Into the Badlands Reviews - Metacritic. Into the Badlands is a modern take on all those cheesy martial arts movies back in the 8. The show excels in the one thing it focuses on, the combat. While at times it may seem hilarious how many people 1 man can kill, that's kind of the point of the whole show.

Characters jump, slash, and flip around the room with a variety of blades, axes, and other ninja tools somehow found in the middle of what is obviously the Southern United States. It really seems like they know what they are doing in many cases and it rarely leaves me disappointed after a fight. Another nice aspect is the porduction value, this show really has some nice sets, combining the Wild West, Southern Plantation, and Steampunk- esque outfits together in a unique setting loosely based of Journey to the West (Sonny, the main character, is no doubt the Son Goku of this tale). Pretty much everything here is done with practical affects and is done well.

I would complain that the few moments they do try to use anything other sometimes comes off a kind of ugly, but it's rare and can be blamed by the lower budget of a new show. All in all it's a pretty place to look at and see the characters kill and travel in. The show as of now is still a little weak on the story, however, this is only the first season and many of AMC's shows sometimes have slow bits in every season. Some characters seem a little out of place and do not feel as valued as some others. While some characters, like The Baron, are intimidating and interesting others, like various side characters and even the main character himself seem to be bland and cold. Of course this may just be how they were designed, they are ruthless killers after all, but I would really hope to see some character growth soon.

All in all I say at least watch a few episodes and give them some support. This show has potential, and giving it time we may one day see this series really pull off some cool stuff.

• Metacritic TV Reviews, Into the Badlands - Season 1, Loosely based on Journey To The West, warrior Sunny (Daniel Wu) and a young boy named M.K. (Aramis Knight) must.
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Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a 2.

American documentary film based on the best- selling 2. Fortune reporters Bethany Mc. Lean and Peter Elkind, a study of one of the largest business scandals in American history. Mc. Lean and Elkind are credited as writers of the film alongside the director, Alex Gibney.

It’s increasingly difficult to do anything on your phone nowadays without sharing your geolocation information. Certain Snapchat filters, Facebook status updates. Directed by Michael Cooney. With Scott MacDonald, Christopher Allport, Stephen Mendel, F. William Parker. After an accident that left murderer Jack Frost dead in. Black Jack (Japanese: ブラック・ジャック, Hepburn: Burakku Jakku) is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka in the 1970s, dealing with the.

External links. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room on IMDb; Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room at Box Office Mojo; Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room at Rotten.

The film examines the 2. Enron Corporation, which resulted in criminal trials for several of the company's top executives during the ensuing Enron scandal; it also shows the involvement of the Enron traders in the California electricity crisis. The film features interviews with Mc. Lean and Elkind, as well as former Enron executives and employees, stock analysts, reporters and the former Governor of California Gray Davis. The film won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 7. Academy Awards in 2.

Synopsis[edit]The film begins with a profile of Kenneth Lay, who founded Enron in 1. Two years after its founding, the company becomes embroiled in scandal after two traders begin betting on the oil markets, resulting in suspiciously consistent profits.

One of the traders, Louis Borget, is also discovered to be diverting company money to offshore accounts. After auditors uncover their schemes, Lay encourages them to "keep making us millions". However, the traders are fired after it is revealed that they gambled away Enron's reserves; the company is narrowly saved from bankruptcy by the timely intervention of executive Mike Muckleroy, who managed to bluff the market long enough to recover Borget's trading losses and prevent a margin call.

After these facts are brought to light, Lay denies having any knowledge of wrongdoing. Lay hires Jeffrey Skilling, a visionary who joins Enron on the condition that they use mark- to- market accounting, allowing the company to record potential profits on certain projects immediately after contracts were signed, regardless of the actual profits that the deal would generate. This gives Enron the ability to subjectively give the appearance of being a profitable company even if it wasn't. With the vision of transforming Enron from an energy supplier to an energy trader, Skilling imposes his interpretation of Darwinian worldview on Enron by establishing a review committee that grades employees and annually fires the bottom fifteen percent, a process nicknamed within the company as "rank and yank".

This creates a highly competitive and brutal working environment. Skilling hires lieutenants who enforce his directives inside Enron, known as the "guys with spikes." They include J. Clifford Baxter, an intelligent but manic- depressive executive; and Lou Pai, the CEO of Enron Energy Services, who is notorious for using shareholder money to feed his obsessive habit of visiting strip clubs.

Pai abruptly resigns from EES with $2. Despite the amount of money Pai has made, the divisions he formerly ran lost $1 billion, a fact covered up by Enron. Pai uses his money to buy a large ranch in Colorado, becoming the second- largest landowner in the state. With its success in the bull market brought on by the dot- com bubble, Enron seeks to beguile stock market analysts by meeting their projections.

Executives push up their stock prices and then cash in their multimillion- dollar options, a process known as "pump and dump". Enron also mounts a PR campaign to portray itself a profitable, prosperous and innovative company, even though its worldwide operations are performing poorly.

Elsewhere, Enron begins ambitious initiatives such as attempts to use broadband technology to deliver movies on demand, and "trade weather" like a commodity; both initiatives fail. However, using mark- to- market accounting, Enron records non- existent profits for these ventures. CFOAndrew Fastow creates a network of shell companies designed solely to do business with Enron, for the ostensible dual purposes of sending Enron money and hiding its increasing debt. Fastow also takes advantage of the greed of Wall Streetinvestment banks, pressuring them into investing in these shell entities. However, Fastow has a vested financial stake in these ventures, using them to defraud Enron of tens of millions of dollars in business deals that Fastow effectively conducts with himself.

All of this done with the permission of Enron's accounting firm Arthur Andersen and the corporate board. Most of these deals were leveraged with Enron stock, meaning that a significant decline in Enron's stock price could cause Fastow's network of shell companies to fall apart. During this time, Enron's executives encourage the company's employees to invest their savings and retirement funds into Enron stock while they are selling off their shares for millions. Enron's successes continue as it became one of the few Internet- related companies to survive the burst of the dot- com bubble in 2. Fortune magazine for the sixth year running. However, Jim Chanos, an Enron investor, and Bethany Mc.

Lean, a Fortune reporter, question irregularities about the company's financial statements and stock value. Skilling responds by calling Mc. Lean "unethical", and accusing Fortune of publishing her reporting to counteract a positive Business.

Week piece on Enron. Three Enron executives meet with Mc.

Lean and her Fortune editor to explain the company's finances. However, public perception of Enron is changed dramatically due to its role in the California energy crisis: Enron traders exploited the shaky foundation of the state's newly deregulated energy market by shutting down power plants and exporting power out of the state to create artificial shortages that would drive up the cost of electricity to Enron's benefit; Enron would make $2 billion off of the crisis. The film plays tape recorded conversations between Enron traders who seemed to derive enjoyment from their exploitation of the crisis and then cites the Milgram experiment as a means of explaining their behavior. It also explores the strong political connections Ken Lay and Enron had, particularly to the administrations of 4. President. George H. W. Bush and his son, Texas governor and later 4.

President George W. Bush, and suggests that Enron's actions during the California energy crisis could have been intended as a means of sabotaging California governor. Gray Davis, who was being speculated as a strong potential challenger to Bush in the 2. Presidential election. Indeed, the crisis would indirectly lead to Davis being recalled in 2. Skilling, who by then had succeeded Lay as Enron's CEO, blames California's energy laws for the crisis and denies that Enron is acting inappropriately, infamously stating on a 2.

Frontline, "We are the good guys; we are on the side of angels." While the Bush administration refuses to intervene, which the film suggests could have been a result of Enron's influence, the opposition- controlled Senate ends the crisis by imposing price controls. Bush's connections to Ken Lay come under scrutiny by the press, which intensifies after Enron's collapse. Meanwhile, throughout 2. Enron's balance sheet and this agitates CEO Skilling, who was on the verge of a nervous breakdown as the company and its fraud start to unravel. He engages in odd and irrational behavior - such as calling an investor an "asshole" during a conference call when asked why Enron isn't as transparent about its finances as its competitors - which culminates in his abrupt resignation as CEO in August 2. Ken Lay retakes the position. Skilling's odd behavior serves as a red flag to investors who begin to question how financially healthy the company really is and start selling their shares; Enron's stock price begins to rapidly decline.

Immediately after Skilling's departure, whistleblower. Twisted Full Movie. Sherron Watkins, who had just recently discovered the fraud in Enron's books, alerts Lay and tells him that the company is headed to certain collapse unless he acts immediately.