What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012)

Driving Misandry

My best friend in art school told me a variation on the same joke for a year. It went like this:

"So, there's this guy who goes upstairs in his house. He sees his wife in the bathroom and says, 'Hey! What're you doing out of the kitchen?'"

The hilarity was never in the content, but the context--which changed daily: sometimes the "guy" would be Han Solo and the "girl" Chewbacca; other versions had ridiculously complicated and funny set-ups that were defused by the original punch line. It was our version of "The Aristocrats"* before we knew what "The Aristocrats" was.

I thought about this joke a lot while watching What to Expect When You're Expecting, a movie that tells the same sexist joke over and over again for nearly two hours--minus the interesting setups or satisfying ending. Like Valentine's Day, He's Just Not That Into You, and every other lame, celebrity-packed romantic comedy of the last half-decade that has tried and failed to be Love Actually, What to Expect is comprised of several interlocking relationship stories that share a common premise. Like the recent Think Like a Man, it's also a feature film based on a mega-popular self-help book. But that movie is actually good, and has no further place in this discussion.

In fairness, What to Expect is less a rom-com than a mom-com, a delectable, consequence-free slice of parenthood porn sponsored by Delta Airlines and whatever sinister, globalist forces want to ensure a cheap labor stream into the next millennium. I'm kidding about that second part,** but the film's heavy-handed, pro-conception message makes the alien propaganda from They Live seem positively benign.

I can feel some of you scratching your heads. Yes, I'm a family man, and can recommend parenthood to anyone who'll listen. But there's nothing in this movie that I recognized as having anything to do with my experiences, or those of my wife. All director Kirk Jones and writers Shauna Cross and Heather Hach have managed to do is wrangle big-name stars in a big-screen sitcom. All the women are fiercely independent; all the men are confused, over-grown boys; all the kids do the darnedest things.

I can tell how much you're enjoying me twist in the wind, fighting with everything in me to write about a movie that isn't worth any more time than I've already given it.

Here comes the "plot" breakdown:

Anna Kendrick and Chace Crawford play rival food-truck operators whose one-night stand results in a pregnancy. She loses the baby, and they have to figure out if couple-hood is actually in the cards for them. I've never been embarrassed for Kendrick until now; really, I shouldn't be, 'cause I have no stake in her career one way or the other--but "scolding, careerist shrew" doesn't fit her, and it's a bad sign when the second male lead on Gossip Girl steals the spotlight from an Oscar nominee. But he did. XoXo, Chace!

Jennifer Lopez and Rodrigo Santoro play an infertile couple who really want a family. She loses her photography job; he loses interest in fatherhood when the adoption agency announces that they've miraculously found a kid for them who's ready to be brought home right away. Santoro's character joins a gang of dads whose Saturday get-togethers at the park with their kids has become an excuse for them to bond over "guy shit", away from the judgmental harping of their spouses. No prizes will be awarded for guessing that the dad club is introduced in a slow-motion wide-shot set to rap music.

Elizabeth Banks and Ben Falcone play a perfectly happy couple. She runs a baby boutique; he's a celebrity dentist. She has the kid-making stuff down to a science, even going so far as to force her shlubby mate into a quickie when her cell phone's ovulation alarm rings. He's got daddy issues that blow up when his father, a retired NASCAR legend played by Dennis Quaid, announces that he and his much-younger wife (Brooklyn Decker) are also pregnant--with twins!

Last, and certainly least, we have Cameron Diaz and Matthew Morrison playing reality TV stars whose partnership on a dance show results in a "real life" pairing--as well as a baby. She's so obsessed with staying on top of the ratings game that she practically has to be restrained from flying home after a remote shoot during her third trimester. She also has no idea why the baby-daddy is so upset about her militant, anti-circumcision stance (mostly, his are religious grounds). 

Any one of these premises might have made for an interesting drama, or even a comedy, if targeted at adults. But What to Expect When You're Expecting isn't made for them. It's aimed squarely at the Girls Night Out crowd, which has many sub-categories but a singular, black, beating heart. There are the wish-fulfillment girls; the grannies whose memories of the past are just hazy enough to buy into the false emotions presented here; and, of course, the moms who've left the brood with their good-for-nothing, sports-obsessed, smelly, stupid, feelings-are-for-fags, sperm-donor husbands in order to partake in the extended, cineplex equivalent of George Orwell's Two Minutes Hate.

If you recognize anyone from your social circle in this movie, get new friends. If you see yourself and/or your spouse in these characters, consider murder/suicide. But for God's sake--and, more importantly, mine--do not have children. The last thing art needs is another generation of cliche-minded twits funding laugh-free, stakes-free comedies that squash legitimate entertainment under its clown shoes.

Note: Like the other movie I watched on Saturday, Men in Black 3, What to Expect has a great left-field performance buried deep within its roiling seas of mediocrity. Brooklyn Decker surprised the hell out of me in a scene that transformed her upbeat, Southern trophy wife into a no-nonsense mother hen. If this minute of greatness is any indication, Decker needs to stop headlining garbage like Battleship and make with the supporting dramatic roles right away.

*If you're unfamiliar with "The Aristocrats", check out Paul Provenza's wonderful 2005 documentary of the same name--or Google the phrase, but not at work.

**Not really.

Men in Black 3 (2012)

No Galaxy for Old Men

It's quite possible that a pair of clandestine government agents blasted me with a neuralizer as I left Men in Black 3. How else to explain my enthusiasm for a movie I'd expected to hate, and with which I still have huge problems?

Let's back up a moment. I don't remember anything about Men in Black 2, except for the experience of going to see it. On July 4th, 2002, my wife and I made record time in traveling from the city to the suburbs; the highway was so free of cars and cops that the hour-long trip took about twenty minutes. As a recent Chicago transplant, I was uncomfortable driving to any of the closer theatres, and instead chose a remote but familiar multiplex. Suffice it to say the drive home was significantly longer--not because of additional traffic, but because we were in a profound funk. Men in Black 2 was terrible beyond redemption. I assume it still is.

To be clear, the stink on that film is so strong that I would have blown off the second sequel entirely if my job didn't keep me from doing so. But director Barry Sonnenfeld and screenwriter Etan Cohen have sufficiently made amends with this new movie, delivering at once a big, dumb summer blockbuster and a nifty bit of sci-fi that quietly makes a case for its existence.

The premise feels embarrassingly old hat: a slimy alien criminal named Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) escapes a lunar prison and crash-lands on Earth. He plans to procure a time travel device that will allow him to kill Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) in the past. In 1969, the two had a dust-up during the first space shuttle launch, resulting in Boris losing an arm and K gaining another device that created an Earth-sized laser shield, which kept an alien invasion at bay. Boris succeeds in wiping K from history--except in the mind of his partner, J (Will Smith).

J follows Boris back in time to Manhattan, where he runs into a much younger and far less cranky version of K (Josh Brolin, doing a terrific impression of Jones). From here, Men in Black 3 becomes a full-on mash-up of Austin Powers-style swingin'-60s parody and Back to the Future's space/time continuum mumbo-jumbo--with a dizzying nod to Casino Royale's construction-site set-piece at the climax. For about half the run-time, I dismissed the movie as a breezy, inoffensive retread. It didn't bore me, but it didn't set my mind on fire, either.

Until Bill Hader and Michael Stuhlbarg burst onto the scene, playing Andy Warhol and a hanger-on at The Factory, respectively. J and K visit Warhol's party loft/studio as part of a fact-finding mission. It turns out the famed soup-can artist is a Man in Black as well, sent deep undercover to keep an eye on an exotic species of alien who manifest as supermodels. Hader, a delightful, chameleonic gremlin on Saturday Night Live, brings a much-needed spark of playfulness and originality to the movie's formula. His Warhol is a gruff, pissed-off meat-head who can switch on Warhol's affected, effeminate voice and otherworldly musings at a moment's notice.

Stuhlbarg plays Griffin, a humanoid alien whose gift/curse is the ability to see the world as a series of infinite outcomes. He helps J and K in their fight against Boris, and renews the sense of wonder that this series has been missing since the middle of the first film. Griffin's virtual tour of the yet-to-be-played 1969 World Series is a truly magical couple of minutes that rival anything I've seen in a movie this year. This is due in no small part to Stuhlbarg's delivery, a cross between hopefulness and resignation that recalls his captivating performance in my favorite film of 2009, The Coen Brothers' A Serious Man.

In fact, the tenuous Coen Brothers connection may elevate Men in Black 3 above typical brain-dead summer fare for movie lovers. Jones and Brolin starred in 2007's superb meditation on crime and aging, No Country for Old Men. In that film, they played two men on opposite sides of the law and relatively opposite ends of the age spectrum; one looking to make a brighter future for himself, and the other coming to terms with a difficult past and uncertain present. In a way, they reprise their roles here, with the added complexity of playing the same character before and after a major, life-defining event.

Ah, yes, the event. Cohen's screenplay beats the audience over the head with ominous references to a traumatic moment that turned the serious-but-lovable K into a sad, world-weary investigator of the extraordinary--which is a shame, because the event itself is so quiet, touching, and unexpected* that it flies in the face of its numerous, boisterous setups. More so than the film's overt villain (who, in all honesty is one of the lamest place-holder baddies I've seen in decades), the spectre of K's tragedy looms over the story.

The second half of Men in Black 3 gives a delicious glimpse of the funny, brainy, and moving sci-fi franchise these movies could have been. Some of that credit belongs to Cohen, who worked on Tropic Thunder and Idiocracy. But most of the film's success belongs to the actors; not necessarily the ones on the marquee. Of particular note is Alice Eve, who plays the 60s version of Emma Thompson's Agent O--an icy administrator who may or may not have had a fling with K before his marriage. Though not given a whole lot to do, I was refreshed to see Eve tackle--and transcend--a part that didn't seem tailor-made for her angelic face and impressive rack.

For his part, Smith does a fine job of playing J as a smarter, older agent who still has some sass left in him. He wisely stands aside when it's time to share the screen with truly gifted comedians, and serves up his smart-ass, contorted, scream-face when the audience needs something to help get it through Sonnenfeld's bloated, cynical grab for 3D-glasses money (sorry, I meant to say "action scenes").

Do I need to see Men in Black 4? Absolutely not. Relatively speaking, everyone involved with this picture captured lightning in a bottle. I think it best to store that bottle on a shelf somewhere and study its properties--rather than rush right into mass production. The crap-to-magic ratio here is simply amazing, and I can't believe that a film this tremendously uninspired contains within it so many seeds of greatness. Like the movie that preceded it, I cried at the end of Men in Black 3--but for very different reasons.

*In truth, the film offers a couple of giant, blinking, neon arrows that point directly at the surprise, but there's just as much misdirection afoot. I got swept up and caught off guard. It wasn't until my walk to the parking lot that all the pieces fit together in my head, causing a mild flush of embarrassment.

Battleship (2012)

You are the Puppet People

I am wholly uninspired right now. Everything you've heard about Battleship is true: it's loud, it's dumb, it's way too long, and, yes, it feels like something Michael Bay would have done, following a debilitating stroke. The problem is, criticising this movie is so easy that I can't take any joy in it. There's no point in coming up with cute ways to describe Taylor Kitsch's steely-eyed-growl-acting or special effects that could have been lifted directly from twenty other movies of the last half-decade. Every excruciating moment speaks unintelligibly for itself, then flips us the bird, and passes out.

All I got out of Battleship was the knowledge that the millions of people who've already made this a global financial success likely have no idea how deeply and effectively they're being duped. It's easy to say that this is precisely the kind of movie that can be enjoyed only by turning off your brain, but if you go in fully engaged, you'll find a riveting, sinister agenda at play.

Follow me on this one:

During the week of May 1st, 2011, why did the Obama administration's story about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden change several times? This alleged powerhouse of messaging savvy and social-media prowess couldn't develop a coherent narrative about the terrorist mastermind's final moments. In one version, Seal Team Six faced fierce, armed opposition in the Abottabad compound. In another, they only had to take out one guy quietly before gaining access to the head honcho. Said honcho also used one of his wives as a human shield--until he didn't.

There's also the sticky matter of no photographic or video evidence being made public. One would think that the nation who coined the term "torture porn" and gave birth to eighty-three CSI spin-offs would be able to stomach a picture of the new century's greatest criminal with a bullet in his eye. But, no, all we have is the word of the President that Bin Laden was buried at sea, in observance of Muslim Law (except that Muslim Law doesn't call for burial at sea unless the person being buried...um, died at sea).

As for the compound-raid video--you know, the one that Obama, Biden, and Clinton were apparently watching with a mix of intrigue and horror on the night of the killing--that's problematic, too. You see, CIA director Leon Panetta said that there was a twenty-five minute black-out during the juicy bits, and no one knew that the target had been killed until the code word "Geronimo" came over the radio.

Not to worry, though: we have that great surveillance photo of Bin Laden in the compound. You know the one I'm talking about, right? It's a rear angle shot of a man wearing bundles of clothing and a head wrap watching TV. Apparently this man never moved, which is the only reason I can think of that there are no photos of him walking back to his chair after adjusting the cords in that surge protector.

You might call these conspiracy theories. They're not. They're just little bits of information gathered from various places that make me go "Hmmm."* I'm not suggesting that anyone covered anything up, although if one were interested in building a case, these facts might lead to far weightier questions.

What's the point of all this? Has Kicking the Seat turned into a political activism Web site? No. I'm still the same snarky, off-his-rocker movie buff I've always been, but I have outside interests, too. And many of them popped into my head during Battleship--a movie with absolutely nothing in its head.

I take that back. Director Peter Berg and co-writers Erich and Jon Hoeber have created the greatest piece of military propaganda since Act of Valor--only this time it's the regular Navy coming for our young, instead of just the SEALs. Much like the puzzling Marine Corps recruitment commercials from ten years ago, in which valiant warriors slayed dragons atop the mountains of Hell (or something), Battleship pits the rank and file of our dedicated seamen against an alien invasion. Berg, in particular, takes the "movies as video games" metaphor several steps too far by making his invaders appear as though they stepped out of an unreleased HALO sequel (until they're unmasked, at which point they just look like slightly deformed hipsters).

Before anyone sets foot in the water, though, we're treated to a prologue in which Kitsch, playing a directionless slacker** who wants nothing more in life than to impress a big-breasted, blonde local, is tasered by the police. The moment is played for laughs, and I couldn't help but wonder if this is the next logical step in society's habituation and acceptance of tasing as a way of life when it comes to law enforcement. Remember "Don't tase me, bro" from a few years back? That was hilarious, once it made the late-night talk show rounds and got emblazoned on a million ironic t-shirts. Funny how few media outlets dwelled on the screams of that young man once the volts started flying.

Jesus, I'm off on a tangent again. But that's what it was like watching Battleship--a movie so stupid that my brain had to constantly cycle in fresh thoughts as a defense mechanism against the personality-free, CGI onslaught.

Don't judge me. I'd like to see you make it through the scene where the aliens' force field mysteriously disappears so that the Navy's destroyer can shore up against Hawaii--which is followed by another scene in which everyone's freaking out because they can't get through the aliens' force field. Believe me, you'll be compiling grocery lists and flashing back to potty training, just to get out of this movie alive.

*Special thanks to Lionel for throwing these sticks into my mental back yard and making me chase them.

**I wonder if he'll rise up during Earth's darkest hour to become the champion it really needs?

Paranormal Entity (2009)

Taking Over The Asylum

Today, I'm here to review 2009's Paranormal Entity, not 2009's Paranormal Activity.

I already did that.

If you thought there was a typo in this post's movie title, you may be unfamiliar with The Asylum--which, simply put, is the coolest film studio on the planet. For years, the company's executives have used their psychic abilities and funding from neighborhood lemonade stands* to produce direct-to-landfill knock-offs of Hollywood blockbusters.

Their catalogue features such notable titles as Snakes on a Train, The Day the Earth Stopped, and the Transmorphers films (not to mention the upcoming Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies and American Warships), and can be counted on for mind-blowing(ly crappy) special effects; acting that proves the existence of malevolent, supernatural forces; and production values best described as "Liquidation Days".

The eye of this awesome hurricane is one Mr. Shane Van Dyke, who has written, produced, starred in, and probably catered some of The Asylum's best features.** Van Dyke is the Ed Wood of our day: an enthusiastic, ambitious filmmaker who (I hope) has zero clue that many of his films are not good. You haven't laughed until you've laughed at an SVD picture.

Which is why Paranormal Entity, like A Haunting in Salem before it, is so troubling. It's technically a Shane Van Dyke Asylum movie, but all the hallmarks are absent. Aside from a mild brain-chuckle at a continuity gaffe,*** I found nothing funny about this Paranormal Activity rip-off. Worse yet, I was engrossed and legitimately entertained.

Van Dyke stars as Thomas Finley, an unemployed something-or-other who takes to filming everything in the house he shares with his mother, Ellen (Fia Perera), and sister, Samantha (Erin Marie Hogan). Samantha has been victimized by scary noises, slamming doors, and the like, and Thomas desperately wants to capture this real-life ghost story. Things get a bit twisty when it is suggested that the evil spirit may or may not have a connection to the family's deceased patriarch--who may or may not have had a thing for his own daughter.

Like the film that inspired it, Paranormal Entity is comprised entirely of "home video" shots. Lots of people hastily grab the camera to run into the next room and investigate a loud noise--thus taking the audience on a disorienting ride of nausea and blurred focus; in other scenes, the camera is simply mounted on a tripod, and it's up to us to figure out what object will be the first to move in a room whose occupants are fast asleep.

The key difference is that Van Dyke and cinematographer Akis Konstantakopoulos spruce up their night-vision scenes to give the film a slightly unreal take on reality filmmaking. This doesn't look like footage you'd see in an off-the-shelf camera. The scenes are deliberately lit and shot in ways that give every subject unnatural style. Thomas' living room, for example, has a vibrant, eerie green cast that at once took me out of the movie and then dropped me right back in once I realized Van Dyke and company were trying their best to make a tacky, upscale recreational space visually interesting.

There's a similar quality to the acting. With Thomas mostly behind the camera throughout, this is Samantha and Ellen's show. And I love the faux naturalism that Perera and Hogan bring to their roles. I never lost sight of the fact that I was watching a fake documentary inside of a horror movie, but both actresses bring enough unexpected nuance to their delivery that I almost forgot I was watching a horror movie. The Finleys are tender, sympathetic people--even when they fall into the inevitable trap of not leaving the house at the first sign of trouble.

I can't say I was scared watching Paranormal Entity (Activity has a leg up there), but I was definitely unnerved. The ashen footsteps on the ceiling was a nice touch, as was a later bathtub scene. But I was also unnerved, at times, in the bad way--in the "did we really need to spend three minutes walking from the front of the house, through the back yard, and into another doorway with absolutely nothing frightening or interesting happening?" way. The padding here is minimal, but oh-so-noticeable.

I've written before about Van Dyke's disturbing pursuit of becoming a quality filmmaker. Unlike most of the Asylum pictures I've seen, Paranormal Entity doesn't feel like a cash-brained knock-off. I can't be sure, but this plays like the writer/director's reaction to a ridiculously popular horror movie: "Okay, Paranormal Activity, I see what ya got. Lemme show you a thing or two!" Amazingly, Van Dyke's answer to the global horror phenomenon is worthy of comparison and, in some cases, much higher praise.

It's a sad day when Van Dyke's association with a movie no longer gives me an instant soul-boner. Instead of strapping in for easy laughs and methods of screwing up a movie I'd never dreamed possible, I actually have to care--on some level--lest I miss out on something genuinely terrific.

Speaking of asylums, who's gonna lock me up? 

*Speculation, but probably true.

**I'm convinced that mandatory global screenings of Titanic 2 would defeat terrorism, end hunger, and render the Make a Wish Foundation unnecessary.

***SPOILER: The movie opens with a 9-11 call in which Thomas shrieks about something having killed his family. Ellen, who was out of the house by then, committed suicide after the events of the main story.

Bailout (2012)

Breakdown on Paradise Boulevard, Part Two

Everyone on the planet needs to see Bailout, Sean Patrick Fahey's new documentary about the effects of the global financial meltdown on average Americans.

Get back here!

Even if you don't know a credit default swap from Celebrity Wife Swap, Fahey and star/executive producer John Titus take the audience on an exciting and informative cross-country journey to get at the truth of the housing bubble and too-big-to-fail banks. Fed up with watching supposedly venerable financial institutions have their failed trillion-dollar gambles paid off by misinformed taxpayers, Titus, a Chicago attorney, decides to stop paying his mortgage. He invests some of the money in a used Winnebago, and the rest in a road trip to Las Vegas with four friends. If Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase can blow untold fortunes in a virtual casino, he reasons, why can't they do the same in a real one?

The trip is Fahey's framing device, a hook to get people in the door. The bulk of Bailout consists of various talking heads outlining the federal/industrial collusion that led to a monetary Wild Wild West. When the line between private banks and investment banks was erased, financiers found they had untold reserves of money to play with--in the form of shiny, new home mortgages.

Problem was, most of the mortgages weren't that shiny. Aided by the government's "ownership society" propaganda, an army of banks eager to give home loans to anything with a pulse, and ratings agencies who granted AAA status to bundles of toxic notes as long as the money they were getting was actually green, the one percent rode high on a hog they'd convinced themselves would never end up as bacon.

Those are the broad strokes. Bailout bombards us with a fraction of the minutiae in an effort to keep things relatively breezy and understandable--but the fraud itself is still a gigantic, evil mess. Which is why, I guess, Fahey takes some cues from Michael Moore, occasionally using cartoons, sketches, and puppetry to help the medicine go down. It's cute for awhile, and underscores the fact that the world really is crawling with untouchable 2D villains who just want all the wealth for themselves. But I could have done without multiple scenes of the felt Hank Paulson stand-in, bopping around like an idiot while audio from the bailout hearings played over it. We see enough of the ghoulish former Treasury Secretary in the flesh to understand that he's an empty instrument of lawless industry that metaphors are unnecessary.

Speaking of superfluous, I'm sorry to say that the weakest parts of Bailout are also its strongest marketing points. Though Titus is a fascinating character--a boozy, smoking, genius-type who embodies at once Hunter S. Thompson and Oscar Acosta--his road companions come off as rather dull. This must be a function of editing, because I get the feeling there are decades of cool stories waiting to be told about comedian John Fox, ex-con Ruben Castillo, folk-singing something-or-other Sergio Mayora, and college-loan-attack victim Nicole Erhardt. They're a boisterous, interesting-looking bunch for sure, but on the road they mostly crack each other up with sports anecdotes and the warm, inside-joke camaraderie of long relationships the audience doesn't share with them.

There's promise at the outset, with Nicole telling the well-read Titus that she's a novice when it comes to understanding how the world fell into financial ruin. It's the beginning of an implied story-arc, an education for her and the audience. But aside from her asking one or two questions on the road, the thread goes nowhere. Much more interesting are the brief stories of the people our gang meets between Illinois and Nevada. From middle-class families who fell behind on adjustable-rate mortgage payments to residents of tent cities and a pissed-off, broke celebrity realtor, we get far greater detail about the sights than the sightseers.

It doesn't help that Fahey and Titus take the expression, "it's not the destination, it's the journey" one step too far: the big Vegas climax is a bust, for the audience. It's unclear how many casinos they visited in their three day visit, or if they felt at all guilty about throwing away large wads of cash on roulette wheels and craps games. The entire affair is handled in a brief, bizarre montage that plays more like an ad for the city's decadence than a catharsis for the ninety-nine percent.

Indeed, the only thing our heroes have to show for their troubles is a massive hangover. Their trip is capped by a haunting scene filmed in what looks to be a graveyard for gaudy neon signs. One of Mayora's songs plays over Titus and the rest, who look wistfully at the ornate junk. We even see Ruben break down in tears, but the reason is neither explicit nor implied. I would have loved more back story on each of these colorful characters, rather than bowling montages and left-field trips to the Kentucky Derby and Roswell.

As I said, though, the meat of the film is comprised of testimonials from analysts, lawyers, media types, and victims of Wall Street's excesses. While an outsider might assume Bailout to be a liberal, anti-capitalist polemic, Fahey and Titus make it clear that the world's sinister financial overlords are bipartisan criminals. There's not a caricature or cut-out of George W. Bush on-screen that isn't paired with a Barack Obama avatar. The overall message is that finger-pointing is useless when both hands belong to the same body. The finer idea, sadly, is that all the lower-and-middle-class outrage in the world is useless against a system that refuses to prosecute the people responsible for nearly a decade of egregious and provable crimes.

Though it's not a perfect film, Bailout is a damned important one. It's no coincidence that the movie had its Chicago premiere a few days before the Windy City's NATO summit; the city is bracing for legions of Occupy protesters demanding change and transparency from the show runners. It's perhaps a cosmic joke that Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has come under fire in recent days for his institution's staggering $2 billion (and counting) loss on a big, fancy bet.

Following the headlines, outrage, and social upheaval of four years ago, you'd think there'd be safeguards in place to make sure these things couldn't happen again. But Bailout shows us just how much further we have to go in order to affect real change. The movie ends with a call to arms for the affected, the afflicted, the armchair activists, and the apathetic. Fahey and Titus warn that, short of torches and pitchforks in the street, the only real way forward is to get educated and get involved--whether that means refusing to give another dime to risk-addicted institutions or simply encouraging your friends to march in protest instead of hitting the mall this weekend.

If the odds aren't in our favor, it's up to us to change the game.