Review of Broadcast News (1987) by Edith N — 02 May 2007

They misspelled "Cusack" in the credits of this film. Twice. Joan is a fairly important character; John gets one line. Half the cast, of those under 40 or so when making the movie, joined them for [i]Say Anything . . .[/i] a few years later.

It's just amazing how many movies get made about the sucky nature of, well, broadcast news. If it bleeds, it leads, and it sounds more interesting if the face presenting it is particularly attractive. (Not that I think William Hurt is. But no one asked me.) Bad news isn't. Not unless it's splashy. No one wants to hear, for example, about the hundreds of people dying of an incurable, barely-treatable disease, which was a major news story of 1987 that didn't rate a mention in this film.

Okay, I also got a little too distracted at everyone's relative heights. Holly Hunter is 5'2"; William Hurt is 6'2"; Joan Cusack is 5'9", and they stuck her in heels again. The contrast is a little odd in places.

But I wish I could say I thought the movie was wrong. Regardless of whether or not he drowns in flop sweat, Albert Brooks's character simply isn't going to get the same chances, because he's a homely little (5'10") Jewish man, and that's not what we want to see in our anchors. Heck, Jack Nicholson at his best was never attractive enough to be a modern anchor. Now, he's got [i]gravitas[/i], sort of--when he isn't hitting paparazzi with golf clubs--but if he were still young, we'd never have heard of him.