The Paper
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Movie Reviews of The Paper
Movie Review: You sent Robin?
Summary: 4 Stars
"Highly entertaining albeit thin journalism thriller" is the line from the product description ... I could not disagree more! It is, indeed, noir-less, and it does pack a ton into it's twenty-four hour time frame but this is a really good ensemble movie. The dialog carries the story along effortlessly and, for me, the mark of a good movie is the use of real characters at every level of the story ... even the air conditioner repairmen seem to be more than bodies adding to the realism of a busy newspaper office.
My favorite minor character is Robin, the extremely young photographer ("how old is Robin ... fourteen?") sent out to photograph the perp-walk pertaining to a highly volatile story that could lead to race-riots in the Williamsburg section of NYC in July. Her scenes consist of that marvelous combination of high anxiety fraught with humor (not the other way around!)
Marisa Tomei as Martha, the hugely pregnant, reporter-on-maternity-leave wife of Henry (Michael Keaton), metro editor, is just fabulous in this role. Right from the get-go ("Nice pajamas, Henry" as the alarm goes off and Marty sees her husband sacked out on top of the bed in his work clothes) she creates enormous sympathy for her character without manipulating the audience. Glenn Close is just great as Alicia, the overspending, unfaithful, minor NYC celebrity wanna-be albeit talented, pragmatic businesswoman in charge of keeping the paper from going into bankruptcy every month. Randy Quaid, as MacDougall, gets more info-gathering done dozing on the couch while half listening to the police scanner in Henry's office than the reporters are managing out on the streets. The Sandusky side story for MacDougall's character is hysterical, with a truly scary-funny fight scene involving a gun. Robert Duvall takes the stereotype of Bernie, the hard-bitten, chain-smoking, borderline alcoholic, dissipated Editor in Chief of the paper and gives it the Duvall magic. The Pablo Picasso speech to Alicia is one of my favorite scenes in the movie. Last, but not least, is Michael Keaton as Henry, the manic, multitasking, "we're not getting our butts kicked today" Metro editor of The Paper. That bit of casting was just perfect. He doesn't struggle with anything until the movie reaches its climax. He just bulldozes through objections to his modus operendi as so many gnats that have to be swatted away. "I don't f***ing live in the f***ing world, I live in f***ing New York City!!!" he screams into the phone, while his long-suffering secretary (another fantastic character) looks on and utters, "Well, that went well." The two young men whose hapless "wrong place, wrong time" situation lands them in jail on murder charges are the most serious characters in the movie. Their plight is conveyed to the audience in brief, but powerful, scenes, making the viewer anxious for the paper to get it right.
I think the "thinness" criticism of The Paper and the criticism that Ron Howard's choice of film vehicles makes for a "vanilla" movie comes from the notion that ambiguity and unresolved angst are stock-in-trade atmospheric requirements for a film about a gritty NYC tabloid commuter paper. Mr. Howard has taken a lightening rod of a racial story, broken air-conditioning, lots of inter-character tension and camaraderie at all levels of office personnel, dumb luck, ergonomic chairs, illness, pregnancy, journalism, estrangement in both the short and long term, murder, shootings, birth, competition, love, ambition ... and has used it all to create a movie where the lives and reputations of two young men hang in the balance while the clock ticks and we slowly learn that truth itself turns out to be The Paper's main character.
One of my favorite movies!
Movie Review: I don't live in the world. I live in New York City!!!
Summary: 4 Stars
With all of the action that takes place in the movie, it is hard to believe that it is only a 24-hour period. Henry wakes up to go to work, then he's at the hospital the next morning. The time frame is distorted, making the fact that the movie is only about a 24-hour segment virtually unknown."The Paper: A behind-the-lines look at work, marriage and other forms of combat."
"The Paper" is about Henry Hackett (Michael Keaton), the metro editor at the New York Sun. His wife Martha (Marisa Tomei) is eight and a half months pregnant with their child. She also worked at the Sun before she went on maternity leave. Bernie White (Robert Duvall) is the editor of the Sun, who wants to reconnect with his daughter after receiving some bad news. Alicia Clark (Glenn Close) is the managing editor, who has lost touch with journalisic integrity since she was promoted. Mike McDougal (Randy Quaid) is a columnist, who claims that the parking commissioner is out to kill him.
The movie begins with two white business men being murdered and their car spray painted with racial slurs. Two young African-American boys are seen, but run after a woman screams thinking they did it. The Sun's rival paper has it as a cover story while the Sun runs a story about the parking commissioner.
Henry has an interview with the Sentinel, but steals their lead story. The job was his, but he tells them he has to think about it, and to talk to his wife first.
In the midst of following the information he got from the Sentinel, the boys from the crime scene are arrested. Henry and McDougal get a cop to comment that they aren't guilty because there isn't any evidence.
When Henry and McDougal get back to the Sun office to write up the story and get it in tomorrow's issue, the presses start. Henry and Alicia fight to stop the presses, he stops them, but she fires him and the presses start again.
After McDougal's car gets towed, he and Alicia go out for drinks. She wants to know what Henry meant when he told her that she'd become everything she used to hate. McDougal explained that she never would run anything that she knew wasn't true.
As Alicia calls to stop the presses, the parking commissioner is in the same bar and starts a fight with McDougal, yelling that he is going to kill him. When they talk the parking commissioner (Jason Alexander) into not kills McDougal, he fires at the wall. Alicia is on the other side of the wall and gets shot.
Henry goes home to find cop cars and an ambulance in front of his apartment building. He asks the doorman what happened and he said the paramedics went up to his apartment. Martha is hemorraging and the baby is in trouble.
Alicia declines to sign the consent form for surgery until she can use the phone. She calls to stop the press and runs Henry and McDougal's story that clears the two young ment. Martha has an emergency C-section. She and the baby boy are fine. Bernie goes to his daughter's house and sees that she is married with a baby.
Movie Review: Ron Howard sinks his teeth into the newspaper business.
Summary: 4 Stars
The only reason I gave "The Paper" dvd a rating of four was for the fact that is not presented in a widescreen format, which is a shame because this is Ron Howard at his best as a director. Howard has the ability to bring out humanity in his characters and reach across generes in doing so. "The Paper" is perfectly cast. Michael Keaton gives an entergetic performance as the assistant editor of the New York Sun, stressed out, always looking for the headline that will put the paper on top.He is also married to a fellow newsie, Marisa Tomei, who is on pregnancy leave but misses the excitement around the office. Keaton is in constant conflict with the managing editor, Glenn Close, whose carrer has topped at the paper and her only release to meet for midday affairs with another member of the paper. Robert Duvall,who is the head hancho at the paper, takes on a OB1 Kenobi type role with Keaton and is constantly reminding himself, and others, about his pastmistakes. Randy Quaid is an editorial writer whose columns has got him into hot water with the city parking manger( played by Jason Alexander). He has to sleep in Keatons office and carry a gun because of threats on his life. Howard makes us believe in these characters and their personalities, which are all maxed to the limit in a period of 24 hours as the members of "The Paper" try to get the scoop that will put them out front.Movie Review: Never let a good story get in the way of the truth!
Summary: 4 Stars
This is probably not a masterpiece but it is a good film. It shows with some realism the hectic life journalism leads to. To be a journalist is to have a completely crazy life in which family, friends, regularity are dreams you cannot in any way respect or just entertain. That kind of atmosphere has already been shown and used in other films. But this film insists on the social, moral and human responsibility that a journalist must live for and with : never tell something that is not true if you know it is not true, in one word you must never lie. You might be wrong, misinformed or many other things but what you publish you must believe - and even know - it is the truth. Then to pair this fight for journalistic ethics to the birth of one's own son or child, is a marvellous idea. For a journalist it is the most important and most exhilarating fact in life to be told his or her article is the truth, especially if it enables two young black teenagers to be freed and exonerated from a false accusation. This kind of film should be shown to all our young people for them to learn that what is important in life is not money, nor what they believe in or think, but only what is true, and that a man must be absolutely free to tell the truth, all the truth, nothing but the truth.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Université Paris Dauphine, Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne
Movie Review: no title
Summary: 4 Stars
A very entertaining movie, with sit on the edge of your seat suspense. Done much like the old TV series "St Elsewhere", with the cutting back and forth between characters, that has become so popular today. In 1994 it was more cutting edge. "City of Hope" was also in this style, although with much more substance. A lot gets packed into 24 hours in the life of these people. I particularly enjoyed Randy Quaid's character here. Many of the others seemed to be playing types, rather than real people, but for this kind of script, with no pretensions of meaning, that's OK. It was action-packed, never a dull moment. I did thing Spalding Grey not good, as I think he has been in everything I've seen him in, which is odd, as his stage show was nothing short of fabulous. A great talent will be missed. Perhaps the film medium was just not suited to him. There was also a continuity break in the scene where Marisa Tomai is having a drink with some guy. Sometimes the lime slice is on her glass, sometimes not, the level of water keeps changing, and also the angle of the lime slice when it is there. And I think the reporter with back problems and his chair should have hit the cutting room floor.