tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1163321594858726822.post217293738400293053..comments2024-01-30T04:32:47.585-05:00Comments on The Cooler: Ordinary People: All the President’s MenJason Bellamyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18150199580478147196noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1163321594858726822.post-60891246266432866402011-10-07T08:07:57.124-04:002011-10-07T08:07:57.124-04:00What is most notable about the film is it's to...What is most notable about the film is it's total LACK of pretense and the kind of shallow, cardboard characterization that is so prevelant in modern cinema. Woodward and Bernstien are NOT depicted as noble warriors, but rather as ambitious and opportunistic, as well as being gifted journalists. Ben Bradlee comes off as an older, wiser version of the duo, but with one important difference. he understands the full import of the story and it's far-reaching ramifications.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1163321594858726822.post-30484036232246186292011-05-06T11:17:53.056-04:002011-05-06T11:17:53.056-04:00Commanding performances.Commanding performances.Youtube.com/robertodidonatohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07455958980006494086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1163321594858726822.post-29839798888678398882011-04-19T19:42:45.245-04:002011-04-19T19:42:45.245-04:00As a wannabe journalist I obviously love this film...As a wannabe journalist I obviously love this film. It really does look incredible compared to the current state of things: my professors don't even bother to check to see if we're being accurate and digging deep. I know some people who have just made up whole stories. In the actual journo world, the ability to draft a glorified press release has replaced what W&B did. <br /><br />Who can forget Judy Miller's bullshit self-apologia when it became evident nearly all her stories on WMDs were wrong? Her half-assed mea culpa said that when a source is wrong, the journalist is wrong, when really a journalist could have said that source was wrong and shown how instead of copying things down verbatim.<br /><br />Plus, the construction is just magnificent. I really enjoy The Parallax View but feel it is too disjointed between great scenes of paranoia. ATPM maintains its sense of dread and therefore can keep building it instead of having to double back all the time. Obviously its modern corollary (in terms of production date, at least, not setting) is Zodiac, which was equally wonderful in its sustained tension.Jakehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09078001374402400232noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1163321594858726822.post-51520335054189470142011-04-16T18:39:24.878-04:002011-04-16T18:39:24.878-04:00Steven: One of the things that's changed most ...Steven: One of the things that's changed most about journalism is newspapers' willingness to accept anonymous sources. Most reporters must reveal the identity of those sources to their editors, but there's just not the same pressure to get names associate with the printed record.<br /><br />I love the accuracy with which this film recreates the newspaper world of that ear. My dad is a career newspaperman, and the <em>Post</em> office here reminds me of newsrooms I saw as a kid. (Also, photos of my dad from that era show him to be a strange combination of Redford and Hoffman in this film in terms of dress and hair style.) To this day, my dad still doodles in his notebooks as Woodward is seen doing in this film.<br /><br />As for the effort: Watching this film, or <em>Zodiac</em>, is a pleasure because it takes us back to an era in which leg work and fact-checking and general investigation could be so dramatic and cinematic. I'm stunned at the popularity of all those CSI type shows, because now shows are just trying to find ways that DNA evidence and quick Google searches won't provide an immediate answer. It's historically truthful, it just isn't as compelling to watch. That's why I love the scene in this film in which Woodward is amongst a pile of out-of-town phone books, just searching for one name. That shot tells us everything we need to know about his commitment and effort. Showing someone feverishly typing out a Google search just isn't the same.Jason Bellamyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18150199580478147196noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1163321594858726822.post-27751020744460164832011-04-16T18:34:01.936-04:002011-04-16T18:34:01.936-04:00Well, Blogger just ate my first attempt at replyin...Well, Blogger just ate my first attempt at replying. So now this will be brief.<br /><br />JD: I love the increasing paranoia, too, and particularly that the movie never suggests whether these guys should fear for their lives. The movie ends with the suggestion that their lives are in danger, but that assessment is balanced out by the scene in which Woodward runs frightened from the parking garage and turns back to find ... nothing whatsoever behind him. Rather than showing us shadowy figures, the film just acknowledges that there were shadows. What was in them, who knows?Jason Bellamyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18150199580478147196noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1163321594858726822.post-86507382838763430142011-04-16T09:23:36.444-04:002011-04-16T09:23:36.444-04:00What I always loved about the film was showing how...What I always loved about the film was showing how much of an effort it took for Woodward and Bernstein to get this story right. It's almost amazing how Bradlee calls them out on errors that news editors today would let pass in the journalists-as-stenographers age.<br /><br />The film now does feel like a celebration of a certain tenacity as well as the importance of leg work and fact-checking that is absent these days. It is odd that a movie I first saw at a young age to learn about why Nixon resigned is now a nostalgia piece about how journalism used to be.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05571206086671634525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1163321594858726822.post-7016580315864785912011-04-14T10:37:27.612-04:002011-04-14T10:37:27.612-04:00Great film. The CITIZEN KANE of journalism movies....Great film. The CITIZEN KANE of journalism movies. I also really love Gordon Willis' cinematography and the noirish vibe he creates in the scenes where Woodward meets Deep Throat in a parking garage late at night. The use of shadows in these scenes is incredible and certainly create a feeling of unease and tension as you don't know what's going to greet Woodward when he gets there. The feelings of paranoia gradually increase with these scenes.<br /><br />Excellent review!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08164105442273577128noreply@blogger.com