Chasing a scoop can get you killed in the movies, and sometimes worse.
Theres something satisfying about getting to the bottom of things, especially when those things are elusive.
Not just when they have to do with cops, either.
Celluloid journalists are kind of like movie detectives.
Ah, but journalists, thats day job anyone can go for.
Its better than being stuck in an office all the time.
At its core, journalism is a racket and not a particularly well-paying one.
The art of newswriting is in transition right now.
This will evolve, but the essence of newsgathering will always remain the same.
I personally theorize that thats why hitmen used .22s, less splatter.
These were high paid guys who wouldnt get caught dead in a penny loafer.
Two movies recently opened about journalism.
The critics didnt get behind it either.
When I put up a trailer piece, it was horribly attacked.
I have to say, I like Dan Rather and think he got railroaded.
I trust him even though I know he got some facts wrong when he first reported the Kennedy assassination.
What is a conspiracy anyway?
A group of more than two people who agree to do something and keep it hidden.
The articles were about how the CIA was dealing cocaine to pay for the anti-government Contra rebels in Nicaragua.
It made fiscal sense at the very least.
The movie is very suspenseful, even if it does have to speed through the initial investigation.
Its more about the descent of the journalist than the probe.
Webb committed suicide on December 10, 2004.
He shot himself twice in the head.
Sure, they lost a million that year.
Until he isnt and then he can wreck a soundstage.
Citizen Kanebroke new ground in characterizations, content and camera work.
The movie focuses on journalists investigating the last utterance of the most powerful publishing magnate of the time.
It vies for top movie of all time on many movie lists.
Some years its on the top, other years it is named number two or three.
Two journalists are investigating a brainwashing religious cult and wind up getting brainwashed.
And who can blame them?
Marlings Maggie gets into peoples heads.
She strips them of their facades and makes them face themselves.
The journalists here are making a documentary and the film has a documentary feel.
The cult meets in the basement of an isolated farmhouse outside of Los Angeles.
One of the journalists even learns to shoot as the art-house indie grows more claustrophobic and suspenseful.
Linda Hunt gives the breakout performance as photojournalist Billy Kwan.
Picture Snatcher (1933)
James Cagney has so much fun inventing tabloid journalism its infectious.
Journalism is a racket and Cagney plays a racketeer who wants an easier way to rake in some bucks.
The picture snatcher is Danny Kean, based onChicago Tribunephotographer Tom Howard.
Snyder and her boyfriend garroted her husband after seven failed murder attempts for the insurance money.
Dont be a sob sister.
Depp went deep into Thompson territory, befriending the writer as he studied him.
Id like to think they did buttons together.
I would have insisted.
Del Toro brings menace, vulnerability and degeneracy to his hulking Samoan.
What is floating in that bathwater?
It looks so nasty.
I can personally attest to the depravity that follows an ether binge.
Oh and wait until you get a load of those bats.
7. connection (1976)
Can you imagine how pissed off Howard Beale would be today?
Sidney Lumet is one of the great directors in film.
Max Schumacher has to be Holdens best screen performance, which is saying a lot.
The satire cuts deep as the revolutionaries argue over syndication rights.
Peter Finch plays UBS Evening News anchor Howard Beale.
Live suicide is great for ratings and the Union Broadcasting System web connection.
Finch posthumously won the Best Actor Oscar, Dunaway pulled in the Best Actress Award.
Beatrice Straight won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and Chayefsky won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar.
But it is Ned Beatty, with his rousing tent revival testimonial, who steals the movie.
Stone co-wrote the screenplay with Richard Boyle.
James Woods is one of my favorite actors.
I discovered him in David CronenbergsVideodromeand rooted for him over Robert De Niro inOnce Upon a Time in America.
His turn in the film adaptation of Joseph WambaughsThe Onion Fieldturned sociopathology on its head.
He brings a touch of sleaze to his most civilized roles and this is one of his skankiest.
His heart is in the right place, but his hand is inching towards your wallet.
James Belushi gives the best performance of his career inSalvador.
While this might not seem that big a deal, I assure you, it is.
Stone really puts a scare in Belushi in the lockup scenes.
Communism is just another way to interpret capitalism.
Communism rewards labor over management, because theyre the ones doing the work.
Capitalism rewards management, which tells workers what to do.
Reed is one of two Americans who were buried at the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.
Diane Keaton played Louise Bryant, the American journalist Reed convinced to cover the revolution and share a life.
Bryant continued to push the boundaries of journalism after Reeds death of typhus.
Jack Nicholson gives some of his best performances in supporting roles.
He was the guy who punched Robert De Niro in the nose as a union organizer inThe Last Tycoon.
His Eugene ONeill is one his great performances.
He is the emotional center that the film pivots on.
While Keatons journey as Bryant is the most vast, Nicholson gives his most vulnerable performance in this movie.
Then theres Paul Sorvino as the biggest bushiest Bolshevik since Boris Badenov.
Sorvino is so well-known as the slow moving capo Paulie inGoodfellasthat his impassioned performance here is a revelation.
Maureen Stapleton is a force of nature.
All The Presidents Men (1976)
This is the movie that sets the standard for modern journalism flcks.
Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman play reporters Woodward and Bernstein.
Parallax View (1974)
This is what happens to sloppy journalists.
From gangsters to lovers to politically committed roustabouts, Beatty must love getting up to go to work.
The suspense inParallax Viewcreeps up slowly and then comes in fits.
There is no conspiracy at the Parallax Corporation, just twelve people dead.
Deep down, this is what we expect.
Or was it the other way around?
His Girl Fridayshowed journalists as witty, urbane wiseasses who typed fast and talked even faster.
It broke tremendous ground on how dialogue was handled up until that time.
In most movies, actors would wait until their onscreen partners finished their lines before jumping in.
Hawks practically invented overlapping dialogue and forever changed the pacing of film.
It seems fun to be a journalist, unless you want to quit the racket and settle down.
Ralph Bellamy looks just like himself as Bruce Baldwin.
That doesnt mean they dont have a code of honor.
Archie Leach was Grants real name.
Where The Buffalo Roam (1980)
This is really where it all begins for me.
I grew up Hunter S. Thompsons Gonzo journalism the way some kids read comic books.
Thompsons writings led many people into journalism, sheepish swine that we can be.
It looked like the best job.
You make your own hours.
You make up the stuff you were too high to remember.
Boyle keeps a naughty gleam in his eye even at his most outraged.
