I’m saying that when the President does it, it’s not illegal.
Maybe it’s a side-effect of just watching The Fighter, but the title Frost/Nixon makes this film sound more like a prize fight. The comparison is not wholly inappropriate. David Frost (Michael Sheen) was a media bantamweight trying to move up in class while Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) was a political heavyweight looking for an easy tune-up for his eventual rehabilitation from the Watergate scandal.
We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty.
I posted my original review of Good Night, And Good Luck when it was in the theaters last year. Now that it’s out on DVD, I hoped you might permit me to climb on to my creaky old soap box for a moment.
It’s a bit of a fashion among some conservatives to attempt to rehabilitate the image of Senator Joseph McCarthy, to portray him as a misunderstood patriot brought low by the left wing media elite. To them, KGB files that confirm the not unsurprising fact that, yes, there were actually communists in America during the fifties somehow vindicate the Senator’s methods.
Speaking as someone who does, in fact, list to political starboard, this is as bad for conservatism as it is for history. (more…)
The Communist Party’s not gonna see a nickel out of this goddamn show until we go into syndication!
Sometime during the last thirty years, Network has gone from an outrageous, absurdist comedy to almost a documentary. Almost. While some of its points about reality television, media consolidation and news-as-entertainment seem eerily prescient, fortunately not all of it has come true. Dan Rather was not gunned down during his last broadcast and, to the best of my knowledge, the Communist Party never had its own network series.
Even after three decades, this movie is still one of the most intelligent, biting indictments of television excess ever produced. The sharp, literate, Oscar-winning script by Paddy Chayefsky still has the power to stoke your anger even while it sends you dashing off to find a thesaurus.
Whoever wrote this episode should die!
Original Star Trek cast member George Takei has allegedly said that Galaxy Quest is more true to the spirit of the TV show than any of the other theatrical movies based on the 60s TV series. While I wouldn’t hold it up against Wrath of Khan, this affectionate 1999 spoof is definitely a better Trek film than any of the odd-numbered entries in the franchise.
Galaxy Quest fits a spot-on satire of virtually the entire Trek phenomenon, from the show itself to the actors and the fans, into a tight 102-minute running time. The designs of the ships, the costumes and the sets veers just far enough from the source material for the filmmakers to avoid being eaten alive by a horde of ravenous Paramount lawyers.
I’m a little busy bringing down the network tonight, Bill.
Good Night, and Good Luck didn’t tell me much I didn’t know about the showdown between Edward R. Murrow and Joseph McCarthy, but then I considered myself reasonably informed on the events in question. The real issue is whether those ten and twenty years younger than my forty-[mumble-something] will learn anything about why the current state of network television news is so pitiful and how far it has fallen.
Damn you! I’m not an actor, I’m a movie star!
Great comedies, or even just good ones, always have a great deal of affection for their subject. Surely, Mel Brooks must have loved the old Universal horror films to make Young Frankenstein.
He also must have had fond memories of his days as a writer for Sid Ceasar on his Your Show of Shows, because My Favorite Year was clearly made with a great deal of love for the Golden Age of Television.
