Great Movie but...
Added 9/2/2009
I'm not commentng on the movie. It's a great flick. Keaton is awesome, probably one of his better performances. Quaid, Duvall, Close, Robards and Tomei are all terrific as well, as is Howard's direction. My problem is with Amazon's description. They list it as being available in Widescreen format. It's not. It's the same version you can buy at Wal Mart for $5.00. I bought it under this pretense and not only did I get the same full screen version I already had, I had to pay shipping to return it.
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Entertainment
Added 8/23/2009
is what The Paper is all about. It's just . . . . entertaining. Yes, it raises a couple of ethical issues but Ron Howard never lets them derail the fun factor. Terrif cast, amusing characters and generally very well managed chaos.
The 1.33:1 video format is a very strange choice but as far as I could tell it's not pan and scan. It's just unmatted, meaning you do see the whole picture from side to side but more than intended from top to bottom.
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You sent Robin?
Added 7/27/2008
"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!
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Very engaging movie
Added 9/24/2007
Quickly paced story of oddball reporters, newspaper room politics, marriage, relationships, and overall wackyness. Pushes the right buttons
and never tries to be pretentious, but just a loving romp. Hard
to find such a straightforward movie these days that is snappy
and not sappy.
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Living and Working in NYC
Added 7/17/2007
This has been one of my touchstone movies since it arrived in 1994. I grew up in various locales in the NYC metro area, and can attest to the quickening of an already fast pace of life from the 1960's forward. (I remember when the radio station featured in the movie, 1010-WINS, was a Pop Rock station. BTW, WINS claims today to be "the most listened to radio station in the USA".) The pace of life depicted in this movie, the diverse scenes - which always have a lot of other people going about their business, and the constant need to make decisions quickly are what New York City is to me.
Before you read the travel books or see the videos, you should view this movie to better appreciate what will be going on around you when you visit. The Grand Canyon has serenitity, New York City has adrenaline.
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pretty good romantic comedy
Added 5/20/2009
Political infighting forever after: Back stabbing, dirty tricks, tricky dirt
and just plain misunderstanding.
The movie is a somewhat unlikely campaign speech writer's meeting made in heaven that degenerates into he thought she said that he said.
I kind of liked it because I like both the leads Michael Keaton and Geena Davis, but I wouldn't really call this their finest hour.
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Shall we speak the unspoken language of love? You mean the kind only dogs can hear? Yes, the very same
Added 8/21/2008
Speechless is a romantic comedy that pairs Michael Keaton and Geena Davis as speechwriters for opposing campaigns. No doubt it was at least partially based on or inspired by Mary Matalin and James Carville. One difference though--in Speechless she's the Democrat and he's the Republican. Though the politics are only a pretext for a little rom com thrust and parry, one couldn't ask for better sparring partners than Geena and Keaton.
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stage direction: [While riding in back of pickup truck to get gasoline]
Julia: Is that cologne?
Kevin: Black Flag. You know, it's manly, and as you can see, not a roach in sight...
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In this version of reality both parties are corrupt (wait a minute--are you sure it's fiction?). The wedge issue of immigration is one difference though, with the Democrat opposing the construction of a ditch between the US and Mexico, while the Republican spins it by dubbing it "The Friendship Ditch." Score one for Keaton. The only one who really believes in the speeches is Geena Davis' character. She is doing it because she wants to make the world a better place. Keaton is a former sit com writer and he is in it strictly for the money--and the laughs.
Christopher Reeve played Keaton's rival, a Network Television News Journalist who was Geena's former boyfriend, and now her fiancé. This movie was just a year before Reeve would have his tragic riding accident that would leave him paralyzed. There is one strange bit that became a running gag about her former boyfriend having a tattoo on his lip. If we ever find out what the tatto says, then I must have blinked. Though the gag doesn't really go anywhere, they have some fun running with it:
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[They are talking on the phone]
Julia: My old boyfriend had a tattoo, on the inside of his lip. Wanna guess what it said?
Kevin: Uh, "How am I driving? Call 1-800" and then a number? Did he have a really big lip? Was it Mick Jagger?
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A little later there is an amusing scene as Keaton wonders if Reeve is the tattooed boyfriend and tries to get him to show it. Anyway, Reeve would have to be Superman to keep Davis and Keaton apart. From the moment they meet in the hotel pharmacy and try to con each other out of the last box of No-Doz, you know that they have a lot more in common than just insomnia.
Though the politics are a little dated, in some ways it is prescient. But the main reason to watch this is the witty dialogue, clever script and acting, and of course the strange alchemy between Geena Davis and Michael Keaton.
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Julia: Shall we speak the unspoken language of love?
Kevin: You mean the kind only dogs can hear?
Julia: Yes, the very same.
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Roles of Michael Keaton:
Multiplicity (1996) .... Doug Kinney is a contractor who feels like there aren't enough hours in the day. His solution--cloning. Imagine a whole gang of Michael Keatons. Scary, isn't it? Funny, too, I'll bet.
Batman (1989) .... Tim Burton, a man with vision, couldn't picture anyone else donning the cape and cowl. Keaton was the original film version of Batman / Bruce Wayne.
Clean and Sober (1988) .... Keaton was probably serious as Daryl Poynter, and no doubt he used his personal experience to some extent. Just a guess.
Beetlejuice (1988) .... Beetle Juice is a great vehicle for the over-the-top Keaton. Geena Davis and Winona Ryder are in it too!!!
Night Shift (1982) .... Bill Blazejowski was an idea man--memo to self--his idea was to start a brothel with Shelley Long (Diane Chambers from Cheers) as a hooker and Henry Winkler (The Fonz from Happy Days) as his business partner.
Roles of Geena Davis:
A League of Their Own (1992) .... Davis was ball player Dottie Hinson, along with Rosie O'Donnell, Madonna, and Tom Hanks: "There is no crying in baseball!"
Thelma & Louise (1991) .... Geena was Thelma and Susan Sarandon was Louise in this classic fable of female empowerment.
The Accidental Tourist (1988) .... Geena plays Muriel Pritchett who 'falls' for the accidental tourist and gets 'hurt'--William Hurt.
Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) .... Valerie is a valley girl, and three aliens lose control of their UFO and land in her swimming pool. Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, and Damon Wayons are the aliens in question.
Beetle Juice (1988) .... Geena Davis is Barbara, see link above for Michael Keaton as Beetle Juice.
The Fly (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) (1986) .... Geena is Veronica Quaife, love interest of mad scientist/fly Jeff Goldblum in this remake of a sci fi classic that is also a classic in its own right.
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politically light
Added 4/28/2008
This movie is not heavy on political humor, but it is a fun one to watch. I have watched this comedy many times for its light-hearted banter between a man and a woman.
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