New Movie Shorts

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Plummeting the country's seventh-largest company to the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history in a matter of months, Enron was the quintessential tech-boom stock, a company whose own executives couldn't explain its profits, largely because there weren't any. Alex Gibney's documentary, based on the book by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, neatly packages the Enron debacle as the story of a corporation divorced from all earthly concerns, where shuffling debt into dummy corporations and booking hypothetical profits as real earnings is par for the course. The Smartest Guys in the Room only hints at the larger culture that produces amoral twentysomethings happy to swindle "Grandma Millie" if it means instant profits, although McLean always has a pop-psychology tidbit at the ready. If you can look past the insufferably smug music cues and Maryse Alberti's tendency to light interviews like she's designing a night club, there's information to be gleaned, but The Smartest Guys in the Room often outsmarts itself. --Sam Adams (Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)

House Of Wax
For a change of pace from the recent rash of '70s horror retreads, Joel Silver turns his attention to a '50s remake of a '30s thriller — and jettisons the original for a slew of '70s horror cliches. Director Jaume Serra makes the leap from Bud commercials and MTV (attention Hollywood: Spike Jonze was a fluke; please stop hiring video directors) but apparently was under the mistaken impression that he'd gotten the Texas Chainsaw Massacre gig. The cast is especially intolerable, and the endless stretch of "character development" before the blood begins to flow is largely filled with winking references to the Paris Hilton sex tape. The only difference from countless slasher flicks of the earlier generation is the technology, but cell phones and GPS trackers are disposed of as quickly as possible so as not to interfere with obnoxious characters making stupid decisions. It's bad enough when the sudden appearance of an art-deco town next to a roadkill pit (think Deliverance art-directed by Raymond Hood) fails to raise red flags, but if you don't realize something's wrong when the town's only gas station advertises $1.19 a gallon, then you deserve to die. --Shaun Brady (AMC Orleans; Bridge; Roxy; UA 69th St.; UA Cheltenham; UA Grant; UA Main St.; UA Riverview)

Kingdom Of Heaven
Its battle scenes sliced into incoherence, Ridley Scott's Crusades romance avoids the much-rumored controversy by boring its audience into submission; even the largest of concession-stand beverages wouldn't furnish enough energy to raise a stink. There are good Christians (led by Orlando Bloom) and bad Christians (notably Brendan Gleeson with a crimson-streaked beard), good Muslims and, well, good Muslims, but the movie's bland tolerance is in no way "political," just spineless. A useful distinction is drawn between religion (bad) and holiness (good), but there are less painful ways to learn it. --S.A.(AMCOrleans; Bala; Bridge; Ritz 16; UA Grant; UA Riverview)

The Voyage Home
(Warning for readers unschooled in world history: This review contains a spoiler.) Christians have destroyed the Roman Empire, and pagan Claudio Rutilio Namaziano, at odds with the invading Goths, is trying to return to Gaul. The Voyage Home details his journey by sea as he narrowly escapes brutal centurions, conniving countrymen and harsh gales. Along the way, Claudio becomes ever more determined to preserve his way of life, even as he discovers his allies have mostly sold out. The stunning cinematography, lonely quiet and unsettling violence evokes Herzog's Aguirre: The Wrath of God, as does the film's inevitable end. --Elisa Ludwig (Roxy)

The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
It would be easy to treat Judy Irving's portrait of Mark Bittner, a San Franciscan who has spent years caring for a flock of cherry-headed conjures, with skepticism. But if you do, you'll wind up looking like the pinch-faced passer-by who accosts Bittner in the movie's opening scenes. Better to let the movie's obvious love for its subject wash over you, and make sure you go with someone who won't tease you for crying when Bittner and his flock say goodbye. Irving deliberately buries her lead to avoid sensationalizing the fact that Bittner, a roving musician who came to S.F. looking for a place between the beats and the hippies, developed his relationship with the parrots while living on the street, a tactic in keeping with the movie's gentle tone. By the time it's over, you'll be calling the parrots by name, whether you like it or not. --S.A.(Ritz at the Bourse; Ritz 16)