"The Smartest Guys In The Room" on DVD

The movie Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room, based on the book by the same name, is now out on DVD for your home viewing enjoyment. Good timing for them, what with the Lay/Skilling trial fixing to get underway and all.

A darkly comic dig into one of America's biggest corporate scandals, the film earned $4 million in theaters.

Smartest Guys was also a huge hit with critics, scoring 97 percent favorable reviews on review tracking site rottentomatoes.com. It's also on the short list of documentaries vying for an Academy Award nomination Jan. 31.

[Director Alex] Gibney has moved on to other projects, including a documentary on gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson. But he also helped hone Smartest Guys' DVD, whose extras include his commentary track, a making-of featurette, deleted scenes, a look at Enron's in-house skits and a "Where Are They Now?" update on major players.

He and some colleagues even have "kind of an Enron self-help group. We get together and talk about how we can't get this story out of our heads. It's the story that will not die."

I've already got a screener DVD of the movie (my review is here, if you're interested), but the "Where Are They Now?" update might be enough to entice me to get the real thing.

I like Gibney's take on the topic of the jury pool, which was in the news again today.

"I've always thought you're supposed to be tried by a jury of your peers," Gibney said. "Ken Lay has a Ph.D in economics, so you'd presume his peers would be very intelligent people, and why can't they find them in Houston as well as anywhere?"

As Lair notes, there are other options as well.

Anyway. As noted in my review, I enjoyed the movie. It's worth putting on your Netflix queue if you haven't seen it yet.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on January 17, 2006 to Enronarama | TrackBack