele as mini-diva Rachel, Amber Riley as the almost-equally-diva-ish Mercedes, Chris Colfer as the only out gay student in the school, Kevin McHale as Artie, who is in a wheelchair, and Jenna Ushkowitz as the shy Tina. Through a series of plot complications, they were joined by some of the school’s most popular kids from the football team and Cheerios cheerleader squad, quarterback Finn (Cory Monteith) and his mohawked bad boy friend Puck (Mark Salling) and pregnant head cheerleader Quinn (Dianna Agron), ethereally air-headed Brittney (Heather Morris), and the tart-tongued tart Santana (Naya Rivera).

The storyline has included one teen pregnancy, one faked adult pregnancy, a reconnection with a birth mother, health crises, a wedding, and a very sad death, major guest stars (Gwyneth Paltrow, Neil Patrick Harris, Kristin Chenoweth, Eve, Carol Burnett, and Idina Menzel) and tributes (Madonna, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, the Rocky Horror Show). There have been shifting rivalries and volatile romances at the teen and adult level, a blazer-clad prep school show choir called the Warblers with a teenage dreamboat leader named Blaine (Darren Criss). The major battle is between Will and the coach of the Cheerios, Sue Sylvester (played by Christopher Guest favorite Jane Lynch). Second only to its electrifying musical numbers is “Glee’s” passionate commitment to inclusion. In addition to its gay and straight, differently-abled, and multi-racial characters and cast members, it has had two major characters with Down syndrome.

Producer Ryan Murphy brings the same commitment to diversity to the song line-up on the show, and like the series this concert includes up-to-the-minute pop numbers from Pink, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry, classic R&B (“Ain’t No Way,” “River Deep, Mountain High”) and classic rock (“Fat Bottomed Girls,” “Somebody to Love”), a little hip-hop, some Bowie, Michael Jackson, and Beatles, a Broadway show tune, a surprise guest appearance, and a remake of a legendary duet when Barbra Streisand guest-starred on Judy Garland’s variety show and they did a mash-up of “Get Happy” and “Happy Days are Here Again.” Performed by Michele (in a middy just like Streisand’s) and Coulter it is piercingly sweet.

The 3D camera is exceptionally well-suited to concert films, bringing us right on stage and giving us a sense of depth in the dance numbers (and such a realistic face-Slushie you’ll want to wipe it off). Cinematographer Glen MacPherson and dancer/choreographer-turned director Kevin Tancharoen use the camera as a part of the movement of the dances and the music of the songs, keeping it moving but respecting the integrity of the numbers. The now-standard back-stage glimpses work less well, partly because the cast does not seem to have a good sense of whether they are supposed to be themselves or stay in character and partly because they are far better performing choreographed numbers than ad libbing. Jane Lynch and some of the shots in the trailer do not appear in the movie — look for them in the DVD extras, which include some special features: Shazam prompts on the screen alerting vieweers to a Shazamable moment. Using their smartphones, fans can “tag” the movie when prompted to unlock exclusive content, including song lyrics in time with the music using the LyricPlay feature, exclusive behind the scenes footage not seen in theaters; exclusive photos of the cast; trivia and special offers.

It is nice to see the enthusiasm of the fans, some wearing huge foam L-for-loser fingers to embrace their Gleekiness. And there are three very affecting appearances by fans who reflect and benefit from the show’s emphasis on embracing difference. Be sure to stay all the way through the credits for an encore and an adorable fan video from a mini-Warbler.

But mostly this movie exists for the same reason that glee clubs exist — the music lifts the spirits and the dances thrill the soul.

(more…)

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3D Documentary Musical