Network (1976)

Starring: Faye Dunaway, Peter Finch, William Holden, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty

Directed by: Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, The Wiz)

Synopsis:  A major network has fledgling ratings, so they start putting on some wacky stuff and ratings soar! (same plot as UHF)

Best part(s): 

Worst part: The romantic subplot between Max and Diana just feels out of place and kind of shoehorned into the movie. It does help to just just how unfeeling Diana is but I just didn’t buy that these two would fall in love. 

Best line: Howard Beale: “Good evening. Today is Wednesday, September the 24th, and this is my last broadcast. Yesterday I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide, admittedly an act of madness. Well, I’ll tell you what happened: I just ran out of bullshit. Am I still on the air? I really don’t know any other way to say it other than I just ran out of bullshit. Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living. And if we can’t think up any reasons of our own, we always have the God bullshit. We don’t know why we’re going through all this pointless pain, humiliation, decays, so there better be someone somewhere who does know. That’s the God bullshit. And then, there’s the noble man bullshit; that man is a noble creature that can order his own world; who needs God? Well, if there’s anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me: That man is full of bullshit. I don’t have anything going for me. I haven’t got any kids. And I was married for thirty-three years of shrill, shrieking fraud. So I don’t have any bullshit left. I just ran out of it, you see.”

Nudity: No nudity but I don’t think Faye Dunaway is wearing a bra in this.

Overall: This is a movie I’ve been meaning to see for some time, ever since I looked up the Oscar winners for the year I was born. If this could beat out fantastic movies like All the President’s Men and Rocky (I haven’t seen Taxi Driver yet either), then it has to be good! Well, I won’t say that I liked it better than All the President’s Men or Rocky, but it’s still pretty damn excellent. The screenplay is amazing, probably one of the best and most smartestest ever written. The acting is superb, especially by Peter Finch and Faye Dunaway. Dunaway is a natural in this, playing just the right amount of intensity (as opposed to way too much intensity in Mommie Dearest). Peter Finch is way over the top with the intensity (and I’ve honestly never seen so many people yell so much in a movie), but he does it perfectly in the context of this film, delivering sermons on the state of the world that are outlandish and bizarre yet completely relevant. And the whole movie is still relevant, even today, holding up a mirror to our carnal desire for sensationalism in news and grotesque reality in programs. So basically it’s the story of Fox.

Score: 8.5 share (out of 10)