It's the story of the staff at one of New York's lesser newspapers, their professional trials and personal tribulations. The cast is seasoned and the performances professional. No complaints. Marisa Tomei gives what is perhaps the most credible performance with Robert Duval close behind. Michael Keaton is fine in the lead.
The problem -- and it's getting to be a big problem these days -- is that there isn't an original idea in it. The script seems to have been written in accordance with some kind of algorithm developed by the MBAs who now run Hollywood. Let's say it's "viewer friendly" for viewers who think of "continental food" as swank.
When we first meet Marisa Tomei as the wife of editor Michael Keaton, for instance, she's preposterously pregnant. There is not a single moment of doubt in the savvy viewer's mind that there is later going to be a scene in which she gives birth or miscarriages or something on the screen. It would never occur to the people who greenlight this sort of pabulum that a movie can have a pregnant character who doesn't deliver, as in the Coen brothers' immeasurably superior "Fargo." I dislike "political correctness" as much as anyone, and this is political correctness gone berserk. Duval is editor-in-chief. He's old and sick. His prostate is the size of a bagel and he has a hacking cough -- and he smokes CIGARETTES! OMG! Nobody else among the frenzied staff of this tabloid smoke. We're clearly meant to feel sympathy for a generous boss but we also think, "Why doesn't the stupid jagoff quit smoking?" That sentiment carries a good deal of contempt. In a sense, Duval is getting what he deserves for his filthy habit.
And when Marisa Tomei meets an old friend, Catherine O'Hara, for an al fresco lunch, O'Hara consumes more white wine with the salad than Tomei, who looks on worriedly. The stringest norms don't leave anyone much wiggle room.
Keaton is a vigorous young man who is offered a job at a higher salary at the prestigious New York Sentinel (read "Times"), but when we see the job interview we know at once that Keaton won't take it. The interviewer is Clint Howard, the director's brother, and while Duval is in his shirt sleeves over at the New York Scuttlebutt, Clint Howard is cool in his blue dress shirt and bow tie and weirdly stylish hair cut. It all goes with his built-in sneer.
The story has its amusing moments but they're punctuated by the pathos that a good commercial product must carry. But Howard's not alone in his hackitude. He's had plenty of company, like Penny Marshal and Rob Reiner.
I guess you can tell I didn't like the script much. Sometimes -- sometimes -- it feels as if we're all being strangled by bourgeois values and the need to be PC. I can't even take a Saturday night's walk in my fishnet stockings and crimson stilettos without all these "proper people" howling with laughter and throwing empty yogurt cups at me. Tsk Tsk.
The problem -- and it's getting to be a big problem these days -- is that there isn't an original idea in it. The script seems to have been written in accordance with some kind of algorithm developed by the MBAs who now run Hollywood. Let's say it's "viewer friendly" for viewers who think of "continental food" as swank.
When we first meet Marisa Tomei as the wife of editor Michael Keaton, for instance, she's preposterously pregnant. There is not a single moment of doubt in the savvy viewer's mind that there is later going to be a scene in which she gives birth or miscarriages or something on the screen. It would never occur to the people who greenlight this sort of pabulum that a movie can have a pregnant character who doesn't deliver, as in the Coen brothers' immeasurably superior "Fargo." I dislike "political correctness" as much as anyone, and this is political correctness gone berserk. Duval is editor-in-chief. He's old and sick. His prostate is the size of a bagel and he has a hacking cough -- and he smokes CIGARETTES! OMG! Nobody else among the frenzied staff of this tabloid smoke. We're clearly meant to feel sympathy for a generous boss but we also think, "Why doesn't the stupid jagoff quit smoking?" That sentiment carries a good deal of contempt. In a sense, Duval is getting what he deserves for his filthy habit.
And when Marisa Tomei meets an old friend, Catherine O'Hara, for an al fresco lunch, O'Hara consumes more white wine with the salad than Tomei, who looks on worriedly. The stringest norms don't leave anyone much wiggle room.
Keaton is a vigorous young man who is offered a job at a higher salary at the prestigious New York Sentinel (read "Times"), but when we see the job interview we know at once that Keaton won't take it. The interviewer is Clint Howard, the director's brother, and while Duval is in his shirt sleeves over at the New York Scuttlebutt, Clint Howard is cool in his blue dress shirt and bow tie and weirdly stylish hair cut. It all goes with his built-in sneer.
The story has its amusing moments but they're punctuated by the pathos that a good commercial product must carry. But Howard's not alone in his hackitude. He's had plenty of company, like Penny Marshal and Rob Reiner.
I guess you can tell I didn't like the script much. Sometimes -- sometimes -- it feels as if we're all being strangled by bourgeois values and the need to be PC. I can't even take a Saturday night's walk in my fishnet stockings and crimson stilettos without all these "proper people" howling with laughter and throwing empty yogurt cups at me. Tsk Tsk.