1987

Broadcast News.
Premiered December 16, 1987.
Directed by James L. Brooks.
Starring Holly Hunter, William Hurt, Albert Brooks.
Music by Bill Conti.


     I want to be Jane Craig (Hunter) when I grow up. She's driven, organized, intelligent, well educated, has a fabulous job as a producer at a news station and is so efficient she schedules time out of her day for crying. And, honestly, wouldn't want to be the object of 80's William Hurt's affection? Her baggy sweater/long floral skirt combos are also to die for. So, if for none of it's other crazy good qualities, I highly recommend Broadcast News because Jane is the bomb.

     James L. Brooks wrote, directed and produced this film. It is thoroughly his own creation. He also did Terms of Endearment, Big, and Spanglish, just to name a few. He often depicts mature, complex and dark characters that battle both internal and external conflict. In this case, our protagonist Jane deals with both in equal intensity. She's so tightly wound and highly achieving that, like I said earlier, she needs to set time aside in her day to feel something. She has a sassy, wildly intelligent friend and coworker Aaron Altman (A. Brooks), who desperately wants to make weekend anchor at the station because he thinks being smart and passionate about informing people is what it should take to have that job. He runs up against (and so does Jane) the studios belief that a news anchor should be handsome and personable. To quote the Don Henley song Dirty Laundry, about roughly the same thing, "I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear." So, when Tom Grunick (Hurt), a gorgeous and relatively simple reporter from a sports network gets bumped up to cover the evening news at their station, Jane and Aaron are less than enthused. The film depicts the relationships they all share in the environment of a fast paced TV news station.

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     Holly Hunter is one of my favorites. She fully commits to a performance 100% of the time and that kind of dedication comes through really strongly with a character like this one. There's a scene where Jane's cutting together a segment at the last minute and she really pushes it for time. The stress that Hunter portrays in this character comes right through the screen and you end up right on the edge of your seat along with everyone else. Clips of the film unfortunately are scarce, but in this trailer you get a little of what I'm talking about. Likewise, A. Brooks has perfect comedic timing. It's the stuff most comedic actors only dream of being able to pull off. There’s a scene where Aaron loses an opportunity to cover a breaking story to Tom. He’s stuck cooling his heels at home, jealous as hell, trying to avoid turning on the TV to see how Tom is handling the job. The scene cuts back and forth between Tom and Jane in the middle of the report and Aaron hanging out at home. It’s one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Like I said, I’m low on example clips, so you’ll just have to watch it to find out.  A. Brooks is hilarious. I mean, he’s working with a wonderful script, but he’s working with it very well.  Hurt is similarly masterful. He’s playing way simpler than he is. And yet Tom isn't an idiot. He’s able to recognize that he doesn't really understand the news he’s reporting, and he’s willing to do something about it. He knows that the station he’s achieved isn't necessarily based on merit of intelligence. Hurt manages to make him charming and insightful, but also kind of gormless and dim.

     

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     Cinematography is, again, pretty standard. There are some great shots, but they’re nestled in solid, expectable studio beauty. There’s a shot of Jane while they’re in Central America doing a story on a civil war that’s super good. Just beforehand we see Jane and Aaron in the field during an attack they’re covering at night. The next shot is a jump cut to Jane sitting on the end of a dock sobbing in the daytime. We've already seen her cry electively, so we assume this is the same situation. All the stress and emotional restriction just gets to be too much for her. In the background, there’s a woman, clearly a local hanging her laundry. This is not only a nicely designed shot, but it’s smart. This tells us that Jane experiences such a severe emotional removal from the rest of the world that it doesn't even register that there’s someone within ear shot of her. It also forms a connection between Jane and Tom. Tom experiences a kind of acknowledged ignorance, but it’s ignorance all the same, and it’s at the expense of his viewers and coworkers. In the same way, Jane is ignorant to most of what’s going on around her. It’s not necessarily her fault, but she ignores the concerns of others in favor of her own issues. Anyway, the cinematography is standard, but smart.

     

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     It’s really refreshing to see smart people in a film. They’re not just smart practically, but they’re smart emotionally. People in this film aren't afraid to say how they feel. They don’t play games. They treat each other like adults. They make practical decisions. They seem real. That’s I think one of my favorite features of this film. It doesn't end how I want it to, but it ends how it should.

8.7/10. Nicely done, J. Brooks. Nicely done.

Honorable mentions for this year are Fatal Attraction (any attraction to Glen Close is fatal), Moonstruck (Cher won an Oscar, so you know it has to be good), The Untouchables (Sean Connery playing an Irish beat cop with a heavy Scottish accent, as usual), The Last Emperor (it's 3 hours long, so tread carefully, but it's also beautiful, so maybe not so careful), Wall Street (greed is not good, but Charlie Sheen in a suit is),  Adventures in Babysitting (so cute! So zany! So Elizabeth Shue!), Barfly (Mickey Rourke has looked better, but he's never performed better), Dirty Dancing (well, I don't know about you, but I certainly had the time of my life), Empire of the Sun (before Christian Bale was Batman...he was Batboy. But he was also in this movie), Full Metal Jacket (a fat Vincent D'Onofrio loses it and that makes an important statement about war and if you didn't understand that, Stanley Kubrick is smarter than you, but even if you did understand that, Stanley Kubrick is smarter than you), Hellraiser (fabulous horror concept, even better monster design-see Pinhead), Less Than Zero (Robert Downey Jr. looks great and acts badly), The Lost Boys (I can't decide if Kiefer Sutherland is kind of dirty for the whole movie or it's just the lighting, but either way, what a hottie) Making Mr. Right (super cool concept, super cute John Malkovich), The Princess Bride (it's inconceivably good), Radio Days (charming, funny, Allen), Some Kind of Wonderful (another John Hughes film that he wrote and didn't direct, so it's not as good as most, but it is still pretty good), Summer School (I was totally expecting crap, but I was pleasantly surprised), and last, but certainly not least, the legend, the enigma, and perhaps the greatest TV show in our recorded history, 21 Jump Street (it`s not a movie but Johnny Depp is so mind-meltingly gorgeous that it has to be mentioned).

Peace,
Gang.