BEFORE: One of my all-time favorite movies while growing up was "Time Bandits", directed by Terry Gilliam, and I think I liked that movie before I was even old enough to understand Monty Python's Flying Circus, except I knew a couple routines via audio that ran on the Dr. Demento radio show. One week Dr. D. interviewed Terry Gilliam, who was promoting "Time Bandits", and I decided I had to go and see it, and it changed my life - plus it had the guy who was inside R2D2 in it, also some other little people who later turned up as Ewoks in "Return of the Jedi". But that's not important - the film's about a young British boy who hooks up with six time-traveling dwarves, and they bounce back and forth through time-holes, meet Robin Hood and Agamemnon and sail on the Titanic, before they battle the ultimate Evil in the time of legends.
They use a map of all the time-holes, which they stole from the Supreme Being, and that's really my inspiration when I link movies together. I am a traveler of both time and space, using actors as the link between movies - the trouble is, there's not really a map that tells me where to go, I just follow my nose and sometimes make a plan, and the only real rules I follow are my own. And sometimes the plan gets stuck, often because not every film has complete credits listed in the IMDB, and this problem is especially bad when it comes to documentaries.
So, I've learned to keep a pen and notepad near my recliner, in case I notice somebody (or somebodies, if it's a particularly eventful night) not listed in the credits who really should have been. I'm trying to make the map easier for any travelers that should come this way again, even though I don't think anybody else is walking the same roads as me, or even would want to. But just in case, I believe that everybody who appears in a film, even if that was a really minor role, even if it's just in archive footage, should receive credit. Everyone owns their own image, right? At least for now, so let's always give credit where credit is due.
But I fear somebody at the IMDB curses me out when I go on a documentary credits-fixing binge. I added 68 credits for "Fyre Fraud", for example, because that film used a ton of clips and archive footage. I added 29 credits for "Whitney", 27 for "David Crosby: Remember My Name", 25 for "Echo in the Canyon" and 33 for "Down in the Flood: Bob Dylan, the Band & the Basement Tapes".
How does this relate to my linking? Well, for one thing, it would have made my linking much easier if the credits were already THERE, but they weren't, so no use crying over spilled milk. If I had known that so many famous people appeared in "Fyre Fraud" (again, via archive footage) that film would have been like the giant time-hole at the middle of the "Time Bandits" map, it could have led me anywhere, everywhere! But that in itself isn't really a good thing, because it actually gives me TOO MANY choices, and the linking works best when there's just a few. So that was a good reason to end with the other documentary, "Fyre" - fewer cameos, fewer choices, this helps me narrow the focus.
For a long while, I was going to take advantage of the footage in "Fyre" with comedian Ron Funches on the Conan O'Brien show, as I noticed him appearing in a few other films on my list, like "Trolls World Tour", also "Once Upon a Time in Venice" and "Killing Hasselhoff", which just came to Netflix. OK, I can work with that, so I set up a chain that would lead me out of the Summer Concert Series, and could get quite quickly to "Bill & Ted Face the Music", which at the time was set for an early August release. Then, of course, that early August release got moved to an early September release, because there are still knuckleheads in the South who can't figure out that wearing a face-mask is a good thing, and will help get movie theaters to open up sooner!
OK, relax, deep breath, suddenly my chain was no good, and I had to adapt it, but I didn't want to tear the whole thing down and rebuild something new - so I found a way to flip a chunk of the chain. This has been my best solution last year and this year when problems arise, look for an actor that appears in several other films, and maybe there's a way to turn a part of the chain around so it works better. Thankfully this proved to be the case, and I flipped around about 18 movies at one go, and everything not only re-connected in the new order, but I saw that I now had the option to drop "Bill & Ted" if it doesn't get released on time, or is too expensive On Demand, and the chain will just close up around it, no worries. Then I just needed to find a new way out of the documentary chain, and there was one movie that connected "Fyre" to the other end of the flipped-around section, and that film is "Greed".
Against all reasonably-expected odds, model Shanina Shaik carries over from "Fyre", and I'll get back to Ron Funches in a couple of weeks. Only now that I've added "Greed", which is costing me $5.99 on iTunes, I have to drop something, and I think it will be "Trolls World Tour", which is also still going for $5.99. So sorry, but a choice between a comedy with Steve Coogan and a silly stupid animated movie for kids - really, that's a no-brainer. I'll watch "Trolls World Tour" when it's free (or relatively free on premium cable or Netflix/Hulu), and not before.
THE PLOT: Satire about the world of the super-rich.
AFTER: I'm really happy with the way this turned out, because what better way to follow a film about millennials getting ripped off by a corrupt businessman and going to a festival on an island, than with a film about a corrupt businessman having his birthday party on an island, and trying to get a bunch of celebrities and influencers to come and join him? You see the connection, right? Damn, I (almost) don't care that this one's costing me $6 to rent. Watch, next week I bet they'll lower the rental price to $2.99, with my luck.
This isn't a documentary, but somebody did an equally bad job keeping track of the cast - I had the IMDB open on my phone, as I usually do, and I couldn't find some of the major characters listed. How can I play "Hey, who's THAT guy?" while I watch if nobody submitted a final cast list to the IMDB? There were many people listed in the end credits who are not on the IMDB, so I just submitted an update - this includes several celebrities who did cameos, uncredited of course, but they're mentioned on Wikipedia, so why not on the IMDB, also? I can't promise they'll all make it to the IMDB, but I do what I can, I try to leave the movie world in a slightly better condition than the one I find it in.
That's kind of the opposite of what millionaires do, according to "Greed". I've seen this sort of thing before, hell, I saw this sort of thing last month, in "The Laundromat". The rich keep getting richer, and how do they do it? It's not really a mystery, they've all just figured out ways to make the poor people poorer. Now, in the old days, you did that by making a superior product, something that everyone just HAS to have - a better car, a better video-game, a better novel, a better movie - and supposedly the world would then beat a path to your door. But then after the Baby Boomers came a generation that just didn't want to work that hard, so they started looking for shorcuts. "Hey, what if we have our phones made in China, that'll be cheaper, and instead of raising our prices, we'll make more profit on the manufacturing. Ah, who are we kidding, we'll probably raise our prices, too, and we'll make money on both ends!" Then the clothing jobs went to Sri Lanka, the customer service jobs went to India, and the animation jobs went to Korea. A few years later, unemployment rates in America were through the roof - gee, I wonder why?
Sir Richard McCreadie is presented here as a case in point - he's somehow become a billionaire, or at least a multi-millionaire, by failing upwards. Nearly every fashion business he's ever run has gone bankrupt, or if they didn't then he sold them off for ten times what he paid for them. He's British, but it's not hard to draw a line from "Greedy" McCreadie to George W. Bush (who somehow failed at running a baseball team and an oil company before being allowed to run Texas, then the country) and of course Trump (failed businesses include Trump Air, Trump Steaks, Trump Casinos, Trump University, the Trump Foundation, and the U.S.). So McCreadie is a stand-in for British billionaire Sir Philip Green, but also for incompetent billionaires everywhere.
I'd never heard of Philip Green before, but he got rich by buying up discount clothing, discount clothing stores, and discount clothing brands. Then he'd have the clothes cleaned (maybe), wrapped in plastic as if they were new, and he'd sell them at "70% off" of some ridiculously inflated price, making people think they were getting a great deal, only they were probably still over-paying for crappy clothes. McCreadie is similarly hooked on "The Art of the Deal" - Green eventually had enough money to buy Arcadia Group, which owned a number of High Street fashion chains, then sold the company to his wife, who conveniently was a resident of Monaco, a country with no income tax. Get the picture? Green remained as CEO (drawing a big salary, I'd wager) but became involved in philanthropic pursuits, most likely as a tax dodge, but that also got him the "Sir" in front of his name. For his 50th birthday, Green flew 200 guests to Cyprus for a three-day toga party, where guests were serenaded by Tom Jones and Rod Stewart. Meanwhile, Arcadia Group has faced allegations of poor working conditions at the sweatshops in Mauritius where the clothing is made.
Obviously that's the inspiration here, as "Greed" tries to cover the story of a very similar multi-millionaire, but unfortunately from too many angles. The film is decidedly non-linear, bouncing back and forth through young McCreadie's life and career, from him ripping off other school students with magic tricks to the early business deals where he low-balled everyone to the planning stages for his blowout 60th birthday party on Mykonos, complete with a mini-Colosseum that's still being built just days before the party. (Great, it's the Fyre Festival all over again.). McCreadie is obsessed with the 2000 film "Gladiator" and quotes it frequently, but he's also so out of touch that he identifies with Russell Crowe's Maximus character, when the truth is that he's really much more of a Commodus. Meanwhile, there are Syrian refugees that are living on the beach, right where all the party guests will be able to see them, and this simply won't do.
More complications - Nick, Sir Richard's biographer, arrives on the scene in Mykonos to document the party, and this leads us back-hopping through time as Sir Richard had previously interviewed his friends and family, plus he was there in the courtroom as a Select Committee (whatever that is) took Sir Richard to task for his business practices. McCreadie defends himself by pointing out that all the big companies are exploiting all the tax loopholes with offshore holdings and charity donations that offset their profits, and he's not wrong. How much tax does Google pay? Or Microsoft, or Amazon? They've all got accountants working to get that number down to zero, and where does that lead? Just like with the jobs, one day we're going to wake up and realize that the U.S. government has no money, because various laws and loopholes have allowed all of these companies to lower their taxes again and again.
Then there's Amanda, one of McCreadie's personal assistants, whose mother once worked in one of those Sri Lankan sweatshops that made clothes for his discount fashion lines. It turns out that his great business deals really undermined the sweatshops, which then had to cut costs by paying their workers less, and, well, let's just say it didn't end well. It turns out that actions do have consequences, and Sir Richard is one of those guys who rolled a snowball down a mountain, without thinking about what the effect would be to the people living in the quaint village below. Amanda realizes as she's putting on her Greek slave costume for the party that it's not really a costume at all, in her own way she's become a slave working for the emperor, and that there's no way out, this is the way it's always been, despite her best efforts to change things.
Sir Richard's family arrives for the party, and then we see how complicated that part of his life is. His ex-wife has a new boyfriend, who may be even younger than his own girlfriend, but seeing as he's signed off so much money to his wife (who, like Tina Green, officially lives in Monaco) did they ever really split up, or was it just another tax dodge? Did they both just decide they wanted to sleep with other people? It feels like there's something still there, so what's the deal? Hey, are we sure that the Amazon CEO's divorce was real, or was it just another excuse to get more money out of the company's coffers and into hers? Again, somebody get me Michael Moore on the phone. Sir Richard's daughter Lily is starring in a reality show, so she's constantly being filmed during (scripted) private moments with her boyfriend, and she seems very confused about whether she's playing a character in this show that's somehow real but not real. (Why am I not surprised? The Kardashians probably have the same problem every day.). And his son Finn has taken the opportunity while in Greece to learn about the tragedy of Oedipus, who killed his own father and slept with his mother. OK, nothing to worry about there. Later on, we meet Richard's older son, Adrian, who the writers couldn't even bother to make interesting in any way.
Through it all, as the timeline jumps around but still draws closer and closer to the impending party (much like the Fyre documentaries, we're shown title cards in giant fonts that read "THREE DAYS BEFORE THE PARTY" - which keep reminding us to stay tuned, because eventually something might happen. And it does, but it's telegraphed so poorly, it's ridiculous. If you don't see the tragedy coming here, then you've never encountered foreshadowing before, or maybe you don't get how movies work. It's all RIGHT THERE, in everything that's said about the party plans and what might go wrong, only like the Fyre Festival, nobody puts a stop to it when they have the chance. But by this time, we've all grown to hate Sir Richard for, well, everything he's ever done, so really, it couldn't possibly happen to a nicer guy. Still, a little subtlety here would have gone a long way - but instead we're bombarded by stats before the closing credits regarding global economic disparity. What's sad is that this is the only way to reach some people who refuse to watch documentaries, I suppose. Perhaps a pound of sugar will help the medicine go down.
There are funny bits along the way, to be sure, because Steve Coogan is Steve Coogan and I've come to appreciate him for that. He's great when he loses his cool, even though he's also acting like a prick at the same time. And at least for once I know he's playing a character here who isn't also part him, when we get into "The Trip" movies or even "Tristram Shandy" (all of which came from director Michael Winterbottom, as did "Greed") then sometimes I don't know where Steve Coogan the actor stops and Steve Coogan the character starts. After all that, I wonder sometimes if Steve even knows.
Lingering questions - is that really Keith Richards, near the end? Considering how the Sir Richard curses him out for being late for the party, while also poking fun at how OLD he is ("I'm paying him $10,000 a wrinkle!" I don't think Keith necessarily would have gone for this. Plus, he's not seen in close-up, and also drunk, stumbling down some stairs - not good for the image. In a very funny earlier bit, there are several celebrity lookalikes hired to appear at this party (including one of George Michael, who's not even alive any more!) so I'm guessing this is just another celebrity impersonator. Or is it? Either way, if it's at all questionable, I'm glad I didn't end my documentary series with "Muscle Shoals" and use Keith Richards as the link back to fiction films. Wikipedia seems to believe that's really Keith in "Greed", but something tells me no dice.
"Sic semper tyrannis" is what I keep telling myself - we've seen the eventual fall of so many corporate fatcats and sexual abusers in the last few years, but are we really making progress, or is it always just the tip of the iceberg? Is "cancel culture" getting out of hand, or does it represent the change that was long overdue? I honestly don't know. Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, the Enron guys, the Wells Fargo executives, Elliot Spitzer, Anthony Wiener, Jerry Sandusky, Lance Armstrong, Kevin Spacey, Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Larry Nassar, The Panama Papers, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, the Catholic Church - whew, I'm exhausted and I feel like maybe I barely even scratched the surface there. I'm really hopeful about the current investigations into the NRA, but when the hell is it going to be Trump's turn? He's weathered like 100 times more scandals than anybody else, but nothing ever seems to stick. I keep telling myself it's coming, but I just can't take any more disappointment on this front.
Also starring Steve Coogan (last seen in "The Professor and the Madman"), Isla Fisher (last seen in "Hot Rod"), Jamie Blackley (last seen in "Snow White and the Huntsman"), David Mitchell, Sophie Cookson (last seen in "Kingsman: The Golden Circle"), Shirley Henderson (last seen in "Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story"), Jack Shepherd (ditto), Ollie Locke, Asa Butterfield (last seen in "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children"), Dinita Gohil (last seen in "The Snowman"), Sarah Solemani (last seen in "Bridget Jones's Baby"), Enzo Cilenti (ditto), Richard Rycroft (ditto), Manolis Emmanouel, Asim Chaudhry, Pearl Mackie, Tim Key (last seen in "I Give It a Year"), Jonny Sweet (last seen in "Johnny English Strikes Again"), Caroline Flack, Paul Higgins, Miles Jupp (last seen in "The Legend of Tarzan"), Michael Simkins (last seen in "The Iron Lady"), Matt Bentley, Christophe de Choisy, Paul Ritter, Richard Betts, Suranga Ranawaka, Andrew Penfold, Robert Lamberti,
with cameos from Stephen Fry (last seen in "The Con Is On"), Pixie Lott, Ben Stiller (last seen in "Envy"), Colin Firth (last seen in "1917"), Keira Knightley (last seen in "The Borrowers" (2011)), Chris Martin, James Blunt, and Keith Richards (maybe?) (last seen in "Muscle Shoals")
RATING: 6 out of 10 Bulgarian carpenters
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