This is the best-written review I found from this guy—but I still had to clean it up, to make it presentable. He has some ideas (especially about the baleful influence of feminism on movies through what I call the Ladies’ Movie Network, better known as Lifetime, and a sense of humor, but alas, he’s very sloppy.
I have covered the story of Mary Mapes’ and Dan Rather’s hoax at length:
“Ruthless People: Rathergate Producer Mary Mapes, CBS News, and the Chicago All-Stars”; and
“CBS Rathergate Producer Mary Mapes Wins First Duranty-Blair Award for Journalistic Infamy.”
A lead reporter with “issues” trips over herself, brings down the mighty
By dale-51649
13 March 2017
IMDB
[Three stars out of five.]
The movie is about a reporter played by Cate Blanchett, who uses some really questionable documents as proof for a story she wants to believe, then gets stung by the blogosphere.
Cate is doing a piece about George W. Bush in the National Guard, but proof pivots on some really ghetto-looking documents. It doesn't help that the guy providing them looks like the kind who would run over your foot at Walmart on his rascal scooter, and you would feel too sorry for him to complain, because his oxygen tank fell off the cart. The docs also look like they were faked by an 8th grader.
The movie is not so much a historical piece, because it is so biased toward Dan Rather and Blanchett's characters. It is more of a feminist statement gone haywire. It would be like if Blanchett entered a teen bikini contest to protest it's objectifying women, then was aghast when she didn't win. No matter—the crowd ran out screaming, she entered to make a point, damn it, and you had better look! “OK, OK, maybe I can't prove the story, but I just know it's true!”
The reporter is the type Blanchett was born to play. Big, bossy, brutish, bitchy and blonde, she not so much works as elbows her way through the film. In addition, she has all the props: Wimpy house hubby, special needs type son (only ONE kid, natch), bad knock off of a Tudor house and sensible shoes—YIKES!
It’s no wonder she got fired; I kept worrying she was gonna get murdered. She has issues, MAJORLY, and they are of the deep-rooted Daddy variety. She wasn't gonna ever end up on a stripper pole, for obvious reasons, so instead goes out hunting for revenge, but instead of a spear she uses a pen, with mixed results.
I remember when Dan Rather got his first mega media star contract, decades ago but well into seven figures. In the film, they ask him why he went into “journalism.” He should have quipped, “You call this journalism?,” but instead answered, “Curiosity.” Yeah, right.
Remember that line from Broadcast News, when the guy asked his father, “What can you do if all you can do is look good?” A square jaw and veneer job can sure come in handy.
Still after George W. after all these years. Over and over. The big lie to infinity. Even when shown to be a big lie still tell the big lie.
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