[jeffkrol]

Although most of what the movie highlights is familiar, there's something jarring about seeing the culprits up close in all their taxpayer-subsidized, suntanned splendor -- their multiple estates and private jets juxtaposed against shuttered homes and unemployed Americans living in tents. Obscene is the word that comes to mind.

I'm not one to advance class warfare, and most Americans still want to preserve a market system that leaves open the possibility that they, too, can work hard and achieve wealth. But it's clear from "Inside Job" that the game has been rigged so that only a few were in positions to get rich at the expense of the middle class, not just here but globally.

washingtonpost.com
Inside Job - Movie Website for the Documentary Film

[Nesster]

I'd love to see this - here's the NY Magazine review

The sounds began early at the New York Film Festival screening of Inside Job: Titters of incredulity, hoots of derision, then a sort of audible trembling. Was the audience watching a sci-fi disaster in which pompous fools ignore the approaching onslaught? No—and yes. Inside Job tells the story of the economic collapse of 2008, and it’s the horror movie of the decade. As he proved in his Iraq-centered No End in Sight, policy wonk turned documentarian Charles Ferguson has no peer when it comes to tracking the course of a preventable catastrophe. No Michael Moore–ish grandstander, he strives for a tone of objectivity; the drama is in whether he’ll be able to hold his emotions in check. It’s impressive how long he goes before the signs of disgust and indignation creep in.

Opening in Iceland (waterfalls, volcanoes, people yelling they’ve been duped), the film traces the crusade to deregulate, leading banks to reward risk, however insane. Many of those who warned of dire consequences show up (understandably) to say “No one listened,” while the major scoundrels behind the bad loans didn’t deign (or dare) to be interviewed. That means no Richard Fuld of Lehman ¬Brothers or Joseph Cassano of AIG. Also, no Randians like Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers, and, of course, Alan Greenspan. Wrong Way Corrigans who do appear, accustomed to the company of their own kind, prove shockingly inept at accounting for their actions. Former Federal Reserve governor Frederic Mishkin claims he left at the height of the crisis to “finish a textbook” (swell timing), and his 2006 testament to Iceland’s financial stability mysteriously appears on his CV as a report on its “instability.” (“A typo,” he says.) But it’s Columbia Business School dean and Bush-tax-cut architect Glenn Hubbard who steals the picture. Pressed on apparent conflicts of interest, he drops his Dr. Jekyll manner and sneers, “You have a few more minutes … Give it your best shot.”



You say Inside Job is a bit like a classroom documentary? It’s a class you need to take. You won’t be bored—you’ll be seething too much. The bad guys devastated millions of lives, made staggering fortunes that remain intact, and got away clean. And are still writing the laws. Be very afraid.

David Edelstein on 'The Social Network,' 'Let Me In,' and 'Inside Job' -- New York Magazine Movie Review

[jeffkrol]

I think that was Obama's big mistake.. some of these people should have been thrown in jail. His ratings would be through the roof regardless of health care...

Meanwhile, Forbes’ Magazine’s Robert Lenzer wrote a few days back:

Larry Summers. Tim Geithner, Bob Rubin, Hank Paulson, Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke refused to make voluntary appearances in the documentary film on Wall Street’s collapse, which gets my vote for the Oscar documentary. Sadly, documentary film makers don’t have subpoena power. These Masters of the Universe were skewered anyway by a film that is a gripping, must-see narrative of the financial meltdown. Good on Sony Classic for giving the filmmakers total control over their product. The purity of the film’s narrative is impressive.

‘Inside Job’ is a comprehensive , exhausting series of ethical and sometimes illegal actions that casts Wall Street in a very dim light. It is the real thing– not a fictional concoction from Hollywood like “Wall Street-Money Never Sleeps” –which is more Barnum & Bailey fantasy than a non-fiction-though clearly biased — documentary. I left Lincoln Center last night inspired by the muckraking and furious that no-one has gone to jail. The audience definitely wanted blood and gave the director Charles Ferguson a standing ovation– more than Oliver Stone will ever get for his cinematic mess.

Inside Job Gets Forbes’ Oscar Vote
Case in point: See comments..........
http://www.itsj.com/launchpage.aspx?CID=37448

[johnmflores]

Watched most of this last night before my scratched Netflix DVD gave up the ghost. Good thing, my blood was boiling with anger.

Amazing that this movie and the Ponzi scheme that gave birth to it is not discussed more often.

I agree, Obama's greatest failing has been in allowing this corruption to continue. I no longer have faith in either party to make this right.

[shooz]

Although not as thorough, this one is pretty good too.

truTV: Conspiracy Theory ? Wall Street ? S02E03 - YouTube

Wallstreet paid for the laws to make it so.

[GeneV]

I'd love to see this - here's the NY Magazine review

David Edelstein on 'The Social Network,' 'Let Me In,' and 'Inside Job' -- New York Magazine Movie Review

I saw it last night. It is one of the best documentaries I've seen lately--better than the HBO "Too Big to Fail," which was not a bad docu-drama.

Lots of facts and fairly little editorializing.

[GeneV]

Watched most of this last night before my scratched Netflix DVD gave up the ghost. Good thing, my blood was boiling with anger.

Amazing that this movie and the Ponzi scheme that gave birth to it is not discussed more often.

I agree, Obama's greatest failing has been in allowing this corruption to continue. I no longer have faith in either party to make this right.

Before that it was the Clinton Administration which killed regulation of derivatives. That was a poignant part of the movie.