This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown round #2”. Read more about that here.
Network
I'm not surprised to find out that this movie had five different actors nominated for Academy Awards, three of them won, and that it also won the award for best screen play. This is really an actor's movie.
According to many of the special features on this DVD, actors clamored for the chance to work on a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky. And if you've seen this film, you'll know why. I haven't seen any of his other works, but if you've seen this film you know there's blunt truth here that few screenwriters ever get this close to. People say that the predictions this film lays out about the future of television and media become more and more true every year, and you can see not only the prescience that Paddy had but the talent he had to really bring it full force to the screen with the full impact of the way he foresaw it.
Peter Finch's famous monologues delivered by the now famous cinematic character Howard Beale are some of the greatest diatribes ever put on film. If you haven't seen this movie, this is the first role that was ever awarded a posthumous acting Oscar, the feat many people are hoping will be repeated this year by going to the recently departed Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight.
Some people may still be waiting for the day that they murder a man on TV, but with so much trash reality TV and all kinds of exploitative programming on thousands of TV stations and internet broadcasts, I think we have already gone way beyond that.
Rating: 9/10