Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 2012
Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream
Buy Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
{{Infobox film
| name = Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream
| image = Park Avenue Alex Gibney Poster.jpg
| caption =
| director = Alex Gibney
| producer = Blair Foster
| writer = Alex Gibney
Chad Beck
Adam Bolt
| starring = Jack Abramoff
Michele Bachmann
| narrator = Alex Gibney
| music =
| cinematography = Ronan Killeen
Lisa Rinzler
| editing = Erin Barnett
Chad Beck
Adam Bolt
| studio = BBC
| distributor = PBS
| released =
| runtime = 70 minutes
| country = United States
| language = English
| budget =
| gross =
}}
'Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream' is a 2012 documentary film about the wealth gap in the United States directed by Alex Gibney.
Summary
The documentary compares the access to opportunities of residents of Park Avenue both on the Upper East Side and in the South Bronx.Neil Genzlinger, [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/arts/television/park-avenue-money-power-the-american-dream-on-pbs.html Park Avenues Well-to-Do: How They Stay That Way], 'The New York Times', November 11, 2012Neil Midgley, [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/9707133/Park-Avenue-Money-Power-and-the-American-Dream-BBC-Four-review.html Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream, BBC Four, review], 'The Daily Telegraph', November 28, 2012Kim Velsey, [http://observer.com/2012/11/money-and-manipulation-on-park-avenue-documentary-takes-on-the-super-rich-residents-of-740-park/ Money and Manipulation: Documentary Takes On the Super-rich Residents of 740 Park], 'The New York Observer', November 26, 2012 It draws upon Michael Gross's book '740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building', which showed that many billionaires live in that building. It goes on to explain that billionaire heir David Koch made significant donations to Paul Ryan in the same way that banker Steven Schwartzman lobbied Charles Schumerfor their own gain. The documentary includes interviews with a doorman at 740 Park Avenue, journalist Jane Mayer, Yale University Professor Jacob Hacker, University of California, Berkeley Professor Paul Piff, and Republican advisor Bruce Bartlett.
Critical reception
Reviewing it for 'The New York Times', Neil Genzlinger deplored the fact that the documentary equated great wealth with "callousness," adding that many wealthy people are very generous with their resources. In 'The Daily Telegraph', Neil Midgley compared it to Michael Moore's documentaries. He went on to suggest that it was "not entirely unconvincing," calling it "demagoguery." He concluded that it was "a poor contribution." Writing for 'The New York Observer', Kim Velsey suggested, "the documentary unfurls like a crime story." She concluded that the documentary "makes a compelling case that inequality imperils democracy and that the victims of the inequality include not only those who find themselves in the rapidly expanding underclass, but the American dream itself." The film was the subject of a WNET scheduling controversy in 2012.
References
Buy Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 2012