faye dunaway | the m0vie blog

290. Network (#219)

Posted on July 9, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Ciara Moloney and Dean Buckley, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, Sidney Lumet and Paddy Chayefsky’s Network.

Howard Beale is a veteran newscaster on a struggling network. When he is given his two weeks’ notice, Beale threatens to shoot himself live on the air as his final broadcast. The television journeyman becomes a media storm and ratings sensation, as the network eagerly seeks to capitalise on what could be a once-in-a-generation phenomenon.

At time of recording, it was ranked 219th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: america, Bryan Cranston, capitalism, ciara moloney, dean buckley, donald trump, exploitation, faye dunaway, Fox, fox news, hippies, media, money, ned beatty, Network, networks, Oscars, Paddy Chayefsky, Peter Finch, power, ratings, reagan, Sidney Lumet, Television, the sundae, yuppies | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Three Days of the Condor

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Darren

Reflecting the political climate of the time, the seventies produced any number of high-quality conspiracy thrillers. I think what helps Three Days of the Condor stand above most of the rest is a great leading performance from Robert Redford at the height of his charisma, confident direction from Sydney Pollack and a rather clever central premise that feels interesting in its own right, rather than just a vehicle to create a palpable sense of paranoia.

Branching out...

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, California Condor, faye dunaway, paramount pictures, Pinnacles National Monument, Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Sydney Pollack, Three Days of the Condor, thrillers, Watergate Scandal | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Chinatown

Posted on November 16, 2010 by Darren

“You may think you know what’s you’re dealing with,” a character warns private detective Jack Gittes at one point during Chinatown, “but, believe me, you don’t.” Later on, Gittes confesses to his lover that, when he was a police officer working in Chinatown, his beat consisted of doing “as little as possible”, an anecdote that screenwriter Robert Towne reportedly heard from an officer who had actually served in Chinatown – rather than an officer involving himself in some sort of event that he couldn’t possibly comprehend, the police would actively disengage themselves from the community. That’s the core of the corruption at the heart of Polanski’s film – how little anyone actually knows about what is really happening, and how it’s easy to ignore these things rather than attempting to deal with them.