Besides dodging moochers and tax collectors, lottery winners must deal with reporters. So, how did the random arrival of unearned riches ruin you as a human being? Lottery losers are consoled whenever a winner ends up broke, the broker the better. Director Paul La Blanc—a former field producer for Fox News and founding producer for MTV’s Total Request Live—goes easy on six winners portrayed in this debut documentary. Two men, now broke, won the New York State Lottery. Lou Eisenberg, now betting on dogs in West Palm Beach, won $5.6 million in 1981. Curtis Sharp, now serving the Lord in Nashville, won $5.7 million in 1983. As a kid, Brooklynite La Blanc recalls seeing the duo in TV ads for the lottery. His other subjects are four women in Holdingford, Minnesota who split a $95 million Powerball win in 2003 with a dozen co-workers. Each of the school cafeteria employees ended up with $6 million and kept their jobs. Two say they let their husbands quit theirs. La Blanc—and his co-shooter and co-editor Jordan Katon—push no agenda in this affable slice of Americana. They come off as pals to the winners. The rapport suggests a local TV crew that hung around for a whole month instead of an hour or two. Bottomline: no matter how you spend it or save it, lots and lots of money makes you no more imaginative at living in a new tax bracket. 101m. (Bill Stamets)
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