Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)". . . if desperation and insecurity made us attractive? If needy were a turn on?" Though Albert Brooks delivers this line, *Broadcast News* is not directed by him; it's directed by JAMES Brooks (who also wrote and produced -- truly a product of one creative mind, here). It's a measure of how well James Brooks knows his 3 principal characters that the actors who play them speak as if they wrote their own dialogue. *Broadcast News* is a classic primarily because these characters are so completely realized, so lived-in, as it were. We end up knowing these characters nearly as well as they seem to know themselves ("I'll meet you at the place near the thing where we went that time"). William Hurt is the not-terribly bright aspiring anchorman; Holly Hunter is the type-A news producer; and Albert Brooks is the reporter after "hard news" (meaning, REAL news). One reviewer here complained that he didn't like Albert Brooks as much as he was "supposed to" and that Hurt's character wasn't villainous enough. But that's the point. While we side with Brooks' work ethics throughout, we are often disappointed in him, particularly when out of lovesick frustration he descends to cheap pettiness by rubbing his intellectual superiority in Hurt's nose and says hurtful things to Hunter's character. And while we disdain Hurt's corner-cutting career ambitions, we're also surprised at the man's humaneness, as when he calls his father in a touching scene, joyously proclaiming, "Dad, I think I can do this job!" The point being, of course, that these are REAL people, presented in such a way as nowadays seems impossible in mainstream Hollywood productions. As if this wasn't wonderful enough, the movie is interested in actual WORK: it's quite educational on how a network news program is edited, staged, and generally put together, even providing the inside skinny on how to straighten the shoulders of one's suit-jacket. And certainly the concern with ethics in journalism puts this romantic comedy on a far higher level than is usual with the genre. I'm talking a level on par with some of the great novelists of the 19th century, like Austen and Henry James and Trollope and Hardy. In other words, *Broadcast News* is nothing less than a formal comedy of manners . . . one of the best ever put on the screen. Oh, and by the way: the bittersweet ending is precise and true. Much like the rest of the movie.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Broadcast News: The Criterion Collection (1987)
In the 1970s, the name James L. Brooks (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, Terms of Endearment, The Simpsons) was synonymous with intelligent television comedy-his shows were insightful about work and love and always tapped into the zeitgeist. With his transition to film in the 1980s, he became a master Hollywood storyteller, and none of his films was more quintessentially Brooks than Broadcast News. This caustic inside look at the Washington news media stars Holly Hunter (Raising Arizona, The Piano), in her breakout role, as a feisty television producer torn between an ambitious yet dim anchorman (William Hurt) and her closest confidant, a cynical veteran reporter (Albert Brooks). Brooks's witty, gently prophetic entertainment is a captivating transmission from an era in which ideas on love and media were rapidly changing.
Get 40% OFF
Click here for more information about Broadcast News: The Criterion Collection (1987)
No comments:
Post a Comment