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Production designer: Scott Dougan “Not a lot of people have the time to read through a 200-page affidavit. The wealthy always have an easier time of things than the rest of us, so why should college admissions be any different? Production company: Library Films Terms of Use | Director Chris Smith (who previously helmed the Netflix documentary Fyre, about the disastrous music festival) was well aware that the case had been exhaustively covered by the media — and that its ringleader, Rick Singer, had largely evaded scrutiny. Sitemap | Rick Singer clearly knew how to exploit the college admissions system, but Operation Varsity Blues shows that the college admissions system had no trouble creating a person like Rick Singer. TWITTER Editor: Jon Karmen And yet, because so much of the film is recreations of wiretapped conversations, the effects of the pandemic feel minimal. A talking head in Operation Varsity Blues argues that an elite school is an extension of a wealthy parent’s need for status symbols, and perhaps that’s part of it. Privacy Policy | Inkoo Kang Matt Goldberg has been an editor with Collider since 2007. Costume designer: Natasha Newman-Thomas Operation Varsity Blues: The College Admissions Scandal is an easy watch for a documentary that highlights such a sleazy topic and group of people. He was formerly a basketball coach with a Bobby Knight-like temper, and when he was laid off from his high school’s program, he decided he’d become a different kind of coach—one who worked in the burgeoning field of college counseling. But Karmen (who also edited) ably capitalizes on our knowledge of Singer’s downfall to suspenseful effect, with the fraudster making little mistakes here and there, any one of which could eventually alert the FBI. Casting: Chelsea Ellis Bloch, Marisol Roncali. In 2019, news broke of “Operation Varsity Blues”, a Justice Department investigation that uncovered how wealthy families used the services of Rick Singer to exploit weaknesses in the college admissions process to get their kids into prestigious colleges and universities. The main connection that Smith seems to miss is how wealth and these schools are intertwined not because you buy admissions into them, but because they perpetuate a powerful, wealthy elite. They took a system that was already fundamentally unfair, and not being satisfied with their already dominant position, worked to tilt the odds even more in their favor. When you see the limp justice doled out, this lust for dynastic power makes even more sense. Sure, we got to see these rich parents trotted out in front of cable news cameras, but of those who pled guilty, no one received more than a year in prison. He uses real wiretap transcripts and then casts actors to recite them with Matthew Modine as Singer. It’s tempting to refer to Singer as “mastermind” of this scam, but Smith wisely never gives him that satisfaction of being particularly bright. | Do Not Sell My Personal Information We have a country filled with great colleges and universities, but only a handful are deemed “prestigious” simply because U.S. World News and Report deems them as such. ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’: What Are the Flag-Smashers and Who Is Karli Morgenthau. But no one is trying to enter these schools for an education. In a world where who you know is often more important than what you know, there couldn’t be anything more important than making sure your kid is able to start networking with tomorrow’s most powerful people. Smith is able to counteract the lack of surprise by rendering the criminal investigation as a true crime thriller. 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