A Few Good Movies... about television network news and reporters

Cuemarks Rating: *****
For the first time on this blog I'm going to write about a TV series. And what a series it is. From the pen of Aaron Sorkin comes this deeply involving drama about a team running the flagship news programme on a US major cable network, headed by presenter Will MacAvoy (Jeff Daniels). The concept of the drama centres around the US TV news establishment's obsession with ratings and advertising revenues, which of course leads to the airways being filled with celebrity gossip and fluff pieces, and asks the question of what would happen if a major primetime news show abandoned this philosophy and instead focussed on seriously investigating and reporting actual news?

I've been a fan of Sorkin's writing for a few years, with consistently strong scripts for the likes of The West Wing, The Social Network, A Few Good Men, Moneyball, and Steve Jobs. Having now finished the last of The Newsroom's three seasons, for me this is right up there with his best work. Jeff Daniels is in his element as the big name anchorman who rips up his old 'safe news' routine and starts making waves with a fearless approach to news reporting and holding feature guests to account. He's never been better than this. Emily Mortimer matches that though with her career best performance as his producer, and to make matters more complicated, former partner. The way she handles her team of reporters and journalists is at times a marvel to watch, with an especially fantastic scene in the broadcast control room that kicks off one of the series. Events in that scene flow at such speed that it's difficult to comprehend how much rehearsal must have gone into something that ambitious and as impressively choreographed as any high-end dance sequence. The two leads were the only faces I was familiar with, but it’s Olivia Munn (as Sloan Sabbath) who almost steals the show from under them, a quirkily funny and smart actor who feels like she would have been perfect casting in something like Ally McBeal. As for the rest of the scripts' characterisation, I could have done with less of the office love triangles, it starts to grate after a while and detracts from the show's strong storylines (many of which are based on real events like 9/11). Aside from a few quibbles though, the dialogue, storylines and acting get better with every series, in fact the six-part final series is so good that I watched the entire six hours of it in a single day. As much as I love movies, if you handed me a six hour film my enthusiasm for seeing it all in one go would have dropped to nil. Thoroughly recommended. Now onto the movies.

Cuemarks Rating: **
Will Ferrell plays a clueless, offensive, misogynistic news presenter from the dark ages, who surrounds himself with other clueless, offensive, misogynistic news presenters from the dark ages. He, and they, are horrified to discover that an actual real-life woman has been appointed news anchor on his beloved news show, and thus we reach the end of plot development. Now I know this has quite a cult following, but having seen it twice I'm still struggling to get it. I like Ferrell too, especially in Elf which will always be a Christmas classic, but I don't think he gets nearly enough to work with here. There are plenty of things I could say about why I didn't much like it, but ultimately it comes down to just not being funny enough. For a comedy that's a bit of a problem. Steve Carrell is the film's saving grace though, his role is likeable and absurd for all the right reasons, he's a brilliant comic actor who deserved more than the minor role he got here.

Cuemarks rating: **
Having said that about the first one, I did find this funnier, for a while at least. I don't know if it was just the mood I was in, but the first half hour is hilarious, dominated by an increased role for Carrell. The moments like him attending and weeping at his own funeral, and the bus scene, had me in stitches. Equally his bizarre relationship with Kristen Wiig is magnificently ridiculous. It falls away after that though, they run out of ideas and jokes, and Ferrell's character development literally jumps the shark - even with the leeway a silly comedy can allow itself, his story makes no sense and is desperately lacking in laughs. There's a running gag centred around racism that is just cringeworthy, and once you start ramming in the cameos you know it's a franchise already running on empty. Someone give Carrell his own spin-off though, I'd quite happily watch that.

Cuemarks rating: ***
I've now seen this film twice, and on both occasions have come away from it thinking I enjoyed it, but probably not as much as I should have. The subject interests me, I like the actors involved, the performances are good, so what's stopping it being one of the greats? The script, about a man (William Hurt) making his way from sports journalist to big-shot news anchorman, is solid enough yet a little plodding at times. This is actually an issue I've had with a few James L. Brooks films, there's something unquantifiable missing from them. Holly Hunter plays his producer/romantic sidekick, and Albert Brooks completes an unlikely triangle of love. I think I've just realised that what it's lacking is enough in the way of dramatic news events - there are one or two, but for me there's far too much focus on the personal lives and emotions of the characters. It doesn't capture enough of the buzz of the control room, it's there in the opening section but after that there's nothing to compare to The Newsroom's excitement and drama when the team has to pull together a major breaking story. Having said all that, William Hurt is an actor I've 'clicked' with now, his performances are often so subtle and calm that it has taken me a number of his films to realise why he's been so highly regarded over the years. He's by far the best thing about this. As for the rest of the film, it's watchable, just personally I found it a little soppy and not of the calibre that many critics claim it to be.

Cuemarks rating: **
Jim Carrey goes into full-on hyper mode in the role of a lowly news reporter who misses out on his dream anchor role (to a young Steve Carrell in fact), and as we all do in such situations, blames God for his troubles. Morgan Freeman, who is actually God in real life, plays himself. It would seem God works in an empty industrial warehouse with whitewashed walls, where he hands Carrey the keys to the kingdom and basically goes "see if you can do any better then". Cue predictable character arc. Jim Carrey has an amazing energy and exuberance that I don't think anyone in Hollywood has ever matched, but it's so exhausting to watch an entire film of it. He's really at his best when he reins it in, but there's not much of that here. In terms of this theme the newsreader element is irrelevant, he could have had any job, and the rest just amounts to a clever idea that didn't really flesh out into anything worth seeing. Except if Morgan Freeman is actually God, then upgrade this to a 5 just in case I’ve upset him.

Cuemarks rating: ****
Now this was a real surprise, a film I'd heard nothing about that really deserves more attention. Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas play a reporter and cameraman producing a bland information piece about a nuclear power plant for the evening news. An event occurs whilst they are on site, which Douglas secretly films, and the rest of the story surrounds their battle to broadcast their exclusive in spite of an attempted cover-up by the nuclear company. It's a convincing event too, well staged and a believable insight into the potential dangers of nuclear power, as well as highlighting the extent to which the public are reliant on the media to report important stories and not become complicit in hiding what big organisations don't want people to know. Jack Lemmon appears as the plant supervisor who also gets involved in fighting the cover-up, and actually I think he shows here that he's better as a dramatic actor than in his more famous comedy roles. Some of the sets seem a little dated now, and there's clearly an anti-nuclear agenda going on, but it holds up because it's tense, well scripted and very well acted. One worth checking out.

Cuemarks rating: ***
I was really looking forward to seeing this. What had captured my imagination was the idea of viewing it as a sort-of sequel to the magnificent All The President's Men, the political thriller about the Watergate scandal that lead to Richard Nixon becoming the first US President ever to resign from office. Frost/Nixon, directed by Ron Howard, takes up the story further down the line, with the infamous television interview Nixon agreed to hold with British TV host David Frost. There are almost two films going on here, the first half presenting the build-up, and the second half consisting of the interview itself. For me that's the big flaw, because it takes far too long to get to the bit you want to see, and only in the last 20 minutes does the revelatory part of the interview unfold. Both leads, Michael Sheen as Frost and Frank Langella as Nixon, are fantastically convincing. That final section is riveting filmmaking, and if that had been greatly extended at the expense of some of the flim-flammery that comes before, I would be hailing it as a masterpiece. I'm a little unconvinced about some of what happens outwith the interview, Frost is portrayed as a fairly clueless talk show host for most of the time, and there were several events that I can't possibly believe could have taken place they way the film suggests. Yet I'm wondering that if that is the case, why they would have felt the need to change and fictionalise an already remarkable story. Frustratingly good is how I'd describe this.

Cuemarks rating: *****
As far as I'm concerned, Good Night and and Good Luck is one of the modern greats, a stunningly articulate, thoughtful and intelligent examination of the battle between government and media. Shot in a striking contrasty black and white, it's also one of the best looking films I've ever seen. Directed by George Clooney, the film tells the true story of Edward R. Murrow, a high profile broadcast journalist in the 1950's who decided to publicly expose the truth about controversial US Senator Joseph McCarthy. It was an era when fear of Communism and it's consequences was rife across the United States, a state of affairs that McCarthy's political agenda was contributing to. Even with such risk to his reputation, the jobs of everyone involved, and the future of the CBS news division, Murrow persists with extraordinary conviction to reveal this agenda to his audience. David Strathairn is remarkable in the lead role, an actor who I'm always impressed by, and this is his defining performance. Sitting upright in his chair, authoritatively talking to camera, cigarette propped up in one hand - it's one of the most memorable and iconic images cinema has ever produced. Every single detail of the period is spot on, from the sets to the clothes to the dialogue, and the carefree smoking and drinking (and by association the tobacco and alcohol companies funding and therefore controlling these shows through advertising). Clooney's direction creates a real feeling of authenticity, the way he weaves in the actual recordings of McCarthy's responses to these accusations is brilliantly done. The stillness of the camera and focus entirely on the newsreader during recordings again dates it perfectly, a distinct contrast to the modern news obsession with giant screens, iPads and studio producers believing that the thoughts of a random person on Twitter count as insight. What Clooney seemed to understand most of all though is that it's all about Strathairn's performance, so gets all of this detail right and then withdraws it into the background. It's why it works so well, is so convincing, and results in something very close to a masterpiece.

Cuemarks rating: *****
"This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather". One of the many timeless lines from Harold Ramis' classic about a TV weatherman (Bill Murray) who is sent every year by his news studio to report on the Groundhog Day celebrations. Which he loathes. It's such an iconic film that surely everyone must have seen, but just in case, he gets stuck in a time loop and has to repeat the same miserable day over and over. In the wrong hands the joke would wear thin very quickly, but the endlessly creative narrative and perfect casting make it a joy to watch. Murray was born to play this role, his droll humour and bored-teenager demeanour couldn't have been bettered by any other actor. When he cynically starts using the repeating days to learn everything about a woman he wants to woo, Andie MacDowall stands up to the challenge with a totally charming performance that requires her to unwittingly keep falling for him every day. This is the film that proved that with a little wit and a lot of imagination, romantic comedies don't have to stick with the tried and trusted formula. Over 20 years later and there's still no other film of it's type that comes close.

Cuemarks rating: ****
Paranoia and cover-ups are at the centre of this riveting story about a former tobacco industry employee who is threatening to expose the truth about the health risks involved in smoking, in defiance of an industry that has mislead the public and hidden the evidence for years. Al Pacino gets involved as a major TV news reporter trying to convince Crowe to go public, and the inevitable battle with a lawsuit-fearing CBS network to get the story on the air. There is a thriller angle to all this which I won't go into, but the direction is superbly handled by Michael Mann, and he sustains an engrossing intensity throughout. I think this is one of Crowe's best performances, you can see the fear in his eyes and can believe in what he forces himself to go through, even knowing the potential consequences for him and his family. One of the best investigative TV journalism films around.

Cuemarks rating: *
First of all, the title isn't great. Second of all, the film is worse. You'd assume the involvement of Dustin Hoffman and Alan Alda would lead to a film of some gravitas, but evidently they must have signed up without reading the script. John Travolta has just lost his job at a museum, and decides the best way to get reinstated is to turn up at the museum with a shotgun and bag of dynamite. Hoffman plays a reporter who gets caught up in the story, along with a bunch of school kids who don't seem remotely bothered about being hostages. In fact they're quite enjoying it by the looks of things. This goes on for over three days with minimal attempts at negotiation from the police, and a SWAT team who must have been late back from their holidays given their lack of urgency in making an appearance. Hoffman can wander in and out of the museum at will to deliver his news reports, the entire media is portrayed as a bunch of ruthlessly manipulative hacks, and Travolta is coasting it as a simpleton who ends up as cinema's least convincing hostage taker of all time. Just writing the character as stupid doesn't mean he can behave in such an illogical fashion, and the ending is so nonsensical that the writers must have assumed they'd get away with it since no-one would be left in the cinema by this point anyway. It's a shame too, because the general idea is a good one and some of the points it was trying to make about jobs and the media could have led to something quite interesting. It didn't.

Cuemarks rating: ****
The unusually named Haskell Wexler was up there with the greatest of Hollywood's cinematographers, responsible for shooting films like Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and In the Heat of the Night. He also ventured into the director's chair on occasion, and Medium Cool is the best of those that I've seen. The title comes from someone describing television as a "cool medium" for news, and it's about a news reporter who finds himself in the middle of protests that erupt into violence at a political convention. Robert Forster, who I mainly knew from his brilliant role as the bail bondsman in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, gives a quietly impressive performance, especially considering the improvised acting he has to produce in the latter part of the story. This was down to them sending the actors into the actual real-life National Democratic Convention protests as they were happening, filming it and just seeing what happens. It's pretty groundbreaking stuff for it's time, and you can bet insurance and health & safety people would prevent anything like that being tried now. Like Good Night and Good Luck, it explores the relationship between government and television, and what it’s like for the underpaid and under-appreciated news staff working at the heart of this. The ending is fascinating too, a real head-scratcher that adds greatly to the intrigue. One I will be revisiting again in future.

Cuemarks rating: ****
The newest film on the list, so new in fact that I actually went to the cinema to see it (a real rarity for me these days), luckily it came out just in time for this theme. It was worth the trip too. George Clooney is a news personality delivering a preposterously over-the-top show designed to jazz up the dull and complicated world of the stock market. In the middle of one of these shows, a man with a particular axe to grind wanders onto the set with a gun and bomb vest, and takes Clooney hostage. The story that unfolds is actually intense for the majority of the running time, and Julia Roberts does a brilliant job as the producer trying to control the situation. It's great to see her taking up interesting dramatic roles again. As the gunman, Jack O'Connell is on his way to being the next Tom Hardy, he's fantastic here and in fact has been in every role I've seen him play. American actors must be getting a little miffed with all these British actors landing US speaking roles. I didn't realise until the end credits that it was directed by Jodie Foster, she rarely takes up directing duties and I thought she did an excellent job. The only major flaw, and this is probably more to do with me, is that I didn't understand the financial gubbins that explain what was behind all of this. It would have helped greatly if the last section had been a little less convoluted, maybe I'll get it more on repeat viewing. I can however confirm that something financial happened, it didn't work out well, and it probably wasn't legal. You probably don't need to understand much more than that to enjoy it though.

Cuemarks rating: ***
Harrison Ford is a grumpy old news reporter with a string of awards and a disdain for the state of modern news programming. Amy McAdams is a socially awkward, work-obsessed producer who lands a big career break producing an ailing morning news show. She forces Ford to join Diane Keaton on the couch as the new breakfast co-anchor. And by God does he make them regret that, making his utter contempt for the stories they're covering plain for all to see, even when on the air. I actually found this a lot funnier and more entertaining than I'd expected, which is not to say it's a work of genius, just that I liked Ford's comical grumpiness and there's great chemistry between the leads. And let's talk about McAdams. Even though I know the film is shamelessly manipulating the emotions of every male viewer, it is impossible not to be going *swoon* every time she's on screen. Her character's goofy, warm, root-for-me personality combined with puppy-level adorability make it impossible not to. Actually, it's almost certain that even puppies themselves weep tears of joy and go awwww when they reach the predictable yet somehow satisfying conclusion.

Cuemarks rating: ***
As I was watching my way through all of these films, there was one name that characters kept referring to as the standard bearer for TV news reporting: Walter Cronkite. I was vaguely aware of the name, but not knowing anything about him, I wanted to see if any films told his story. One PM Central Standard Time is the most appropriate one I could find, a PBS documentary about how he (as lead CBS News reporter) became the face of the nation on the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Narrated by George Clooney, it's a really interesting documentary about the events of that day, and how one man became the most trusted voice on television by waiting to report only the facts and refusing to follow the speculative lead of other networks. Clooney's voice is so well suited to the material, authoritative and trustworthy, he would have made an excellent news anchor himself. We learn that the term "anchor" was in fact first coined for Cronkite, and so all the other films on this list basically exist because of him and the rest of the heavyweight network news presenters he influenced.

Cuemarks rating: *****
"I'm as mad as hell and I'm not going to take this any more!" Probably the most famous and successful film about the news, and deservedly so. Sidney Lumet brilliantly directs a fantastical yet still believable tale about a presenter, Howard Beale, who is fired for poor ratings. His resulting live-on-air breakdown becomes a ratings hit, and the studio cynically reverse their decision and turn him into a star who gets increasingly out of control. Beale's long rants about the state of the world and the dissatisfaction people have with their lives is stunning, right up there with cinema's other legendary rants in the likes of Fight Club and Trainspotting and 25th Hour. It's one of those films where I had to wait right to the end of the credits to find out if it was a true story or not, what unfolds is bizarre and surprising enough to convince either way. In terms of weaknesses, the only part I could have done without is the romance side-story between two of the leads, too often Hollywood feels obliged to do this even when it actually detracts from the main story. Even with that though, the performances of everyone involved are superb, especially Faye Dunaway, Robert Duvall, Peter Finch and William Holden. None of their characters come out of this at all well, and it makes you wonder if it's really as bad an industry as it seems, because the people who write stories about the media don't often portray it in a positive light. Lumet is such a good director, I can't think of of anything he's done that I haven't liked, and after I'm done with Scorsese he could be a good next choice for my directors series.

Cuemarks rating: *****
A modern classic, and easily my favourite film on this list. I placed it 3rd in my best films of last year list, and I'm now of the opinion that it should have been top of the pile. The fact that it wasn't even nominated for the Oscars shows how out of touch those awards are. As I've already written about it twice before on this blog, if you'll forgive the indulgence I'm just going to quote myself: Jake Gyllenhall is Lou Bloom, an intense, creepy weirdo who gets himself into the business of filming the aftermath of horrific nighttime tragedies for television news. "If it bleeds it leads". So he and a hired assistant go fleeing around the city hunting for car crash and murder victims to film for money, getting more and more obsessed by obtaining footage that no-one else has. A proper thriller, totally original, and proves that no other actor these days does deranged outsiders as well as Gyllenhall. It also shows how different American culture is - in the UK our breakfast news is usually along the lines of; a boring politician saying something boring, a visit to a cheese factory (cheese sales are up 1%) and a heartwarming story about some fluffy kittens. You have to see this movie, it's everything that modern filmmaking should be.

Cuemarks rating: *
Well, these were an unpleasant bunch of people to spend time with. Moreso than in most bad films I've seen. To see Reece Witherspoon, an actor so consistently enjoyable to watch, appear in this is too depressing for words. It goes like this: some people get held hostage in a convenience store, one person is recording it all on camera, and they unknowingly become stars as the whole thing is broadcast live on the news. Don't waste your time thinking this sounds promising, because the script is terrible and horribly contrived, the acting is universally awful, the direction is brash and unpleasant (including the maddeningly ear-screeching "music"), and it really is one of the least enjoyable movie experiences I've ever had. Why on earth does this exist?

Cuemarks rating: *
And what a very odd film this turned out to be, yet another clunker unfortunately. On the one hand it's going for a flippant, lightweight comedy in which news producer Burt Reynolds gets to exchange zingy banter with his news presenter ex-wife (Kathleen Turner). On the other hand it's trying to semi-seriously explore the issue of capital punishment, the saving of an innocent man from execution, and an interesting idea about how television could get involved in the process. Except it doesn't commit to this like it should have. She is a bizarrely inconsistent character who one minute is delivering a passionate anti-death penalty rant live on air, and the next she's retreated backstage for some jolly laughs with Burt. It makes no sense, tonally or logically. When the highlight of the story is a vertigo-suffering Christopher Reeve getting stuck in a glass elevator (and this is purely for creating the idea in my head of Superman being trapped in a rectangular glass box, perhaps during a costume change), you know this is one film that should never have made it past the first script reading. And there’s still another lowest-possible-rating film to come, what joy.

Cuemarks rating: ***
There's this woman who really really wants to present the weather on TV. Except that's not enough, she wants to go all the way to the top of the TV news business, and will do whatever it takes to get there. In the hands of eccentric filmmaker Gus van Sant this run of the mill idea becomes anything but, twisting stereotypes like the ditzy blonde weather girl into a borderline psychopath who knows what she wants and will go to farcically dark lengths in the quest for fame. Nicole Kidman is that woman, and it turned out to be one of her very best roles, eerily reminiscent of Alicia Silverstone in Clueless. She knows exactly how to play the comedic ruthlessness of the character, obsessed with television to the point of delusional madness, and she clearly should have had more of this type of role in her career. Matt Dillon plays the put-upon husband to great effect, Casey Affleck appears in a small part, and Joaquin Phoenix turns up as her inappropriately young love interest. Van Sant is merciless in how he deals with all of these characters, and you end up feeling sorry for them no matter how pathetic or dislikable they are. What stops me giving it a higher rating is purely because of van Sant's directing style, his brand of quirkiness is difficult to warm to and has so far stopped me truly loving any of his films, even if I usually find them watchable. In this case I enjoyed it enough to watch once but wouldn't be in a rush to revisit.

Cuemarks rating: ***
There's this woman who really really wants to present the weather on TV. Except that's not enough, she wants to go all the way to the top of the TV news business, and will do whatever it takes to get there. Wait, this is sounding awfully familiar. Yip, same basic idea, very different outcome. This one's a much more traditional romance drama between two big name leads, Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer (a name that's impossible to spell without looking it up). When she turns up for her new low-level job in a news studio, producer man Redford sees a sparkle in her eye and makes her the new weather lady. Of course they fall in love, she starts climbing the ranks, and they do the coupley things that couples do. If it all sounds quite formulaic, it does seem to be that way until the story gets considerably more interesting in the final third. Setting them both up as news people allows them to get personally involved in a couple of major stories, and it goes in directions that I really hadn't expected such a film to go. I'm not suggesting they get abducted by aliens, it's nothing radical like that, but is at least a break from the Hollywood formula. I suspect that's why Redford was attracted to the script, and he's certainly one of the main reasons why it works, he's the best thing about almost every film he's ever been in. Solid filmmaking, unspectacular, but certainly more to recommend than I'd anticipated.

Cuemarks rating: *
The name's Wrong, Just Wrong. License to be cast in stupid films once my Bond career's over and there's still bills to be paid. Yes, many people's favourite Bond took a gigantic career misstep in this pretty woeful attempt at portraying the exciting life of a travelling news reporter (film AKA "Wrong is Right"), by basically pretending he's the James Bond of news. So we get whisked around the world at breakneck speed as he tries to prevent a megalomanic from setting off a bomb that will destroy the world. Except he's not James Bond, just a guy with a camera, and can do nothing other than tell people about it on the tele. To help him along, he conveniently remembers that he's best friends with the President of the United States, so gets to hang out at the White House and discuss how together they can stop this madman. And the President is always in a tracksuit, having just come from the gym, even though one look at him proves that he's clearly not someone who ever does that. Who writes this stuff? It's just the pits. They even cast Leslie Nielsen in a straight role, but he's still behaving like he's making another Airplane, just without any jokes. At least the Bond films knew they were being silly, this film is actually trying to make a serious point about terrorism and the power of the media, but is clearly so starstruck at having the actual real life Sean Connery on set that they must have abandoned the serious story and just told him to do whatever he did in the Bond films. Utter utter utter drivel, if I knowingly had enemies I would definitely be recommending this to them as a matter of some urgency.