‘Hitchhiker’s Guide’ is a safe ride

“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” is a psychedelic novel with a

cult following that has sold about 14 million copies. That alone

guaranteed it would eventually be made into a Hollywood movie. Author

Douglas Adams spent many tortured years trying to translate his

oddball sci-fi vision into a viable screenplay.

The original work is a compilation of far-out hippie politics,

cartoon metaphysics and drug-induced hallucinations. Whimsy and

satire accompany the obligatory antigovernment agitation. The words

“Don’t Panic” are the motto for both the book and film versions of

this effort. It’s a bizarre slogan for a story that begins with the

total destruction of Earth.

But that doesn’t stop the few human survivors of this catastrophe

from having many weird and wonderful adventures. They end up

cavorting through the nether regions of the universe as stowaways on

alien space ships. These bewildered but gentle souls stand in

opposition to the bloated bureaucrats who run the intergalactic

techno society of the future. The premise sets up many strange

possibilities that could lead to ever more bizarre situations.

But “Hitchhiker” the film offers us a sanitized, Disney version of

the counterculture classic. After the author’s untimely death at age

49, other players took up the project to deliver the family-friendly,

PG adaptation that now appears in a theater near you.

The movie captures this off-the-wall material with Monty

Python-style humor and early “Star Wars” special effects. Good

natured and silly, it goes nowhere and does not pretend to offer any

profound meaning.

Full of shallow insights and happy endings, “Don’t Worry, Be

Happy” would be a fitting theme song for this lighter-than-air

amusement.

* JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator

for the Orange County public defender’s office.

WHEN THE SMARTEST GUYS IN

THE ROOM ARE ALSO THE RICHEST

Who says accounting can’t be sexy? The new documentary, “Enron:

The Smartest Guys in the Room” shows how the now-infamous Kenneth L.

Lay and Jeffrey Skilling managed to seduce employees, stockholders,

analysts, banks and even the government into thinking it could do no

wrong.

That is, until the Houston-based company came spectacularly

crashing down and left in its wake 20,000 unemployed workers (many

with worthless retirement accounts), more than $70 billion in losses

by investors, the demise of accounting giant Arthur Andersen and a

phony energy crisis in California.

Writer-director Alex Gibney adapted the book by Fortune magazine

reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind into a fascinating,

entertaining and maddening film about greed and corruption, not only

within Enron, but within our corporate society.

Using footage from interviews, congressional hearings, company

meetings and with the aid of a clever soundtrack, we are given a

chance to again feel shock and outrage over how such a huge fraud

could have been perpetrated on so many.

The arrogance on the part of the top executives, who quietly

walked away with over $1 billion before the company declared

bankruptcy, is jaw dropping.

As an example, Kenneth Lay declared to employees after 9/11 that,

just like America, Enron was also under attack.

Enron’s corporate ads had the tagline “Enron -- Ask Why.” It’s

ironic that no one did ask why, as long as they were getting their

share of the profits, until it was too late.

* SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant

for a financial services company.