Review of Network (1976) by Alexander H — 05 Feb 2010

Stands alongside Dr. Strangelove as one of the finest satirical films ever made. Not as laugh-out-loud funny as Strangelove, but darker, more caustic, and in a sense more harrowing. Although it's a massive cliche, this is a film that is still as relevant now as it was when it was released, maybe even more so, due to its scarily prescient portrayal of the gradual blending of news, editorial and entertainment (one can see parallels between the "Mad Prophet of the Airwaves" Howard Beale and modern news pundits, especially on certain American networks), but also on its blackly humorous take on the manner in which technology and the mass media desensitise the audience and encourage groupthinking.

The screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky is one of the greatest ever written, with more brilliant monologues (all of them perfectly performed) than in any other film I've come across. This film is a true classic, one of the best films of its decade of release, and I might add that it's a travesty that the comparatively idiotic "Rocky" was the film that beat it for the almost-always-culturally-irrelevant Academy Award for Best Picture.