From the Vaults: Keeping Up With the Jareckis

As if keeping up with the filmmaking Andersons wasn't confusing enough – what with this week's releases of The Master by Paul Thomas Anderson and Resident Evil: Retribution by Paul W.S. Anderson – along comes writer/director Nicholas Jarecki with Arbitrage.

Nicholas Jarecki takes his place alongside two other brothers already in the filmmaking biz: Andrew Jarecki and Eugene Jarecki. Most likely, you're already familiar with some of the Jarecki clan's work.

Eugene Jarecki is best known for his award-winning political documentaries. Both Why We Fight and the soon-to-be-released The House I Live In won Grand Jury Awards at Sundance. In addition to these docs on the folly of our policies regarding military supremacy (Why We Fight) and the War on Drugs (The House I Live In), Eugene Jarecki's credits also include The Trials of Henry Kissinger and a chapter of the filmed version of Freakonomics. Marc Savlov interviewed Eugene Jarecki for the Chronicle in "The Case Against Henry Kissinger" in 2003.

Andrew Jarecki made the compelling documentary film, Capturing the Friedmans, another Sundance Grand Jury Award winner. The film relates the circumstances that led to the arrests of the Friedman father and son for the molestation of minor boys in their Long Island basement. The sensational, Oscar-nominated film was followed by the narrative feature, All Good Things. However, Andrew Jarecki is also the co-founder and CEO of the film listing service, Moviefone, as well as the co-writer of the Felicity theme song and other compositions.

Prior to writing and directing Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon in Arbitrage, Nicholas Jarecki received credit with Bret Easton Ellis for authoring the screenplay adaptation of Ellis' novel, The Informers. This Jarecki, too, has some documentary blood in his veins. He directed The Outsider, which provided a record of a James Toback shoot, and executive-produced Toback's Tyson. Nicholas Jarecki began his film career by penning the book Breaking In: How 20 Film Directors Got Their Start.

No wonder these Jareckis are so hard to keep straight. (Links to all available Chronicle reviews are highlighted above.)