WEWORK: OR THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF A $47 BILLION UNICORN

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Jed Rothstein has a lot to learn about making documentaries. 

Repetitive and redundant to a fault, this overlong doc still manages to put a even a dull point on Adam Neumann's wework con game that makes Anna Delvey's schemes look like un-popped popcorn.

Billions of dollars burn like flash paper.

Douchebag extraordinaire Adam Newmann managed to make renting office space seem like something much sexier, namely a culture for entitled white millennials to pretend as if they were "changing the world."

Gwyneth Paltrow’s cousin Rebekah Paltrow Neumann proves to be a piece of work in her own right. Whew. What a terrifying person.

Forbes editor Randall Lane has the best insights on Neumann's outrageous con game that ruined lives and made Neumann a billionaire.

Yes, capitalism is well and thoroughly fucked.

Rated TVMA. 102 mins.

WHERE TO INVADE NEXT

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

Get cool rewards when you click on the button to pledge your support through Patreon. Thanks a lot pal! Your generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Michael Moore’s much anticipated return since his 2009 documentary “Capitalism: A Love Story,” plays like a companion piece to Bernie Sanders’s presidential run. He could have named it “Cherry-Picking Socialism” for this film’s ingenious conceit of traveling to European and South American countries to discover a myriad of social systems, approaches, and programs that put America to shame.

Moore has lost some of his edge, and his sense of humor has softened, but he remains passionate as ever about America’s potential to do a hard 180-degree turn toward implementing humanist policies to improve our society.

Moore pretends to “invade” countries such as France, Portugal, Italy, and the UK to “steal” great ideas that work.

A visit to Slovenia reveals the country’s free college tuition that gives rise to an educated citizenry who are far too smart to let the privilege be taken away. Of course, protests have power in Slovenia as opposed to the U.S. where protestors are treated like scum by a militarized police force whose actions have scared away new generations of activists.

You might be astonished to see Moore question cops in Portugal about their legalized drug polices that have resulted in a huge drop in crime. Moore asks a couple of officers if they would interfere if he started shooting heroin right in front of them. Nope.

Italians get eight weeks of paid vacations. The couple that Moore talks to are shocked to hear how few vacation days Americans get. It doesn’t seem like they’ll be immigrating to the U.S. anytime soon.

Unlike America’s disregard for its genocide (of the country’s native people), Germany teaches the Holocaust in schools. It also puts up Jewish monuments and memorials as constant reminders of the blood on Germany’s hands. Humility trumps false pride.

School kids in France don’t drink soda pop. Their cafeteria food looks like it came from a bistro menu, hence a lack of obesity throughout the country. Sex education in French schools means it has much lower teen-pregnancy rates, and STDs are also far fewer and farther between than in the U.S.

The filmmaking is clunky at best. Poorly composed shots, and jarring editing contribute to the guerilla-style of the picture. However, the slapdash effect lends itself to the documentary’s sense of urgency at responding to America’s quicksilver descent into militarized anarchy. The film’s purpose is clear, to inspire constructive discussions about concrete measures that could be taken to deliver a more humane culture to America. Bernie Sanders should take note.

Rated R. 110 mins. 

THE BIG SHORT

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does.

This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel.

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Co-writer/director Adam McKay pulls out a grab-back of filmic tricks in creating a simultaneously entertaining and informative drama based on Michael Lewis’s book about the 2008 financial crisis. You probably wouldn’t recognize McKay as the director of “Anchorman” and “Talladega Nights” from watching “The Big Short,” but comedy is part of this film’s appeal.

The movie is a cross-pollinated story of four men who predicted the housing bubble collapse, and capitalized on their knowledge to bet against the U.S. economy, and win while nearly everyone else, except for the corrupt bankers responsible for the crisis, lost their former way of life.

Forth-wall-breaking exposition periodically comes from number- crunching brutes (like Ryan Gosling’s Jared Vennet) that speak directly to the audience in deconstructionist asides, or outright explanations of purposefully disguised banking terms.

The filmmakers break with conventions in other subtle ways too. Some efforts work better than others, but the cumulative effect of McKay’s exploitative (read, commercial) sequences do have an impact. The shopworn music-video-styled montage trope gets a makeover that shows traces of inspiration. Celebrity cameos provide clever analogies. Chef Anthony Bordain explains collateralized debt obligation by way of the fish he prepares in his restaurant. His simple analogy sticks. The film’s primary purpose is to educate its audience. It could even be construed as a cry for help before the next bubble breaks, sooner rather than later.

Characters don’t come much kookier than the men who dared to look past the Wall Street’s too-big-to-fail smokescreen. Christian Bale’s Dr. Michael Burry runs a small investment house where he constantly blasts heavy metal music in his office while doing the research of a lifetime, involving the details of the subprime housing market. Murry’s loss of his left eye, as a child, has left permanent damage to his ego and soul. Bale goes for broke in creating a litany of behaviors and tics belonging to the first person to see through America’s housing bubble. In order to short the market, Murry devised the credit default swap product that the banks embraced, enabling others to follow suit.

“The Big Short” is an essential history lesson and a cautionary tale that America is in grave danger of falling into again. Can we save ourselves in a corrupt system that we are all slaves to? Here’s a movie that raises this question without missing a beat for humor.

Not Rated. 130 mins.