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DVD Shattered Glass
Shattered Glass is the best film about journalism since All the President's Men. If that seems like lofty praise, consider this: In telling the true story of fallen journalist and pathological liar Stephen Glass, writer-director Billy Ray had to thoroughly and believably demonstrate how Glass--played in a pitch-perfect performance by Hayden Christensen--could single-handedly betray the trust of vigilant editors, writers, fact-checkers, and copyeditors while he falsified numerous highly praised articles as a hot, seemingly gifted reporter for The New Republic magazine in the late 1990s. Making an assured directorial debut, Ray brilliantly explores the delicate office politics that allowed for Glass's ongoing deception, which was diligently exposed by a reporter (Steve Zahn) from Forbes Online Tool, thus toppling Glass's tower of lies and setting a noble precedent for online journalism. From Glass's ingratiating psychopathology to the anguish of TNR's then-unpopular editor (Peter Sarsgaard) as he discovers the extent of Glass's wrongdoing, Shattered Glass is a riveting, perfectly cast study of ambition gone sour, countered by the nobility of respectable journalists in the wake of a worst-case scenario. --Jeff Shannon
Shattering His Master's (Glass)House...God bless the bloggers!
Before Jason Blair's(ahora~Judith Miller-embroiled)NEW YORK TIMES premier article fabrications'scandal,there was STEPHEN GLASS. Glass was a mast-head contributing editor to smarmily entertaining--like NYT's main homie,Maureen Dowd--super mag,THE NEW REPUBLIC[One of four,highly affected middle-brow media vessels of self-congratulatory "heaviosity":The National Review; Harper's;&the dreaded,Atlantic Monthly].In a word,this very young man...Kharma Chamleon/Boy George-clone...was/is an astoundingly accomplished liar and virtual monument to mendacity.The film is his PM-Cinema Gospel...
Other reviewers have justly complimented Director Bill Ray's well-paced portrait-odyssey of this classic New Age "Rock-n-Roll star" journalist.The film,more importantly provides why PRINT JOURNALISM is finished as reliable source of information and its own pretensions to Power-as-4th Estate. Peter Sarsgaard as TNR caretaker editor,Charles Lane;and Roger McGuinn double Steve Zahn as Cyber mag reporter,Adam Peneberg give excellent performances as ADULTS.They attempt to honor something resembling TRUTH among PM/PC Journalistic fraternity/sorority/homority that believes in the Public's First AMENdment Right to Be ENTERTAINED. Hence Truth is,at best,lost cause among a narcissistic claque...essentially Northeastern with trans-continental lackies in slavish obeisance...of intellectual inbreds. HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN is superbly repugnant as solipsistic Stephen Glass who regards TNR(its staff and The Readership)as contemptible Matter to be inFormed for arch purpose of his own self-apotheosis. Ray's tale, as well,comprises sheer dripping envy that seems to characterize the dynamic of the Post-modern press.
Jason Blair;Jack Kelley;Dan Rather& Mary Mapes;Novak;NEWSWEEK; Miller and brother Hollow Men & Women of NYT: "National newspaper of Record" (now losing vast readership while trying to cosset On-line subscriptions to gag on dreck of Dowd & Co.)will soon be footnotes addending Columbia's Final course in Journalistic Studies: "You Become like that which you behold;yet amazing in Power and Strength OR: howling in Dread & Pain"(William Blake:
can be found by "Googling"the Blakester)would be condign if a Generation schooled on MTV-history and Cliff/Monarch notes' Heidegger could comprende it and the terrible irony that SHATTERED GLASS so dramatically and powerfully documents.[Save your time and money on Glass's more-of-le mierd meme Confessional:THE FABULIST...and God bless the bloggers!]
Damage Control
The problem with this movie is that sounds too much as a "damage control" operation. There isn't a problem with the press or the media here, but only a wacky crazy kid with aspirations of grandeur. Sounds familiar? Yeah, the same they said about Harvey Lee Oswald. But the story is compelling, and the drama is rampant, and some actors are brilliant. Christiansen gives the act of a life, and only good things can be expected from him (if only doesn't give to George Lucas money never again).
Really well done
Hayden Christensen plays a man who has been making up news stories for New Republic Magazine and proves himself again to be a fine actor. There was a build-up of tension in the movie as we see his character, Stephen Glass, start to become anxious and stressed about all his lies and I couldn't take my eyes from the screen until of course the very end. Peter Saarsgard was really good too as Chuck Lane, the editor of the magazine.
A respectable tearjerker, Life as a House is a welcome throwback to angst-ridden family dramas like Ordinary People and Terms of Endearment. It falls short of those modern classics, but you'll probably still need Kleenex if you appreciate Kevin Kline's underrated dramatic skills. As the title suggests, Kline's project is a broad metaphor for repairing damaged lives from the foundation up. Playing an architect with terminal cancer, he gives an Oscar®-caliber performance, reaching out to his estranged, nihilistic son (future Star Wars star Hayden Christensen) and ex-wife (Kristin Scott-Thomas) as he wrecks and rebuilds the Malibu cliff-top home that contained his most painful memories. Director Irwin Winkler's flair with actors helps to minimize... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Irwin Winkler DVD Release Date: Released the 26 March 2002 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Solidly built around a subtle yet commanding performance by Don Cheadle, Hotel Rwanda emerged as one of the most highly-praised dramas of 2004. In a role that demands his quietly riveting presence in nearly every scene, Cheadle plays real-life hero Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager in the Rwandan capital of Kigali who in 1994 saved 1,200 Rwandan "guests" from certain death during the genocidal clash between tribal Hutus, who slaughtered a million victims, and the horrified Tutsis, who found safe haven or died. Giving his best performance since his breakthrough role in Devil in a Blue Dress, Cheadle plays Rusesabagina as he really was during the ensuing chaos: "an expert in situational ethics" (as described by critic Roger Ebert), doing what he morally had to do, at... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Don Cheadle - Sophie Okonedo Director(s): Terry George DVD Release Date: Released the 12 April 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Four extremely beautiful people do extremely horrible things to one another in Closer, Mike Nichols' pungent adaptation of Patrick Marber's play that easily marks the Oscar-winning director's best work in years. Anna (Julia Roberts) is a photographer who specializes in portraits of strangers; Dan (Jude Law) is an obituary writer struggling to become a novelist; Alice (Natalie Portman) is an American stripper freshly arrived in London after a bad relationship; and Larry (Clive Owen) is a dermatologist who finds love under the most unlikely of circumstances. When their paths cross it's a dizzying supernova of emotions, as Nichols and Marber adroitly construct various scenes out of their lives that pair them again and again in various permutations of passion, heartbreak, anger,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Mike Nichols DVD Release Date: Released the 29 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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One of the best films of 2004, Kinsey pays tribute to the flawed but honorable man who revolutionized our understanding of human sexuality. As played by Liam Neeson in writer-director Bill Condon's excellent film biography, Indiana University researcher Alfred Kinsey was so consumed by statistical measurements of human sexual activity that he almost completely overlooked the substantial role of emotions and their effect on human behavior. This made him an ideal researcher and science celebrity who revealed that sexual behaviors previously considered deviant and even harmful (homosexuality, oral sex, etc.) are in fact common and essentially normal in the realm of human experience, but whose obsession with scientific method frequently placed him at odds with his understanding wife... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Liam Neeson - Laura Linney - Chris O'Donnell Director(s): Bill Condon DVD Release Date: Released the 17 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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From Hollywood's legendary Cocoanut Grove to the pioneering conquest of the wild blue yonder, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator celebrates old-school filmmaking at its finest. We say "old school" only because Scorsese's love of golden-age Hollywood is evident in his approach to his subject--Howard Hughes in his prime (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in his)--and especially in his technical mastery of the medium reflecting his love for classical filmmaking of the studio era. Even when he's using state-of-the-art digital trickery for the film's exciting flight scenes (including one of the most spectacular crashes ever filmed), Scorsese's meticulous attention to art direction... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Leonardo DiCaprio - Cate Blanchett - Kate Beckinsale Director(s): Martin Scorsese DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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From Hollywood's legendary Cocoanut Grove to the pioneering conquest of the wild blue yonder, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator celebrates old-school filmmaking at its finest. We say "old school" only because Scorsese's love of golden-age Hollywood is evident in his approach to his subject--Howard Hughes in his prime (played by Leonardo DiCaprio in his)--and especially in his technical mastery of the medium reflecting his love for classical filmmaking of the studio era. Even when he's using state-of-the-art digital trickery for the film's exciting flight scenes (including one of the most spectacular crashes ever filmed), Scorsese's meticulous attention to art direction...